A new feature taking a look at what the relevant newspapers are saying about Barry Town and the world of football.
With so long since our last home match, we go right back to reports of that game against Porthmadog. The Barry Gem headlined its report of the match with our league position, telling its readers that "Town open up five point lead at the top of the table". The writer, Stephen Johnson, described how "the mighty Dragons broke down hard working Porthmadog defence", with thanks to Eifion Williams sixteenth LoW goal, on a pitch where "the word wet is an inadequate description". Across at the Barry and District News, it was lauded as "Another impressive win...for the Dragons", their sports correspondent calling it "a satisfying performance for Barry; the wet pitch helped the North Walians, but the class difference earned Barry the points". The writers of the C.P.D Porthmadog internet site concur, pointing to the rain, which "slowed the pace of the game down, giving Port a chance, and even the first shot of the game". However, they conceded that "Barry were the better team overall."
The South Wales Echo said that "By Barry's standards they had an off day at the office, but still enough to beat the gallant efforts of lowly Flint", noting that "Flint 'keeper Darren Riggs was by far the busiest of the two no.1's nd saved well from Gary Lloyd's free-kick and Lee Barrow's header". However, they also said that "Barry's second goal had a touch of luck about it as striker Eifion Williams mis-hiyt shot fell knidly for Darren Caeter to comfortably slot the ball home."
The Barry and District took the same attitude, headlining with "Town grind out two more wins" to describe both the Flint match and the following Tuesday's game at Newtown. Agreeing with the other press, the B&D's sports correspondent concluded that the Flint game was "Not the best performance by the Dragons but the three points were well deserved." Discussing the Newtown game, he wrote that "There are times when the champions have to grind out results with sheer hard work and determination. This was one of those occasions." Barry "were not helped by the loss of Richard Jones, Danny Carter and Gary Barnett, who was injured in the first minute," and that, in fact, "the home side had the edge in the first half." Concluding, he wrote that "Barry...were glad to come out with three points from a hard game, which they only dominated in the last fifteen minutes."
The mid-Wales newspaper, the County Times, took a similar attitude, pointing that "Newtown will not be too concerned about their midweek loss after holding Barry for 76 minutes." Newtown manager, Brian Coyne, told the paper that, "We competed well with them until the last ten minutes, and my lads can take great credit from that performance." Warning the other clubs chasing European spots, Coyne finshed by saying, "That's Barry out of the way for this season, now we should be aiming at taking second place behind them."
Meanwhile, last Saturday's match at Caernarfon was described by the 'Wales on Sunday' as "Eifion Williams...taking part in the champions' destruction of his former team." Noting that "Craig Evans finished off (the first goal) after Barry's manager Gary Barnett seemed to benefit from a marginal offside decision","Eifion made his strike after nineteen minutes and from that point, Caernarfon were chasing the action."
This article written by The Yellow Dragon, and first published in the Barry Town Official Matchday Magazine (LoW v. Connah's Quay Nomads, 08.11.97)
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