STATS OF THE PAST
Extract from EV v Cardiff programme 08/12/18
In the summer, when we are at a loose end, delving into rugby history passes the time quite pleasantly. It keeps the mind tuned to the correct channel, it avoids physical pursuits like weeding and watering dandelions and it provides surprises. Last summer I discovered we first played Cardiff in 1927 and won 22-13, two seasons later beat them again, 8-6 and that Cardiff fielded two 1st XVs.
There were complaints from the rugger chaps and after a game at Northampton on April 20th 1927 which the Saints won 18-6 they described their visitors as being “weak, inexperienced and unrepresentative.” On the same afternoon we beat Cardiff 22-13 at Ebbw Vale which poses a question, was the team we played the strong, experienced and representative one?
But enough of ancient history, the results of the eight Ebbw-Cardiff games from 2014/15 when we returned to the Premiership are more interesting, we won seven and the one defeat was last season at home 21-23. When we were ring-fenced we had two good Cup runs reaching the semi-final in 2011/12 and in the next season after beating Newbridge 27-5 won a thriller at Cardiff 16-11 and lost at home to Pontypridd 22-23 through a last minute touchline conversion. As Neil Edwards our coach at the time said, “We are a Premier Division club that happens to be playing in the First Division.”
Several of the games were played under lights but before floodlights were installed on our ground the team trained on the Grammar School field with only the street lights on Beaufort Road to save them from bumping into one another. On January 7th 1961 the Bridgend Field as it was then known was illuminated for the first time for a game with Cardiff which we won 10-3 and a new era of club rugby began, more fixtures and the Floodlit Alliance try-only competition. A month earlier our greatest No. 8 David Nash won his first Welsh cap, one of six making their debuts against Malan’s Springboks who had beaten Ebbw Vale/Abertillery 3-0 earlier in their tour.
On December 3rd 1961 the heavens opened over Cardiff Arms Park and the international with South Africa was played on mud and under stinging icy rain and a gale force wind. The Boks won 3-0 causing John Billot to write “by the end it was just misery.” Next day a photograph of a rowing boat on the Arms Park was taken by which time those who had gone to the game were slowly recovering from pneumonia and hangovers.
There were no floodlights in the Arms Park so when Cardiff decided to stage an evening game in March 1961 it was under the Ninian Park lights against Bristol who surprisingly won. In the late 50s and early 60s Ebbw Vale had a massive pack which was described as a cross between a herd of rogue elephants and entries for the Smithfield Show. In it was Malcolm Collins who joined us from Cardiff and was captain in the 1958/9 season. Born in a house overlooking Rodney Parade he nevertheless became a Cardiff legend and in one season played in fifty out of fifty-two fixtures. A ganger platelayer for the GWR he became manager of the railway depot in Canton, the one in Cardiff not China, a big job for a big man and one both of our clubs regard as one of their best.

QUINS AND CUPS
Extracted from EV v Carmarthen programme 23/11/18
It’s not Cup day but when the Quins come to town memories of our first meeting come to mind for it was the Cup that brought us together. It was a competition revived in 1971/2 but not a new experience for Carmarthen who played in the first ever Welsh Cup in 1877. It was inaugurated by the South Wales Football Union the predecessor of the WRU but a Challenge Cup competition that called for a guinea entry fee was short lived despite a prize to the winners of fifty guineaswhich was a lot of money in those days.
In the first round there was no home advantage so Carmarthen had to travel by railway or horse and trap to Neath to play Cardiff who were not notified of the game until the evening before so only half a dozen of their 1st XV turned up.Carmarthen won and on the same day, December 27th,Carmarthen Grammar School played Lampeter College in the same competition.
We may be amused at those strange old days but every player, official and club activist was unpaid and it was thanks to them that the national game was created. The original Cup however did not give the game a good name, it was rougher than anything witnessed before or since and had a short life to the delight of local hospitals and preachers who condemned rugby as sinful.
Our first game in the new Cup competition was at VardreUnited in November 1971 on a Wednesday afternoon, a difficult time for players who worked for a living. We won40-10 and as it was the first Cup tie of the modern era all the media were there, some expecting a repeat of the 19th century roughhouse version. It wasn’t amicable but nothing to hinder the Cup’s future.
Our first five seasons in the 21st century are best forgotten but the Cup brightened us up in 2000/1 when we won 27-5 at Llandovery, 32-25 at Carmarthen Quins and 38-6 at Caerphilly which led us to the Millenium Stadium where we lost to Newport 19-12. It was a thriller that kept everyone in their seats to the final whistle, unusual at the ground where so-called supporters when not waving to the cameras go back and forth to the bar and then the Merched or more often the Dynion.
The Ebbw Vale team that started that day against a Newport side full of internationals and led by Gary Teichmann, 43 times capped for South Africa, was Paul Matthews; Alan Harris, Rhys Shorney, Jonathan Hawker, Andrew Wagstaff; Jason Strange, Richard Smith; Iestyn Thomas, Leighton Phillips, Damien Penisini; Chay Billen, Deiniol Jones; Nathan Budgett, Mark Jones (capt), Gareth Green.
We were in the semi-final again in 2001/2 when we lost to Llanelli 20-41 and the following season re-visited Carmarthen for another Cup tie and won 13-8. The Quins side had beaten Aberavon 13-12 in the previous round and it took a rolling maul and a try by replacement flanker Paul Williams in extra time to see us through. This season our Cup begins in January – at Carmarthen.
Club news take up little room in the papers these days and we miss The Rugby Annual for Wales which reported every game at all levels as well as goings on off the field. In the 2003/04 edition our Cup game at Carmarthen was covered as well as the story that ‘small’ clubs had rebelled when told of the Moffett plan to cut funding. We also read of a ‘mutiny’ by the Welsh team over pay and insurance which they declared hours before boarding the coach to take them to Heathrow and New Zealand. To cap it all England won the 6 Nations and Wales got the Wooden Spoon but apart from all that everything in the Welsh garden was lovely.

SMALL TOWNS ARE SMILE TOWNS
Extract from Ebbw Vale v Newport programme 16 November 2018
Rugby journalist Peter Jackson, who makes too few appearances on BBC Wales, once wrote that Deri “was the village that beat the All-Blacks” which might have raised a few eyebrows in NZ but not in Deri because they were chuffed that two of their sons had played crucial roles in the drama that unfolded at Rodney Parade on what was later called ‘Wonderful Wednesday,’ October 30th 1963. The Newport side was captained by Brian Price on his birthday and the drop goal that won the game was popped over by John ‘Dick’ Uzzell both of them from Deri one of many small towns and villages that brought smiles to the faces of even inscrutable Welsh selectors. Uzzell was in the right position to drop a goal because the little Newport outside-half put him there, which was not unusual for Blaina born Dai Watkins, formerly Cwmcelyn Youth, who always did the right thing at the right time.
Oakdale is another Gwent club that has produced quality in great quantity among them scrum-half Richard Smith who began his adventurous career there and went on to play for nine other clubs throughout the United Kingdom one of them Ebbw Vale where he vied for No. 9 shirt with Guy Easterby who played 28 times for Ireland. In a Welsh/Scottish League game against Newport on February 12th 2000 Guy started for us, Richard was on the bench and another Steelman David Llewellyn of Trefil was No. 9 for a Newport team that included internationals Shane Howarth and Gary Teichman. Josh Taumalolo was man of the match scoring two tries and creating another.
Richard needed a rest, a week before he had replaced Howley for Wales against France and spent all of five minutes on the pitch. After the Newport game which we won 29-17 Guy Easterby met his brother Simon then of Llanelli and they flew to Dublin to join the Irish squad having been selected by the coach – Warren Gatland.
Gareth Howls who should have played for Wales but had to be satisfied with four Wales B caps and selection as a Barbarian was born and brought up in Oakdale, a prop opponents and referees were always wary of. He would have regarded another Oakdale product, Mathew Williams, as the type of player every side should have. Chunky, as he was better known, retired at the end of last season and will always be remembered for his skills, loyalty and the pleasure of his company.
When Nat ‘King’ Cole sang “Small Towns Are Smile Towns” he hadn’t heard of Deri, Blaina, Brynmawr and Oakdale, small towns that produced great rugby players who in turn brought smiles to their families and those who coached them. Players like Brian Price, John Uzzell, David Watkins, Gareth Howls, Mathew Williams and many more. The talent is still there, so are the clubs but they must be encouraged and supported by those whose duty it is to preserve Welsh rugby.
In pre-League times we played Bath under lights on a Friday so the heading in the programme was inevitably “Friday night is Bath night.” Now autumn internationals as well as the Six Nations take over Saturdays beginning tomorrow when Tonga play Wales. We who remember Josh, Kuli and others who graced our ground have an affection for Tongan players who like others from the South Pacific brightened up the game in South Wales. Tonga has a population of just over 100,000 but has produced some of the world’s greatest players including Jonah Lomu, Taulupe Faletau and the Vunipola brothers. A small country but one that brings smiles to world rugby.

EUROPEAN ODYSSEY
Extract from match programme Ebbw Vale v Merthyr 26 October 2018
Like Hoovers in its heyday Merthyr swept all before them last season but we brushed away a poor start to finish a respectable sixth out of the sixteen clubs in the Premiership. Two defeats to Merthyr late in the season gave some indication of how the team had changed, 6-10 in the Cup semi-final and 14-17 in the League. We greeted the New Year with optimism and have not been disappointed.
This time the fixtures are straightforward, home and away with the Cup adding some variety but games outside Wales are gone for ever, the regions have taken over and their commitment has extended to South Africa which would pose a problem even for our Addicts. Supporting the team in France was easy but running a bus to Cape Town and staying overnight would be difficult.
One memorable season when we changed pounds sterling into what seemed Monopoly money was 1999/2000. Apart from playing home and away to every Merit Table club and annual games against the best in England we got doubles over Glasgow, Connacht, Toulon and Bucharest and won one and lost one to Edinburgh but it ended in disappointment in what the media described as “cruel fashion” when we lost 20-21 at home to London Irish in a Euro quarter-final.
A drop goal by Shaun Connor would have taken us to the semis if French referee Joel Jutge had not ruled otherwise which caused the packed terrace to re-consider the Entente Cordiale. We scored tries, the Irish kicked goals and a chap called Cunningham who we had never seen before and hoped never to see again, along with mon ami Joel, kicked his seventh penalty goal.
Our team that day was Jonathan Williams; Rhys Shorney, Siua Taumalolo, Jonathan Hawker, Andrew Wagstaff; Jason Strange, Guy Easterby; Alun Phillips, Leighton Phillips, Andrew Metcalfe; Glyn Llewellyn, Kuli Faletau; Nathan Budgett, Mark Jones (capt), Paul Williams. Replacements were Shaun Connor for Jason Strange, Richard Smith for Guy Easterby, Iestyn Thomas for Alun Phillips, Lee Banks for Glyn Llewellyn.
A week later we played at the Millenium Stadium for the first time, a semi-final of the WRU Challenge Cup against Llanelli who started with a bang and we were 26-0 down early in what looked to be a one-sided game. Skipper Mark Jones demanded a response and by scoring three tries, two by Rhys Shorney, in fifteen minutes we were back in the game but it was too late, Llanelli won 38-26.
Our longest journeys in the 80s were to North America but we almost went to the Far East in 1982 with games in Singapore and Bangkok planned. Instead we went to Canada which was a little nearer, but next Monday the east will come to Ebbw Vale when Dragons A play Hong Kong (also known as Dragons), the first side from Asia to play here whose head coach is a Dr. Leigh Jones. Doctor Who? No, not him – or her – but our former coach who went east, helped Eddie Jones’s Japan to beat the ‘Boks and is highly regarded in that part of the rugby world.
When we hosted San Francisco in 1972 we were invited to play a return game there. Being courteous we reluctantly agreed, went there a year later and returned in 1980. That adventurous flame still flutters but if we are invited to Hong Kong decline politely, the man who treasures our money says the team can’t go farther east than Newport.

AUTUMN AND THE AUSSIES
Extract from programme of Ebbw Vale v Cross Keys 13 October 2018