THE66POW: Welsh Groundhop - August 2018 #4

WELSH GROUNDHOP

AUGUST 2018 - PART 4

Eight down three to go, it's the final countdown, der, der, der, der... der, der... der, der, der.

Oh well, all good things must come to an end.

Maybe it is somehow befitting, that the quest to visit eleven games in a weekend, such a long distance away from home, should commence in the shadows of a Premier League stadium and conclude in the grounds of a mental asylum.

Monday 27th August 2018:

The Dog Track - 11PM

The Taff Ely & Rhymney Valley League Premier Division

Rhydyfelin (1) 2

Jake Mahoney 4 Pen, 73

Ynysybwl (2) 4

Dan Davies 39,

Marcus Livock 45, 52,

Leigh Price 57

Attendance 229

Things don't start well for Ynysybwl, when just four minutes in, defender Carl Jones was shown a straight red card for handling the ball inside his own six yard box. If he'd been playing in goal it would've made for a great save, but he wasn't and the visitors went down to ten men as Jake Mahoney gave the home side the lead.

An open game ensued, with both sides creating a number of chances, before the visitors were reduced to just nine men in the thirty eighth minute, when Jamie Tooze was also dismissed for a handball offence that prevented a clear goal scoring opportunity, however in this case the 'Bwl' number six was perhaps a bit unlucky, because the ball had actually hit him on the top of the arm.

But a precedent had been set and everybody present had virtually resigned themselves to how many goals Rhydyfelin might now clock up, given their numerical advantage, the fact that their visitors were now playing without their two central defenders and the ball was stood on the penalty spot, waiting for Mahoney, who had already opened the scoring with a penalty, to step forward again.

Hey kids! Isn't football great!?

Six minutes before the interval Ynysybwl were on the verge of being dead and buried, chasing a two goal deficit against probably insurmountable odds, that were stacking heavily in their hosts favour, and in all likelihood, they were probably facing a second half built upon a strategy of damage limitation.

But, as the saying goes: "It's a funny old game, innit!?"

Mahoney hit the post with his penalty kick and the visitors countered attacked, and within a minute they had won a free kick just outside the area, that Leigh Price picked out Dan Davies with, who whacked the ball past Nathan Williams, with a well struck shot on the turn, to even things up.

And almost on the stroke of half time, Marcus Livock dribbled his way into Rhydyfelin's area and 'dinked' the ball under the advancing Williams, to give the nine men the lead. Blimey!

Carl Light, Dan May and Dan Richards all had shots blocked in first half stoppage time, as the hosts pushed forward in a vainglorious attempt to counteract the remarkable turnaround in events, but the makeshift visitors defence were keeping their hands and arms well out of the equation now.

Seven minutes into the second half, the depleted visitors had scored a third and then a fourth goal, with the live-wire presence of Livock getting onto the end of a cross to finish well, before Leigh Price motored towards the goal on the right hand side of the area and lobbed Williams with a delicate finish. Livock was unplayable at times,I suspect that he might even have activated the speed camera that stands on the opposite side of the road to the 'Dog Track' at one point.

Of course, it rained again, just briefly but it was only a 'light drizzle'

"Maybe they should get another man sent off and go for double figures!", quipped a nearby 'comedian' (I hope he doesn't tell jokes for a living. I suppose the law of averages dictates that when a character of his ilk, makes a frequent and annoying string of wisecracks, then eventually one of them, just the one though mind you, might be just about relevant and slightly amusing.

Livock was chasing his hat trick... and you could tell by the disappointed reaction from the crowd, when his goal bound shot was blocked, that their neutrality had gone with the wind and they were willing on the visitors.

A cheerier response met Matt Frowen's timely clearance, after the hosts had threatened to pull a goal back after (C) Light had got on the end of Rikki Webb's right wing delivery.

In my experience, it is unusually for a crowd made up of a large percentage of ground hoppers to respond very much, if at all, to events on the pitch... even the most worldly of strikes will usually be met with a complete blanket of silence, save for a few "Turn round so we can see your number" and "What time did you make that one Eddie?" type comments.

Jason Saunders, the visitors keeper, couldn't get hold of a right wing cross from Richards properly, and Mahoney was on hand to stab the loose ball into the back of the visitors net in the seventy second minute.

Game on? Hmm.. just maybe! You never can tell with the unpredictable nature of the greatest game in the world

Rhydyfelin huffed and puffed in the closing stages of the game, even sending their keeper up for set pieces, but try as they might, they just couldn't blow down Ynysybwl's house.

FT: Rhydyfelin 2 v Ynysybwl 4

This was my first ever The Taff Ely & Rhymney Valley League game, if the standard today is anything to go by, I'll be looking to take in a few more the next time that I am down here.

The home side were great hosts and dealt comfortably with the influx of foreign visitors, at their smart ground, that used to be used for greyhound racing (hence the name) and that other sport that is popular around these parts, y'know the one that uses an odd shaped ball. Each to their own, eh!?

Moving on from Rhydyfelin, we ventured on to Caerphilly, a town that in my estimation is home to the joint 'bestest' castle that I have ever visited... the other one being Bamburgh, up in Northumbria, not that you bloody lot care about anything other than the spectacle of twenty two men, or women, chasing a bag of wind around a field and trying to kick it into a net.

I have a friend who reckons that Neuschwanstein Castle, y'know... the one that Baron Bomburst lived in, in that film about a flying car called 'Chitty Chitty, Bang Bang (our fine four fendered fried), is superior to any medieval fortress in the United Kingdom, but he's wrong. That's just an over elaborate show home, not a real castle. And besides... a flying car, I ask you!?

Right, that off subject waffle filled the twelve miles we travelled to get here... shall we watch some more football now?

Morgan Jones Park - 2PM

Highadmit South Wales Alliance Premier Division

Caerphilly Athletic (2) 7

Gareth Tedstone 31, 49, 55, 76

Alfie Leadbeater 44,74

Alex Edwards 50

Cwm Welfare (0) 0

Attendance 252

Morgan Jones Park, is a pleasant enough sprawling enclosure in which to spend any afternoon of the week, but while Caerphilly Athletic obviously have the talent on the pitch to compete at a higher level... and the drive and enthusiasm off of it, the ground that they are currently using is never going to be up to the required standard that would be necessary for them to fulfil their ambitious aspirations of entering the Welsh League.

Hopefully they can find new premises and a solution to the constraints that are a massive stumbling block in the path of the progress that the club quite clearly wants to make in the near future.

Although it took a while for the home team break the deadlock, once they had got going their was no stopping them.

After Gareth Tedstone (his mum was the friendly blonde haired one selling badges, programmes and such like) put an angled ball from the right hand side of the area into the Cwm goalmouth, that ended up in the net, the goals and chances to score even more of them just flooded towards the visitors goal.

Y'know when you were still young enough to go out on a binge drinking mega-session on a weekend night, drinking your shoe size in pints... and you ever needed to have a pee until about the fourth pint, but once the seal was broken, you needed to go again every five minutes? Well, that was exactly how things went as regards the home side marking their territory in the back of the Welfare net.

A photo depicting a corner kick for Caerphilly

Sometimes a lob sided looking scoreline flatters the winners, but if truth be told, the visitors did well to get away with only conceding the seven goals.

Cwm struggled in the first half and completely caved in during the second, they had one player, who had the bushy hair of a latin American World Cup star of the seventies, but with a slightly bigger waistline and the turning circle of a particularly cumbersome barge.

I'm not naming names, because that isn't fair and it would be wrong single anybody out on a day when entire visiting team effectively stalled en masse and had an off day.

Don't get me wrong, Caerphilly thoroughly deserved their win, but at times, all Cwm seemed to offer was a token resistance. I'm sure they're not always this far off the pace, in fact they won last weekend, so they need to put this one behind them and write it off as a bad day at the office. That said, it will surprise nobody who as present today to learn that the home side are near the top of the table and Cwm, err... aren't!

Just before half time, Tedstone clipped a neat pass to Alfie Leadbeater who was 'goal-hanging' in the six yard box and 'passed' the ball into the back of the net from close range.

Right at the start of the second half, Cwm attacked and arrived in their hosts area like an invasion of shock troops, but it is the mark of a good goalkeeper, that he stays sharply focused when he hasn't had a great deal to do all game and Mike Marsden was alert enough to pull off a fine save from Mark Parker's stinging effort.

Caerfhilly Athletic might want to change the typeface that they use on the players 'pen-pic' in the meet the players section of their programme, because it makes it lookas though they have listed Marsden as being eight feet tall... I don't think he is, but it would explain why they put him in goal.

And I'm staying up here just in case he really is eight feet tall

To punish their visitors for having the audacity to nearly score against them, the home side bagged two more goals in quick succession, with Tedstone nicking the ball under Dom Grossett as he ventured forward and Alex Edwards bulging the roof of the net from Twenty yards out.

Caerphilly then took their foot off the gas and didn't score again for another six minutes, when Tedstone completed his hat trick via a slight deflection.

Connor Davies almost added to the rout from close range, but Grossett got in the way of his shot and kept the ball out.

As an aside, I'd just like to say at this juncture, Grossett might have shipped in seven goals this afternoon, but the large margin of defeat wasn't his fault and the final score would've been even worse for Cwm was it not for his efforts.

Grossett got his fingertips to the ball, but couldn't keep out Leadbetter's well struck free kick on seventy four minutes.

FT: Caerphilly Athletic 7 v Cwm Welfare 0

I'm not going to insult your intelligence by writing that in conclusion the best team won, but I think you'll be pleased to hear that I made a pact with a big handy looking lump of a lad, that we would beat up the first person to shout out: "Please drive Caerphilly driver!" when we get back on the love bus.

"The lunatics have taken over the asylum... the lunatics have taken over the asylum"

Released by Fun Boy Three (featuring three ex members of the Specials), 'The Lunatics (have taken over the Asylum)' was released in 1981, and spent twenty weeks in the UK charts and forty six in the New Zealand hit parade.

I knew that you would all want to know.

Whitchurch Mental Hospital - 5pm

Highadmit South Wales Alliance Division 1

AFC Whitchurch (0) 1

Alex Bould 67 Pen

Cardiff Corinthians (0) 3

Dean Raven 50, 76 Pen,

James Malloy 86 Pen

Attendance 312

And so, it came to pass, that we had fulfilled our journey, and reached the destination of our eleventh and final game off the long weekend that our motley crew had spent together, watching no small amount of honest endeavour, a healthy measure of rough and tumble, up and at 'em commitment, a few comedy moments and more actual skill, guile and footballing nous and know how on the (battle) field of play, than you might have expected from a whole host of sporting contests played out at such a... dare I say it in the present company? Corinthian and non-professional level.

The grand finale of the whole piece, took place within the grounds of a now disused mental hospital, that also hosts cricket matches and crown green bowls, besides home games for AFC Whitchurch and Whitchurch Youth Football Club.

No doubt there are some of those H shaped goalposts nearby too.

But hey, you never know, I might have taken a interest in rugby union as my second sport as an impressionable youngster, if England would've had the same calibre of quality and entertaining players that the Welsh had; like Barry John, Phil Bennett, Gareth Edwards and the legendary JPR Williams, but they didn't... and subsequently, to be perfectly honest, I would struggle to recall a single English union player from that same generation.

The first half of this game was, what lazy press hacks, needing to fill column inches to top up their

requisite word count: an evenly matched contest, with both sides cancelling each other out in the middle of the park and needing to find a bit more quality in the final third.

This time I wholeheartedly agreed with Mr Bamforth's prophecy that: "This one has got nil-nil written all over it!"

And by the time it reached half time, it still had, but we've been spoilt for goals all weekend, so I mustn't and can't really grumble.

Especially as both teams opened up and scored after the interval, though we mustn't ever lose sight of the fact, that football isn't only all about the goals. There's kicking and heading... and fouling and stuff and loads of more interesting things besides, but still, no goalless games all weekend is still a good thing, isn't it?

Anyway, the first goal of the game was netted by Dean Raven five minutes after the restart, when he ran into the area before belting a shot, that passed through Tom Corey's hands from twelve yards out,

after the referee had allowed an advantage to be played following a foul on Iwan Withers.

I spotted that above the bramble and nettle strewn banking behind us, there was a great vantage point for taking photos, so I decided I was heading up there with my camera.

There was a gentle slope to reach my destination in one corner, but that would've meant going past half a dozen rough looking chavs to reach it, or a steep bank at the other end... so I ran up to get the required momentum to reach the apex, but misjudged just how far the top was, lost my footing and crashed face down onto the rock hard surface before mud-sliding all the way back down to the bottom. And did I get any sympathy from the f*ckwits I was stood in the corner with? What to you think? You bunch of tarts! I'm sure the superficial bruising and possibly cracked ribs will heal themselves over the next week or so.

I got up there at the second attempt... no surrender!

AFC Whitchurch drew level via a 67th minute penalty, that was tucked away by Alex Bould, after James Cadman had tripped Gareth Woodman inside the Corries area.

But Dean Raven restored the visitors lead in the seventy sixth minute, also from the penalty spot, after the eagle eyed referee had spotted a handball defence.

As well as scoring twice, Raven is also the team dressed in cardinal gold and maroon's player-manager, so as leading by example goes, he's yer' man.

"Ooh-heck, look at you... have you fallen over?", "Bloody hell Rob, you're not driving home caked in mud and looking like that are you?" Shurrup! All of you! NOW!

While was getting myself a coffee... a caffeine fix to keep me going until the next one at Strensham Services on the way home, I heard a roar at the far end of the ground and assumed that I'd missed a goal in the closing stages of the game, but, on closer inspection, the din had been a penalty appeal and I arrived at the pitch-side railing, just in the nick of time to see James Malloy net the 'Corries' third goal. I didn't want that spilled coffee anyway.

Fifty two goals scored over the course of the weekend and I had seen all of them... result!

A few minutes later, that was that, the weekend was complete and we were all heading our separate ways... and planning ahead for more travels. Watch this space... details to follow.

FT: AFC Whitchurch 1 v Cardiff Corinthians 3