Only the matches at Dorchester and Bracknell escaped the effects of Storm Darragh on Saturday leaving a whole host of postponements in its wake. The re-arranged fixture with Frome Town will now be re-arranged again and we will look forward to welcoming them later in the season.

Although the forecast is to be very wet on Saturday, at least the stormy winds will have subsided allowing us to welcome the players, officials and supporters of table topping Merthyr Town FC to the Black Gold Stadium. Merthyr look in unstoppable form (P17 W13 D2 L2 41 points) but have been beaten twice away from home at Walton & Hersham (5-2) and Gloucester City (2-1).

Due to postponements Merthyr now face a run of 6 consecutive away matches. They have already won two of those games, 2-1 at both Bracknell and Chertsey Town and drawn at Dorchester 2-2. This leaves them with a trip to Taunton on the Tuesday prior to coming to us and then the Boxing Day clash with Hungerford.

We produced one of our best performances of the season at Penydarren Park last season and came away with a 2-0 win. However, things did not go as well back at the Black Gold where we went down 3-1.

The Martyrs missed out on a play-off spot by a single point last season, they finished on 67 points with Bracknell on 68 points. They quickly put this disappointment behind them and got the new season off to a flying start by putting 6 goals past visitors Tiverton Town on the opening day of the new campaign and have been in the top three ever since.

Largely responsible for the impressive league form is the club top scorer and the league’s leading marksman, the in-form Ricardo Rees. He began his career at Sky Bet Championship side Bristol City and became a regular in the Robins’ under-23 side before his release in the summer of 2020. During his time at Ashton Gate, he had a loan spell with Vanarama National League South side Bath City in October 2018 and with Salisbury in 2019/20. He was signed by Paul Michael in June 2022.

Merthyr appointed Paul Michael as their manager in April 2022, recruiting him from Yate Town where he had taken them close to a play-off place. He made an immediate impact by lifting them into ninth place in the 2022/23 season which was a significant improvement on the season before. As I said previously, he followed this up with a finish one place outside of the play-offs in 2023/24 season. Not many would bet that he will not take the club one step further this season.

We are in 12^th place in the league (P18 W6 D5 L7 23 points) and looking for our fourth home win of the campaign. We were sorry to see Toby Holmes leave the club last week but pleased to welcome back the very popular defender Adeoye (Ade) Olumuyiwa who will no doubt be a very dominating and formidable presence in our back line.

It’s always a true mark of your progress to measure yourself against the best, and currently Merthyr are showing themselves to be just that. We know that we need not fear anyone as on our day we can compete with the top sides. We have a great deal to play for in the coming months.

Enjoy the game

Neil Wellington.