Newport & District League
Premier X Division
Tuesday 19th August 2025
Kick Off 18.30 On Time!
Afon Valley 0 Spencer Boys Club 14, attendance 44
13’ 0-1, 16’ 0-2, 27’ 0-3, 39’ 0-4
47’ 0-5, 66’ 0-6, 72’ 0-7, 76’ 0-8, 78’ 0-9, 81’ 0-10, 83’ 0-11, 84’ 0-12, 86’ 0-13, 90’ 0-14
@ Tredegar Park Recreation Ground
Cardiff Road
Maes-Glas
NP20 3AQ
No Admission or Programme.
This wasn’t my intended match tonight. I arrived at my first choice game at Llanyrafon just after five o’clock, but found out about ten minutes later that the game had been postponed. Apparently, it was some problem to do with the away team Mill Street Dynamo. The home club never replied on Twitter about the game and it was still showing on the Cymru App as being on a couple of hours later, but is now shown as an awarded 5-0 home win. Anyway, I headed off to Tredegar Park Recreation Ground, about fifteen minutes drive south west, for another game in the same division.
The ground is to the west of Newport, sandwiched between the A48 and the M4. It’s nothing more than a pitch in a huge park. Parking is immediately inside the entrance, where there’s a brick built changing room building. The pitch is a good 400-500 yards away, beyond mini golf, a skatepark and some tennis courts, with one goal end backing onto a concrete path that runs through the complex and the other end having a cricket pitch with an artificial wicket.
Afon Valley are a newly formed club and on this evidence, may not last too long. This was the opening league game for both clubs and Spencer were relentless, even though they had the game won by halftime, when they were already four goals to the good. The Afon ‘keeper went off injured during the halftime interval and was replaced by an outfield player. At 0-7 the hosts went down to ten men, due to injuries and Spencer totally overwhelmed them, running in another seven goals in the last fourteen minutes. Star of the show for Spencer was Nihad Yousif, who scored a double hattrick and had three assists, with Liam Smith also grabbing a hattrick. From a neutral point of view, it wasn’t a great watch. Afon Valley, to their credit, didn’t give up, but at no time can I recall them even troubling the Spencer ‘keeper.
The journey down to Wales was trouble free. The same can’t be said of the return. The M4 was closed between J13 and J12 and the diversion via Basingstoke wasn’t helped by a section of single lane roadworks on the M3, before the usual M25 closure between J11 and J10 and then a speed restriction from J9 to J8 due to ‘the report of pedestrians’.
