Swansea City faithful will be revelling in Matt Grimes, Coventry City situation | OneFootball

Coventry City's play-off defeat to Sunderland will leave Swansea City supporters celebrating the disappointment of former captain Matt Grimes.

Coventry City were left heartbroken after a stoppage-time winner sent Sunderland to Wembley for this season's Championship players, but Black Cats supporters may not have bee the only set of fans celebrating this dramatic result.

Dan Ballard's 122nd-minute goal brought Sunderland level on the night at 1-1 and put them through 3-2 on aggregate following their 2-1 win at The Coventry Building Society Arena the previous weekend.

It marked a second play-off defeat inside three seasons for Coventry, who lost out on penalties at Wembley to Luton Town two years ago.

Sunderland will now play Sheffield United on the 24th May for a place in the Premier League.

Swansea supporters will be revelling in Matt Grimes, Coventry play-off defeat

But supporters of one Championship club will be particularly relishing Coventry's current discomfort, and in particular that of one of their former players.

The departure of midfielder Matt Grimes after ten years with Swansea City in the January transfer window for a fee reported to be between £3.5 million and £4 million left a bitter taste in the mouth in South Wales, and to see him returning to the Championship next season rather than reaching the Premier League with Coventry will have appealed to Swans fans' sense of schadenfreude.

It wasn't so much the departure of Grimes from the Swansea.com Stadium that annoyed Swans supporters, as the manner in which it happened, and because of the place that he held in their hearts.

Coventry's Matt Grimes had a Swansea City legacy

Matt Grimes was Swansea's club captain, and he'd been with the club for ten years since signing from Exeter City.

He'd had spells out on loan before - with Leeds United, Blackburn Rovers and Northampton Town - but over the course of that decade he made 333 appearances for the Swans, of which 301 came in the Championship and four came in the Premier League.

Following the Swans' relegation to the Championship in 2018, Grimes became a fixture in the Swansea first team, and over the next six seasons he missed just four League games for them. He was named their captain before the start of the 2019/20 season.

But when he came to leave Swansea, it was the nature of the way in which it happened which affronted many Swans fans. His 10th anniversary with the club came at the start of January 2025, and he left no clues that he would be gone from the club within a month when he was interviewed by Sky Sports shortly before this milestone was reached.

As he left his former club, he explained his reason for leaving Swansea. "I bought into this project purely because of the ambition and where I see this club going", he told Wales Online as he departed.

It's not difficult to see how this might have rankled supporters, and a couple of days later a personal statement followed in which he said that, "I have made memories that I will cherish forever, and I am so thankful for the love and support you have given me during that time", and that, "Swansea City will always have a special place in my heart."

Grimes made 16 appearances for Coventry City over the second half of the 2024/25 season, culminating in their play-off defeat to Sunderland. But Swansea supporters will be delighted to see him back in the Championship next season, especially because the player himself almost certainly doesn't want to be there.