By Matthew Burgess
Barry Town manager Gavin Chesterfield will lead his team out at the Nathaniel MG Cup final on Saturday knowing that they are huge underdogs against Welsh Premier League heavyweights TNS (5.15).
Full-time TNS remain unbeaten after recently setting a world record for 27-consecutive wins and are sure-fire favourites to win the Welsh Premier League title this season, while Barry Town are pushing hard in Welsh League Division 1 to gain promotion back into the Welsh top-flight. The two teams last met in an entertaining encounter in the third round of the Welsh Cup last season, in which the Saints ran out 5-2 winners.
A victory for Barry would represent the biggest upset in the League Cup’s 25-year history and would be further evidence that the club, who were controversially ejected from the Welsh system altogether in 2013, are once again becoming a force within the domestic game.
It was during the mid-nineties to mid-noughties when Barry were the leading team in Welsh football, that the club lifted the League Cup title for four years in a row.
A losing appearance in 2001 to Caersws was the last time they would get that far but 16-years on, there is a sense that the good times are indeed returning at the Jenner Park club.
“It’s a romantic story because a lot of the guys who’ll be taking to the field on Saturday are the same guys who stayed the club when we went to Division 3,” explains the club’s popular manager Gavin Chesterfield.
“We won Division 3 at the first time of asking, they won Division 2 at the first time of asking.
“In our first season in Division 1 we finished two points off Cardiff Met and finished runners up, so these lads are used to winning football matches,” he added.
“It’s a massive day for the club because we’ve got to the final of a competition in which we weren’t expected to get to.
“Even though I know the odds are hugely against us and we’re up against a full-time outfit who’ve just broken a world record, it’s a cup game and if we can genuinely play to what I believe my squad is capable of and if they have a little bit of an off-day, then the odds turn a little bit more in our favour but we’re still up against it.”
Regardless of the outcome on Saturday, Chesterfield believes the club’s results on-route to the final are further evidence that they getting close to making to that leap from the Welsh League back into the Welsh Premier.
“To get to the final we’ve beaten two teams in our league – Cambrian & Clydach and Haverfordwest, one of whom were in the Welsh Premier last year, and we’ve then beaten Cardiff Met and Carmarthen so we’ve got the final when we probably shouldn’t have.
“When you experience the big games like this, you get to see what Barry is as a club. We’ll take a good following and it has really united everyone,” he said.
“After all we’ve been through we’re stronger now than what we’ve been for a long time.
“Off the field our administration in achieving a [domestic] licence is an indication of that, we have 600 playing members in the club, previously we never had that.
“We are stronger now and were we to make that jump, anytime in the next few years, I think now it would be more sustainable.
“We know we’re massively up against it but just to see Barry Town’s name competing on a national stage again fills us with pride but you don’t go into a Cup Final not hoping to play a big part.”
In Part 2 of our look ahead towards Saturday’s final, we’ll be speaking to TNS manager Craig Harrison.
NATHANIEL MG CUP FINAL
BARRY TOWN vs THE NEW SAINTS
5.15 Saturday 21 January @ Cardiff Met FC’s Cyncoed Campus stadium.
Tickets available on the day priced £7/£3 or see club official websites for further details.