Penydarren Park: Merthyr’s Dated But Modern Home
You often hear football fans mention how sanitised the matchday experience is now compared to 20/30 years ago, how all-seater stadiums have polluted atmosphere and the game itself has sold its soul to corporate big wigs whose only care is the monetisation gained through the beautiful game, rather than the game itself. I’ve got no reference point to those days gone by but I hear often from those a few years older than myself who often say “I’d go back to Ninian Park over the CCS any day” or “The Vetch isn’t a patch on The Liberty.” In both Cardiff and Swansea’s case, moves from their much loved but dated stadiums were needed to ensure the club’s survival in the modern football climate, could you imagine the Premier League allowing the Bob Bank and the North Bank to house fans? Of course not. There aren’t many old school stadiums left because of this, especially in Wales. But there is still one, one that I finally made a trip to and one I think you all need to see in the flesh whilst you still can.
The land which Penydarren Park lies on was once a Roman military settlement, housing a fort that held up to 500 soldiers. Plenty of Roman artefacts and remains of the site were found during the Industrial Revolution as Merthyr’s first mansion was built to house the towns wealthy ironmasters. 1908 was the year when the ground first became home of Merthyr Town Football Club and this has remained mostly the same ever since, barring some seasons when the town didn’t have a club to play. Wikipedia claims the capacity of the ground is 8000 (1500 seated), although there was nowhere near that at the pre-season friendly I attended against Bristol Manor Farm, I can imagine a thousand or thereabout packing the seats and terraces.
The main entrance of Penydarren Park looks far from dated, a modern entrance and clubhouse are in place of the iconic Strikers bar. A very old tunnel with a yellow rusted security gate and lettering above straight from the 1920s leads you out into the seated grandstand. There is a block of red seats in there that were given to Merthyr from Championship side Brentford that were ripped from their former home Griffin Park. The bar is built into the grandstand, a massive modern space with great views onto the pitch and loads of room on the inside for events like functions, meet and greets etc. There are loads of yellow security gates around the ground which look to have been untouched since the 1980s, some will call it scruffy, I reckon it’s charming. To the right of the grandstand is an uncovered terrace about ten steps high. Even on a dry day, given the location of the ground on top of a hill in the South Wales Valleys, you’re still braving the elements whilst stood there but it offers a hell of a view to the lush scenery surrounding you. This leads on to a covered terrace that houses Merthyr’s louder fans and also away fans tucked into the corner. This terrace is dubbed as the “Wank Bank” I was told by an older Martyr who also told me about the times where Atalanta, Red Star Belgrade and Celtic visited Merthyr Tydfil. (More on that in a bit). The opposite end of the ground to the uncovered terrace is a covered all-seater stand, with the left corner being absolutely plastered in left-wing, Welsh nationalistic, socialist and anti-fascist stickers. The walls here feature photos and words on the club’s famous fanzine “Dial M For Merthyr” created by a legend amongst Welsh football fans, Mark Evans. Dial M along with Bluebird Jones and others up and down the country helped combat racism, homophobia and fascism on the terraces and gave football fans a much more positive image in times where hooliganism was rife and the media hounded working-class football fans week after week.
I got chatting on the terraces with a Merthyr fan, complementing the ground itself at first but that turned into some tales of mega clubs coming to the Valleys to face the Martyrs. It is undeniable that some parts of the ground haven’t changed since the days where The Smiths were in the charts and you could still shop at Woolworths, but a lot of those changes came after Merthyr’s 1987 Welsh Cup win, booking them a slot in the now defunct European Cup Winners Cup against Italian outfit Atalanta. A capacity 8000 strong crowd saw Merthyr go on to get a massive 2–1 win, the clubs greatest moment and arguably the best result any Welsh side has got playing in Europe. An away loss didn’t dampen the relationship between the two clubs, forming somewhat of a friendship (ie Celtic and St Pauli or Newport County and Carl Zeiss Jena). Serbian powerhouse Red Star Belgrade played out a 1–1 draw in a pre-season game around the same period. Celtic also drew 1–1 there in the 1990s. Maybe days like those will one day return to the loyal fans who’ve seen it all at the ground, there aren’t many grounds in which both some of Scotland and Serbia’s finest offerings couldn’t get a result but Llanelli leave 9–1 winners I don’t think.
As life gets back to normality more and more after the rollercoaster of the last year and a half, try and get up the park for a game. For as dated as it is, it would have looked totally passable as a Football League stadium at the start of this millennium. York City’s former stomping ground Bootham Crescent is one of many grounds that have finally seen its final game, the final view from the terraces for generations of fans, years of tradition and character crumbling as the club moves to a modern all-seater away from the heart of its community. There aren’t many like Penydarren Park, surrounded by houses and trees, something far from the grounds that fit into the Taylor Report, but it’s far from a crumbling shithole. UEFA recognised it as their Grassroots club and ground of the year in 2015, its modern amenities mean Merthyr are well and truly in this century but with a mixture of the things that so many football fans miss from their matchdays. Terrace culture is still alive and kicking for Merthyr Town, and long may that continue. As they say up that neck of the woods,
Tidy Son.
