Dial M for Merthyr

‘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...