WHY HAVE WE CHANGED? By Chairman Mao

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My dad, like many of his generation in the Valleys, also followed Cardiff City when he was a young man. It was the big club down the rail track from Merthyr Tydfil and in the sixties they had some great players with John Toshack probably being his favourite. The trains from the Valleys would be packed with football fans for every home game, meanwhile he would also watch the Martyrs at Penydarren Park and as he settled down, married and had kids he stopped travelling to Ninian Park and instead drove the family Morris Oxford up Park Terrace, parking behind the Jubilee Club with me in tow. As I grew up, the Martyrs flirted a bit with Cup success; high-profile games with sides like Hendon, Tooting & Mitcham and Chesham United were lost and the league form was indifferent to be honest so why didn’t he go back to following the Bluebirds during that bleak period? I was more than old enough to travel down to Ninian Park, and a lot of my friends were already going. Eventually my dad agreed to go and see a game, it was awful, 0-0 at home to Derby County in an end of season game. The game was boring, but it was the number of police, the perceived threat of violence and the car journey down the old A470 that made him realize that Penydarren Park was way better for us to watch football.  

Penydarren Park was an oasis for my dad away from shifts in Hoovers. A place he could relax with mates, have a pint and probably more importantly somewhere he could take his son with no risks. The ground was a safe haven, everyone looked after each other, I made friends that have stayed with me for life and my dad knew that only non-league football that could provide this environment. I can also remember when we went to Watford v Sunderland when the first Chesham United game was postponed in 1979 as we were travelling. We couldn’t see a thing in the crowd, it was a football game but not as we knew it.  

Non-league football was all about community, freedom to roam (swapping ends at half-time is one example), pints on the terraces, chatting with away fans but no police and security stewards as they were alien to our environment.  

I grew older and became more independent of my dad, now I’d be with my mates, singing songs, acting daft and almost certainly annoying people with our noise and excitement but it was a rites of passage thing. Everyone has done the same thing, and it will be ever thus, 

The cycle of life was of course repeated as I brought my son to Penydarren Park for the same reasons; he would run off with his mates, play football, eat sweets and head home with me afterwards. My dad would be on the Wank Bank too to hand out money and check on him as part of the wider Merthyr football family that watched over the kids that played amongst us.  

Will my grandson be able to experience the same atmosphere inside Penydarren Park in the future though? Maybe not now as the current match day starts with security checks on fans, kids being asked their age, fans having their pockets checked or scanned for knives or whatever they think we would carry into see our heroes play football. Segregation is becoming normalized even though we never see trouble inside Penydarren Park, we all know each other so we self-police, with friendly clubs like Oxford City and Macclesfield having to endure restricted access to food, drinks and toilets. It was only a couple of seasons ago that Merthyr Town won the award for the best experience for visiting fans and now we treat almost everyone with suspicion.  

Merthyr Town is unique. A fan-owned club punching above its weight in a football pyramid that has unrealistic budgets throughout. We’re having an amazing though lately frustrating season with so many great memories made both home and away but if the new security landscape is here from now on then we may lose the very thing that attracted us all in the first place. 

Safety & security has its place in any place with large numbers of people, but it also comes with service. Don’t inconvenience everyone, don’t change how we watch the Martyrs, trust in your fellow fans to make things better. 

Chairman Mao 

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