We have recently been highlighting the fact that a year has passed since the momentous decision was taken to establish Bangor 1876. Whilst Covid-19 was not around in 1876, there are a number of parallels in the early history of Bangor football with the happenings over the last year.

The National Library in Aberystwyth provides a valuable online resource with its collection of digitised newspapers from which the extracts below are taken.

At the very beginning, the first record we have of a game involving a Bangor side appears in the North Wales Chronicle on 23 December 1876, “..BANGOR v. CARNARVON.—This match was played under the Association Rules on the ground of the latter club last Saturday, and resulted in a victory for the Bangor team by one goal (kicked by F. C. Docker) to none…” . Since that first match, the rivalry between teams less than ten miles apart grew to the extent that the Secretary of Caernarfon Wanderers wrote to the North Wales Express in November 1888, “..I am sorry to find that the rivalry existing between Bangor and Carnarvon in all things, has, in the matter of football playing got to such a pitch as that a team from Carnarvon (the Wanderers) was afraid last Saturday, to go to Bangor to play a match with the Bangor F.C. This fear was well-grounded I regret to say. The last time we paid a visit to Bangor, stones and mud were thrown at us by some roughs in the crowd, and some of our men narrowly escaped serious injury. I am bound to admit, however, that the Bangor players have been just as badly treated in Carnarvon, and I am I always afraid that the ultimate result of this kind of thing will be to put an end to matches between the two…”. For better or for worse, the rivalry continues of course.

When we entered the Gwynedd League, we were subject to some criticism because, by openly signing two players on professional contracts, our actions meant that the league became subject to some new rules concerning player registrations. At the commencement of the 1909 season, the North Wales Weekly News wrote “We on the Coast have watched the English football war through all its stages, until the truce was reached. The element of professionalism is so strong in that war, that I, for one, feel thankful that the League is imbued with the true spirit of amateurism, and that the game is played for the love of it, and not for the gain of filthy lucre". Say what we may about professionalism, it will not suit League football in North Wales. We love the amateur here…It would be a sorry day for the League once it lost its amateurism…”. These observations remind you of the current debate relating to the Premier League and its media contracts and the relative poverty lower down in the game but also gives us an interesting historic perspective which, to an extent, continues to exist.

At a time when many clubs are seeking to improve their grounds (sometimes at considerable cost) to comply with the FAW’s criteria, with a number of our well established grassroots clubs struggling to reach the standard required of Tier 3 clubs, Bangor faced a similar dilemma with its ground at Maes y Dref at the end of the nineteenth century. In September 1899, the Chronicle published a letter which contained the following comments “…the performances of the city team have been so severely handicapped, that some change should assuredly be made in the direction of widening the pre- sent ground. Strenuous endeavours have been made to secure another ground in the vicinity, but all efforts in that direction have proved futile. It may be mentioned that under the present, conditions the Bangor eleven cannot, according to the hard and fast rules of the Welsh Association., play any Welsh cup tie on the ground, and what is more the idea of applying for the international fixture is quite out of the question. Of course, this means, particularly in the case of the cup ties, a considerable loss to the revenue of the club…The ground in its present state is several yards too narrow and now that the Friars Estate which adjoins the Bangor ground has been purchased by a syndicate, some scheme should be formulated to purchase sufficient land to widest the ground, so as to comply with the regulations of the Welsh Association…. I am informed that they have made several overtures to the syndicate, but no satisfaction has been given as yet. In fact, I am told that they have not even fixed a price on the piece of ground required…” .

At the end of the 1899-1900 season, the same paper summarised the season, including the comment “…In the Welsh Cup Competition the club was again thrown out in the fourth round by the Druids, on the Bangor Cricket Ground, which had to be engaged for the tie. The engagement of this ground entailed considerable expense, but. it had to be incurred, as no other ground was available in the district…".

Who would have thought that, in these early years, football became mixed up with land deals? It is rather ironic that the Cricket Ground (later to become the football ground at Farrar Road) would itself find itself at the centre of a land deal which had a dramatic effect on football in the city just over a century later.

Photo Credit: Bangor Civic Society

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