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Post by welshrover on Oct 30, 2023 12:01:26 GMT
I think 3G has improved the league. There's a very snobbish attitude towards them in the English Football League dating back to Luton/QPR's plastic pitches in the 1980's, but they've come on so much since then. There were a few Cymru Prem pitches that were embarrassing quagmires in the winter. I remember watching a Newtown game on a very wet and muddy weekend, not long after they installed theirs, and thinking what a terrible TV presentation the game would have been had they not recently switched to 4G. The water used to flow down the hill quite well at Welshpool as well. The pitch was quite good at the top end but something of a quagmire at the other end.
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Post by zserty on Oct 30, 2023 13:51:30 GMT
I think 3G has improved the league. There's a very snobbish attitude towards them in the English Football League dating back to Luton/QPR's plastic pitches in the 1980's, but they've come on so much since then. There were a few Cymru Prem pitches that were embarrassing quagmires in the winter. I remember watching a Newtown game on a very wet and muddy weekend, not long after they installed theirs, and thinking what a terrible TV presentation the game would have been had they not recently switched to 4G. I don't know if it is snobbish, having played on both the artificial pitches are a completely different game to one on grass. One which is worse for the players too, i know a few who in the N/S and below refuse to play on it and sit those games out due to increased liklihood of injury. I understand the issue with quality grass pitches, but that surely is just a financial one in not being able to put in adequate drainage and maintain them appropriately.
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Post by jimexotic on Oct 30, 2023 15:54:59 GMT
I've played on 3G for well over 10 years now and I have to say that I don't like it, the ball runs and bounces differently and turning and balancing is different to the point that it feels a little dangerous. Yesterday I let the ball run across my body to turn my man but the ball never slowed down and my feet were kind of gripped into the surface as if it required more force to get away, it's really weird and after nearly 12 years of playing on it I still have never fully got to grips with it.
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Post by allezlesrouges on Oct 30, 2023 20:50:00 GMT
Personally had way more injuries as a result of sh*t pitches in Cardiff than 3G. Always felt glad to be on 3G where you don't come up against random holes/divets in the surface
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Post by robin1864 on Nov 2, 2023 8:09:14 GMT
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Post by rico on Nov 2, 2023 14:13:25 GMT
It really is a mess, and is more bad press for the league at a time where a lot of people just want our domestic game to grow and improve. Feels like we've been waiting for a fresh plan forever now. I know Mooney has referenced that they are hiring someone to take forward this new strategy, whatever that may be, but at the moment it really is stagnant and having clubs docked points year on year, clubs not getting promoted etc, all-round it's just a terrible look.
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Post by derynglas on Nov 2, 2023 14:57:40 GMT
Havent Everton been threatened with a 12 point deduction.Whats the difference. Whats happened to the 115 charges against Man City.I cant keep up. Sheffield Wednesday having trouble paying wages and a tax bill. Clubs going into administration and being docked points most seasons. Yet wev had this constant narrative of crisis since 1992 in Wales every time a club hits trouble.Its exhausting.Yma o hyd,as they say. I take no pleasure in the woes of Pontypridd,although it might ultimately benefit my club and one or 2 others near or in the relegation zone. Hope they pull through anyway. There may be an announcment from the FAW on strategy in January.They may be waiting to see if we qualify for the Euros to see what funding theyv got. Thing are supposed to start changing next season. Im not rushing to judgement,well see what happens. Either way,the problems we face are only problems that happen in all proffessional and semi pro team sports all over the world.Look at the WRU and the regions for a start.Shambles.
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Post by paj on Nov 2, 2023 17:36:42 GMT
Agree with comments from derynglass although I don’t think the new structure will be in place by next season unfortunately.
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Post by zserty on Nov 5, 2023 12:21:14 GMT
Agree with comments from derynglass although I don’t think the new structure will be in place by next season unfortunately. A lot of talk about consultations, future plans etc. Remains to be seen whether they will be impactful and in a positive way. Will wait and see what is announced, but I'm not holding my breath.
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Post by joeyvimsantethepoet on Nov 6, 2023 22:38:17 GMT
I think Welsh Cymru Premier sides would benefit, if the league allowed competitive cross-border trophies with teams from other countries on top of domestic and European football. I do not support merging the leagues of Great Britain. I want 3 strong leagues in Great Britain, not just one. My idea for Wales and Scotland is to have extra cross border cups on top of domestic and European football. Ideas could include 1, A Celtic Nations Club Cup with all Scottish Premiership sides, plus club sides from Wales, Ireland, Brittany, the Isle of Man, and Cornwall. 2, Enter all Welsh Cymru Premier sides and selected Scottish, Irish, French, Faroe Island sides in the English non-league FA Trophy. 3, Enter all Scottish Premier sides not in Europe, plus selected Welsh Cymru Premier, Irish, Cornish, Faroes, French, Belgian, and Dutch sides in the English Football League Trophy. That is the trophy for English 3rd and 4th tier sides. 4, Have a British German Cup with Welsh, Scottish, English, and Northern Irish sides versus German sides. 5, A MLS British French Trophy. Have sides from Scotland, Wales, Ireland, the MLS and France play a cross border trophy. 6, Have a British French Youth Cup of sides from Scotland, Wales, France, England, Ireland, and the Channel Islands of the leading youth sides.
The Scots already allow Northern Irish and Welsh sides in the Scottish Challenge Cup, so I think that UEFA would allow cross border trophies. Travel would be no more an issue than it is for South African sides in the URC.
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Post by joeyvimsantethepoet on Nov 6, 2023 22:39:24 GMT
I hope Holywell Town reach the Cymru Premier.
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Post by iantov on Dec 12, 2023 15:32:32 GMT
Potential 141 point deduction...!!! Pontypridd in dire straights then
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Post by zserty on Dec 12, 2023 23:10:53 GMT
Potential 141 point deduction...!!! Pontypridd in dire straights then Not quite, it looks from the outside an awfully corrupt decision which is solely benefitting Pontypridd. Only a 6pt deduction this season with the rest suspended unless there are further breaches. All lot of other clubs can only dream of having such a favourable outcome after being found guilty on 18 charges.
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Post by garynysmon on Feb 2, 2024 10:16:26 GMT
In terms of youth development I don't think that playing against men's teams in the Welsh League Cup hurt Swansea or Cardiff's academies at all, and they will most certainly benefit from the experience.
Personally I'd like to see the experiment continue and to invite Wrexham and Newport representative sides too going forward (although I wouldn't expect the latter two to progress much).
There are some improvements I'd like to see implemented though:
* The 'Anglo' teams to always be drawn away. It was a bit disappointing to see Swansea play their home games at their training ground. Might as well give the smaller club some sort of a payday if you're not going to make an effort.
* Did Swansea/Cardiff have to so explicitly push these games as academy fixtures? I get it, they were never going to play their first XI's but surely you can play a mix of fringe players and U23's rather than make it clear to all and sundry that these are academy fixtures and totally divorced from the main club, only pushing on the academy social media pages etc.
* A bit more flexibility in terms of fixture scheduling and avoiding first team fixtures to maximise attendance.
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Post by derynglas on Feb 3, 2024 21:56:57 GMT
The New Saints have reached the final of the Scottish Challenge cup. After winning 1-0 at Scottish league 1 leaders and unbeaten Falkirk,as S4C viewers have just seen. TNS seemed to have around 40 or 50 fans there ,not a bad effort really for a trip of that distance,despite some negative comments on twitter! All in all a good effort all round and a good day for the Cymru Premier,it has to be said. Face Airdrie in the final.
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Post by aberbeeg on Feb 3, 2024 22:30:48 GMT
Great effort from TNS and credit where credit is due hopefully they can win the cup and Do Wales proud, but actually “boasting” that our leading club took 40 fans away to Scotland kinda sums up just how far away our League is.
CCFC took 2300 and were refused more from Watford. Wrexham took 800 to Salford ( granted both games were closer than Scotland)
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Post by jimbo82 on Feb 4, 2024 11:35:44 GMT
Great effort from TNS and credit where credit is due hopefully they can win the cup and Do Wales proud, but actually “boasting” that our leading club took 40 fans away to Scotland kinda sums up just how far away our League is. CCFC took 2300 and were refused more from Watford. Wrexham took 800 to Salford ( granted both games were closer than Scotland) It's hard to be 100% accurate but I did a headcount from the TV images and it looked like approx 120-150, which I think is pretty impressive for an away trip to Scotland for any club at Cymru Premier level. I think for home games TNS usually get less than 500. I was at Carlisle v Newport last season and there were about 100 fans in the away end, half of whom were Partick Thistle fans whose match in Dundee had been called off!
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Post by iantov on Feb 6, 2024 3:03:02 GMT
Apparently, there was crowd trouble there. Falkirk FC have apologised to TNS
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rncfc
the carls
Posts: 85
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Post by rncfc on Feb 7, 2024 16:34:37 GMT
I think 3G has improved the league. There's a very snobbish attitude towards them in the English Football League dating back to Luton/QPR's plastic pitches in the 1980's, but they've come on so much since then. There were a few Cymru Prem pitches that were embarrassing quagmires in the winter. I remember watching a Newtown game on a very wet and muddy weekend, not long after they installed theirs, and thinking what a terrible TV presentation the game would have been had they not recently switched to 4G. I don't know if it is snobbish, having played on both the artificial pitches are a completely different game to one on grass. One which is worse for the players too, i know a few who in the N/S and below refuse to play on it and sit those games out due to increased liklihood of injury. I understand the issue with quality grass pitches, but that surely is just a financial one in not being able to put in adequate drainage and maintain them appropriately. I agree entirely with this. 4G pitches just make your body ache differently afterwards. Back and knees come under far more strain. As for embarrassing quagmires, I don't think there could be anything more embarrassing than the state of TNS's plastic pitch.
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Post by conwy10 on Feb 7, 2024 20:27:37 GMT
I don't know if it is snobbish, having played on both the artificial pitches are a completely different game to one on grass. One which is worse for the players too, i know a few who in the N/S and below refuse to play on it and sit those games out due to increased liklihood of injury. I understand the issue with quality grass pitches, but that surely is just a financial one in not being able to put in adequate drainage and maintain them appropriately. I agree entirely with this. 4G pitches just make your body ache differently afterwards. Back and knees come under far more strain. As for embarrassing quagmires, I don't think there could be anything more embarrassing than the state of TNS's plastic pitch. I don't think Welsh football could exist as we know it without 4G. All the academy and youth teams play on them, they hire them out for others to train. Even the clubs who don't play on them will definitely train on one for most of the year. 4G are a huge part of Welsh football.
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Post by aberbeeg on Feb 13, 2024 8:52:46 GMT
So is the league improving? Stagnating? Going backwards? Granted I’m not an avid fan but from the average fans view I’d say it’s stagnating ( despite lots of promises of improvements)
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Post by vvm on Feb 13, 2024 9:52:10 GMT
It feels like stagnating maybe. TNS 17 points clear and on a crazy winning streak (30+ games I think), think they're still on for a quadruple which includes that Scottish cup they're in. If they achieved all that and still made no progress in European qualifying then I honestly can't see us ever getting a team into the group stages.
Just looking at the attendances for the top 4 and all looking pretty bleak for the last few games. Haverfordwest seemed like a breath of fresh air when they played their European qualifiers but seem to have gone backwards this season.
Admittedly I'm very much uninformed on the matter but from the outside looking in, doesn't seem like a whole lot to get excited about currently.
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Post by paj on Feb 13, 2024 11:02:38 GMT
The league needs the restructure and investment that the FAW have been promising for some time now. Doesn’t seem to be a sense of urgency on either unfortunately and yes stagnating is the right term I think.
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rncfc
the carls
Posts: 85
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Post by rncfc on Feb 13, 2024 13:08:16 GMT
This is my twopence worth on it, which can perhaps be taken with a pinch of salt given who I support, but it will never get any better than it currently is in my opinion, without radical change. Wales is a small nation, and it's biggest clubs don't play in the competition. It's probably about as popular now as you could ever hope for it to be given the teams which are in it.
Left-field ideas which I think could make it work better:
1) For the WPL to become a feeder to the Conference system in England, although obviously that is littered with potential issues. Our WPL clubs are mainly from small towns (or even villages), if they're going to get bigger and better they need to have something to aim towards other than losing in Europe every summer.
2) Regionalisation.
3) Create a Celtic league with Ireland and Scotland, and follow the same principle as point 1 above.
4) For ALL England-based clubs to join it. However, I think that would be counterproductive (initially at least), as the "big 4" would simply become little fish as well initially, aside from when they played each other.
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Post by zserty on Feb 13, 2024 15:32:51 GMT
This is my twopence worth on it, which can perhaps be taken with a pinch of salt given who I support, but it will never get any better than it currently is in my opinion, without radical change. Wales is a small nation, and it's biggest clubs don't play in the competition. It's probably about as popular now as you could ever hope for it to be given the teams which are in it. Left-field ideas which I think could make it work better: 1) For the WPL to become a feeder to the Conference system in England, although obviously that is littered with potential issues. Our WPL clubs are mainly from small towns (or even villages), if they're going to get bigger and better they need to have something to aim towards other than losing in Europe every summer. 2) Regionalisation. 3) Create a Celtic league with Ireland and Scotland, and follow the same principle as point 1 above. 4) For ALL England-based clubs to join it. However, I think that would be counterproductive (initially at least), as the "big 4" would simply become little fish as well initially, aside from when they played each other. Only one of those is viable and would be wanted by the fans. A top tier with more teams where the first stage is based on geography, North and South. This would increase local games and their support and hopefully add more interest to the playoff end of the season. Following a Cymru south team currently i can say the N/S leagues are so much better than the Prem, even if only in terms of the local fixtures and competitiveness.
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Post by aberbeeg on Feb 14, 2024 10:24:02 GMT
I think the fact that the FAW don’t seem in any rush to change much kinda leads me to believe that it’s about as good as it’s going to get ( as a previous poster said).
Teams with little support and not much history are always going to find it hard to attract more fans/sponsorship/better players etc.
So yes I think the league is stagnating at best possibly going backwards.
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Post by paj on Feb 14, 2024 11:45:08 GMT
A 16 team league with Merthyr Bangor Rhyl Carmarthen and Llanelli in and one of the poorly supported teams like Cardiff Met: C Quay or Pontypridd out would look very different. Or a 14 team league with all 3 out.
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Post by zserty on Feb 15, 2024 11:59:51 GMT
A 16 team league with Merthyr Bangor Rhyl Carmarthen and Llanelli in and one of the poorly supported teams like Cardiff Met: C Quay or Pontypridd out would look very different. Or a 14 team league with all 3 out. Being in the Prem has a negative impact on attendances unfortunately, Barry this year have had less through the gates than last season in Cymru south. What is the incentive to go up to the Prem also? as costs drastically go up and the income doesnt. Mooney constantly talks of this major change, yet we are still waiting for even a sniff of something positive. One thing that would be an easy change and would be good for the leagues would be a playoff for promotion between 2nd and 3rd in both N/S. Winner of the 4 team playoff plays 3rd from bottom in the Prem.
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Post by surge on Feb 15, 2024 12:29:32 GMT
Conference and League 2 sides will either be interested in players or not based on performances in the Cymru Premier and how those who move over perform.
But I know one Dundee and Burnley are in discussions about official relationship (some headlines suggesting Dundee becoming a feeder club) and Cardiff City etc. have used loans to Cymru Premier sides before.
Regionalisation akin to NFL may be an idea. Until funding can be found for travel improvements throighout Wales, it's not always easy to get around and would be easier if the top league/bottom league split was point of end to regionalisation so momentum developed at start of season.
Barry in Cymru South versus Cymru Premier is more complex story than poster above is suggesting. Manager walking away to become GK coach of Pontypridd United late in August of 2023 and several club bar staff walking out mid-sesson suggests big changes were made before accounting for pros/cons of promotion.
I don't know what the answer is. Credit to those doing good things at Cymru Premier level and working towards improving things.
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Post by zserty on Feb 15, 2024 13:40:34 GMT
Barry in Cymru South versus Cymru Premier is more complex story than poster above is suggesting. Manager walking away to become GK coach of Pontypridd United late in August of 2023 and several club bar staff walking out mid-sesson suggests big changes were made before accounting for pros/cons of promotion.
I don't know what the answer is. Credit to those doing good things at Cymru Premier level and working towards improving things. [/quote]
Certainly there are other factors, but it is similar across most teams that go up. Rarely does a promotion equal a rise in attendance that would be considered significant. Colwyn Bay 720 to 749 for example. That shows that the Premier is clearly not something that is a successful product. May not all be great ideas but i would suggest: 16 team league with 3 relegation spots. N/S playoffs for the 3rd promotion spot. If possible a first half of the season split into North and South, combining for a champ/relegation phase. (Not sure on Uefa logistics) Even considering moving to summer fixtures which would minimise the clashes with the English league teams.
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