Halloween Party
01 Sep 2010

Tranch AFC Halloween Party
October 30th, 2010
Group: Lunatic Fringe
Tickets: £2.50 each
Fancy Dress optional - Free glass of Sue's Brew to all who dress up.

Terry Daley SW Argus on TCBC poor up keep of Cwmbran Stadium 28/8/09
29 Aug 2009

“Young man, this is simply not good enough.” I’m positive that’s what the late, great Brian Clough would say if he were here with us now and able to take a look around Cwmbran Stadium.

Why Ol’ Big Head? Well it was the much-missed former manager who laid the foundation stone at a ceremoney there on March 13, 1974 – after which the stadium became the jewel in the crown of Welsh athleics and even progressed to host the UK Championships.

It was, of course, also the venue for several European football matches involving Cwmbran Town while more then 8,500 fans watched the Crows against a star-studded Manchester United side in a mid-90s memorial game.

Now, however, the stadium is a shadow of its former self – although I must stress I’m talking about the outside of the building.

Inside, it has all the facilities you’d expect from a venue which had a multi-million pounds face-lift less than a decade ago.

And, of course, the current management and staff remain blameless in the sequence of events which has caused the outside to become little more than a parks pitch for local footballers.

The stand has been comdemned as unsafe, the six-lane running track has been blighted by drainage problems and is currently not being used even for training purposes.

A few of the floodlight bulbs are less than efficent and if you care to walk across the playing surface you’ll quickly come to the conclusion that it’s nowhere near as good as it used to be in its heyday – when all and sundry agreed it was one of the best in the semi-professional game in this or an other country.

Money, or the lack of it, is the primary reason and I fully understand that. But I still believe that the blurb accompanying Torfaen Borough Council’s official website is slightly misleading.

It reads: “Cwmbran Stadium is the newest sporting facility in Torfaen and investment from both the Authority and the Sports Council for Wales has resulted in a state of the art facility complete with international-standard athletics track & field.” Pure baloney if you ask me!

To be fair, most of football in Gwent is stuck in a time warp.

It’s very much annoying when as a workng reporter I have to beg, steal or borrow team-sheets.

And I don’t know who is being substituted because not one club has number boards and there are no tannoy systems in operation.

Come on guys, after all this is 2009!

Licence Fees
25 Aug 2009

The following players owe £8 for renewal of their licences for the 09/10 season:

Sam Davies
Andrew Reynolds
Simon Vaggan Vassallo
Barry Apperley
Colin Jones

All monies to go to Goofa

Bookings/ Fines 2009/10 Season
25 Aug 2009

Players Booked 2009/10:
John Hanratty 2
Ross Peake 1
Robbie Peake 4
Andrew Burchell 1
Paul Price 1
Karl Howells 2
Kevin Rodgers 2
Kyle Tovey 2
Andrew Hayes 2
Tyrone Rowlands 2
Chris Bradbury 2
Rhys Jones 1
Wes Davies 1
John Aherne 1
Jason Fairclough 3

Sendings Off:
John Hanratty v AC Pontymister 1STS

Fines Oustanding 2009/10
John Hanratty £32
Ross Peake £9 TRANSFERRED
Robbie Peake £11
Andrew Burchell £9
Karl Howells £18
Kevin Rodgers £18
Kyle Tovey £18
Tyrone Rowlands £18
Andrew Hayes £18
Chris Bradbury £18
Rhys Jones £9
Wes Davies £9
John Aherne £9
Jason Fairclough £27

All fines due one month from booking date or player wil be suspended by the club from playing until payment is made!

Terry Daley SW Argus Article on Promotion/Relegation in the Pyramid this season.
16 Aug 2009

Terry Daley's Gwent football diary: Playing standards should count most
5:30pm Friday 14th August 2009

IT’S football Jim, but not as we know it!

Over the next 10 months, our 14 locally-based MacWhirter Welsh League clubs will scrap it out to gain promotion, escape relegation or land mid-table respectability – yet none of it could count for anything.

That’s because governing body the Football Association of Wales has agreed to reducing the top-flight Principality Welsh Premier League by six to 12 clubs for the start of the 2010-2011 campaign.

As result, each of the MWL’s three divisions will be slashed from 18 to 16 – with no-one at this stage sure which clubs are to be for the chop.

I’ve previously written that I’m all for driving football in Wales forward. However, I’m equally of the opinion that amateur clubs should not be punished at the expense of so-called progress and I firmly believe it’s wrong that a club should not be allowed to play in Division One of the MWL if it’s playing standards are good enough.

All, of course, will come out in the wash. However there is a great danger that those who run the sport in Wales will further alienate themselves fro those who they are charged with caring for.

* While I’m on the subject of the MWL, may I wish all of our clubs the very best in the new season – and especially to those managers testing the water for the first time.

There’s a massive difference between being a coach and/or a number two to actually being in charge – as Bill Meehan (Newport YMCA), Gareth Morgan (Croesyceiliog), Barrie Hughes (Cwmbran Town) and Steve James (Risca United) will doubtless soon testify.

Good luck also to all the match officials – without whom there would simply be no football for us to watch. But just a word to all the linesmen. If you want to be referred to as assistants, then don’t be frightened to join in!

And finally good luck to all club volunteers – the backbone of every club and the ones who usually keep yours truly fed and watered.

* I notice locally-born goalkeeper Lee Kendall has left North Wales outfit Rhyl to sign for Principality Welsh Premier League outfit Port Talbot Town.

Lee suffered the heartache last year of losing his father, former Tottenham Hotspurs and Newport County number one Mark Kendall, who later went on to serve Gwent Police with distinction.

However, it was to Lee’s credit that he managed to remain focused enough to help Rhyl lift the PWPL title in 2008-2009, his second such success having previously won it while playing under ex-County boss Peter Nicholas at Barry Town.

So it’s a massive well done and welcome back to this neck of the woods to Lee.

* Another local product to be in the news recently is Newport’s Michael Flynn, who began with AFC before breaking into the professional game.

He joined Bradford City after being released by Huddersfield Town and made his Bantams debut at Notts. County last Saturday.

However County must have been hugely inspired by the presence of former England chief Sven Goran Erickson in beating Flynn’s new side 5-0 to send Bradford to the bottom of the entire Football League – after just one game of the new campaign.

Never mind Michael, the only way is up!