While I'm still a WPL newbie, I thought I'd create a place if anybody wanted to post their thoughts on the upcoming season. Here are the current odds: TNS 8/11 Rhyl 15/8 Bangor 10 Caersws 20 Haverfordwest 20 Aberystwyth 25 Llanelli 25 Carmarthen 33 Cwmbran 33 Porthmadog 66 Welshpool 66 Connah's Quay 100 Newtown 100 Caernarfon 200 Port Talbot 200 Airbus UK 250 Cardiff Grange 250 NEWI Cefn Druids 500
Good move. One question and a request. Will you be keeping this updated throughout the season? If possible, could you do a brief background to the league? Cheers
Sure, I'll take responsibility for that. I think it would be fun. Since I'm just learning about the league, please (anybody) step in and correct me if I say something obviously wrong or terribly misleading.
Cool map of where all of the Welsh Premier League teams are actually located: http://www.welsh-premier.com/info.php
Ok, I can't recommend www.welsh-premier.com highly enough. I just discovered their player profile section: http://www.welsh-premier.com/sa_players_az_2004.php
Here are the websites for the two feeder leagues for the WPL: http://www.cymru-alliance.co.uk/ http://www.welshleague.org.uk/
I was looking at the Football Association of Wales website and realized that not a single player from the Welsh Premier League is on the Wales national squad. http://www.dragonsoccer.co.uk/faw.htm
http://www.welsh-premier.com/playerprofile.php?pid=413 I remember this guy, Martyn Naylor, playing for Morton. He could throw the ball about half the length of the field but that was about it.
Caersws' leading scorer from last year, Graham Evans is supposed to be signing with Hereford United. He scored 20 goals for Caersws last year and has scored 132 in 191 appearances (5th on the all-time scorers list). That will be a huge loss for the team. Interestingly, Graham's father, Mickey Evans has been the manager of Caersws since the WPL formed in 1992.
The Welsh Premier League history I've read is filled with the success of Barry Town, a team relegated in 2004 According to the brief story below, they appear to be on the brink of collapse: http://www.welsh-premier.com/news.php?ID=2938
Barry Town were a great little club until they were taken over by that cretin John Fashanu. He had the inspired idea of using his connections in Nigeria to bring over talented youngsters, establish them at Barry and then sell them on to English clubs at a profit. There was just one problem, none of them could get work permits.
Very interesting. I'll have to learn more about that. It looks like now they are a 1,000,000 pounds in debt, owe 42,000 in back rent and are perilously close to not having a place to play their home games. Gee, if Fashanu had played Football Manager, he'd know how difficult it is to get work permits I guess this isn't like Italy where if one team fails, another group quickly organizes and saves football for the town?
I was wondering what happened to Barry Town; for a while, they were the only Welsh club I had ever heard of. I hope things can turn around for them. Great thread, BTW.
The thing to remember is that Barry is a tiny little town. It's a satelite town of Cardiff (which itself has a population of about 350,000) so the ability to raise £1m is not really there. It was a wonder they were ever professional to be honest.
Thanks Darth. For the sake of appearance, I'm now claiming Welsh ancestry on my mother's side (Wyatt) On Barry Town: Thinking about it, it's amazing that any team with limited resources would be able to go 1,000,000 pounds into debt in the first place. They would almost have to involve themselves in unorthodox behavior (the aforemention Nigeria import experiment?) Here is a website dedicated to a new Barry-based team that will play in the Vale of Glamorgan League: http://www.forzabarry.co.uk/
Just found this explanation of the structure of the football divisions in Wales: http://www.walesonline.com/info/sport/soccer.shtml
Barry's chairman Stuart Lovering denied they were in trouble. Evidently, the South Wales Evening Post says the League is still waiting on assurances from the team. Also, I saw a reference to the team playing outside of Barry. They will play their games at Treforest.
Yeah, I claim it on my dad's side (Vaughan), but I've got just about the whole island on both sides of my family. That is weird how a club as small as Barry Town would go into such massive debt. It's almost like Leeds United in microcosm.
I am Welsh. Of all the sides in the league, TNS and Rhyl are head and shoulders above the rest. TNS because they are professional, and Rhyl because they are as good as. TNS is probably one of the most interesting stories in the league. They are from Llansantfraidd (pronounced thlansanfrithe) a village of about 300 people, but Total Network Solutions bought them and moved them to Oswestry, where the company is based, a few miles away actually in England. They now have a decent squad of old pros and ex-league youngsters. Martin Naylor is the brother of wolves left back Lee Naylor and used to play for both Shrewsbury and Telford. A load of my mates play for Caersws. They too, are a village of about 3-400 but Mickey Evans does a great job of mopping up all the young local talent in mid wales, where soccer and not rugby is the number one sport. Graham Evans is probably the best striker in the league, he used to be on the books of Aston villa alongside fellow 'sws frontman Andy Marfell. Newtown are a decent club with one of the best stadiums in the league www.newtownafc.co.uk and a decent squad, managed by former Coventry, Chester and Shresbury man Roger Preece, and Bangor are always there or thereabouts come the end of the season. Go to www.welsh-premier.com/index.php for more info. They've got some ok stats and updates. Also this season, rhyl and Carmarthen have become only the 2nd and 3rd clubs to win European ties after barry. TNS obviously lost to Liverpool. Cheers.
9 Rush, thanks for the great information. It is nice to add a true Welshman to the WPL thread Any insight you can offer during the year will be greatly appreciated. While TNS and Rhyl are primarily professional, are the rest of league a mixture (some paid, some not paid) or are there some teams completely made up of unpaid players?
If you didn't see it, 9 Rush offered two more great sources for Welsh Premier League information: The Official League Website: http://www.low.org.uk/index2.htm (Look at the newsletter section in particular). and http://www.countytimes.co.uk/