Damage in the Box!: PEN-Y-CAE (Afoneitha Road)

Today was one of those rare days when an opportunity arose to "tick" off a new ground that was only half an hour away from home. Penycae, of the Welsh National League Wrexham area, were playing Blaenavon Blues, of the Gwent County League, in the quarter finals of the Welsh Trophy, a competition open to teams not eligible for the Welsh FA Cup. This was too good a chance to miss!

Penycae play at Afoneitha Road in the village of the same name, which is just a few miles outside Wrexham. As with most grounds in this league, the facillities are as basic as they come and the ground was simply a railed off pitch with a couple of portable dugouts (these were removed at the end of the game along with the goalposts). As a bonus today the club produced a 28 page programme which was included in the price of your admission...which was a whopping £1. Now thats what I call value for money!

The game , as it turned out, was a routine home win for Penycae. Having said that Blaenavon did have their moments and, indeed, they went in front on 15 minutes through Neil Cox but after that it was more or less one way traffic as Penycae took control and virtually camped themselves in the visitors half. The closest Blaenavon came to a second goal was when Darren Harris broke free on the counter and appeared to be tripped in the area, but the referee waved play on, if that would've been 2-0 then who knows? but after some more determined defensive work by the visitors, their resistence was eventually broken just before half time when a Gavin Davies header squirmed past the Blaenavon keeper, who should have done a lot better, to level at the break.

The second half continued in similar fashion but Penycae took until the 72nd minute before taking the lead when Matthew Scott chested a corner past the keeper, who again had to shoulder a fair amount of the blame. The game was over two minutes later when Gavin Davies had all the time in the world in the area to turn, slot home his second, and put Penycae into the semi's, where they will play Nefyn United.

All in all, a thouroughly enjoyable day out at Afoneitha Road was had and both teams contributed to a good game of footy on a very heavy pitch, however the final scoreline does give a true reflection of the match.