While I am having a good Christmas with families, friends and loved ones, I am missing out on football due to waterlogged pitches with the County fixtures at Rodney Parade v Barking (on the 22nd) and Hereford (away at Edgar Street) on the 29th December falling victim to the rain. Honestly there is only so much Borgen you can watch! One belated Christmas present that did arrive was a good away win for Swansea City at Fulham, hopefully a few more wins will follow shortly. Cardiff City remain on top of the Championship, hopefully they will join Swansea in the premiership.
Newport county and Wrecsam remain (at present) respectively second and third in the Blue Square Premier (both sides meet at 7.45pm on Friday 4th January (at Rodney Parade). Football tribalism aside I want success for the other Welsh football clubs (and Welsh football period). I want to see Swansea City do well this season, and Cardiff City join them (preferably not via the play-offs) in the Premiership next season. I want to see Newport County (as Champions) and Wrecsam (as play-off winners) promoted as Champions from the Blue Square Conference this season. I hope that Colwyn Bay manage to stay in Blue Square North and see no reason why Merthyr Town can also not get promoted again this season.
Reguardless of the code, sporting success on the field is difficult enough but made more difficult by the economic situation, which hits costs and attendances. What would be nice would be better all round media coverage for Welsh football (outside of the Premiership and the Championship) for the rest of us. S4C’s Sgorio does an excellent job on Monday evenings but BBC Wales despite a significant improvement in recent months, could do better. Better media coverage would be good for the game in general and the clubs specifically. Here's hoping that the second half of the County's season continues as it has in the first half.
My optimism (the sporting kind) goes beyond the round ball game to rugby and I am ever hopeful (being a season ticket holder) that the Gwent Dragons (“Don't pass the ball to opposition players and kick it between the posts, not past them”) and Newport RFC will turn the corner between now and the end of the season. At a regional level I think that we need central contracting with the WRU running the show, with four regions along the Irish model - while they may not know it - the time of big egos and big moneymen has passed.
No comments:
Post a Comment