COMMENT: Friday night football and all that – is the FAW idea top or flop?

Article by Mike Smith, webmaster of Bangor City and Bangor 1876 website Citizens Choice

When the news broke that Noel Mooney had plunged the Cymru Premier into the eternal winter of Friday night football it was time to acknowledge that the FAW had intriguingly found a way to make a bad situation worse.

How would players and supporters get from North to South Wales for Friday evening fixtures?

Would already meagre attendances drop further? Could they? The general reception for this brave new World was one of shock and disbelief – one or two notable exceptions perhaps – but wait…

A series of questions came to mind about the impact on the rest of the pyramid. The tail being wagged by this strange looking dog.

Would the Cymru North and South Leagues, and others below, be allowed to play on a Friday night?

Would say Bangor 1876 v Colwyn Bay on a Friday go ahead if Caernarfon hosted Haverfordwest a few miles away?

Would existing CP players and managers jump ship to continue playing and managing Saturday teams? If so, would those lower down the ladder benefit?

Would Cymru North & South clubs want promotion? Would they tilt at the time consuming license if they didn’t need to?

Would they risk losing the manager and players to join a league they had no hope of winning on Fridays or any other day? European loot the only lure.

If clubs didn’t want promotion would there be no relegation? Would this mean bottom half fixtures became irrelevant? What would Sgorio do for a Saturday game? (Friday nights would clash with the
popular Scrum 5 on BBC Wales.)

Could they be tempted to visit the likes of Bangor, Colwyn Bay, Llandudno, or one of the many others with TV gantrys who regularly host noisy well-supported local derbies?

If Sgorio more regularly visited Tier Two grounds the clubs could thrive, with better sponsorship deals, better players and greater interest all round.

Then ironically would even more of these clubs be tempted to avoid promotion and stay put. Too many who have gone up and even those who got into Europe crashed back down to earth with a bang. Safety first? Saturdays first?

Could this even be a masterplan from the cunning Mooney? To alienate or estrange the Cymru League from the rest of the pyramid to facilitate an unchallenged, near silent move to summer football?

You never know….