Penydarren Park - does it help us?

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.  

Things have changed, as they must of course, but now away days are unrecognisable from what now seem the halcyon days when the Southern League was a proper football competition. This sounds proper diva territory but it’s rare to visit a ground now with any sense of excitement, recently you could point at Weymouth and maybe even Farnborough as exceptions to the usual sense of anti-climax. As a famous football philosopher once said though “It is what it is” and so we carry on following the Martyrs wherever they travel and it remains up to us to improve the quality of our destinations by getting this club heading up through the pyramid.  

The atmosphere at Penydarren Park is at the moment brilliant, the ground reflects the working class culture of our town with a left-wing fan base proving a noisy backdrop to the on field battles of our beloved Martyrs but even this has caused a few issues in recent months as visiting players, plainly unused to hearing songs from packed terraces, react aggressively to the repertoire of songs that are nothing but supportive of our heroes in black & white. Witness the reaction of Winchester City players when they scored their 2nd goal last season, ignoring their own fans and doing an “Adebayor” and running the length of the pitch to goad the CTM Stand. This also doesn’t bode well for away games as, again, our hosts are not used to a noisy travelling support so there is a risk of an over-reaction by stewards and home fans. We come in peace. Many of us, including me, no longer feel safe with a large support away from home. The brutal attack on our fans in Farnborough and the subsequent one-sided police investigation has brought home to many how vulnerable we can be when on the road.  

Penydarren Park is expensive to run. The utility bills at the ground from floodlights to boilers via the numerous toilet blocks that are appearing around the ground, by order of the Southern League stadium inspectors who must surely wear blinkers when they visit the likes of Poole Town and Winchester City, are ever increasing in modern times. 

General care and repair of our lovely, ugly theatre of football is never ending with the artificial pitch requiring as much attention as a grass surface to maintain its quality and more importantly its sustainability to support the number of teams that an ambitious community club needs to provide for the town. How would we afford such a stadium if we were ever forced to play Cymru South football (and again how would those clubs cope with our travelling support)?

It would be interesting to hear the Southern League’s reaction if we were to ground share elsewhere in the borough, a few options would look favourable in comparison to Sholing. The feeling of many fans is that Merthyr Town is targeted by the ground grading inspectors because we have such a large and historic stadium.  

Is there a nuclear option here? Ground share? Or just remember to take your medication each day as you should?

KONRAD BARTELSKI