Presteigne Reserves will open their Mid Wales League (South) season on Friday, 2 September when they will head to Forest Road to take on Hay St Marys Reserves in a 7.30pm kick off.
To say the Mid Wales League (South) is something of a departure from the norm would be a candidate for understatement of the year, but Roy Simcock and his players will doubtless be keen to make the best of a far-from-ideal job.
Incidentally, this is in no way a dig at the Mid Wales League (South)’s management committee who have moved heaven and earth to come up with something approaching a meaningful competition at this level. In the past I have criticised officials when I felt they deserved it, but not on this occasion – the ‘South’ officials are as much victims of the restructuring as the teams that remain in the league.
I appreciate this more than most having represented the club at three or four Mid Wales League (South) meetings in the build up to the season.
Five clubs will take part in the Mid Wales League (South) this season – Presteigne Reserves, Hay St Marys Reserves, Newcastle, Felindre and St Harmon. In particular, you have to feel for Felindre who have invested heavily in ground improvements only to then find they could be seriously short of home fixtures.
But the plan is that clubs will face each other on a home and away basis prior to the Christmas break – and then again after it. So, this should provide them with 16 league games.
There will also be a knockout competition featuring Mid Wales League (South) clubs and those in the Montgomeryshire Amateur League.
On top of this, there will be a League Cup and assorted club cups, including our own Alfred Sparey Cup, so there should be enough meaningful football for Roy, Bryn and their squad to get their teeth into.
But the FAW leagues committee needs to take a long, hard look at itself over this. It’s not only the Mid Wales League (South) that is struggling for member clubs this season – the picture is mirrored in the Montgomeryshire Amateur League and reportedly at other leagues at a similar level across Wales.
This drive towards pushing clubs up through the leagues coupled with the introduction of the Reserve leagues at Step Three is obviously having a detrimental effect on grass roots football on a range of levels. Already this season we have seen three clubs drop out of the Central Wales South, partly because players don’t want the regular long-distance games and partly because the commitment isn’t there in the way it used to be.
Society is changing and Covid has highlighted the fact that players’ priorities have changed. If they can earn on a Saturday morning, then many of them prefer to do so rather than travel the width of Wales for a league game. You can’t blame lads for that – especially in a cost of living crisis. You don’t need to be a football genius to work out that, later in the season, if your side is two places off the foot of the table, then such trips will have even less appeal.
As for the ‘South’, this used to be a highly competitive league but bureaucracy is threatening to undermine generations of good work done by generations of good football people at clubs across the area.
They simply have to revisit this for the 2023-24 season – member clubs made it clear at recent Mid Wales League (South) meetings that they are prepared to put up with one season with only five clubs in the division – but they are not prepared to do so again next year.
Any organisation is only as strong as its roots – the FAW would do well to remember this. Sacrificing Tier 5 leagues on the altar of a vanity project higher up the pyramid will serve only to kill off village football across Wales. Once it’s gone, it will be very difficult to resurrect it.
Yes, part of the FAW’s remit is to improve overall standards, but surely another equally important part is to ensure that all players have the chance to play in a meaningful league – whatever that standard might be.
Rant over – good luck to Roy, Bryn and their squad when they head to Hay on Friday evening. Here’s hoping they can get off to a flying start.