Dial M for Merthyr

A few years ago, a Wales shirt appeared on eBay with some astronomical bid amount  included. The shirt was advertised as match-worn during the disappointing 2-0 defeat  against England at Old Trafford in October 2004. The bid amount looked to increase as  fans bid to get their hands on a piece of football history, but the shirt had a flaw, although  in this case it was more about a lack of flaw, which confirmed it as a fake. The shirt seemed genuine enough with the match details embroidered as was the style  for Wales games during that era. Sadly, for the seller their sewing skills and more  importantly their knowledge of the Welsh language was better than the FAW staff at the  time as the words  Lloegr v Cymru  were spelled correctly whereas the actual match shirts  had advertised the game as  Loegr v Cymru . The original match shirts were wrong, and the  advertised item was right which made it wrong. A fake. There are 29 lett...

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...