Cinderford Town have a strong Welsh influence for their Southern League Boxing Day match at Merthyr Town’s Penydarren Park on Boxing Day (1pm).
Jaye Bowen, the son of former Cardiff City midfield player Jason, is one of five ex-Martyrs in the Cinderford squad, alongside Lee Hartshorn, Cameron Clarke, Shane Parry and James Bloom.
Their player-manager is Paul Michael, who previously had the same role at Risca United.
Former Haverfordwest and Clevedon defender Michael led Welsh League Risca from near the bottom of Division Three to the First Division.
He has brought in several new players, including midfielder Jack Alderdice from Goytre FC and defender Danny Clare from his old club Risca United, both of them having also in Monmouth Town’s Welsh League-winning squad a few years ago.
Former Cardiff City striker Gethyn Hill, who had a spell with the Martyrs, has moved on from Cinderford to join National League South club Weston-super-Mare just over a week ago. He has been replaced by ex-Risca United striker Matthew Thomas, whose last club was Carmarthen Town.
This is Cinderford’s third visit to Penydarren Park, now known as the LoadLok Stadium, this season. They won 3-2 in the Southern League Challenge and lost 6-1 in the FA Trophy.
The Forest of Dean club make their third Boxing Day visit to Merthyr in the last four years with the Martyrs winning 4-0 in front of more than 700 spectators two years ago.
That was almost double the rather disappointing attendance that turned out in 2013 to see a 4-4 draw.
Last season Cinderford followed the Martyrs in winning the South & West Division title, losing only four league matches.
Financial worries led to Cinderford initially rejecting promotion, but League officials decided they had to go up.
By them manager John Brought and the majority of Cinderford’s promotion-winning squad had left. Former players Chris Burns and Allan Gough were appointed as joint managers and rebuilt the playing squad, but a string of poor results saw Cinderford rooted to the bottom of the division.
Since new manager Michael’s appointment, Cinderford have gone out of the League Challenge Cup 4-1 away to Division One South & West side Bishops Cleeve and have lost five of their seven league games.
They have, though, won 3-2 against promotion-chasing Chippenham and earned a 2-2 draw against Redditch.
Since that creditable result against Redditch, Michael’s men have been beaten 4-0 at Banbury and 1-0 against Hitching at home.
Cinderford are seven points adrift of Cambridge City at the bottom of the table, having taken only one point from 13 away games, and the worst defensive record of 62 goals conceded in 25 games.
Merthyr will be without defender Curtis McDonald, who serves the first of his two-match suspension.
The match will kick-off at 1pm and, as part of their annual Boxing Day charity event, the Martyrs will be wearing an all-green kit to represent Barnardo’s Cymru.
Match sponsors for the second time this season are Atal UK, and the match ball sponsors are Slimming World.