Hiraeth is a Welsh word meaning a homesickness for a home to which you cannot return, or a home which maybe never was. I’m not sure it has an antonym, but if it did, that is what I experienced on the last Saturday in August, 2021. Standing in uncharacteristic sunshine, looking over Blaenau Ffestiniog Amateurs’s Cae Clyd ground towards the mountains of Eryri – including the peak of Moelwyn Mawr which I’d been stood on just three hours earlier – I felt a pleasingly strong sense of finally returning home to a place I’d never previously lived.
After nine years of living in South East London I moved to North Wales last summer. It was a move that put me near family, and enabled me to put down roots in a way that London never would. And, for the benefit of those of you who enjoy these annual recaps in particular, it has opened up a world of new football grounds to enjoy, and experience. Much as I grew to love Lewisham, football played against backdrops of mountains and sea, is a real joy after trying to find visual stimulus from the backend of Dulwich Hamlet’s giant Sainsburys or the suburban nothingness that surrounds Cray Valley Paper Mills.
One up shot of this is, as the Doncaster Rovers fans among you will note, I saw my own football team very few times. I actually managed to make it to more games during lockdown than the two I saw in the flesh in 2021-22. There was opportunity to double this total, but the second of those Rovers games was so abject, so devoid of anything to get enthused about, that I abandoned plans to watch them again. If Rovers’ woeful season can be surmised in a moment, it’s the relief felt in my mum’s kitchen when she and I both admitted to each other that actually, neither of us really wanted to put ourselves through the experience of watching Rovers bumble about against Charlton. We went to watch Alfreton play Southport instead. Not an ounce of regret between us.
So rather than a diary of a Rovers supporter, this year this blog instead offers a snapshot of football across North Wales. Welsh domestic football is a strange beast, one which manages to feel both progressive and yet down to earth at the same time. There’s a definite bounce in interest, coming off the back of a pandemic that locked it away from us, and also the success of the national team; something you can see embodied most strikingly at Colwyn Bay’s Llanelian Road, where having finally embraced Welsh football after years in the English system, Bay are now drawing four figure crowds.
But its compressed nature – by the fifth tier you’re watching games at grounds like Llysfaen’s Bananabeu which somehow manages to slope in every direction – means it also forces clubs to be humble. I watched Y Rhyl 1879 at their 3,000 capacity home ground against their main title rivals Llannefydd, a club from a tiny Denbighshire hamlet whose pitch doesn’t have so much as a stand. And after watching Ruthin Town defeat Bodedern Athletic in a Welsh Cup tie, I sat in the beer garden of a village pub on Ynys Môn whilst each team’s respective men of the match stood on a picnic table and raced to down a pint of Guinness. Ruthin, it should be noted, are a second tier side.
However, all this, no matter how enjoyable, was merely a long drawn out appetiser for the season’s main course, served up in June, in the pissing rain of Wales’ capital. In the final game of my 2021-22 season my national team did something I’d always dreamed of them doing, but never expected to see. Wales qualified for a World Cup. It makes my move here look less of a homecoming and more of a glory seeking. But so what. That single life-changing moment means that everything that came before in this season was a complete irrelevance; and as a Doncaster Rovers supporter that was certainly a blessed relief.
by Glen Wilson
Below is a photograph from every match I attended this season. No expensive cameras, no special lenses. Just a far from the latest iPhone and the Instagram app.
Match 1 | July
Penmaenmawr Phoenix 3-5 Llandyrnog United
Welsh Cup 1st Qualifying Round, Cae Sling
Match 2 | July
Glan Conwy 3-1 Abergele
FAW Amateur Trophy 1st round, Cae Ffwt
Match 3 | September
Rhos United 3-0 Betws-y-Coed
North Wales Coast East Football League Division One, Brookfield Drive
Match 4 | July
Chirk AAA 2-2 Rhos Aelwyd (3-4 on penalties)
Welsh Cup 2nd Qualifying Round, Holyhead Road
Match 5 | August
Llandudno Junction 1-1 Mochdre Sports
North Wales Coast East Football League Premier Division, The Flyover
Match 6 | August
Penrhyn Bay Dragons 2-4 Llandudno Amateurs
North Wales Coast East Football League Division One, The Oval
Match 8 | August
Llanfairfechan Town 1-2 Llanrwst United
Welsh Cup 1st Round, The Recreation Ground
Match 8 | August
Llandudno Albion 1-0 Nantlle Vale
Ardal North West, Maesdu Park
Match 9 | August
Blaenau Ffestiniog Amateurs 1-4 Llay Welfare
Ardal North West, Cae Clyd
Match 10 | September
Bodedern Athletic 4-5 Ruthin Town
Welsh Cup 2nd round, Cae Ty Cristion
Match 11 | September
Wigan Athletic 2-1 Doncaster Rovers
Football League One, DW Stadium
Match 12 | September
Conwy Borough 0-1 The New Saints
Welsh Cup 3rd round, Y Morfa
Match 13 | October
Colwyn Bay 1-2 Llandudno
Cymru North, Llanelian Road
Match 14 | October
Mochdre Sports 5-1 Bro Cernyw
North Wales Coast East Football League Premier Division, Mochdre Sports Association
Match 15 | October
Colwyn Bay 1-0 Cardiff Met
Welsh Cup 4th round, Llanelian Road
Match 16 | October
Llysfaen 7-1 Penrhyn Bay Dragons
North Wales Coast East Football League Division One, The Bananabeu
Match 17 | October
Conwy Borough 4-2 Bangor City
Cymru North, Y Morfa
Match 18 | October
Llanrwst United 1-5 Rhostyllen
Ardal North West, Gwydyr Park
Match 19 | November
Albion Rovers 1-2 Cwmbran Town
Gwent County League Premier Division, Kimberley Park
Match 20 | November
Wales 5-1 Belarus
FIFA 2022 World Cup Qualifying, Cardiff City Stadium
Match 21 | November
Wales 1-1 Belgium
FIFA 2022 World Cup Qualifying, Cardiff City Stadium
Match 22 | November
Llandudno Junction 3-2 Penmaenmawr Phoenix
North Wales Coast East Football League Premier Division, The Flyover
Match 23 | November
Betws-y-Coed 0-3 Llanelwy Athletic
North Wales Coast East Football League Division One, Cae Llan
Match 24 | December
Llandudno 0-0 Guilsfield
Cymru North, Maesdu Park
Match 25 | December
Penmaenmawr Phoenix 2-1 Glan Conwy
North Wales Coast East Football League Premier Division at Cae Sling
Match 26 | January
Kinmel Bay 1-5 Mochdre Sports
North Wales Coast East Football League Premier Division at Y Morfa Leisure Centre
Match 27 | January
Y Rhyl 1879 1-1 Llannefydd
North Wales Coast East Football League Premier Division, Belle Vue
Match 28 | February
Prestatyn Sports 2-0 Meliden
North Wales Coast East Football League Premier Division, The Meadows
Match 29 | February
Colwyn Bay 3-1 Buckley Town
Cymru North, Llanelian Road
Match 30 | February
Conwy Borough 0-4 Llandudno
Cymru North, Y Morfa
Match 31 | February
Prestatyn Town 0-3 Colwyn Bay
Cymru North, Bastion Gardens
Match 32 | March
St Asaph City 1-1 Llanrwst United
Ardal North West, Roe Plas Meadow
Match 33 | March
Llandudno 3-0 Colwyn Bay
Cymru North, Maesdu Park
Match 34 | March
Y Felinheli 4-3 Llay Welfare
Ardal North West, Cae Seilo
Match 35 | March
Fleetwood Town 0-0 Doncaster Rovers
Football League One, Highbury
Match 36 | March
The New Saints 1-0 Colwyn Bay
Welsh Cup Semi-Final, Belle Vue (Rhyl)
Match 37 | March
Wales 2-1 Austria
FIFA 2022 World Cup Qualifying Play-Off Semi-Final, Cardiff City Stadium
Match 38 | March
Alfreton Town 2-2 Southport
National League North, North Street
Match 39 | March
Wales ‘C’ 4-0 England ‘C’
Semi-Pro International, The Oval (Caernarfon Town)
Match 40 | April
Colwyn Bay 5-0 Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mochnant
Cymru North, Llanelian Road
Match 41 | April
Y Rhyl 1879 2-0 Llannefydd
Cookson Cup Final, Llanelian Road (Colwyn Bay)
Match 42 | April
Mochdre Sports 1-0 Penmaenmawr Phoenix
North Wales Coast East Football League Premier Division, Mochdre Sports Association
Match 43 | April
Bethesda Rovers 0-7 Bethesda Athletic
North Wales Coast West Football League Division One, The Playing Field (Mynydd Llandegai)
Match 44 | May
Glan Conwy 2-2 Penmaenmawr Phoenix
North Wales Coast East Football League Premier Division, Cae Ffwt
Match 45 | May
CPD Llanberis 1-4 Bodedern Athletic
North Wales Coast West Football League Premier Division Cup, Ffordd Padarn
Match 46 | June
Wales 1-0 Ukraine
FIFA 2022 World Cup Qualifying Play-Off Final, Cardiff City Stadium
Further photographs from each of the games featured in this blog can be found on the popular STAND fanzine, Instagram account