Men’s game has died a death unfortunately, the women’s game is still quite strong though.
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Is there much of a scene anymore?
I used to love it when I was a kid.
A fair amount of kids Football teams in Newport had Baseball teams in the summer.
It kind of stopped then and there were probably 4/5 Newport teams for seniors.
Men’s game has died a death unfortunately, the women’s game is still quite strong though.
yes when i saw your post regarding civil service you are correct it jogged my memory i remember i played a night game up the civil service ground and didn;t finish for bad light as were still playing at 10 in the night -lol
Yes the WBU held representative games and 1 year got selected to play for a good solid cardiff side against Newport but you townies hammered us by an innings
got selected a for a welsh trial but didn't get in as there were some very good players back then . my lad went on to represent the wales youth side a few years later
great times when i look back
Used to be huge crowds on roach Park recreation ground, back in the day, and I can remember pretty large crowds only twenty years ago. Seems to have died a dead recently though.
I played for Penylan B we beat Ebbw Bridge in the B league Cup final about 1992 on the pitch next to the transporter bridge went back to their club for drinks and sarnies.
There club has gone now and was a property for sale on homes under the Hammer.
The pitch would be Coronation Park, right down the bottom of Corporation Road.
Opposite Pill basically.
I heard The Ebbw Bridge had gone.
Reminds me though of a pool match one night against
them when some lad started...and was met with "Sit down, the hardest thing out of Maesglas is The Argus Crossword" :)
What a road (Corporation) that must have been in its heyday!
I worked for quite a few years at the nearby Whiteheads steelworks. At Christmas time, we would start off on a pub crawl from the West Of England pub, next to the transporter bridge.
Every street corner leading on to Corporation Rd had a pub. A lot of them were boarded up but there were still enough pubs left to make it quite a challenge to finally make it down to the King William pub down the other end.
Many, like myself, were Cardiff lads, but we never encountered any problems in that area in all fairness.
I wonder how many pubs are actually left on Corporation Rd these days?
We went for an office Christmas meal in the pub by the Transporter Bridge (can't remember what it was called, but it wasn't the West of England) having, for some reason, walked down Corporation Road and it was noticeable how you began to see more boarded up shops and closed pubs the further you walked towards the bridge. This would have been fifteen to twenty years ago and it wouldn't have been much of a pub crawl if we'd tried one that day.
We used to go to TJs to watch metal bands and would have a drink in a pub over the road
Is that the maindee area ?
Yes, I recall when about 12 years old in 1965 or thereabouts that big games played there attracted crowds of up to 8,000. This figure was recorded in the Echo and many times I went it was almost akin to visiting Ninian Park on match days. Except the baseball fans were better behaved!
I could walk there from home.
also many great players graced the game from the football and rugby world in the summer months . For example I played with and against over a 25 year period Dave 'dai' Bishop , Mark Ring and Mike Rayer from the rugby world and from the football world Ellis Harrison ( Bristol Rovers and Welsh U-21) , Norman Parselle (Newport county ) and Paul Bodin
Before my time players like Dave Giles and the late great Phil Dwyer played for Grange Catholics in the baseball leagues and as a few mentioned used to attract big crowds in its heyday . sadly now just a distant memory
I went to Llanrumney High whose Baseball team was a very strong , along with St Illtyds they supplied a few Welsh Internationals.
Why has it diminished then Mozz? Do you reckon that it's the lack of community in some of the more traditional working class areas of cardiff? Pub closures, loss of local industry or that young men just aren't that bothered about playing sport on the weekend anymore for a variety of reasons?
The Cardiff and District football league used to have 6 divisions if i can recall, then there was the Combination league as well. Pontcanna and Trelai were packed out on a saturday. I know that numbers have deteriorated slowly over the past 20 or 30 years so it's been a gradual thing, but it's an interesting subject as to why young men aren't playing so much sport on saturday afternoons like we did.
The biggest reason for the decline in baseball is they don't play it in schools any more partly health and safety and partly teachers not doing extra curricular activities anymore.
pretty much all what you mentioned and as insider mentioned a lack of teachers in schools that come from outside the area that didn't know what baseball was ! lots of trade people played and like yourself worked away in the week and couldn't make night games so teams struggled in the week basically the demographics of work changed around that time . By the late 90's video games and a few years later smart phones etc sadly confined our kids to bed rooms rather than a sporting field
another big factor was alot of politics within the WBU in the late 90's and Noughties but I won't go there as I usually get a good leathering when we go down the politics road on here
Another ‘sport’ that has suffered in Cardiff is Pool, lots of pubs closing, the morning after drinking worries of a Sunday night and the way the league has been run have all contributed to the decline.
Only 4 divisions in Cardiff now with less than 40 teams playing, probably only aroun 32 pubs that would be - compare it to Newport who have 6 divisions and over 60 teams it is a bit puzzling.