Sunday 28th August 2016 ko 14.30

South Wales Alliance Division Two

CEFN CRIBWR BOYS CLUB 1 (Harris 70)

PENRHIWFER AFC 2 (Trembath 42 Tann 85)

Att 293

Entry £3

Programme £1

Badge £3

We headed south, heading towards Bridgend to exactly the kind of village I like to visit. Now I’m sure the mining village of Cefn Cribwr isn’t on any tourist routes, it owes it’s existence to industry, mainly due to the blast furnace built by Birmingham industrialist John Bedford. But without this hop 150-or-so people would never have visited this place, and extract a lot of enjoyment from doing so. And much of the credit for that enjoyment should go to Bugsy.

But who’s Bugsy I hear you ask? Well Councillor Geraint Brown is a committeeman at the village’s football and he was our main point of contact between Chris Berezai and I as organisers. You want someone like Bugsy at every host club, someone who’ll take on board the concept, then as they plan their day, get back to you with plenty of questions. Ever sat on Facebook and heard the messenger notification sound, and knew exactly who it was? Well with me it was invariably Bugsy, and I looked forward to each and every message. In fact there was only one small problem, Bugsy had booked his holiday for hop day.

So there we were, exchanging messages via Facebook each never met the other, and that won’t change until Cefn Cribwr are the away side on a hop, and Bugsy get’s his holiday dates right! But here’s the thing, in an odd way I did get to meet Bugsy because his club’s staging was Bugsy personified.

As organiser you love to be made redundant for an afternoon, and that is what Cefn Cribwr did. I walked along the main viewing area along one side of the pitch and mentally ticked off every single thing I like to see a club do on their big day. I’d go as far as to so that the staging was as good as the curry was tasty, and believe me that is some compliment!

Again this was a game featuring a former Welsh side, Penrhiwfer had a two-season stint in third division from 2004-6 while Cefn Cribwr played in the South Wales Senior League from 1991-2000 before dropping into the Bridgend & District League before returning to the Senior League as champions in 2014.

Of course the one thing that noone could influence was the game. I suspect it was a good game to play in, but it was a slow burner to watch. I felt for my absent friend that Cefn Cribwr lost but as ever when the staging is this good, I knew that the real victory lay elsewhere.

I dashed back the coach and once the manifest had been checked and we were on our way to Cornelly, I messaged my new friend to congratulate him. It was about time he heard the Facebook messenger signal….