{"id":581443,"date":"2026-05-13T09:31:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T09:31:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/581443\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T09:31:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T09:31:18","slug":"swansea-city-stalwart-kristian-oleary-still-savouring-every-moment-even-after-30-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/581443\/","title":{"rendered":"Swansea City: Stalwart Kristian O’Leary still savouring every moment, even after 30 years"},"content":{"rendered":"

O’Leary has seen hundreds of players come and go, whether as team-mates or members of squads he has coached.<\/p>\n

There has always been a desire, he says, to ensure those who have arrived understand what the place is about.<\/p>\n

“Even as a player, I hated it if someone who came in had something negative to say about the club, the city, the people, anything,” O’Leary explains.<\/p>\n

“I take it really personally. So I do all I can to make sure people who come here have the best possible experience at Swansea City,<\/a> like I’ve had, and that they see it how I see it.”<\/p>\n

O’Leary first watched Swansea<\/a> play against Manchester United in 1986, a friendly game which was played to raise money for the cash-strapped Welsh side.<\/p>\n

It was his first experience – but certainly not the last – of a crisis at the club. <\/p>\n

By his early teens O’Leary was involved in the Swans’ youth set-up, and by 1995-96 he was knocking on the door of the first team.<\/p>\n

That was a season in which Swansea<\/a> had no fewer than four managers \u2013 including the unknown Kevin Cullis, who lasted a week \u2013 and suffered relegation to what is now League Two.<\/p>\n

Jan Molby was in charge for the back-end of the campaign, and it was the former Liverpool star who gave O’Leary his debut, in a 5-1 defeat at Bradford City in March 1996.<\/p>\n

While all Swansea’s senior pros were in tracksuits, O’Leary and another youth prospect, Damien Lacey, travelled to the game in “trousers and a polo shirt” because in those days, there was no kit dished out to youngsters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"O’Leary has seen hundreds of players come and go, whether as team-mates or members of squads he has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":581444,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-581443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=581443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581443\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/581444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=581443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=581443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=581443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}