Cardiff City/Derry City

[CvilleRovers]

derry city an irish team playing in an irish league, makes sense to me

[David]

A blatant attempt there to politicise a decent thread. Very sad.

[Cymro]

Well, Derry are an Irish team playing in an Irish league. They are a Northern Irish team playing in the Republic of Ireland's league. ;)

Just ignore the bait and carry on with the thread.

[HarpoJoyce]

I knew the Welsh clubs in the English League were affiliated to the Welsh FA. In the late 1980's Linfield were banned from playing home games at Windsor for two games and were told that home games had to be played at least 100 miles from Windsor Park. This obviously ruled out Northern Ireland and playing down south was not practical. There was talk of Scotland and playing at Ibrox but the Scottish FA said we could not play under their jurisdiction. The English FA soon said the same and it looked like we would have to go abroad until Wrexham kindly made the Racecourse Ground available to us and for that Linfield will always be greatful to them and their supporters who were absolutely fantastic to us. I have travelled all over Europe following Linfield and those two trips to Wrexham remain two of the best trips I have ever been on.

Didn't Linfield and Shelbourne share a charter flight (at least outward) in 1993-1994 to Shels match v. Karpathy of Lvov (Ukraine) and Linfield's Dynamo of Tbilisi (Georgia).
Got the home draw aswell.
http://www.uefa.com/competitions/ucl/history/season=1993/round=52/index.html

http://www.uefa.com/competitions/ecwc/history/season=1993/round=135/index.html

[dcfcsteve]

Lilywhite stu you are more than correct in what you say. However would you believe TNS and Llanelli are actually full-time !
Not only that but TNS are now english based in Oswestry. This as a result of merger between TNS and Oswestry Town. Oswestry were actually founder members of Welsh FA in 1876. When they sold their old ground years back, though they did'nt compete for a while the club continued, when their new ground was completed they were allowed to enter Welsh football due to their historic link. TNS was the village team from Llansantfraid some 8 miles from Oswestry within the Welsh border. TNS took the name of their sponsers Total Network Solutions, however when that company was sold the club took a new name keeping the same innitials 'The New Saints'. The move to Oswestry was to a better stadium (cough, cough) wth artificial pitch, and potentially (cough, cough, must get some strepsils) better crowds !N
In respect of the big 3 in Europe they & Newport (when a league side) all had good runs in the old Cup Winners Cup. Cardiff actually reached semi's in late 60's, not too sure what Swans best run was, and Newport & my lot Wrexham both reached Q/finals. Now those were the nights in the 70's Anderlecht (1-2 over 2 legs) and they reckoned they were lucky and gave them harder game than WHU in final.

Lilywhite Stu - your ignorance of the current politcal make-up of the United Kingdom is staggering if you think Cardiff is politically and legilsatively no different than Bristol. If you don't think this, why did you chose to ignore than Gordon Brown nis Prime Minister of Glasgow and Belfast, just as he is Bristol ?

Historynut - TNS playing in Oswestry has a nice irony to it. As you may well know, that part of Shropshire and a large chunk of the Welsh marches area was historically part of Wales for centuries before the English re-drew their county boundaries to absorb it. I remember being fascinated by the presence of Welsh street names when I visited Oswestry.

[Cymro]

Indeed, and you'll find evidence of the Welsh language well into England, as far as Shrewsbury (Amwythig) and Crewe, as well as the obvious border towns of Chester (Caer), Hereford (Henffordd), and of course, Oswestry (Croesoswallt). I think there's still a smattering of Welsh speakers around those parts too, no doubt due in some part to emigration there as the Welsh towns on the border are very small.

[David]

Didn't Linfield and Shelbourne share a charter flight (at least outward) in 1993-1994 to Shels match v. Karpathy of Lvov (Ukraine) and Linfield's Dynamo of Tbilisi (Georgia).
Got the home draw aswell.
http://www.uefa.com/competitions/ucl/history/season=1993/round=52/index.html

http://www.uefa.com/competitions/ecwc/history/season=1993/round=135/index.html

Vaguely recall something but am not sure. That was the time we progressed despite getting beat as Dynamo Tbilisi were caught attempting to bribe the referee.

[HarpoJoyce]

Vaguely recall something but am not sure. That was the time we progressed despite getting beat as Dynamo Tbilisi were caught attempting to bribe the referee.

Yes it's starting to come back. the UEFA site has Dynamo as victors in the Prelim. rd. Then show Linfield beating Copenhagen 3-0 in the next round.