Good afternoon and welcome to the officials, players and supporters of Bettws Football Club to the Marston’s Stadium for this afternoon’s MacWhirter Welsh League Division One match.

I’d also like to welcome the three officials, Mike Pickett who’s in the middle with Phil Davies and Phil McIntyre assisting

Bettws have made a steady start to life in the First Division and have a very capable manager in Mark Sage.  There will be no shortage of effort and enthusiasm from Bettws; therefore we shall have to match them to achieve the 3 points that are at stake.

Our last match saw us gain a comfortable Welsh Cup win over Cwmamman United 3-0 with their goalkeeper being man of the match.  We created numerous opportunities throughout the game and at times played some really good football.  Next up is Aberystwyth away which will prove a very stern test.  Carl Evans was unfortunately sent off against Cwmamman, so he misses today’s game and the Aberystwyth game and so will Ian Jones who is recovering from an operation on his finger which will keep him out for a couple of weeks.

On a positive note striker Darren Griffiths is back after his appendix operation and he has showed up well in our recent friendlies.  We also completed the signing of Mika Chunuonsee from Neath this week. Mika will go straight into the team for today's game and I'm delighted to have signed the highly rated midfielder who had an excellent season last year at Bryntirion that attracted interest from Neath who eventually signed him.  He's yet another teenager to come into the squad alongside, Rory McCreesh, David Kingdom, Shaun Morgan, Tom Wellington, Mark Jones, Damon Thomas, Corey Thomas, Carl Payne and Sam Wade which all goes well for the future of the club

There is plenty of talent at the club therefore we must start climbing the table starting today and try to put a decent winning run  to kick start our season and put the club in a position where it should be, and that is up at the higher reaches of this division.  Training has been competitive over the last fortnight with a couple of friendlies thrown in, so hopefully a win today will make us turn the corner which we are all desperately trying for.

 Enjoy the game,

.