Saturday 25th August 2012 ko 4.30pm

Mid-Wales League Division 2

PRESTEIGNE ST ANDREWS 5 (Crow 7 Girolami 9 Roberts 18 56 D Evans 65)

RHOSGOCH RANGERS 5 (T Lloyd 24 Doman 45 L Davies 50 McQueen 78 L Jones 90)

Att 260

Entry/Programme Hop Ticket

Badge £1

Pint Glass £2

The small town of Presteigne is close to the border with England, and these days is very much a gateway to the Principality. Its name in Welsh is Llanandras which gives the ground its name, and the most notable building is the local church of St Andrew, which contains Anglo-Saxon elements. It’s the church that spawned the club, and gives it its suffix. Land owned by Captain Lewis RN was used to hold first Italian and then German POW’s during the Second World War and this land is now Llanandras Park.

It’s a set-up clearly capable of staging football at far higher level than the club’s lowly position. In fact Presteigne were scheduled to be on the very Mid-Wales hop, but an away draw at Ammanford in the Welsh cup put paid to any notion of playing two games in two days (Newbridge did on that hop). With Hay-St-Marys now back in the Mid-Wales League it made sense to pair the two fixtures.

To be honest it wasn’t the greatest of starts, as the club suggested we park the coaches on a patch of grass. I immediately thought of Thorne Colliery where that happened, the coach got stuck, and missed a fair percentage of the next game. Hard standing was found, the coaches parked, and Chris and I got busy organising the line-ups board, and moving on a hopper who thought sitting on the pitch in front of the stand was a good idea.

From then on in we had a wonderful time. The club had a beer festival scheduled for the next day, so put on 7 types of real ale and 4 ciders, which went down very well with the bumper crowd, particularly with the burgers to line the stomach! The programme was notably good too.

But the game, as it should be, was the star here. 5-5 draws can never be dull, and this one was a classic. Presteigne raced into a 3 goal lead, and frankly that should have been the end of the game as a contest. Significantly Trefor Lloyd pulled a goal back for Rhosgoch, and another goal, though Lee Doman on the stroke of half time made things interesting.

When Lee Davies levelled things in the 50th minute I thought the visitors would win the game but Presteigne found it within themselves to score twice more through Roberts and a Danny Evans penalty. Again that should have been it but back came Rhosgoch to net through substitute Jordan McQueen, then a full EIGHT minutes into stoppage time to equalise once more through a superlative Liam Jones free kick.

A wonderful advert for both the clubs and Welsh football, and as we left it was hard to find words to both congratulate the Presteigne committee on a well-staged hop game, but commiserate on a game that 99 times out of 100 they would have won.