In Which I Watch Penybont FC - Goytre Utd FC

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

Saturday. The weather is awful. At it's best it was a fine persistent rain with a light to heavy wind. At it's worse it was a heavy persistent rain with a light to heavy wind. Only an idiot would want to go out and watch Welsh league football in this weather.

Well.....two thumbs pointed towards this guy.

My first thought was to go to watch Ton Pentre, the team I've decided to own (and when I say "own" I mean with a group of other people for a £10 annual subscription - though quick digression not sure when I'll be able to do this as work and a necessary trip to see my mother near Epping means that this is likely to be some time in October). However they were away at Afan Lido which is in the Port Talbot area. Though I had a rough idea how to get there discretion was the better part of valour given that it was not the sort of weather to drive somewhere when you weren't one hundred percent certain of the way.And (another quick digression) it didn't later on seem as wimpy a decision as it first appeared given that Newport County had postponed their game because of the weather.

So the decision was simple. I'd take the walk (in the rain) to watch Penybont FC play Goytre Utd FC. Wasn't bothered by the fact that wife/daughter were going to be by themselves alone. After all they were going to watch that evening and Saturday/Sunday nights until December a group of celebs dancing so it seemed to even itself out.

To emphasise the point about the weather this is the view from the stands a few weeks back when Penybont FC played a pre season friendly with Newport County AFC

And this from roughly the same spot was the view on Saturday.

Look No Mountains

Though very early in the season Penybont had problems. In the sixteen team division Wales League (to be precise the Nathaniel Car Sales Welsh League Division One) they were fifteenth with just one point. Their opponents Goytre were in eleventh position with three points. Trouble with being in this position early in the season is that if there are no victories then things begin to fester and a turnaround, though not impossible, is more difficult to achieve.

Furthermore I was at half time told by a father of one of the Penybont players that a key striker and centre back were injured which was another problem they had to face up to.

As the first half went on I had the theory that somebody from Goytre had been doing homework on their opponents if only because they seemed to floating cross after cross into the Penybont box and yet like a bunch of athiests the home team didn't appear to know what to do with them. The men in white just dominated the half. Much to the annoyance of a man well to the left of a (well filled) stand who couldn't contain himself once a rare Penybont incursion into the Goytre half.

"Finish!" he shouted. They unfortunately didn't. The young men behind him revealed him to be "Chippy's dad". His son also playing for Penybont He would shout something else in the second half. Chippy's dad wasn't feeling chipper that afternoon.

In the thirty second minute Goytre scored. A corner met by an untroubled header. One nil. They doubled it after forty five minutes. A free kick also from the right met by an untroubled header. Quite nearly a Goytre groundhog day moment.

Incidentally before I forget I claim to be the first person to read a Ben Mezrich book during the breaks of a Welsh football game. Nothing, especially in a day like that could remind you of Las Vegas more.

History is made

More aquatic action

A word of praise for the match officials. At least they didn't look as if they'd spent the previous day in junior school like those for the Ton Pentre - Penybont game. Look at the assistant referee in this photo. Bald and looking older than my fifty two years on this planet and yet there he was, running around as if he had no care in the world (hope he's not younger than fifty two!).

The second half was basically a dead game. Penybont FC clearly tightened up in the back but apart from one opportunity they didn't seem capable of scoring until very late in the game. That came when the Penybont number ten scored from a free kick. If I understood the conversation behind me correctly the goal scorer was Chippy. For the record I didn't notice, though wasn't deliberately listening, to any utterances at that moment from Chippy's dad.

It was however too late. Goytre had won and taking the overall performance into account had deserved their victory. Judging purely on this one game you can see at the very least mid table respectability.

For Penybont however this seems like worrying times. I've seen three matches (one being a pre season friendly) for this season now and they are not the secure team of the past. In all of these games they conceded the first goal (in the Ton Pentre/Goytre matches two) and so the struggle for victory becomes ever the greater.

They need a win....fast.

Until the next time.