Croesyceiliog Prog's edition

Good afternoon and welcome to the officials, supporters and players of Croesyceiliog Football Club to the Marston’s Stadium for this second round tie in the FAW Welsh Cup. We’d also like to welcome the three officials who are all from Cardiff, we hope you enjoy the game and have a good afternoon with us.

Well what a couple of weeks, disappointment followed by more disappointment and even more, all for different reasons.  Firstly we had the fiasco at Caerleon where we did ourselves no favours in the way we acted on the field. Having said that I have seen far worse incidents both on TV in high profile games and in past League of Wales and Welsh League fixtures. Those incidents were correctly dealt with by the match day officials and not blown out of all proportion. We now await our fate by the powers above but hopefully they will understand it could have all been avoided and dealt with on the day.

A couple of days later we were dealt a big blow to the club when the three first team coaches resigned with immediate effect. Personally and as a club we were surprised by their decision but fully understand their reasons and respect them. I would like to thank them for what they’ve done for me and the club both as players and coaches. I wish them all the best in their chosen ventures and hopefully they will continue their association with the club in other ways and who knows return one day.

With all that happened that week it was always going to be difficult to return to Caerleon. This was made harder with the withdrawal of a number of senior players for various reasons. The comments made by a member of the Caerleon management team also did not help in the profile of the game.  Although disappointed to go out at the first stage last week I was more than happy that firstly we could field a team to compete with them even though we had fourteen players unavailable, a feat not many sides could achieve.

The way the players conducted themselves under extreme provocation from the opposition was excellent considering the average age that day was 18. More importantly apart from the disjointed start, the application and performance deserved more as we created numerous chances and hit the woodwork 5 times in the second period. We had no luck on our side that day but it did show that the squad is a strong one and after the recent disappointments we are capable of getting back on track and hopefully progress to round three today.

What happens next? Between now and Christmas I will be taking charge of first team affairs and in this period will be looking for whom I think will be the right person/persons to take this club forward and attempt to regain Welsh Premier status. Our league season in still only 4 games old with plenty to play for and I see no reason why we cannot continue to try and achieve our aim of promotion this term.

Enjoy the game

Mark