Blaina
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“I keep in touch with a few of the
boys at the club; particularly Gwynne
Williams and Chris Adams and they
always keep me up to date with how
the club is doing.
It is a club that is very special to me
… I’m going to the club dinner shortly
and am really looking forwards to
seeing some familiar faces. This year
is the 40th anniversary of the Blaina
youth team winning the Welsh Youth
Cup which was a special achievement
that we still look back on very fondly
so hopefully I’ll catch up with some of
those guys that played in the final with
me – we’re all a bit older these days!
Blaina as a senior team were already
very well respected at the time but
for us to win the Welsh Cup against
Pontypool was very significant. It
probably secured the continued status
for Blaina as a top village club for the
next ten or fifteen years. The majority
of those players went on to deliver for
the club at senior level as well.
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I was a beneficiary of that because my
first coaching gig was in Blaina and I
had two years coaching there, winning
the Monmouthshire/Gwent Premier
League title in my first year and then
the Monmouthshire/Gwent Cup the
second year. I was still learning in
those days so I think it was all down
to the fact that we had a lot of those
youth players from the Youth Cup win
involved.
That gave me my first chance as a
coach and in fact I lost our first four
games as a coach so I had a yellow
card off the committee! Fortunately,
we went on to win the league and it
was a good learning curve for me and
it was great to have that opportunity at
my own village team.
Obviously with getting promoted last
season it will be a new challenge next
time around for Blaina; my message
would be to keep pushing forward
to try their very best to get the club
back to the top divisions of the Welsh
League. It will be a tough ask but I
think that will be the goal of everyone
there and it will be great if they can
continue to climb the leagues.”
Mike Ruddock OBE