Newtown A.F.C.

Newtown Association Football Club is a Welsh football club who currently play in the Welsh Premier League, with a reserve team currently playing in the Mid Wales Football League.

The club was founded in 1875 as Newtown White Stars, and were one of the founder members of the Football Association of Wales. White Stars, which appeared in the first ever Welsh Cup match on 13 October 1877, is believed to have merged with Newtown Excelsior to form the current Newtown F.C. in time to be Welsh Cup finalists in 1885 and 1888. The club plays at Latham Park, Newtown, which accommodates 5,000 spectators (610 seated).

The team's first choice strip is red shirts, shorts, and socks. The second choice strip is yellow shirts, blue shorts, and yellow socks.

History

Newtown White Stars won the Welsh Cup in 1879 and were losing finalists in 1881. Newtown F.C. won the cup again in 1895, but this was the last national trophy won for sixty years, until the Welsh Amateur Cup was won in 1955. The first match was played at what is now Latham Park in 1951, and the ground has been brought up to a standard which makes it eligible to stage UEFA Youth Internationals and recently UEFA Cup matches.

For most of the years since the 1920s the club operated in the Mid-Wales League, or the Central Wales League as it was sometimes known, winning the championship in 1975–76, 1978–79, 1981–82, 1986–87 and 1987–88 – on the strength of this record, the club gained entry to the English league system in the HFS Loans (Northern Premier) League. In 1992 the club became rather reluctant founder members of the League of Wales, since when it has finished as runners-up in the league in 1995–96 and 1997–98, and played European ties against teams from Latvia and Poland.

International players

Several players from the early Newtown clubs were selected to play for Wales:

• Tom Chapman (1894–95), (4 caps)
• Harry Hibbot (1880–85), (3 caps)
• James Lloyd (1885), (1 cap)
• Richard Morris (1902), (1 cap)
• William Nock (1897), (1 cap)
• Bill Parry (1895), (1 cap)
• Charlie Parry (1896–98), (7 caps)
• Albert Pryce-Jones (1895), (1 cap)
• Oliver Taylor (1893–94), (4 caps)
• Alfred Townsend (1887–93), (2 caps)
• George Woosnam (1879), (1 cap)
• Tom Worthington (1894), (1 cap)

Biggest victories and losses

• Biggest League of Wales win: 11–1 v Cemaes Bay in 1998.
• Biggest League of Wales defeat: 0–6 at The New Saints in 2008.

Current squad

Note: Flags indicate national team as has been defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.

External links

• Official website
• Newtown history and info from 1960, Keith Harding