Pontardawe programme

A WORD FROM OUR CHAIRMAN Good afternoon and welcome to Coed Gwilym Park for today’s Ardal Southern league fixture against Pontardawe Town. I’d like to extend a warm welcome to their players, coaches, committee, and supporters. We are looking forward to testing ourselves this afternoon against the favourites for the title and a high quality outfit who have plenty of Welsh League pedigree.

It was nice for us to have a break from the action and enjoy Christmas with our nearest and dearest. It has been a difficult first half of the season as the squad has had to adapt quickly to lots of change and with several players joining in the last month I hope we can start to see a settled squad after a lot of hard work behind the scenes. I have no doubt though that Damo and the lads will turn things around quickly and that we will soon be up that league table. Last week saw us return to action away at top of the table Morriston and to come away with a narrow 2-1 defeat was unfortunate. However, the signs of a turn in fortune were there and hopefully that can start today.

Over the last month we have held our annual Christmas raffle which is a great fundraiser for the club and benefits all sections. Tnank you to all those who supported by buying a ticket or providing a prize. We look forward to a few more fundraising events coming over the next few months so look out on our social media platforms for details.

It just leaves me to say good luck to all our sides in 2026 but specifically our first team who fly the flag at the third tier of Welsh Football, something we can easily forget. Enjoy the ride, I’m sure there’ll be bumps in the road, but know we got the players, coaches and supporters to do something special this year across all our age groups.

Best wishes.

Come on Clyd Dunno

Meet the squad

Phil Aitchison Sponsorship Available

Callum Andrews J&L SCAFFOLDING

Callum Howard EXPRESS WINDOWS

Cameron Jones Love-A-Label

Joe Farthing Steve Farthing Roofing

Leo Jones The Strength Hub

Thomas Havard Sponsorship Available

Nathan Jones Sponsorship Available

Chakkri Phromchanta Sponsorship Available

Arwel Rees Sponsorship Available

Jacob

Callum Leworthy Gavin Challacombe Ryan Thomas

Daniel Swinford

ARE ALL PROUDLY SPONSORED BY

Jacob Maunder Perago

Evan Daley Perago

Cai Thomas Sponsorship Available

Danny Devey Sponsorship available

Ben Scannell Sponsorship available

Jac Sudale Sponsorship available

Alex Aldrich Sponsorship available

A BRIEF HISTORY

Clwb Pêl-droed Clydach Football Club was established in 2021 through the merger of two long-standing Clydach clubs – FC Clydach and Clydach Cricket Football Club.

While previously successful, both clubs realised that there would be much to be gained from uniting and pooling resources. Through forming one club, the village of Clydach and the surrounding area now has a club that provides opportunities for teams from the age of 5 through to senior teams, for boys and girls.

In our first season, the club secured Platinum FAW Club Accreditation which we have maintained since and experienced a great deal of success at junior and senior levels, including the promotion of our men’s first team to the West Wales Premier League and winning the 2021-22 Premier Division Cup in just our first season.

Through the hard work of over 60 coaches, officers and volunteers, the club has continued to make progress both on and off the field.

The minis and junior section has over 350 members including over 110 girls. We have over 50 youth team players registered and just short of 100 registered senior players.

In 2023-2024, our 1st Team gained promotion to the Ardal Southern Leagues and will again play in the South West section in 2025-2026.

We will also have two Senior Ladies team competing in 2025-2026 season.

We are also a provider of the FAW Huddle Programme to encourage girls into football

MANAGER’S CORNER Hello and welcome to Coed Gwilym for this league encounter against Pontardawe Town. Today will, I’m sure, be an entertaining game as the previous occasion back in late September was. Pontardawe are one of the more established clubs at Welsh League level and it’s wonderful for us to host these games as contemporaries. Something we should never get complacent about. Christian and his side like to play the right way and I’m sure we will have to be right at it to get something today.

We enter the second half of the season wanting and needing an upturn in results.

Performances haven’t been good enough in the weeks leading up to Christmas and collectively as a group we want to address this and put it right. Last week against top of the table Morriston was certainly a step in the right direction.

Application and effort was excellent and we probably created the better chances.

However it’s what you do in both boxes that matters and we need to make sure we are on point in those areas today. We’ve assembled a very good squad on paper but football isn’t played on paper and we need to ensure our effort levels match our potential. If we do that then I believe there’s exciting times ahead. 2025 was an unbelievable year as we assured our status against all the odds and we hope to do the same again this year. I honestly believe that if we can do that then we are set up as a club to really go places.

I know all areas of the club continue to grow and our mini, junior and senior sections go from strength to strength.

I’d like to wish all our volunteers, sponsors, supporters and all associated with the club a happy new year and hope 2026 brings us all the rewards our hard work deserves.

Enjoy the game God Bless Damo

C. Meirion Hopkin & Son

Independent Family Funeral Directors ____________________________________________________

01792 844513

96 High Street, Clydach, Swansea SA6 5LN www.funeraldirectorsclydach.co.uk