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The support from the Valleys has been superb for years , but we are still only scratching the surface.
There's twice as many people in the valleys as there is in Cardiff and most have a straight train journey into the City.
2-3 pre season friendlies in say Ponty/ Rhondda/ Caerphilly/ Merthyr/ Bridgend or Maesteg/Aberdare areas would go down a storm even if the sides were mainly fringe players with a few stars .
Do different areas in different seasons maybe
The fans up there deserve some recognition, but there's also massive potential support in these areas.
Might as well do a mini tour of the Valleys every pre season, strengthens the bond between the club and surrounding areas
A couple of evenings with Warnock and a player and one friendly every year should be enough I'd say. Committing to 3 friendlies every pre season is quite a lot, especially as I'd imagine there would be an expectation of a decent team being sent up.
The Taffs Well game should be repeated every season in a different part of the valleys, that worked well
Do Ebbw Vale FC still play at that ground with the big bank (not the money type), on one side?
Remember going there for a Welsh Cup tie in the 90's, game descended into a pitch battle because of some really bad tackles by the Ebbw vale's players.
I think even the two bench's ended up throwing punches
I remember Inter Cardiff going there and getting a few kickings.
It's always been primarily a rugby ground but I think RTB Ebbw Vale play there now in the Gwent Count League.
Hey Tim, as a Cardiff lad who has been exiled in Aberdare there last few years, let me tell you it is indeed a straight train journey into Cardiff but thanks to Ariva trains it's a bloody mare on match days!
I am lucky enough to get on at the end/beginning of the line in Aberdare. However, the lack of trains and carriages cause major issues especially on Sundays where they only run every 2 hours, the first departing at 10 am. The 3 carriage train that departed Aberdare for our last league game v Reading was a mare with the 10 am train being the only train able to get you to the game in time for kick off. It was rammed silly before it left by the time we reached Ponty it was like we were in Calcutta, doors opened to let people on, but fans were falling out onto the platform at the same time it was ridiculous.
With the potential of more of our games being switched to Sunday next season and our increased following this situation really needs looking into. More trains or more carriages at the very least are going to be required. The route has at least a dozen stops with all the satellite stations and by halfway it is crammed silly. Fans will no doubt miss kick off if the service isn't vastly improved in time for next season.
The two hourly service on the valley lines on a Sunday is absolutely pathetic, as is no service at all on the city line. They want us to get out of our cars and use public transport, which many of us are willing and happy to do, yet they provide the sort of service you’d expect in some rural backwater.
Maybe a reserve team or mixture for a match. Otherwise I'd rather them just focus on the best preparation possible and that which mainly the management team is happy with. If that's down in Cornwall again then so be it.
They used to be nicknamed ‘Elbow Vale’
I’m sure there was an ex- Citymanager there at some point. John Lewis maybe,
Non league footy in Siuth Wales was badly damaged by the financial implications of the Welsh National League.
Ebbw Vale, Cwmbran, Inter Cardiff, Barry Town all victims.
I’m not sure if Bridgend Town , Abergavenny Thursdays and Ton Pentre all had financial issues due to it as well.
agree would be good to play the likes of cambrian , taffs well and even pontypridd town who have recently been promoted to welsh league division 1 maybe not full strength sides but strong sides
I'm not sure that Ebbw Vale, Cwmbran and even Inter Cardiff would have been financially better off without the National League. Barry Town - you could argue maybe they would have been - plying their trade in the 7th tier of the English pyramid, I think - maybe they would have got to Conference standard at the time they started dominating the Welsh Premier.
They all went bust within a few seasons of joining the league. All 3 of them citing the costs of running a team in the league as the reasons.
All had run for decades happily without it, so YES, the National league definitely was a major factor in th 3 clubs going bust. They all would have been better off without it.
Barry were a different issue- they just went mad with ideas they could never sustain.
In hindsight a league with a North and South conference with end of season play offs would probably had been a better idea at least for the first few seasons
I would argue that the Welsh League was never going to succeed without the big four (all playing at Division 3 or lower at the time). In the early years, it used to cost teams like Ebbw Vale a small fortune to play European ties - the prize money was pitiful. I watched one of their games at Eugene Cross Park, and it didn't capture the local's imagination at all (unlike the Welsh Cup tie a few years earlier). I also watched Inter Cardiff play some Polish club at Penydarren Park (Georgie Wood was in goal). It was more likely the cost of European football that was the killer.