Denbigh Town FC

Friday night football and a trip to Denbighshire in North Wales. We stayed between Denbigh and Rhyl, with the ground being about 8 miles from our base. There is plenty of free car parking near the ground and the facilities are top class, the best I've seen in Wales including anything in the Cymru Premier. They were massively upgraded last year, 2025 in order to host Welsh U19 international matches. The turnstiles are almost futuristic in comparison to some, they have three excellent stands, a bar complete with balcony and a very well organised tea and food hut. Upon enquiring about a club shop to the stewards I think they took pity on me after learning I was a groundhopper who had travelled over from Yorkshire and they found me a Denbigh Town mug to take home, excellent and really appreciated by myself, they really went out of their way when they didn't have to.

There was a good crowd of 342 in for the game against the excellently named Holyhead Hotspur. Both teams at the wrong end of the league and desperate for the points. I had seen Denbigh in pre season at Holywell so I knew some of what to expect from them. I knew they possessed a long throw specialist and his skills were once more on show, however I feel the player in question is only in the team purely for this as his defensive skills left something to be desired. I also met a new friend on the trip with Stanley the dog being very interested in the crumbs from the Sausage rolls we had had pre match, for a small canine he was still a belly on legs, constantly looking for the next morsel of food.

The game started frantically with the home side looking to take the initiative and edge in front. They did that and more when in the seventh minute they stroked home from the left side of the area, they had already had a chance from an identical position that was blocked. Two minutes later an excellent pass cut through the Holyhead defence and they raced through to go 2.0 up with less than ten minutes on the clock. You feared the worst for the visitors at this point, thinking it could have been a trouncing, but how wrong we were. Immediately after the restart the Holyhead forward did well to hold off the home defender, Mr long throw, and did well to finish empathically into the bottom corner. The rest of the half was a war of attrition really with neither side really taking charge and a lot of middle of the pitch action.

Just before the hour mark and a cross from the right was met with a close range diving header for 2.2 and Holyhead were in dreamland but it didn't end there and minutes later a long ball down the left was met with a good save from the keeper after the shot but the loose ball sort of hung in the air and with no defenders there to deal with it Holyhead were left with an easy header to edge in front. The visitors then missed two good chances to wrap the game up, the first one was put wide when clean through and the second one was well saved when clean through. Denbigh had lost the plot and too many passes were going astray. Then three minutes from time Holyhead headed home from a corner for an excellent 4.2 win on the road, the final whistle blew to much derision from sections of the home fan base.