Dial M for Merthyr

You may have heard somewhere that Merthyr Tydfil FC pulled off one of the all-time great European cup giant-killings in 1987. A team recently relegated from Serie A but also Coppa Italia finalists came to Penydarren Park to play little old us and ended up heading back to Bergamo pointless and with a greater respect of Welsh football, crowds and more importantly hospitality. The return visit two weeks later was another close game, but the hosts hung on to scrape through to play OFI Crete in the next round. Those of us who had the opportunity to follow the Martyrs into Europe will never forget those weeks when we were both the talk of football fans everywhere and unlikely ambassadors as the first British club to visit Italy since the Heysel disaster a couple of years earlier. We didn’t see a lot of the city when we arrived for the game, security was tight and the carabinieri were taking no risks, holding us on our buses inside a stable block and the stadium itself was an oval bowl of ter...

There has been a lot written and spoken of recently about the new security protocols when attending a game at PP. Most of which I wholeheartedly agree with. On Saturday I mingled with Macclesfield fans in town, and in Romans bar before the game. No problems, even discussing our young crew of boisterous young ones, who we both agreed on that every club has. Walking over to the turnstiles I noticed a young Macclesfield fan who was probably about 11 or 12, having a metal detector run over her coat. The steward was nice and said the girl and her parents to have a good day and enjoy themselves. I understand some games will need extra security but does a young girl need to be searched with a metal detector? Apart from their win, not doubt, the second thing they’ll take away from their day at PP is the overzealous stewarding. I noted a Merthyr fan on Facebook who sits in the main stand, when asked were they could get food, they would have to go to Holvey’s tea bar, but they then may not be al...

My dad, like many of his generation in the Valleys, also followed Cardiff City when he was a young man. It was the big club down the rail track from Merthyr Tydfil and in the sixties they had some great players  with John Toshack probably being his favourite. The trains from the Valleys would be packed with football fans for every home game, meanwhile he would also watch the Martyrs at Penydarren Park and as he settled down, married and had kids he stopped travelling to Ninian Park and instead drove the family Morris Oxford up Park Terrace, parking behind the Jubilee Club with me in tow. As I grew up, the Martyrs flirted a bit with Cup success; high-profile games with sides like Hendon, Tooting & Mitcham and Chesha m United were lost and the league form was indifferent to be honest so why didn’t he go back to following the Bluebirds during that bleak period? I was more than old enough to travel down to Ninian Park, and a lot of my friends were already going. Eventually my dad a...

Lots of my family and friends tell me every Sunday morning that they now buy the Times because of this column. Sales in the South Wales Valleys must have spiked dramatically (yes, yes, we’re all related etc etc). My Mother, as with all mothers, keeps everything I’ver ever done. She even has early copies of the now legendary football Fanzine ‘Dial M for Merthyr’ because I wrote some articles for it. That was over 30 years ago and I often think that the effect of fanzine culture on football during that time cannot be overestimated. You wouldn’t be reading this column if it wasn’t for them. It gave me the idea that maybe I could do something in football. My great friend, Mark Evans, who was the founding editor, is now in charge of International Football at the FAW. When he came up with the idea of starting the fanzine he was on the dole. I was still in college. We came down to two names. Dial M for Merthyr or You Sexy Merthyr F*ckers (Prince was massive at the time. Not in stature but in ...

‘We could be winning or losing – it doesn’t matter as long as we’re together’: the friendships forged on football terraces." This article was published in the Guardian Newspaper in November 2026. Click here for the article https://share.google/HRqXca9HK8RN3N3tp

He attended every home match at Penydarren Park across nine decades. Rain or shine. As a child with his dad, as a kid with his mates, as a young man with his work mates and then as a father with his children, eventually as a grandfather with his grandkids and finally one last game with his great-grandson. A lifetime spent on the terraces of Penydarren Park, he hated sitting in the seats and resisted it despite his frailty towards the end. Always in his place on the Wank Bank, leaning on the crush barrier, near Holvey’s Tea Bar. The same group of people around him over the years, ebbing and flowing as life and circumstances got in everyone’s way of their weekly fix of the Martyrs. The full circle of life on those terraces. Dishing out spending money to his son as he tried to watch the game. Keeping one eye on the mass of kids playing football on the Theatre End grass bank. The final whistle and into the Jubilee Club for a pint with pop & crisps for his kid as they watched the day’s ...

"The Away Fans Guide to Merthyr Town FC" Open from this link.... http://flk.bz/3eG6

We’re not leaving. It’s been a constant thread on social media from within the Welsh domestic football  community as to why Merthyr Town are wasting our time in what is effectively Division 7  of the English pyramid. Firstly, none of them seem to understand that we love pottering around the various  Southern League grounds of England. It’s what we’ve done for over 100 years so why  would we change? They say travel broadens the mind and visits to all points east will  always bring more joy, memories and tall tales than repeated calls to university  campuses and deserted grounds for us. Secondly and more salient to this article is that the FAW has never actually reached out  to the Martyrs since our successful appeal to the initial invite to join the League of  Wales in 1992. There is always social media chatter that we should start at the bottom  of the pyramid or in Cymru South (Tier 2) but there was never clarity from the governing  bod...

Penydrarren Park can boast that it has the largest covered terrace in Welsh Football. Its an imposing, beautiful piece of theatre. Its one of the best places to watch a game of football, as the people that stand on there are witty, caring, dry and knowledgeable. Fitting that we now know it as “The Anthony Hughes Stand”. When I first started watching Merthyr as a regular in the late 80s, I’d stand centre of that stand. Halfway down it on the halfway line. I’d stand with Terry O’Keefe, Martin Lewis, Robert Davies, Mel Jenkins, Mark Horrigan and Anthony. All a few years older than me, but were all ‘LIFERS’ by that time, never missing a game and they all knew everything there was about MTFC. All of them were keen pisstakers and I had to be on my toes not to get ripped to bits. I’d known Anthony from school days – well more from St Illtyd’s church in Dowlais, where he was one of the senior Alter boys (along with Bryan James – who we also lost last year) when I first donned the red and white...