Pontardawe Town F.C.
| Full name | Pontardawe Town Football Club |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1947 |
| Chairman | Geraint Jeffries |
| Manager | Jason Dykes |
| League | Welsh Football League Division Two |
| 2016-17 | Welsh Football League Division Two, 4th |
Pontardawe Town F.C. (Welsh: Clwb Pêl Droed Tref Pontardawe) are a football club based in the town of Pontardawe. They play in the Welsh Football League Second Division, after being relegated in the 2014/15 season.
Club history (As of December 2016)
Although the present club was founded in 1947, football in Pontardawe certainly stretches back over 100 years, into the closing years of the 19th Century, when a Pontardawe club, run by industrialist CF Gilbertson, was among the members of the earliest Swansea League, and won the championship in 1899-1900. The club went on to join the Swansea and District League in the early 1900s, playing familiar names like Swansea Town, Morriston, Skewen and Clydach, as well as long forgotten ones such as Mond Nickel, York Place and Sketty. But honours don't seem to have come their way in the first half of the 20th Century; the club never even reached the top division of the Welsh League and it disbanded during the Second World War.
Reformed as Pontardawe Athletic in 1947, the town club entered the Welsh League, playing in division two (west). The first few post war years brought reasonable success at this level and by 1959/60 they were challenging for promotion, finishing 3rd behind Carmarthen and Clydach, achieving a Division One place a year later despite finishing below Gelli Colliery. But relegation came swiftly in 1961-62, Ponty finishing 19th out 20 and going back down with Milford. By the mid 1960s the club was struggling in the middle section of the restructured Welsh League and by 1980 they dropped to the lowest division.
A period of comparative success followed in the early 1980s, with successive promotions taking the club back to the top flight of the Welsh League by 1982. 1981 / 82 was Ponty's best ever season - not only did Dixie McHale's team win promotion, finishing second to Brecon Corries but they reached the quarter finals of the Welsh Cup, hosting a Wrexham side containing Dai Davies, Joey Jones and Dixie McNeil. (Record books show the result as 5-1 though the club's history says 4-1).
Competing in the Premier Division for only the second time in their history in 1982-83, Pontardawe Athletic managed to lift the West Wales Senior Cup and in the league they held their own, finishing 13th - but luck wasn't on their side, the league restructured and as Athletic lacked a ground adequate for the Welsh league's self styled "National Division" they were dumped back into the middle section, curiously known as the Premier Division, for 1983/84. Ponty went into decline again, slipping back to the third level of the Welsh league by the mid-1980s, quietly remaining there for over a decade.
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