And so, because of a family wedding (cheers Lindsey and Pete !), to Sunday football and a trip just over the border to the Deeside Stadium for a Welsh Premier League game between Connah's Quay Nomads and Carmarthen Town.
Before the Nomads, Connah's Quay FC
was founded in 1890 and disbanded after a second Welsh Cup final loss in 1911.
Connah's Quay & Shotton was then formed in 1920 and beat Cardiff, featuring
several players in the team that beat Arsenal in the 1927 FA Cup Final, in the
1929 Welsh Cup Final. Six months later the club went bust....
The existing club was formed in July
1946 as Connah's Quay Juniors, and a senior team was formed and joined the
Flintshire League in 1948. Prior to the 1952/53 season the club's suffix
changed to Nomads; the Nomads joined the Welsh League (North) and, despite
returning to local leagues for 7 years, rejoined it in 1966. In 1974 the club
joined the newly formed Clwyd League and, following 3 successful seasons in the
Welsh Alliance, became founder members of the Cymru Alliance in 1990 then the
League of Wales two seasons later.
The Nomads, an odd name for a club
that had spent 51 seasons at the Halfway Ground, moved after a season of
groundsharing at Rhyl to its current home, the Deeside Stadium in 1998. After
bereavements and retirements the club was taken over by gap personnel in June
2008 to become gap Connah's Quay Nomads.
2010 saw the club narrowly miss out on
the cut off for the Super 12 League - thus the club began the 2010/11 season in
the Cymru Alliance which they won the following season but were deprived of
promotion after failing to gain a domestic license. Notwithstanding this
setback the Nomads were again crowned Cymru Alliance champions in 2013 and this
time the ascent to the Welsh Premier League was granted.
Last season saw the Nomads qualify for
the Europa League - and a giant-killing as the club beat Norwegian team Stabaek
over two legs before bowing out to Vojvodina from Serbia.
The first attempt to form a Carmarthen
Town team came in 1920 through Jack Harding, a Geordie who settled in the town,
but it lasted only three years. Harding went on to play for the St Peter's and
Quay Rovers clubs, both of which folded in 1939.
Undaunted he founded a Carmarthen
Athletic team after the Second World War, but the players were not fully
committed. Indeed one match was called off as most of the side were engaged in
bell ringing on a Saturday.....
Finally he established Carmarthen Town
FC in 1950 at Penllwyn Park, moving to the newly created (and current home)
Richmond Park in 1952. Election to the Welsh League followed in 1953, with
thereafter intermittent promotion and relegation.
1976 saw the 'Old Gold' nearly fold
and it was the disbanded reserve team's committee that came to the fore and
took over the running of the club. Twenty years later the Welsh League
Championship was won and the Old Gold were into the League of Wales.
Subsequent years produced a Welsh Cup
win in 2006/07, and European football via first the Intertoto and then UEFA
Cups. These included matches against AIK Solna, FC Kobenhavn and most recently
SK Brann of Norway - with Carmarthen (narrowly !) losing 3-14 on aggregate.....
The Welsh Premier League restructure in 2010 saw Old Gold just scrape into the
top 12.
So it's past the fire ravaged Bayer
building no more - torn down for a new housing development - then the
Bridgewater Retail Park, currently occupied by all of two stores, and no
surprise that the chumps who ran Champz Bar have seen it fail. Then, in radiant
sunshine, to the M56 before it becomes the A494.
Off at the A548 and into Deeside
Enterprise Park, with its massive solar farm and signs warning of 'Steam
Clouds'. Then over the magnificent cable-stayed Flintshire Bridge (no Oresund
but impressive nonetheless !), past the gas fired Connah's Quay Power Station
to the Deeside.
Parking is alongside the stadium at
Coleg Cambria which also houses Toy Box Day Nursery and the North Wales Indoor
Athletics Centre. £7 in - still great value for top flight Welsh football -
sees one side with the main covered grandstand and a flat standing area in
front. Opposite is the press box and dug outs, with the Sir Gawain and the
Green Knight pub behind.
Both ends are open circling the
athletics track that surrounds the pitch with the Flintshire Bridge
backdropping the near end. There's also a covered disabled area, with one
wooden bench, in the corner and, strangely, a children's play area contributed
by Forest School.
I don't profess to understand how this
season's Welsh Premier League fixtures have been compiled but it's definitely,
er, unusual.... Bangor City started the season with 5 straight home league
games then 4 away, The New Saints played Bala home and away in four days and
today's Nomads game is the fourth of six consecutive home league fixtures
followed by five away - bonkers !!
The teams enter the fray to the sound
of AC DC's Hell's Bells, with the Nomads in red with white trim, and Carmarthen
in old gold and blue. Lee Idzi, the Carmarthen keeper, wears all white with one
red and one green sleeve - a strip more appropriate to a Tour de France rider
than a goalkeeper....
From the start it's end to end - Nomads'
John Disney heads just wide from Nathan Woolfe's cross, whilst Old Gold's Liam
Thomas breaks free and forces an excellent save from home custodian John Danby.
Les Davies' free towering header drifts just past the post, Disney has one
cleared off the line and Matty Williams hesitates in a one in one allowing Idzi
to parry, as the Nomads dominate without troubling the scorers.
The second half sees Williams and
Thomas both go close for their respective sides before a double substitution
for the home side has an immediate impact as Nomads’ Nick Rushton nips in front
of Idzi to head home a Woolfe centre.
The match threatens to boil over with
increasingly physical challenges before Old Gold’s captain Lee Surman is sent
off for a reckless challenge on Davies. Old Gold bring on target man Mark Jones
and he provides an aerial threat to the makeshift home centre back pairing. His
presence produces the away side’s best opportunity with Danby flapping at a
cross and Ceri Morgan shooting miserably over. Nomads’ manager Andy Morrison’s
vehement exhortations serve only to confuse his players and the match splutters
to its conclusion and a 1-0 home victory.
