It was a surreal scene. Snoop Dogg walking around the Swansea.com Stadium to the soundtrack of his greatest hits blaring from the sound system, waving a Snoop and Swansea City-branded towel above his head while the capacity crowd did the same and chanted “Snoop Dogg’s barmy army”.
This was not a fever dream, nor was it the effect of “the smell of weed in the tunnel,” as visiting manager Paul Heckingbottom put it.
No, this was a midweek Championship fixture between Swansea and Preston North End.
The difference between this and other second-tier matches is that one of the Welsh club’s co-owners happens to be a hip-hop legend.
Snoop is used to rolling up at some of the biggest sporting events in the world.
He was an ‘honorary coach’ for the United States at this month’s Winter Olympics in Italy, having fulfilled a similar role at the Paris Summer Games of 2024.
Two years before that, he was one of the performers in the Super Bowl halftime show. Global audiences do not get much bigger.
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So, a meeting between teams at the 14th and eighth positions in the Championship was not the most obvious next destination for Snoop’s sporting bucket list.
But these are strange times. Wrexham is owned by Hollywood actors, and Swansea counts former Ballon d’Or winner, Luka Modric, and US television personality and billionaire, Martha Stewart, among its minority investors.
In terms of fame and worldwide reach, however, Snoop is on another level.
Fans had been lining up outside the stadium five hours before kick-off to get a glimpse of Snoop, who signed autographs and posed for photographs in the kind of sunshine that would have made the Californian feel at home.
Inside the ground, he had arranged for every single seat to have a Snoop and Swansea-branded towel inspired by those waved by supporters of his beloved American football team, the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Once darkness had fallen, the show began.
Swansea and Preston’s players were still warming up when Snoop emerged to an explosion of noise and colour.
The visitors did not seem fazed, though.
