And so to the Corbett Sports Stadium, midway through a three year sponsorship deal, and otherwise known as Belle Vue, the home of Rhyl FC (Clwb Pel Droed Y Rhyl) for a Champions' League decider between The New Saints and Slovan Bratislava.
The New Saints are Wales' last survivors in Europe (slightly ironic since they play in England but more anon) and lost the first leg 1-0 in Slovakia. The club was formed as Llansantffraid FC in Wales in 1959, and changed their name to Total Network Solutions for the 1997/8 season following a sponsorship deal - few of us will ever forget Jeff Stelling's catchphrase 'They'll be dancing in the streets of Total Network Solutions tonight' after another victory ! In 2003 the club merged with Oswestry and moved over the English border, with UEFA dispensation.
The current club badge reflects the club's background - half dragon and half lion with both towns named. After BT bought Total Network Solutions in 2006, the club became The New Saints and moved to its current home 'The Venue at Park Hall', which is not UEFA compliant - and hence the venue change to Rhyl.
Slovan
Bratislava are the current Slovak champions and indeed won the old European Cup
Winners' Cup against Barcelona in 1969. They boast Robert Vittek, Slovakia's
highest goalscorer (23 goals, 80 caps), in their squad, and three nicknames
(greedy !) - Belasi (Sky Blues), Krali Bratislavy (Kings of
Bratislava) and, wait for it, Jastrabi z Tehelneto pola (The Hawks from
Brickfield) !
A glorious
Tuesday morning kicks off with an accident on the Chester Road before joining
the motorway, passing the belching fumes of Stanlow and then joining the A55
for fabulous views of the Great Orme and Snowdonia. We reject the sign for
'Boat Jumble' and turn off past the pretty Rhuddlan Castle and enter Rhyl,
which is a riot of colourful blooms.
We park on Patagonia Avenue, alongside the well kept and attractive Botanical Gardens, although rather let down by the bowling green sign 'Members Only - Please Keep Of The Grass' (sic) and then pass the superbly named Sun of a Beach tanning salon before emerging by the legendary (?) Rhyl Sun Centre on the front. A quick look at the RNLI lifeboat and then a walk on the glorious Prestatyn Sands is in order before we return to a quiet Rhyl, surprising given it's the holiday season, slightly tatty in the centre and with several development opportunities and sites of partial demolition.
One oddity is the 250 ft Rhyl Sky Tower on the sea front, bizarrely transported from the 1988 Glasgow Garden Festival, and now cordoned off amidst safety fears.
Then it's
further down the coast to Kinmel Bay, past the Breaks Family Entertainment
Centre which holds no appeal despite the name ! We cross over the impressive
new Pont y Ddraid bridge at Foryd harbour and walk across Kinmel dunes to
the edge of Towyn - a landscape dominated by vast wind farms in one direction
and huge static caravan parks in the other - we see a solitary parascender and
a single microlight. Lunch is lamb cawl and we pass the National Crown
Green Bowling Centre on the way back to the ground - but it, too, could do with
a lick of paint, and the comment of the 'Wembley of Bowls' is rather
inapt..........
Belle Vue holds 3,000 with all bar 300 seated. The main Don Spendlove Stand, named after Rhyl's 629 goal local legend, houses the majority of fans and UEFA delegates. At either end are the Lilywhites Legends bar and canteen, and the NWPS Stand, three rows of seats, sponsored metal struts and a lot of hidden rubble.....The final stand, with yellow and green seats as opposed to the blue ones elsewhere in the stadium, is again the Botanical Gardens and houses the away fans and a TV gantry.
Despite a
steep £20 ticket charge, there's a crowd of 1140 made up of a mix of locals,
holidaymakers, groundhoppers, TNS fans, random Slavs and 200-250 raucous Slovan
fans - including their Ultras 'Belasa slachti' and Ultras Slovan Pressburg.
They arrive complete with banners proclaiming Fight United and showing a
hooded man, armed with baseball bat and giving the finger.....
The match kicks off at 18.45 so TNS don't need to use the floodlights (rather than kick off being changed to accommodate live Slovakian television !), and TNS are the better team in the first half, but aside from one moment early on when the ball drifts away they do not trouble the Slovaks.
Slovan are sloppy, giving the ball away frequently, but pose more of a threat, forcing one good save from TNS custodian Harrison and hitting the top of the crossbar from a corner.
The second half sees Slovan change the pace and start to control the game - Soumah's tricky feet and quick movement dominating the proceedings until his withdrawal due to cramp, and leading to a chance for Marko Milinkovic from a great crossfield ball, but his dinked chip lands on the roof of the net.
However the Serb is not to be denied as his shot, following a corner, through a crowd of players past an unsighted keeper and with a slight deflection gives Slovan the lead on 74 minutes. Cue further hysterical singing and chest beating from the away contingent - and it gets better on full time as Milinkovic's exquisite free kick from just outside the penalty area clips the inside of the near post and goes in - unsavable. A valiant attempt from the Saints again but class told in the end - TNS 0 Slovan 2 finalizado
