AS the winter league soccer season is about to begin, so another football league reaches its climax.
I’m referring to the local Llandyrnog and District Village Clubs’ summer football league.
The successful summer league, which operates in the Vale of Clwyd, began 80 years ago.
There had been discussions within the Vale of Clwyd farming community for many years about the possible formation of an inter-village football competition, but it is not until 1927 that words were translated into action.
Following a notice in the Denbighshire Free Press, representatives from Llandyrnog, Llanrhaeadr, Trefnant and Tremeirchion met at the Cocoa Rooms, Llandyrnog on March 14 that year.
The clubs represented at the meeting were anxious that farm workers, who comprised of almost half the population of some parishes, should be given the opportunity to take part in some form of organised games.
This would bring them into line with those engaged in industry and commerce, who usually had Saturday afternoons to themselves.
Because farm workers toiled for 12 hours-a-day, seven days-a-week, Saturday sport was not possible.
It was felt, however, that if there was a goodwill on the part of their employers they could play football on possibly two evenings each during the long summer evenings.
The decision was taken to form a summer league and its official title was to be the “Llandyrnog & District Village Clubs” Friendly Football League.
The name Llandyrnog appeared in the title for two reasons: the meeting had been held in that village and the majority of those who offered their services as unpaid officials of the league also came from Llandyrnog.
The four clubs represented at the meeting, along with Bodfari, which had tendered an apology, were to become founder members of a league which has long out-lasted any other football league in North Wales.
Three of the ‘founding fathers’, Llandyrnog, Llanrhaeadr and Trefnant, are still members.
Further meetings were held to draw up rules and fixture lists. It was also decided that each club should pay a membership fee of two shillings.
The Llandyrnog and District Village Clubs' summer football league and shield 1955 double winners Llanrhaeardr village football team
Champions of the first season were Trefnant and, in keeping with a tradition, which is still honoured today, the champions were matched against a ‘Rest’ eleven at the end of the season.
During the fifties, when I played for Cefn Meiriadog, I can boast that I was frequently selected to play for the ‘Rest’ side.
That tells you, of course, that I never played in a champions team.
Cefn joined the league in 1929. It was very hard going playing two competitive games a week while slogging hard on the farm all day, mucking out deep litter calf pans with forks and shovels, hoeing fields of mangolds and swedes, shearing sheep, carrying heavy hay bales with no elevator and then, at night, running, tackling and kicking a heavy leather ‘Casey’ for 90 minutes in the hot summer evenings.
Then, of course, there were the usual physical injuries, kicks, twisted ankles and knees - followed farm work the next day as usual.
My mother made good nutritious well-balanced meals to build up my stamina. Plenty of eggs, home-produced fresh meat and I must have consumed about four pints of milk every day.
My father’s speciality was to advise me to crack into a glass of fresh milk with a little added sugar which I had to take at 11am every day.
Substitutes weren’t invented then but Cefn must have been ahead of its time. At one period, before I started playing, the club fielded identical twins Eric and Hubert Williams.
One of the lads would play in the first half before being substituted by his brother for the second half.
No-one knew about the change because they were so alike!
A very good book, all about the league, was written in 1995, by former Llanrhaeadr stalwart Robert Emlyn Jones, who is now league president.
It was printed and published in Wales by Gwasg Carreg Gwalch, Llanrwst.
