Virus Update

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“Penydarren Park is now a cashless stadium which just means we’re skint”

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OBJECT LESSONS NO. 2

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Following on from the recent post about how a Merthyr Tydfil AFC badge accompanied my journey through the highs & lows of secondary school education in our fair borough, a recent clear out of stuff from my house has brought a few more items of memorabilia from that era of youthful exuberance back into focus. The seventies wasn’t a bad decade to follow the Martyrs. It started with John Charles and that beautiful mauve & yellow football kit. Broken hearts against Hendon and Tooting & Mitcham too. It ended with the heartache of that midweek defeat to Burton Albion and no promotion but in between we had the Chesham United FA Cup disappointment. Penydarren Park was a lot different to the stadium we enjoy today. The ground was only two-sided with just Main Stand and Wank Bank providing any cover so behind each goal there was plenty of space to play football, tell tall tales and run wild. We watched both Match of the Day and The Big Match every weekend and marveled at the b...
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Pughy

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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...
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Penydarren Park - does it help us?

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Should we leave and play at Penydarren Boys Club  with our current ground mothballed until we reach the National League? The basic  premise for this extreme solution to a problem that probably only exists inside my  paranoid mind is that our ground is too nice, comfortable, welcoming and it inspires our  opposition. It’s also a burden on our finances but more on that later.   One of the attractions for me growing up following the Martyrs was visiting other  Southern League grounds and experiencing a big match atmosphere, mostly without  any of that 80s and 90s terrace nonsense that seemed to haunt the professional game.  It wasn’t always peaceful of course, no police presence meant that if there was trouble  it would escalate quickly, but the grounds were full of atmosphere and you could sense  the shared terrace history of clubs like Worcester City, Kidderminster Harriers,  Cheltenham Town, Bromsgrove Rovers and Bath City. ...
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