A WARM WELCOME TO YOU ALL TO RICHMOND PARK for this long awaited encounter against our rivals from the West Walian coastal holiday town of Aberystwyth. We still seek our first victory against Aber and no doubt with such a good following of supporters behind them today at Richmond Park they will be anxious to retain this unbeaten tag against us.

While in the middle of the season of goodwill, I won’t delve into any controversial matters or do my usual wingeing (usually against the Welsh Press!) in my Notes on this occasion, but will take up more of a light hearted line.

What does the village of Cilmeri conjure up in your thoughts? Yes, you’re right - the Powys village situated just a few miles west of Builth Wells will forever remain in the annals of Welsh history as the place where the Prince of Wales, known as Llywelyn the Last, was slain in 1282, and in fact a memorial stone is found in the village just behind the appropriately named Prince Llywelyn Inn.

Last Saturday, a good gathering of players, committee and supporters filled the coach for our game at Newtown. and after what I think was a magnificent win at that well-known ground in Newtown, due to the threatening snowfall, with great trepidation we decided to withdraw early from the usual excellent reception we receive from our hosts there and make tracks for home. With layers of snow developing by the minute, we arrived at Cilmeri at about 7.00pm to be confronted by a tanker askew across the road.

There was no escape and we were forced to adjourn to the very establishment that I mentioned in my third paragraph to toast the memory of this great Welshman. The landlord of this hostelry must have thought that Christmas had come early as 50 souls poured in off the coach and at 9.30pm, when the local police inspector called in and gave our coach driver the all clear there was a decided feeling of disappointment among our contingent that we had to leave!

As the century draws to a close, the questions come pouring out of the media. Who is the Welshman of the century, they ask? Was it perhaps Lloyd George, or Aneurin Bevan or indeed Gwynfor Evans, but, of course, this is not a cause of debate in these Notes. Who was the sportsman of the century? The popular consensus is for Mohammed Ali but bearing in mind the prejudices of the 30’s I’d go for four times gold medal winner of the 1936 Olympics at Berlin - Jessie Owens. Now, what about the Welsh sportsman of the century? Four come to mind - Jimmy Wilde (the ghost with a hammer in his hand), Lyn (the Leap) Davies, with Olympic, European and Commonwealth Gold medals, Gareth Edwards, the imperious Welsh player of the 70’s, and my own choice which I will mention in a moment. Gareth has got a statue of himself in Cardiff, Bill Shankley in Liverpool, and Billy Bremner in Leeds, - all on their own doorsteps. But John Charles, the Gentle Giant, who brought great honour to his country in the late 50’s and early 60’s , has a statue in Turin, and was the Italian Footballer of the Year in 1958. So my choice goes to Big John, despite the previous three being icons in the life of Wales and deservedly so.

I hope the lads gird their loins for the clash today and remember Cilmeri , the 1282 version and not the December 1999 one! On behalf of the Club, a Happy New Year to you all!

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AS I BID YOU ALL a warm welcome to this afternoon’s match, let me say that it is a particular pleasure to welcome our friends from the Wrexham area who are making their first visit to our ground here at Richmond Park. I think that some of us here are looking forward to, and relishing the prospect of making our first visit to the Plas Kynaston Lane ground at Cefn Mawr, Wrexham, next Easter. Indeed the Druids are the oldest Club in Wales and a synopsis of their history is produced at the beginning of the programme, It is well worth a read.

Well, not a single point gained since 23 October does not make good reading, although there has been an open Saturday on one occasion, a cup tie on another, and a postponed match last Saturday. Nevertheless, our League position during this barren spell has remained exceptionally stable and remarkably, we are still holding fifth position in very close proximity to the teams above us. Since our game in Llanelli, only Barry Town have made any significant gain on us which, indeed, is an ominous statistic. I think that the gods must be smiling down on us which must be a good omen. Realistically, however, the League is very wide open this year, at last, which reflects the improving standards within the League, a view that I am expressing which is in direct contradiction to sentiments expressed in that very disappointing article in the Western Mail recently regarding the LoW by that paper’s Sports News Editor. I won’t dwell on this issue as it is discussed in greater detail in this programme by our editorial team.

As we all know the avenue is there for LoW clubs to qualify for European Competition but bearing in mind our visitors today I thought that you may be interested to know that UEFA have allocated three places in the UEFA Cup for countries who perform well in UEFA’s Fair Play League. The top countries in UEFA’s classification automatically get one of the three spots, the other two are allocated via a draw for which countries qualify with an average below a certain maximum figure and operate a fair play scheme. So this award could gain the LoW an extra representative in the UEFA Cup.

And why am I telling you this and why did I refer to our visitors today in my previous paragraph? Well, the current LoW Fair Play Table finds Flexsys Cefn Druids on top of the pile (at a very recent count anyway!). So, who knows, this Wrexham based club could be the envy of us all come next season. Incidentally, our own position in this League Table is pretty modest, to say the least, but no doubt things will improve in this direction as the season wears on,.

One of today’s programme contributors, Paul Ashley Jones, is none other than the son-in-law of ‘yours truly’! Paul like many of you here is an avid Swansea City fan but has a lot of time for the Town and frequently brings along his two young sons to Richmond Park on match days. I’m sure you won’t think me too biased when I say that his review of Keith Haynes’ new book Come on Cymru 2000 is excellent and in fact Paul himself has two contributions in this book. I read Mr Haynes’ first publication Come on Cymru and I thought that the book was slightly economical with the LoW perspective. Still his second book does contain a feature on last year’s Welsh Cup Final and the forward is by Leighton James, a LoW manager of course.

Enjoy today’s game!

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