Monday 28th August 2017 ko 13.45

South Wales Alliance Division 2

ST JOSEPH’S 0

CARDIFF AIRPORT 5 (Richards 7 Caton 35 73 90 Fallas 64)

Att 258

Entry £3

Programme £1

It didn’t take long for the coaches to get from Penarth to Cardiff, despite the usual bank holiday traffic. In fact the only issue was working out exactly where the ground was, tucked away as it is behind the suburban housing. The fact that this was for a hop game helped, after 9 games I could recognise many of the hoppers’ cars!

As the name would suggest the club’s background is from the St Joseph’s Catholic Sports and Social Club in the Whitchurch Road in Cardiff. They do have the distinction of winning a kit from Findus Frozen Foods in 1970 which was presented to the club by then Cardiff City manager Jimmy Scoular!

We turned up at the Maes y Coed Playing Fields at the perfect time, the club is celebrating it’s 50th anniversary and the little ground was positively buzzing. From an organiser’s perspective it was good to have little or nothing to do for a couple of hours particularly with a potentially difficult last game straight afterwards.

It was a pleasure to buy a Chrismas meal in a bap (or turkey and stuffing roll if you’d prefer), grab a drink and enjoy the quirks such as the pitch-side rail used as a hanger and the megaphone as a public address system. It all added up to me rather falling in love with the club, it was one of those afternoons where you could let the club do their thing knowing that all was well with the world. I found myself comparing them to another club who’d reached that state of friendly, easy competance- Tonyrefail B.G.C. who we’d visited on the Saturday.

And just like the club from the Rhondda that excellence didn’t translate into a winning performance on the pitch. Cardiff Airport play on the ground vacated by the now-defunct Rhoose, and just like last year at Cardiff Hibernian they won and won well, with Teejay Caton collecting a well-taken hat trick.

But while Caton and his club fully deserved their win, I found myself hoping this defeat hasn’t dented St Joseph’s anniversary celebrations in any way. They were an absolute joy to deal with and I’d like to think the bumper crowd produced enough funds to help secure the club’s future. Their efforts deserved nothing less.

But all good things most come to an end, so I made for our coaches. Just one game to go, but I did take a deep breath first.