Barry Town United is delighted to welcome Defender Ben Margetson to the club.
23 year old Ben joins the club from Pontypridd and brings much experience to the squad as he boasts Kidderminster, Sutton, Bromley, Cardiff and Swansea amongst his former clubs.
Speaking to Ben at training on Thursday, he said: “I’m really excited to be joining Barry Two for the 2024/25 season. I’m looking forward to be playing under a manager who will get the best out of me so that we can achieve our goals as a team.
I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my first couple of sessions with a great group of boys who made me feel settled straight away.
I pride my game on defending the box and keeping clean sheets which I was able to achieve last year at Pontypridd with 12 clean sheet putting us 2nd in the clean sheets behind TNS.
I hope we’ll have plenty of them next season to give the team a platform to go and pick up plenty of points to get us into that top 6.”
24 year old Liam becomes our second summer signing ahead of the 2024/25 Cymru Premier Season.
Barry Town United are delighted to welcome Goalkeeper Liam Armstrong to the club. 24 year old Liam becomes our second summer signing ahead of the 24/25 Cymru Premier Season.
Our new number 25 will be an exciting addition to the Town’s squad having played professionally at Bristol Rovers
Liam also enjoyed a respectable career at Gloucester City with loans at Swindon Supermarine, Bristol Cleeves and most recently Corsham Town where Liam won the Hellenic League Challenge Cup.
Liam has previously worked with goalkeeper coach Matthew James and is excited for the new challenge the Town can offer him.
29 year old Josh becomes our first summer signing ahead of the 2024/25 Cymru Premier Season.
Barry Town United are delighted to welcome Central Defender Josh Yorwerth to the club. 29 year old Josh becomes our first summer signing ahead of the 24/25 Cymru Premier Season.
The former Wales U21s International will add much experience to the Town’s squad having played professionally at Ipswich, Crawley and Peterborough United.
Josh spent last season at Penybont and Merthyr Town. The Bridgend born centre-back and Town’s new number 6 began his career at Cardiff City and can be described as a gifted player.
All at the club are excited to see what Josh can achieve in a Barry Town shirt.
It’s 25 years since the Town defeated Wrexham at the Racecourse to lift the 1998-99 FAW Premier Cup title
The FAW Premier Cup started life in the 1997-98 season as the FAW Invitation Cup as a way of bringing in the English Football League clubs into domestic competition for the first time since their entry into the Welsh Cup was removed.
In 1997-98, the format included Cardiff City, Swansea City, Wrexham, Merthyr Tydfil, and four Welsh Premier (now Cymru Premier) sides Barry Town, Bangor City, Conwy United and Newtown. The inaugural winners of the competition were Wrexham.
For the 1998-99 season, the Premier Cup saw three groups of four clubs, with the best place teams from the group stages going through to the knock-out stages.
The Group Stage
Barry Town was placed in arguably the toughest group, Group B, alongside Swansea City, reigning champions Wrexham, and Caernarfon Town.
Kick-starting the tournament at the end of August, just weeks after playing Kyiv in the Champions League at Jenner Park, our first opponents were the reigning champions, Wrexham.
Already 2-1 up through Richard Jones and a Wrexham own goal, Darren Davies scored a terrific goal to put the Town 3-1 up, the tie eventually finishing 3-2 in our favour. We were off to a great start against the one Football League side who took the competition seriously.
There was a break in Premier Cup activity until the autumn, when the group stages took centre stage during November and December.
For the Town, we drew 1-1 with Swansea City at the Vetch, a fabulous 2-0 win over Swansea at Jenner Park with goals from Eifion Williams and Richard Jones (by penalty), a 1-0 loss to Wrexham at the Racecourse, followed by a 1-0 win over the Cofis at the Oval through a goal by Lee Barrow.
The Group B stage was completed, with us in top spot, with a 3-1 Jenner Park victory over Caernarfon following a hat-trick by Eifion Williams over his old club.
Quarter Finals
The Quarter Finals took place during February/March 1999 with Inter Cable-Tel beating Cwmbran Town, Wrexham beating Newtown, and Cardiff City beating Swansea City 3-2.
We took on Merthyr Tydfil at Jenner Park on 16 March 1999, with Richard Jones sliding home what would be the winning goal on the half hour mark.
The Semi Finals
The semi finals were two-legged affairs during April and May 1999, but the biggest news for Barry Town at that point was the sale of Eifion Williams to Torquay United in March.
As it happened, we cruised past our opponents, Inter Cable Tel 5-1 on aggregate, while Wrexham knocked out Cardiff City 4-3 on aggregate (beating City 3-1 at the Racecourse, but City winning 2-1 at Ninian Park). So it would be a Wrexham vs. Barry Town FAW Premier Cup Final at the Racecourse on 23 May 1999.
The Final
Justin Perry opened the scoring for us on 57 minutes, with a headed goal, before Karl Connolly converted a highly contentious penalty decision 15 minutes later. With the clock winding down to potential Extra-Time a rare Barry Town corner, only the second of the entire match, taken by Danny Carter, was met by the head of a climbing Lee Barrow.
Barry Town had beaten Wrexham in Wrexham to lift the FAW Premier Cup. The season ended with the Town completing a Treble of Welsh Premier League champions, League Cup winners and Premier Cup winners. Marvellous!
Following 8 very successful years with Barry Town, Chris Hugh will depart the club
Chris, a pivotal signing in the summer of 2016, made 218 appearances, scored 14 goals, lifted 4 trophies, secured 2 promotions and qualified for European football on two occasions.
Chris also enjoyed a successful Futsal career, where he captained the Wales national side – scoring the winning goal for Wales in a 3-2 away win over Sweden in Visby in 2017.
Of course, Chris also frequently represented his club at Wales ‘C’ level, and was first selected for Wales ‘C’ duty in March 2018 – in a match against England at Jenner Park.
His competitive debut for Barry was in the 2-0 league win over Undy Athletic on 18th August 2016 at Jenner Park. Winning promotion to the Cymru Premier for 2017-18, Chris featured in our first league win over The New Saints in over 18 years.
Our 1-0 victory on 4 November 2017 was a long time coming, following our previous victory in Llansantffraid over the then named Total Network Solutions way back in August 1999.
Indeed, Hugh’s eight away matches at Park Hall include our two victories, and the three 2-2 draws.
Chris has been an ever present player at Left Back during his time, scoring some wonderful goals. Not only an exceptional footballer but a fantastic person who is idolised at our club.
Seen by many as the best left back at the club since Gary Lloyd, it’s a pleasure to call him one of our own.
Thanks for everything Chris, we have been blessed to have you at our club for so long.
A presentation will be made to Chris at tonight’s awards evening; you can purchase tickets here for an opportunity to say goodbye.
Watch: Chris Hugh with the assist for Kayne McLaggon’s goal as we topped the table in December 2018.
15 May 2024 marks the 30th anniversary of our era-defining Welsh Cup victory at the National Stadium in Cardiff.
Sunday 15 May 1994 was the culmination of a season of toil that saw Barry Town claim the Welsh Cup, the Abacus Welsh League Division One championship, the FAW Trophy and the Cyril Rogers Cup.
The lads pictured at the Copthorne Hotel in their unbadged, unsponsored all-yellow ‘Spall Sports’ kit. Back row: T.Boyle; D.Withers; S.Morris; K.Bertschin. Middle row: P. O’Halloran; C.Gill; D.D’Auria; T. Threfall; P.Sanderson; P.Williams; P. ‘Chippy’ Colbourne. Front Row: A.Griffiths; B.Smith; A.Beattie; C.Lilygreen; S.Hookings; P.Wimbleton.
In fact, it was such a long season, the curtain was dropped on the South Wales Senior Cup at the Semi Final stage, so we were denied a clean-sweep of a domestic quintuple. The quadruple had to suffice.
Yet, the season also ended with promotion to the new(ish) national league, the League of Wales (now the Cymru Premier, of course) and entry to our first ever European competition, the Cup Winners’ Cup.
How we did it
Drawing Abercynon at Jenner Park in the 1st Round, goals from Dai Withers and David D’Auria ensured Town went through to the 2nd Round with the 2-0 victory.
Caerau Athletic proved to be tougher opposition, holding us 1-1, with the Town goal courtesy of Dai Withers once again. The Replay came a few days later at Jenner Park where Caerau again pushed us all the way, but a brace goals from David D’Auria and a debut goal for Adrian Harding gave us a hard-earned 3-2 victory.
Back then, the Welsh Cup 3rd Round was where the likes of Cardiff, Swansea, Newport and Wrexham would traditionally make an appearance. We drew League of Wales’ 1992-93 inaugural Champions Cwmbran Town, while Cardiff beat Afan Lido, Swansea beat Merthyr after a replay, and Wrexham defeated Carno at the Racecourse.
Goals from Bobby Smith, Terry Boyle and Dai Withers accounted for Cwmbran Town 3-1, which set us up nicely for a 4th Round tie with Holywell Town in our first ever meeting.
Swansea defeated Rhyl 2-1 at Belle Vue, while Cardiff City beat Wrexham 2-0 up at the Racecourse. We swept past Holywell 4-0 with a brace from Chris Lilygreen with D’Auria and Withers also scoring.
The Quarter Finals
The Quarter Finals saw us potentially pitted against Bangor, Inter Cardiff, Flint Town, Ebbw Vale, Cardiff City, Swansea City or Hereford United.
Dai Withers scored the only goal of the match on 12 February, to place Barry Town in the Semi Finals of the Welsh Cup for the first time since the 1990-91 season. Ebbw Vale had taken Cardiff to a replay, but it was the Bluebirds who eventually won out 3-0 at Ninian Park, while Swansea had edged out Hereford 1-0 at the Vetch. Bangor had also been taken to a replay by Inter Cardiff, but went through 1-0.
The Semi Finals
With now only 4 teams remaining in the competition, and with the fixtures being played over two legs, Town would face the daunting challenge of Bangor City, Cardiff City or Swansea City. We edged past Bangor City 2-1 on aggregate, with David D’Auria scoring our goal at Farrar Road in a 1-1 draw, while Keith Bertschin, a recent signing from Solihull, bagged the goal in our 1-0 win at Jenner Park.
Cardiff City had eased past Swansea City 6-2 over 2 legs (they lost 2-1 at the Vetch, but won 4-1 at Ninian), so the stage was set for the first-ever Barry Town versus Cardiff City Welsh Cup Final.
The 1994 Welsh Cup Final was printed in numbers and is still pretty easy to pick up as a physical memento of the occasion, featuring full colour images, interviews and history.
The Welsh Cup Final 1994
‘Dad’s Army’ they said.
True, our squad, pieced together by Neil O’Halloran after his unpopular decision to bring the club back into Welsh competition, was full of players with ‘experience’. Alan Curtis was already 40 and our gaffer, Andy Beattie, wasn’t too far behind. Surely, the tempo of City on the day, and with that day set to be a hot one, our lads will struggle against the professionals at Cardiff? Well, it’s what the papers reckoned, anyway.
Cardiff had already taken out Swansea City in the Semis and Wrexham in the Quarters, so they were clear favourites.
Of course, Town would run out 2-1 winners on the day, marking the club’s first Welsh Cup win since 1955. In 1994, a Welsh Cup win 39 years previously seemed ancient, if magnificent, history. It’s hard to believe that victory itself is now 30 years ago today.
The Future
For Barry Town, nothing would quite be the same again. It was the dawn of a new era in many ways – even if almost the entire squad would be replaced overnight – and the club would build on this success for the next 10 years or so, domestically, and in Europe.
Team photo, featuring the FAW Trophy, the Welsh Cup, the Cyril Rogers Cup and the Welsh League trophy.
After 8 fantastic years Mike Lewis is set to depart the club.
Mike has been a huge part of our club since first signing in the Summer of 2016 making 225 appearances, lifting 4 trophies, securing 2 promotions and qualifying for Europe twice.
His competitive debut for Barry was in the 2-0 home league win over Undy Athletic on 18th August 2016, keeping a clean sheet in his first game.
It was a good omen, with Mike keeping six consecutive clean sheets in his opening six league and cup games, helping us to reach the Nathaniel MG League Cup final that season and earning promotion to the Cymru Premier as Welsh League Champions.
In total, Mike earned 21 clean sheets in that first season going on to make 70 in his Barry career.
A significant clean sheet for Mike came in our return to Europe in the home game against Cliftonville in Summer 2019, with Barry drawing 0-0 against the Belfast club.
Not only a fantastic Goalkeeper but a wonderful role model to our young ‘keepers across the club and a supporters’ favourite whose presence around the club will be missed.
Thanks for everything Mike, wishing you all the very best on your next adventure.
A presentation will be made to Mike at next week’s Awards Evening. You can buy tickets for an opportunity to say a deserved goodbye.
After ten seasons Jordan Cotterill will leave the club at the end of the season.
Jordan a former Captain has been a huge part of our club since signing in February 2013, making 271 appearances, scoring 92 goals across 3 divisions, lifting 5 trophies, securing 3 promotions and qualifying for Europe twice.
His record speaks for itself but above all of that his loyalty during our most difficult times in 2013 will forever be remembered and appreciated.
Jordan’s 30 goal tally in the 2013/14 season was the most goals a player has scored since the great Eifion Williams in the 1998/99 season.
On top of this, Jordan was the first player to score a Cymru Premier hat trick for Barry Town in 2019 since Jamie Moralee’s in the 2001/02 season.
Jordan’s departure means Saturday’s game v Aberystwyth will be his last home game for our club.
We encourage supporters to come out to support the lads for our final home game of the season and show their appreciation for the incredible loyalty and service Jordan has shown us.
For a full review of Jordan’s time with the club and many a nostalgic story please be sure to buy Saturday’s Matchday Programme.
