Port Talbot Athletic have been working to bring their Victoria Road ground up to League of Wales standard since it became clear during the Spring that they were odds-on to finish in the requisite top two places in the CC Sports Welsh League. With floodlights already installed earlier in the season, the main work required was to turn the existing area of cover into a seated stand. An additional covered area has been erected alongside the existing one on the Victoria Road side of the ground and seats will be installed in line with LoW requirements.

Inter Cardiff are likely to consider a move away from Cardiff Athletic Stadium at Leckwith in the medium term. The stadium costs them £280 per match to hire and is recognised as an unsatisfactory venue for spectators, given the extreme distance from the stand to the side of the pitch, with a
running track and field event facilities in between. Inter have been working closely with the UWIC club recently, sharing players under Wales's 'two club rule', and one option appears to be development of a League of Wales standard ground at the university side's Cyncoed campus.      

Cardiff City await possible proposals from Cardiff Council for a new football ground site as the local authority are known to be keen to take the Ninian Park site back at some time in the future - though City have a 38-year lease remaining.  It had previously been suggested that Cardiff might be one of the tenants in the city's new Sports Village in Cardiff Bay - where work is due to start early in 2001 on a new ice rink, snowdome and 50-metre swimming pool. But council officials say the location of that multi-sports complex "could not cope with traffic generated by a successful Bluebirds side." 

There has been much speculation in the closing months of the 1999-2000 season over the state of Bangor City's Farrar Road ground.  From once being a neat and tidy ground - hosting European club and international matches - it has become a sad and dilapidated site now below the standard expected for League of Wales membership.  The League of Wales has contacted the club
expressing concern. The club are trying to negotiate a 25-year lease on the site so they can assume responsibility and seek financial aid for improvements.  The Council claim to have spent £40,000 in the last financial year, notably shoring up the rear wall of the collapsing grandstand.     

Pontardawe Town are reported to be looking for alternative sites in the town for a new ground, frustrated by having to share the Recreation Ground with the local cricket club.     

Wenvoe-based CC Sports League club Ely Rangers have plans to upgrade their ground with a new changing room block, improvements to the Station Road entrance and perimeter wall.  The club also hopes to install floodlights at some time this year.   

The news that UEFA has increased the ground criteria required for all clubs entering European club competitions adds to the dilemmas facing Welsh qualifiers.  UEFA have decreed that ALL spectators must be seated for matches in the Champions League and UEFA Cup, while for InterToto Cup Round 1 and 2 matches the criteria are a less stringent - with standing spectators permitted.

 This will obviously pose problems for many League of Wales clubs should they qualify - because few grounds currently have an adequate seating capacity to stage an all-seater tie.  Barry Town, Cwmbran Town and Inter Cardiff in the south can all cope with the new stipulation - indeed Barry were subjected to a very similar restriction (by the police, I believe) when they entertained Aberdeen a few years back.  However of the Mid Wales clubs only Newtown, currently, could hope to fit in enough temporary seats; and in the north, ironically, only struggling Conwy United appear to have sufficient permanent seating and/or space for temporary seats.  Bangor City's Farrar Road, the scene of many European occasions in the past, is unlikely ever to stage another UEFA Cup tie under these new rules.

Many people, especially those who have attended a UEFA Cup tie at a League of Wales ground, will see the UEFA regulations as seriously 'over the top'.  The presence of standing fans - in numbers that have to be approved by the police in any case - has never represented a safety risk at any of the games I've attended, home and away, in recent years.  But the rules have, as ever, been made with little consideration for Europe's smallest nations and clubs, and Welsh clubs will simply have to accept that UEFA make the rules, and evaluate what options they will have if they qualify.

 There are basically three options open to a club whose home venue lacks sufficient permanent seating to stage a UEFA tie:

 1.        Spend upwards of  £75,000 on a permanent seated stand, making use of whatever grants are available;  this option is essentially one already pursued by Barry Town (thanks partly to the rather tainted and controversial generosity of their local council) and partly by Newtown and Conwy United.

2.        Hire temporary seating, costing around £7,500 for 1,500 seats.  Barry Town put temporary seats behind their goals for the Aberdeen fixture, and Aberystwyth Town did likewise for their InterToto Cup tie last June.

3.        Opt to play at the nearest larger stadium with sufficient seats.  This of course means sacrificing much of the value of 'home' advantage as well as a significant amount of cash to the host club. And taking a prestigious tie away from your home patch also risks alienating true local fans and missing the opportunity of generating major local interest in the game, and hence the club.  Nevertheless it's a route several clubs have taken, notably TNS (then Llansantffraid) playing at Wrexham, Afan Lido using Aberavon rugby ground, and Cwmbran Town shelling out a small fortune for using Ninian Park to entertain Celtic, considerably eroding the value of this lucrative draw.  If Llanelli or Carmarthen Town had reached the UEFA Cup this season, their options might have included using the Vetch.

So far I've concentrated on the dilemma facing the individual club in these situations, but the discovery that UEFA aid is available to member countries to fund ground improvements has sparked off a debate about how Wales should use this 'bounty'.  The money available - which 3 countries' F.A.s have apparently received already - is said to be a 10-year, low-interest loan of the Swiss franc equivalent of just under £200,000.

£200,000 would just about upgrade two grounds to UEFA standard.  But which two ?  Alternatively, it could be spread more thinly and disbursed to clubs who could obtain 'matched' funding from other sources.  But, in either of these options, it is debatable whether preference should go to those regions of Wales which lack an adequate ground at present (and the north-west is clearly the most disadvantaged area of Wales in this respect now) or to clubs based on merit.