Gwent Premier League
Division 2
Saturday 1st November 2025
Kick Off 14.30 On Time!
Thornwell Red & White 1 Riverside Rovers 2, attendance 20
14’ 0-1
29’ 0-2
55’ 1-2
@ Tenby Lane
Thornwell
NP16 5GH
No Admission or Programme.
This hadn’t been my original choice of destination today, but my intended game of F.C. Tredegar, in the division above, who were playing their home game on the rugby stadium next door to their normal home venue, was called off due to a waterlogged pitch. The village of Thornwell is just across the border into Wales, with the M48 and the old Severn Bridge clearly visible through the trees on the far side of the ground. The pitch is fully railed, painted in the club colours of red and white, although now very faded. The pair of brick dugouts however, are freshly painted and very striking. There’s a small changing room building, on the near right side and a pavilion behind the near goal, but that remained shut. Oddly, the pitch had been partially mowed. The near end was short, but the other half was a good six inches, making passing on the ground difficult.
The match, between the only two teams I hadn’t yet visited in this division, saw 9th (out of 12) host 11th in the table, with both teams only having won a single game each so far. It was the visitors that made the better start, opening the scoring after fourteen minutes, when a corner from the left was cleared to the edge of the box and returned with a first time shot that hit the underside of the crossbar, but bounced down behind the line. They doubled their lead just before the half hour mark, this time heading in at the near post, again from a corner on the left. Thornwell pulled a goal back ten minutes into the second half, when a diagonal free kick from wide on the left was bundled in at the far post. They should have drawn level with seventeen minutes left, when an attack saw the initial shot saved by the ‘keeper, but the follow up effort was hit straight at him, as he scrambled back to his feet, with the goal gaping. Any chance of Thornwell getting an equaliser disappeared when they had a man sin binned with five minutes left and Riverside easily held on to take all three points.
Apart from a very brief rain shower midway through the first half, it remained dry. No trip these days ever seems to go without some sort of traffic problems. SatNav diverted me off the M4 between J18 and J19 outbound and J14 and J13 coming back, with quite lengthy hold ups averted in both cases.
