Sunday 24th September 2023 ko 14:30

West Wales Premier League

CWM WANDERERS 1 (Bradford 69)

CLYDACH FC 4 (Thomas 28 73 C Jones 64 Islam 90)

Att 280

Entry £3

Programme £2

After the collective soaking we’d taken at Bryn Rovers we needed a little TLC. It wasn’t far to Cwm-twrch Isaf, around 5 miles, but I was happy to see a club official pointing out where to park the coach, and he took one look at me as a squelched towards the clubhouse and commiserated. The thought was appreciated, as I made for the final game of the hop.

The fact that Parc Afon Twch has a clubhouse did give Cwm Wanderers a distinct advantage over much that had gone before. That would be a pretty bland statement if they hadn’t made that advantage count, and there have no end of Step 5 clubs in England that have hosted hop games that have failed to do anything like as well as Cwm did here.

Robyn and I plonked ourselves in the clubhouse, and a queue soon formed for the catering as cold, wet groundhoppers sought to warm up. Inwardly I planned a takeaway later, thinking we’d never get served. I was proved wrong almost immediately as the queue moved rapidly, the club had thought long and hard about how to serve the throng quickly and made sure there were enough people to pull it off well.

The food was superlative too whether you went of the lamb cawl or the chicken curry. In fact the only downside was that as wet clothes dried out the condensation was something to behold! You may spot the remnants of it on a few of the photos. Speaking of that we were lucky to have a game, the first photo was sent to us by the club, so all credit to the club for working so successfully on the pitch and to referee Ryan Kenny for generous view of the conditions.

The club were mainstays of the Neath League, winning the competition 16 times, so you could argue that the West Wales Premier is exactly the type of competition they needed, but how many clubs can you think of that have remained happy to remain a big fish in a small pond? Exactly.

But the game went the same way as so many others on this hop and yes Clydach fully deserved their win but as this hop progresses over the next few years it’ll be Cwm Wanderers that will get referenced repeatedly. Because every league’s hop needs that one host club that is the definition of what good looks like, and so when any future host club needs advice, they’ll have Cwm Wanderers as an example.

It was a hugely enjoyable 6 games in West Wales, and thanks to all involved. If the measure of how good it was the level of regret I felt crossing back over the Severn Bridge then we must have been involved in something special.