Elton John, Dean Martin and Owzat?

The final two weeks of pre-season have been a mixed bag. Two victories, a defeat, music police alerts and the new assistant manager masquerading as Dean Martin have all added to an interesting precursor to the real action, which begins this weekend.
I ended the last blog by looking forward to the Telford fixture, which had promised to be a cracker, and that’s exactly how it panned out. The visitors came out on top by four goals to one but I don’t think the scoreline was an accurate reflection of what had been an evenly fought, and very enjoyable encounter. I obviously have a strong bias towards the Cofis but do try to be as fair as I can to the opposition and so whilst I think the Bucks marginally edged proceedings, they certainly weren’t three goals better than us. In fact I thought our performance on the day might have been our best of pre-season and think the main difference between the sides was that Rob Edwards’ men proved much more clinical in front of goal.

The Canaries have been playing a particular style of football over the past two years and whilst we’ve all seen it work against teams in the Welsh Pyramid System, I was encouraged that, in the main, the side was able to impose its style against an outfit that play just two steps down from the football league. The players looked comfortable in possession and created plenty of goalscoring opportunities and, as odd as it may sound after a defeat, the performance bodes well for the new season.

Alex during his goalkeeping clinic with Town's junior stoppers. 

On a personal note, it turned out into an interesting day for me. I arrived at the Oval earlier than usual to record interviews with Head of Academy Haydn Jones and first team keeper Alex Ramsay, who was holding a goalkeeping clinic for the club’s junior keepers in the morning. Having completed both interviews early on I decided to carry on filming a few bits and pieces and first team manager Iwan gave me permission to record his pre-match team talk and, really, to record whatever I wanted around the team’s preparations. My trusted ipod camera was switched on just about everywhere in the ground and I ended up with all sorts of clips, including filmed chats with Iwan, the match officials and the ladies in the canteen. One thing led to another and I ended up putting the best bits together to create a match day video diary, which can be viewed on the club’s official youtube channel. If you’ve already seen it, you’ll be aware that it’s not Spielberg but it was fun to do and will hopefully give everyone an idea of what it’s like at the ground on match day. If you haven’t already had a look, here’s the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rx9bNBZmjd0
Town got back to winning days three days later when a spirited Pwllheli were despatched 6-2 at the Oval and on Saturday the Cofis completed their pre-season fixtures with another tough match, Rainhill Town this time providing stiff and, at times, physical opposition.
To be honest, I don’t know too much about the West Cheshire League side but, having finished fourth in Division One in their first season following promotion last term, they seem to be a club on an upward trajectory and another big test was expected.

Rambo

There was very little to choose between the sides early on and although the Cofis enjoyed more possession, it was Alex Ramsay who was forced into the first save of the match when he did well to get his hand to the ball as it looked destined for the far corner of his goal. Talking of our keeper, I have to say that it was great to see him back between the sticks and in such good form. Work commitments have kept ‘Rambo’ away during most of the close season and whilst we’ve been lucky to have been able to call on the talents of a number of good keepers, I believe Alex is one of the best in the Welsh Pyramid System and to have him back in time for the start of the league season is a massive boost for the side. Whilst on the subject of goalkeepers, as a Caernarfon Town supporter I am delighted that Iwan has added Liam Jones to his squad. The youngster has impressed during pre-season and will provide excellent back-up for our number one, with a view to pushing for the jersey in the future.
Once Darren Thomas poked in the opener and Jamie Roberts added a second two minutes later, the result was never really in doubt, although the visitors did make it interesting when they scored ten minutes after the break. Darren had the last word with a great finish late on and I have a feeling the management team will have been relieved to finish the match without any injuries as the Rainhill players were certainly not shy in the tackle, especially as the match neared its conclusion. One thing the Rainhill management team will need to look at is whether or not their goalkeeper, a Jonathan Hill-Dunt lookalike, realises he’s playing football and not cricket as every time Town attacked his default shout was ‘Owzat’!

Darren Thomas and Jamie Roberts. 

Before the match started, the recent additions to the Canaries’ squad were required to sing an initiation tune in front of the players and, having sneaked into the Board room to record all four songs (on the insistence of the manager, I hasten to add!) I can safely say that we won’t be hearing from Simon Cowell any time soon. Rhys Roberts sang Calon Lan (the highlight for me because it’s a Welsh song and he’s bigger than me), Ryan Williams went for ‘Can’t Take My Eyes Off You’, Liam Jones plumped for an Oasis ditty after failing a Gloria Gaynor ‘anthem’ and Sean Eardley showed everyone why he won’t be able to make a living as a Dean Martin impersonator, although his version of ‘Ain't That a Kick in the Head’ was certainly an improvement on the music blaring from the loudspeaker for most of the afternoon! Three full-paying spectators at the ground complained to me about the music played through the sound system and having been led to believe that Iwan Williams owned the playlist, I confronted our manager our

Sean Eardley. 

manager about it. Iwan was non-committal about the matter but did accuse me of probably preferring something from Elton John than the latest tunes! I think a lot of our manager and decided to let the accusation pass, although to be fair I am partial to some of Elton’s music, so he may have had a fair point!
Behind the scenes, the Caernarfon Town Board and the Canaries Club have been doing their collective best to try and improve things as much as they can. The supporters have worked tirelessly on the Oval itself, maintaining and improving the ground and I believe there are exciting plans afoot that will make a huge difference to the players representing the club in the future.
Our new commercial manager, Tristram Lee, is working hard to bring in the revenue that will enable the club to continue to grow whilst hopefully enabling us to compete on the field and I believe there may be one or two announcements in the near future with news that will help us towards these goals. Those who attended Saturday’s match with Rainhill, or have seen some of the photographs from the encounter may have noted that the team played in our new away kits, sponsored by LiteAccess Technologies, and I’m hoping the club will make an announcement about our partnership with this global company very soon.

Ryan Williams in the side's new 'Lite Access' away kit. 

As always, the week leading up to the start of the new season always sees sports reporters, commentators and supporters sharing their views on who they think will win the league, gain promotion, get relegated and so on and whilst no one can ever know for sure how things can pan out, it’s been nice to see Caernarfon Town amongst a handful of other teams being tipped to challenge for the Huws Gray Alliance League title. Having finished the past three seasons second, first and second in the league it’s not surprising that the Canaries are being talked about and whilst it’s nice as a supporter to read and hear such things, I think it’s worth remembering that it won’t mean a thing once the football starts this Saturday.
I have been saying for the last two years that this league is the toughest, most competitive and most exciting in the Pyramid system and this season it’s going to be even more so, on all fronts! The two sides relegated from the Welsh Premier League, Airbus and Rhyl, will be desperate for a quick return and, in my opinion, should be considered slight favourites for the title, whilst the second tier’s usual suspects, Guilsfield, Holywell, Porthmadog, Caersws, Flint and ourselves will all hope to challenge, whilst Holyhead and Gresford seem to have improved over the summer.

The first team squad for 2017/18.

In my eve of season blog over the past two years I have stated that the upcoming campaign could be our year and I’m sticking to this tradition, although this time with the disclaimer that so competitive is the league that supporters of up to seven other clubs can also rightfully be making the same claim. One thing I can safely claim however is that as a Caernarfon Town supporter I would not change our manager, his backroom staff nor our squad for anyone else. Iwan Williams, Sean Eardley, Richard Davies, Mike Innes, Alex Ramsay, Liam Jones, Joe Williams, Chris Williams, Clive Williams, Rhys Roberts, Gareth Edwards, Ryan Williams, Nathan Williams, Kevin Roberts, Nathan Craig, Jay Gibbs, Jamie Roberts, Gareth Evans, Mark Griffiths, Jamie Breese, Danny Brookwell, Darren Thomas and Aaron Davies-Thomas. They’ll do for me!
And so, at long last, the warm-up matches are over, all the preparations have been completed and we can finally look forward to the start of the real stuff! The Huws Gray Cymru Alliance League is finally upon us and I have no doubt that it’s going to be a cracker of a season!
First stop Penrhyncoch….