NEWTOWN WALES

Excited by the Play Offs, I venture into Wales for a bit of inspiration. I could give you the low down on Fulham (West London) v Cardiff (South Wales) or Brentford (West London) v Swansea (South Wales) known as the M4 Derbies?? or perhaps pursued Newport County of the EFL League 2 or Wrexham from the National League, but I went for Newtown AFC, the oldest football club in the country, from Powys.
Powys is best known for mountains, caves, railways, lakes, walks and castles; not even much about rugby. Newtown, SEE MAO, is located near that "sticky out bit" on the eastern boundary of Wales, five miles from the England border. It is the biggest town in Powys (pop:130,000), weighing in around 12,000.


Founded in 1875 the Nowtown AFC was originally known as Newton White Stars and were founder members of the Football Association of Wales. The club eventually joined with Newton Excelsior to form Newtown AFC.  The club played in the first ever Welsh Cup match on October 13th 1877 and won the Welsh FA Cup in 1879 and were runners up in 1881.

Newton AFC then won the cup in 1895 and lay low until 1955, when they won the Welsh Amateur Cup. By then their ground, Latham Park had been upgraded and hold around 5,000, hosting Welsh Youth international matches, Women's internationals and the like.

Having had various league and cup successes in the Central Wales and Mid Wales Leagues, Newtown FC joined the Northern Premier League and then became founder members of the Konica League of Wales. There have also been Welsh FA Cup victories regularly between 1878-97 and most recently in 2014-15. Overall the club has won the Welsh Cup 2 times and been runners up 4 times.

They also have lifted the Arthur Barritt Cup in 1986-7. Arthur may be the same Arthur who managed Blackburn Rovers between 1931-6?! Who knows?

There have been ventures into Europe notably in 1995 to 1999 UEFA Cup Ties in Latvia v Skonto from Riga and Wisla from Poland. More recently there was excitement with a 4-2 aggregate win against Valletta, Malta and a defeat in Copenhagen. Their Ladies play in the Welsh Cup, winning it in 2004.

NOT to be confused with Newton Heath (the original Manchester United)......

and Newton Abbott from the Toolstation, South-west Peninsular League.