Llanfair United - Mount Field

Llanfair United

Mount Field

Mount Road

Llanfair Caereinion

Powys

SY21 0AT

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Ground Number: 1109
Saturday 17th September 2022
Llanfair United 1-2 Llanuwchllyn
Welsh Cup

LLANFAIR UNITED FC - A BRIEF HISTORY

The club was established in 1896 as Llanfair Caereinion. They played only friendlies for a while before joining the Welshpool & District League in 1905. On 13th February 1897, a match report details a game between Llanfair and the Welshpool Excelsiors. Despite having only 10 men for the whole game, Llanfair won 13-0. There is an early photo from 1906 with a few special subplots to the story. Of the 11 players who played that day, 10 had the surname Astley and Ifan Astley, who played, was offered first-team terms with Everton but turned them down. They later joined the Montgomeryshire League and were twice runners-up here before World War 2. They soon became established in the league and won the title nine times and would be runners-up a further twelve times. In 2001, the current club came into being when they merged with Llanfair Wanderers, a side created for the local youngsters in the 1980s. In 2011, the club joined the Mid Wales League with them winning Division 2 in 2013. They were Division 2 runners-up in 2014 before winning the league in 2015. They then made the step up to the Cymru Alliance, at the time, a second-tier league. A couple of seasons were spent struggling here before they dropped back down to the Mid Wales League. Llanfair would win it again in 2019 but would go on to finish bottom of the Cymru North in their only season there. When football resumed following a two-year interruption, Llanfair found themselves in the Ardal North East, finishing 4th last season.

The club had a great run in the 2016/17 Welsh Cup. They won 2-0 at Llandidlioes Town, 4-3 at Flint Town United, 1-0 against Corwen and 4-1 against Welsh Premier side Cefn Druids before crashing out 7-0 to Caernarfon Town in the Quarter Final. Local cup wins aplenty, the most notable are the Montgomeryshire Cup in 2015, the Montgomeryshire League Cup four times, the Montgomery Town Cup three times and the Central Wales Challenge Cup in 2014. Llanfair Caereinion is a small town and community in Montgomeryshire, Powys, Wales upon the River Banwy (also known as the River Einion), around 8 miles west of Welshpool. It has a population of around 1,800.

MY VISIT

Since returning from a long trip to Newquay, I had done a couple of games, staying local. Firstly there was a revisit to Buckingham Town for their FA Youth Cup game against Dunstable Town on Thursday night. I had only really gone to help my groundhopping pal Colin as it's tricky by public transport from where he is. I'd taken Anwar and his son too and it had been a reasonable game too with Dunstable dominating the first half to lead 1-0 at the break but fading in the second half to see the hosts win 2-1. Elsewhere, I'd had a big tech overhaul and spent most of Friday setting all of that up. I've been to a game in every round of the FA Cup and I continued that on Friday, making another trip to my local club, Chesham United. I don't go as often as I might as football at that level is getting quite pricey at £12, but I was happy to do it for the FA Cup. At least I was able to pay by card and I saw an excellent game with the league rivals drawing 2-2. I came home and had a couple of small drinks whilst I researched my Saturday and was in bed just after midnight.

The day of the game came and I awoke 15 minutes before my alarm at 7.15. Due to various distractions though, I didn't leave until an hour later.  I listened to the David Jason audiobook 'Only Fools & Stories' and this helped the journey go a bit quicker. It was all going fine until I hit the Midlands and the M42, but especially the M6. This added around half an hour to the journey and as a result of this and my slightly late departure, I headed straight for the ground. I had been planning to have a look at Berriew FC and go to a farm shop nearby, but time was running out. There was some nice scenery on some of the little roads in Wales, although nothing on the scale of what I saw on the way to Bangor some years ago. I was at the ground at 11.45 and this too was in a lovely location. Entry was free and I'd loved to have got some hot food from the club, however, there was none. I popped to the chippy at half time, this filled a hole but wasn't especially amazing. There were a few people I knew including Kizzye, the Brummie Groundhopper and Graydon who were all great to catch up with. There was a decent crowd of 55 at the game, but really it deserved more.

 Llanfair United were in superb form and had won every single game this season. Playing in step 4 Ardal North East, they'd been amongst the goals in recent times with a 9-3 win last Saturday at Four Crosses in the Welsh Trophy. Before that, they had won 3-2 at Llandrindod Wells and in the previous round of this cup, they had won 5-0 at Llanrhaeadr Ym Mochnant. League rivals Llanuwchllyn had also been in good form, beating Hawarden Rangers 3-2 last week in the Trophy. Their only defeat had come the previous week at Cefn Albion and to get this far, they'd won 4-0 at Bontnewydd as well as beating NFA 5-1. The hosts were in Navy whilst Llanuwchllyn, who had travelled 37 miles from up near Bala were in yellow and black. The visitors had the better of the opening exchanges and they took the lead on 10 minutes, thanks to a header from Sam Evans following some slack marking. Llanfair came back into it later on, although some treatment required for the visitors' players held things up. Right on halftime, it was all square when Richard Davies rounded the goalkeeper, squared to Nyasha Mwamuka who fired home from the edge of the area, past a despairing defender on the line. There were chances for both in the second half but Daniel Roberts came up with the winner on 65 minutes for Llanuwchllyn. A corner was put in, and substitute Warren Ackroyd- Duckett headed the ball back across the goal for Daniel Roberts to head home from close range. Llanfair had a good spell but the ball just wouldn't go in. Ackroyd-Duckett went in the book for bad language but his team held out for the win.

THE GROUND

MOUNT FIELD is a great venue to watch football at. There's no hot food or booze, but they do offer snacks and soft drinks. The town nearby has a few more choices. The main stand at the ground is the approx 100-seater Ivor Owen Stand, this is high up on the bank on one side of the ground and has superb views along with the standing along that side. The rest of the ground is lower down and has two smaller 50-seat stands whilst the rest of the ground is uncovered with the far goal officially closed off to fans.