Beadle's about no longer as Newport ring the changes

All has not been sweetness and light at Newport County AFC since the South Wales club missed out on the chance to make the Blue Square South play-offs.

Peter Beadle, the manager, was dismissed in the wake of the 2-1 home defeat by Fisher Athletic that meant that each of his two full seasons in charge had ended with last-day failure to qualify for the play-offs.

Rumblings among the players about the prevailing uncertainty were aired in the pages of the South Wales Argus, which moved Chris Blight, the chairman, to issue an open letter in which he promised that an appointment would be made by the end of next week. The newspaper followed by publishing a strong statement in support of the nature of its coverage of the club.

The farrago is a direct consequence of the impatience running through the club to secure a return to the Conference, and so regain the status held by the original Newport County when they went out of business as the bailiffs moved into their former ground Somerton Park in 1988.

Those dark days are long since passed. A new club, Newport AFC, was set up in June 1989, which the Council, who owned Somerton Park, refused to let back into their own ground. David Hando, the president and club’s first chairman, said: “They thought we were Newport County in disguise and wouldn’t let us back into Somerton Park, while the FAW didn’t recognise us because we were a brand new club and had nothing to do with Newport County.”

The upshot was that the club played 85 miles away in Moreton-in-Marsh in Gloucestershire in the Hellenic League, making the point by leaving for their matches from the Council car park. “We travelled 85 miles to our home games, which were farther away than most of our away games,” Hando said.

The first season brought promotion to the Beazer Homes League. “The FAW had to recognise that league existed and we existed,” Hando said. “The Council were getting so much stick about us travelling away every week that they let us back into Somerton Park, which, of course, during the year had become absolutely derelict.

“It was not only vandalised, every bit of copper piping was stolen, every bit of sanitary ware was smashed. Fortunately our assistant manager, Graham Rogers, was a plumber. We spent £21,000 to get the ground back to a fit state. When the vice-chairman of the Beazer Homes League originally came to inspect it, he just shook his head but we had the whole of the summer and when he came to do the final inspection he said: ‘Hats off to you. I never thought you’d do it.’”

The next threat to the club came from the FAW’s decision that the club must join the League of Wales. “Progress is all about winning promotion - or being relegated - that’s why although we admire the League of Wales, we will never join it because it does not lead anywhere,” Hando said. “It might bring a game in Europe but that’s all. The prospect of one game in Europe, effectively played in the off-season, that it is often a financial disaster is not enough.

“That’s no recompense for the prospect of progress. Even if it never happens, that’s what inspires people. Our aim is to get back to where we dropped out, then back into the Football League and then to go up a League.”

The club was forced to move back to England, ground-sharing with Gloucester City for two seasons before winning a court case that allowed them to return - but this time to Spytty Park because the Council had decided to cash in their asset and sell Somerton Park for housing. “I had a lot of affection for the ground, but it was past its sell-by date,” Hando said. “All the stands were wooden. There was no parking and it was a nightmare to maintain.”

Spytty Park is shared with the Newport Harriers athletics club and so has the disadvantage of being exposed — and prone to through winds — but has been developed with a new covered terrace down the touchline opposite the main stand and further terracing behind one part of the track.

The Council are now very much on the club’s side. “They have promised us from the very beginning that they would bring up the ground to the requirements of whatever league we get promoted to,” Hando said.

In the past three years the supporters have filled a glaring deficiency by setting up BarAmber, a social club that lies just outside the stadium, whose income-raising potential will be enhanced when the £220,000 it cost to erect is paid off, hopefully in two years’ time.

With Blight and an ambitious board of businessmen now running the club, £100,000 in the bank from winning the FAW Premier Cup and crowds that have frequently broken the 1,000 barrier, the reason for the lack of patience becomes all too clear.

WALTER GAMMIE