THE O.DYKE COLUMN
THE SHORT-SIGHTEDNESS OF
NEWPORT COUNCIL
Tuesday the 11th of March, this could be looked
back on as the day Newport
County were finally
reborn. A trophy, something tangible for the supporters’ and management to grab
hold of. The FAW premier cup was never the reason the hero’s of the late 80’s
gathered to reincarnate this dirty old club, but nonetheless it is a two
fingered salute to the blazers at the FAW and BBC Cardiff.
It could also be a day that
Newport council finally sat up and took notice that we do
have a football club in the city. When announcing the plan for the new rugby
stadium at Rodney Parade the football team was disastrously overlooked. Now we
will have the tedious sight of TWO rugby teams playing out of the same stadium,
yet County are left with the multi-purpose soulless Newport Stadium,Spytty
Park. It seems the Council does not realise the
potential of the County and the English football pyramid system. Newport Gwent
Dragons are a ‘region/club/team’ torn by internal and external politics, too
which many Newportonians cannot identify, yet the council warm more to them than
the football club with true Newport
identity. Newport RFC are a shadow of their former self and this season could
see the football team average higher attendances than the rugby team for the
first time in decades. My ideal solution would be for Newport RFC and
Newport County
FC to ground share, two
teams close to my heart, but this would involve a substantial restructuring of
the Celtic rugby system, which in all sadness is not going to happen.
In terms of away support
Newport County
regularly take away championship-level armies of fans, often creating a partisan
home game atmosphere. Incredible really when you think this can involve a
midweek evening game the other side of
London. I really do think the home attendance is affected
by the poor stadium. An alternative of course is to redevelop Spytty, which does
have a small iota of windswept charm lurking somewhere amongst the athletic
track and velodrome! The running track must go, the four sides of the ground
brought closer to the pitch. The capacity is 4,300, good enough for the
conference and not needed to be bigger, the problem as mentioned above is the
diagnostics. Years of fundraising and hard work have got the County where they
are now, the groundwork has been done. County have no rich
backer but surely a businessman measures an investment by how much potential it
has. There is no alternative in Newport
for a sporting cash injection. Newport RFC will never again get a crowd of 3,000
for a league game, crowds are dwindling year on year. Every time I cross
Somerton Bridge
I pause and think about our beloved, decrepit
Somerton Park.
We’ve beaten the FAW, we’ve won at the High Court, we’ve played in exile, we’ve
beaten Cardiff
City,Swansea
City, we’ve won the FAW Cup and we’re pushing for
promotion. Come on council, give us a break.