Tag: Cardiff Met FC

Met need reversal after worst start in four years

Caernarfon Town’s 3-0 win over Cardiff Met on Saturday night confirmed their best start to a top flight season since 2007. Two late goals helped them seal a bit of a smash and grab victory at a rain-soaked Cyncoed Campus after Sion Bradley’s first half penalty had given the Cofis something to defend in the second half.

Huw Griffiths’ side have now taken 10 points from their opening six games, defying some pundits’ prediction they might struggle this season after the loss of some key players in the summer. It is still too early in the season for any real judgement, but on the pitch the Cofis are far from a dishevelled and disorganised outfit.

For Cardiff Met fortunes are the opposite. Five points from the first six fixtures is the Archers worst start to a league campaign since their first season after promotion in 2016. They currently sit one off the bottom and are now winless in five, their solitary victory this season coming on the opening day at Aberystwyth.

That was a high point for Met. Since then they have only scored once, in a draw at Cefn Druids. They are yet to score at home in three matches. They haven’t scored a single first half goal this season. This wretched run of form in front of goal was summed up by Elliot Evans’ poor first half penalty on Saturday, comfortably saved by Cofis stopper Josh Tibbetts at 0-0 and shortly after punished by Bradley’s own spot-kick.

A 3-0 home loss looks terrible on paper but the difference between the sides in the balance of play wasn’t reflected in the scoreline. It wasn’t a masterclass from Caernarfon, who were well-organised and punished Met’s mistakes when those opportunities came. It could have gone the other way had Evans converted his penalty, Liam Black’s header before half-time not been cleared off the line, or the Archers been able to show a better killer instinct from several promising situations in the second-half.

What-ifs will be of little or no comfort, but there won’t be calls for an entirely new blueprint.

Looking at the table Met’s problem appears obvious: they aren’t scoring enough goals. But is that a question of not creating them or not taking them? On the evidence of Saturday and reports from other games, it would appear it’s the latter.

There were concerns expressed in pre-season about whether Met would have enough firepower this season but the addition of young strike duo Ollie Hulbert and Harry Warwick from Bristol Rovers raised expectations. Hulbert seemed to hit the ground running with a match-winning double at Aberystwyth but neither have bagged since. Warwick led the line against Caernarfon but struggled to make an impact.

Met do appear to be in the cliched “transitional phase” at the moment and it can only be hoped from their point of view that if the performances are good enough, the form will change. There is potential in the side and there is arguably no coach in the Cymru Premier better than Christian Edwards at making the most of his resources.

Liam Warman looks like he has the pace and trickery to be a threat but on Saturday his decision-making and final ball quality was disappointing. Elliot Evans will always carry the burden of responsibility as Met’s most prominent attacker but after a bright start, he faded following his penalty miss. Kyle McCarthy was a powerful driving force in midfield, especially in the first half. They just need others to step up alongside them.

There are some mitigating factors for the Archers, such as the absence of senior players like Emlyn Lewis, Brad Woolridge, Dylan Rees and Chris Baker. Edwards and his team wouldn’t use any of this as an excuse, but would no doubt welcome back into the matchday squad the leadership and experience these players will offer this developing side.

At the top end of the Cymru Premier is was an historic day for Greg Draper, who surpassed Michael Wilde as TNS’ all-time record Cymru Premier / Welsh Premier League goalscorer. Draper took his tally to 156 top flight goals with five of TNS’ ten goals without reply at home to Flint Town United.

There was a big win too for champions Connah’s Quay Nomads at bottom-club Cefn Druids. A brace from Mike Wilde sandwiched a hat-trick from Callum Morris at The Rock. Nomads remain top, although that could change before the midweek fixtures with the National Game Board due to meet on Monday and decide the outcome of last Wednesday’s abandoned game between Bala Town and TNS.

Speaking of Bala, having squandered a 2-0 lead against TNS on Wednesday and left red-faced as the floodlights at Maes Tegid failed, their week got even worse by suffering their first defeat of the season. Having taken the lead through a Chris Venables penalty, the Lakesiders were pegged back by Haverfordwest through a superb Danny Williams header. In the fourth minute of injury time, the Bluebirds secured their maiden win of the season with a superb breakaway goal finished by Jack Wilson.

Newtown’s frustrating start to the season continued as they once again threw away a winning position. Nick Rushton’s fourth goal of the season gave the Robins a first half lead at Penybont, but Mael Davies’ improvised flick and Sam Snaith’s first goal of the season gave Penybont back to back wins.

Barry Town made it four wins on the bounce with a superb come back win of their own. A bad day at the office looked certain for the Linnets when first Steffan Davies gave Aberystwyth the lead at Park Avenue and then Clayton Green was sent off for an off the ball incident. However, goals from Kayne McLaggon and Jordan Cotterill completed a four-minute turnaround for the ten-men and ensured Barry travelled home from Ceredigion with all the points.

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While we enjoy the action on the field, the medium and long term sustainability of the 2020/21 season remains questionable. Several clubs are reportedly very close to financial ruin while fans remain locked out of Cymru Premier grounds. Newtown AFC have publicly expressed their concerns and appealed for the return of fans to provide essential matchday income.

There is apparently some division among the clubs about whether to proceed much longer and Cefn Druids’ Twitter account spoke of a “chairman’s meeting” that will take place this weekend. There has been some money made available by FIFA and also suggestions Cymru Premier may be eligible for funds as part of any potential bailout or support fund offered to English non-league clubs by the English Premier League / Football Association.

I’ll let the reader make his or her own mind about the clubs of a supposedly independent football nation receiving a bailout from another nation’s football authority. It’s definitely a little awkward but clubs need all the help they can get so probably aren’t going to be fussy about the politics of it all.

Long before Cardiff Met…there was Cardiff Teachers FC

This article, based on archived newspaper research, was originally published in a Cardiff Met Uni FC official matchday programme during phase two of the 2018/19 Welsh Premier League season.

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Enthusiasts for Welsh football history will be aware of Cardiff Met FC’s (through many previous guises) long-standing participation in the football leagues of the south of Wales prior to the establishment of the national pyramid in 1992.

Cardiff College of Education joined the Welsh Football League in 1972 and the institution’s football team (through various name changes) have been ever present in the top four tiers of South Wales football ever since. Although Cardiff Met, in recent times, have blazed a trail through Welsh football that others might hope to follow, they weren’t the first education institution to participate in the Welsh Football League.

Swansea University may seem like a new name to modern Welsh football followers, but their Welsh League legacy extends back to the 1960s, pre-dating Cardiff College’s membership. You can go back even further and find another side representing education in Cardiff playing at the most competitive levels of Welsh football in the south; a team named Cardiff Teachers that played in the South Wales League for two seasons during the 1890s.

The South Wales League (SWL) was a forerunner to the Welsh Football League, set up in 1890 as the demand for more organised and competitive soccer grew in the final decade of the 19th Century. Until the 1890s, soccer was very much a niche, recreational sport in the southern counties where rugby was king.

Given the embryonic nature of soccer in the south in those days, records show the SWL to have suffered some turbulence early on. There was a high turnover of members with many teams joining and disbanding in the same season and it wasn’t until 1896 that some continuity and stability was reached.

Here is where the story of Cardiff Teachers begins, joining the SWL for the 1896/97 season. In an eight-team league they were representatives of Cardiff along with Roath-based side St. Margaret’s. Newspaper records from the time tell us Cardiff Teachers played their home matches at Sophia Gardens and an edition of the Barry Docks News in 1896 reported on a Cardiff Teachers success over Barry District at the ground, noting the Teachers’ “combined game” and the dribbling talent of left winger W.J. Davies.

Ultimately, in a league containing well-established valleys sides like Treharris, Aberdare and Porth, Cardiff Teachers struggled. Details of the 1896/97 final table are unclear but presumably performances justified another crack for the Teachers.

However, in their second season records show Cardiff Teachers finished bottom of the SWL with just a single point from 14 matches, conceding 72 goals (the next highest was 29 goals). A damning report in the Evening Express from February 1898 described Cardiff Teachers as “on a decisive downgrade”. This miserable season’s lowlights included 12-0 defeat to eventual league winners Rogerstone. To add insult to injury, when the Teachers did secure a rare win (against Aberdare), an appeal against the result (based on the poor condition of the Teachers’ ground) was upheld and the Teachers lost the replay at Mountain Ash.

It was probably of no surprise to anyone when the club wrote to the SWL management committee in August 1898 to inform them of their decision to withdraw from the league. Newspaper reports from the winter of 1898/9 show the team continued to play local matches, but the ultimate fate of the club and whether it ever returned to any competitive football is unclear.