'My life has been school and Swansea City and that's it'

It is 30 years since Kristian O'Leary made his Swansea City debut and four decades since he first watched them play as an eight-year-old.

Having spent 15 years as a Swansea player, O'Leary is five years into a second spell on the coaching staff.

Yet the joy of working for the club he once cheered on from the stands has not faded.

There is "still no better feeling", O'Leary says, than arriving for work "just as the sun is coming up over the pitches" at Swansea's Fairwood training ground.

"Even now I love just the little touches - looking out at the badge in the car park," O'Leary adds.

"I love representing this club."

O'Leary is a coach under Vitor Matos, having been part of Swansea's senior backroom team since being promoted from his under-23 role by Russell Martin in 2022.

He had also been on the staff between 2012 and December 2015, when he was sacked alongside Garry Monk despite helping the Swans to their highest Premier League finish – eighth – in the previous season.

The day O'Leary was dismissed was among his darkest at Swansea.

There have been numerous good times, too, for a man who describes the club as "home".

"My life has been St Joseph's School [in Port Talbot] and then Swansea City," he says, "and that's it."

O'Leary has seen hundreds of players come and go, whether as team-mates or members of squads he has coached.

There has always been a desire, he says, to ensure those who have arrived understand what the place is about.

"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.

"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, like I've had, and that they see it how I see it."

O'Leary first watched Swansea play against Manchester United in 1986, a friendly game which was played to raise money for the cash-strapped Welsh side.

It was his first experience - but certainly not the last - of a crisis at the club.

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.

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

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.

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.

O'Leary did not know he was starting until a couple of hours before kick-off.

That meant no family members were at Valley Parade to watch and – in the days before mobile phones – none was even aware he was playing.

"No-one knew - and no-one was there thankfully," O'Leary says with a smile. "Bradford went up that season and we went down. It was a tough game."

O'Leary's salary at that stage was around £40 a week, though the reward for breaking into Molby's side was a new two-year contract that summer.

A playing career which would feature 334 Swansea appearances was off and running.

There was another relegation to endure, in 2000-01, as well as the agony of the 2002-03 season, when a final-day win over Hull City famously saved Swansea from the National League.

The Hull success was one of various days to cherish.

O'Leary helped Swansea to Football League Trophy glory in 2006 and three promotions.

The success he treasures most came in 2004-05, Swansea's final campaign at Vetch Field, when Kenny Jackett's team won promotion to the third tier and O'Leary was named player of the year.

"That season had such an emotional attachment to it - we wanted to do so well," he says. "We needed promotion and we got it."

There was further trauma off the field, with unpaid wages, failed takeovers and a remarkable day in 2001 when Tony Petty,, the club's chairman at the time, attempted to sack various players to slash costs.

Others, including O'Leary, were told to accept pay cuts or go too.

"We all just went to the pub," he recalls. "Thankfully Nick Cusack was there [as Swansea's club captain].

"He was unbelievable and, along with other people, probably saved the club at that time."

The highs and lows continued until O'Leary, a defender or midfielder, left Swansea as a player in 2010.

The following year, Brendan Rodgers delivered Premier League promotion and the landscape changed.

A club who had been staring into the non-league abyss in 2003 would spend seven years in the top flight, before eight – and counting – back in the Championship.

It is a "completely different world", O'Leary says, from the lower-league club he joined in the 1990s.

He takes pride in the part played in Swansea's progress – while hoping, at the age of 48, that there are more good times to come.

But what is the key to further success, in the view of someone who knows plenty about those already achieved?

O'Leary points to the progressive style of football which was first associated with Swansea in the last century but became a trademark following Roberto Martinez's appointment as manager in 2008.

"People would say that if two teams were in the same kit, you'd know which one was Swansea because of the way they play," he says.

"In football things get tweaked and changed, but there's an expectancy - which I think people should be really proud of - that we can say 'no, that's us, that's Swansea'.

"I don't think that should change."