Carmarthenshire League

Premier Division

Wednesday 18th September 2019

Kick Off 18.00 Actual 17.57

Pontarddulais Town 6 Loughor Rovers 4, attendance 85

13’ 1-0

16’ 1-1

49’ 1-2

68’ 1-3

71’ 2-3 (pen)

74’ 2-4

84’ 3-4

86’ 4-4

90’+ 2, 5-4

90’+ 4, 6-4

@ Coed Bach Park

Gwynfryn Road

Pontarddulais

SA4 8LG

No Admission (they did do a raffle) or Programme.

When you drive into Coed Bach Park, the first thing you notice is the metal entrance gates to the smart ground on the right hand side of the car park. It is fully enclosed, floodlit and has cover on each side of the pitch. However, if you look a little to the right, you see a brick building and an open pitch. This is the football ground. The other, of course, is home to Pontarddulais R.U.F.C. who, as is normally the case in these parts, are the ones with all the facilities!

I rounded off my midweek ‘early kick offs’ (that’s it now until the end of March when the clocks go forward) with an absolutely cracking match here. Pontarddulais started the night tenth in the league table, whilst Loughor sat in sixth place. The first half was good, but it was only 1-1 at the break. The second half was superb. Loughor were 1-2 in front within minutes of the restart and then a substitute volleyed in to make it 1-3, with his first touch of the ball, as we approached the final twenty minutes. Pontarddulais replied with a penalty, before the same substitute scored again to put the visitors 2-4 ahead with sixteen minutes left and surely wrap up the points…….

Six minutes to go and Pontarddulais headed in from a corner. Two minutes later a long throw in was glanced past the ‘keeper to level it up at 4-4. Loughor had a great chance to regain the lead, but a couple of minutes into stoppage time Pontarddulais completed an incredible turnaround, with a cut in from the right that was finished with a low shot into the far corner. There was still time for them to add another goal, with a mirror image of the last one being well finished from the left. So, 6-4, but it could easily have been 10-10. What a game!

Both teams were on the pitch warming up at 17.30 and the Referee very sensibly got the match underway three minutes early at 17.57. We had two minutes of added time in the first half, six minutes for halftime, then a further four minutes of stoppages at the end of the match, but were still all done for 19.39. It wasn’t properly dark until I reached Port Talbot on the long trek home.