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 ...
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 ...
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