Former Merit Table club Tredegar RFC have dropped out of the Admiral National League.
WalesOnline reported last month that one of Welsh rugby’s famous old clubs were experiencing difficult times, with chairman Anthony Preece claiming cash payments to players elsewhere had left Tredegar struggling to raise a side. The club had only 10 players available for an early-season clash with Old Tylerian, meaning the match had to be postponed.
Preece said at the time: “There’s a big threat to the club. We called off our game last weekend because we didn’t have enough players, with the problem being that people are being tempted to play for other clubs because of money.
“It’s cruel and heartbreaking when I think of Tredegar’s history. But that is where we are at.”
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Now it is understood the Division 6 East club have requested that they be withdrawn from the league.
They are no longer appear in the relevant league table on the Welsh Rugby Union's website.
Whether they attempt to return at a future date has yet to be clarified.
There will be widespread sadness at their plight.
Turn the clock back to their Merit Table days and Tredeger were tackling the giants of Welsh rugby, when a visit to the northern outpost of the Gwent valleys guaranteed a testing and uncompromising encounter. You can read here about the eye-opening number of grassroots games being cancelled in Wales.
Future Wales Grand Slam-winning coach Mike Ruddock joined from Blaina, scoring 13 tries in a season before departing for Swansea, from where he looked on course to represent the national team before an accident at work ended his playing career prematurely.
Wales internationals Mark Jones and Glyn Davidge also played for the club, as well as firebrand scrum-half Paul Woods, who went north to rugby league. Jones became an enforcer in the celebrated Neath side of the late 1980s and early 1990s, with Davidge also playing for Newport and the British and Irish Lions. When the latter passed away, at his funeral he was acclaimed as a ‘man of iron’. You can read about Russian players thanking the club for help here.
Recent times have been turbulent for Tredegar, however.
In 2015, they lost 182-7 to Brynmawr, shipping 28 tries as they battled to raise sides and fulfil their fixture list. Even as they struggled there were reports of a core of support staying loyal, and the club showed their resilience by regrouping and winning promotion the following season.
Problems have never been too far away since, however, and this term player shortages have hit Tredegar hard, a point Preece reflected on ruefully when he spoke earlier in the campaign. “ If I said next week I was going to pay people 70 quid a game, we’d have a side, but I’m not going there. I shouldn’t have to do that at our level," he said.
“You wonder what’s happening to the game. I can work it out but I’ve reached the stage where I don’t want to work it out.
“I’m old fashioned enough to believe that if you love rugby at our level then you play for the game itself and not for the money. Of course, players will always want to get ahead and get noticed so they can go further, but it should never be just about money.
“I joined Tredegar on the same day as Mike Ruddock back in the day, both of us as flankers. I was linked with Cardiff and Newport, but because I’m from Tredegar I wanted to play for my home town. Unfortunately, I broke my neck in training.
“I know attitudes change and everything else, but unless players want to play for the club for the love of it, then it's hard to see a way forward.”
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