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!
