Swansea City icon never looked back after Newcastle United switch: View | OneFootball

Wayne Routledge joined Swansea City in 2011 and would spend the rest of his career at the club

Swansea City played their first ever Premier League game 13 years ago this week, and one player who came off the bench that day would make the first of his 304 appearances for the club.

In the summer of 2011, following their promotion to the top-flight, Swans' boss Brendan Rodgers moved to strengthen his squad with a number of signings, and Wayne Routledge signed for the club from Newcastle United in a deal believed to be worth £1.8million, a fee that proved to be great value for money over the next decade.

The winger, who joined the club as a 26-year-old, would retire at the club, and after becoming a bit of a journeyman prior to his move to south Wales, nobody would have expected Routledge to stay at Swansea for so long and make the impact that he did.

Wayne Routledge never looked back after leaving Newcastle United for Swansea City

Routledge signed for Newcastle United in January 2010, during their time as a Championship club, and helped the Magpies make an immediate return to the top-flight, winning the league by 11 points.

However, he struggled for regular playing time following their return to the Premier League, and he joined QPR on loan, the side he'd left for Newcastle the previous year, helping the Hoops lift the Championship title, his second consecutive title win.

Routledge had started to develop the reputation of a journeyman, having never been able to settle at one club, and at the age of 26, Newcastle was the eighth club he had played for.

With this in mind, it perhaps wasn't too exciting for Swansea fans when Routledge signed in August 2011, and no one would have envisaged him remaining with the club until he retired.

However, Routledge clicked at Swansea and found a much-needed permanent home, quickly becoming a regular under Rodgers, before thriving under Michael Laudrup during the 2012/13 League Cup-winning season.

While supporters weren't overly excited by the winger's signing in the summer of 2011, given his nomadic career to that point, he'd become a mainstay over the next decade, and aged like a fine wine, being trusted to start big games up until his retirement in 2021.

After spending time at a number of clubs and being unable to settle, a move to Swansea in 2011 proved the perfect move for Routledge and over the next decade he'd secure his status as a cult-hero in SA1.

Players like Routledge and Kyle Naughton actually became divisive figures at Swansea during their latter years in the Premier League, with supporters questioning whether they were good enough for the top-flight, so relegation may have actually been a blessing in disguise for the pair.

The winger really showed his wealth of quality and experience in the Championship, and the fact he was trusted to start Swansea's Championship play-off semi-final in 2021 as a 36-year-old in what turned out to be his final game before injury curtailed his career speaks volumes about how well thought of he was at the club.

It wasn't always plain sailing for Routledge in the Championship, and after relegation from the Premier League in 2018, himself and wing partner Nathan Dyer were initially frozen out by Graham Potter and told they were free to leave in a bid to free up their Premier League wages.

Prior to Swansea's trip to Brentford in December 2018, Routledge had been included in just four Championship matchday squads, but injuries and a poor run of form meant that Potter was left with no option but to include the experienced pair of wingers, and it immediately paid off for the Swans.

Routledge scored after just 20 seconds at Griffin Park to help his side to a 3-2 win, and it was a performance that ultimately led to him coming back into the side on a regular basis, and he actually signed a new deal to extend his stay.

Over the next two seasons, Routledge would help his side reach two consecutive Championship play-off campaigns, before injury curtailed his final appearance for the club in the Championship play-off semi-final against Barnsley in 2021.

That was to be the final game of his career, and while being stretchered off wasn't the ideal way to end it, it was quite fitting that his final appearance saw him help Swansea reach the play-off final at Wembley.

The move to Swansea certainly came at the right time for Routledge and his decade's worth of service means that he'll always be fondly remembered by the club's support.

Signing him from Newcastle in 2011 proved an incredible bit of business in hindsight, and Routledge finally found the permanent home that he had been craving. He'll go down as a cult-hero in SA1 and Swansea fans may even forgive him for playing nine games for Cardiff City on loan prior to his time at the club...