The New Saints F.C.: Difference between revisions

The New Saints of Oswestry Town & Llansantffraid
	File:Thenewsaints.png
Full name	The New Saints of Oswestry Town & Llansantffraid Football Club
Nickname(s)	The Saints
Short name	TNS
Founded	1959; 65 years ago
Ground	Park Hall; Oswestry
Capacity	2,000
Chairman	Mike Harris
Manager	Craig Harrison
League	Welsh Premier League
2014-15	Welsh Premier League, 1st
Home colours	Away colours
	Current season

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Revision as of 12:38, 29 April 2015

The New Saints of Oswestry Town & Llansantffraid Football Club (Welsh: Clwb Pêl-droed y Seintiau Newydd), also known as the New Saints or TNS is a full-time-professional British football club representing Llansantffraid-ym-Mechain in Powys, Wales and Oswestry in Shropshire, England (the two places are 8 miles (13 km) apart). They play in the Welsh Premier League, which they have won a record 9 times. From 1997 to 2006, the club was known as Total Network Solutions F.C.

TNS play at Park Hall in Oswestry, having moved there from the Recreation Ground in Llansantffraid-ym-Mechain. Park Hall accommodates 1,000 seated spectators and there are plans to upgrade the ground to 3,000 capacity in the future.^[1]

The club's first choice strip is green and white hooped shirts, white shorts and socks. The second choice strip is blue shirts, shorts and socks.

History

Llansantffraid F.C.

The club was formed as Llansantffraid F.C. to represent the tiny border village of Llansantffraid-ym-Mechain (population: 1,000) in 1959, and played at the Recreation Ground.

They first tasted competitive football in the Montgomeryshire Amateur Football League (then the fourth level of the Welsh football league system), winning the championship seven times. At the end of the 1989/90 season they were elected to the Central Wales League (now the Mid-Wales League) but their stay was brief, winning promotion to the Cymru Alliance as runners-up on their first attempt. Llansantffraid's meteoric rise continued and in 1992/93 they gained promotion to the League of Wales, now the Welsh Premier League, as champions and won the Welsh Intermediate Cup (formerly the Welsh Amateur Cup).

Total Network Solutions

In 1996, Llansantffraid won the Welsh Cup and qualified for the first time for the European Cup Winners' Cup. At this time a local computer company, Total Network Solutions of Oswestry, arranged a £250,000 sponsorship deal which involved incorporating the company name into the club name. As Total Network Solutions Llansantffraid F.C. they met the Polish cup winners Ruch Chorzów and earned a 1–1 draw at home before losing 0–5 in Poland. Since then they have qualified for European competition several times. The club's European home games are generally played at either Newtown's or Wrexham's stadium as their old Recreation Ground was far below UEFA's standards (though for their 2003 meeting with Manchester City, they played their home game at the 72,000-seat Millennium Stadium in Cardiff).

In 1997 the club's name was changed to Total Network Solutions F.C., being the first instance in the United Kingdom of a football club renaming itself after its sponsor's name only. Following the financial meltdown of Barry Town in the summer of 2003, TNS became the only Welsh Premier League club which had a full-time playing staff. In the summer of 2005 however Llanelli AFC also announced plans to go full-time.

Merger with Oswestry Town

In the summer of 2003 a merger with their financially weak neighbours, Oswestry Town (who, despite being from England, also played in Wales), was approved by Oswestry's shareholders despite not all shareholders being aware of a meeting. It was also approved by the Football Association of Wales (FAW) and was eventually ratified on 14 August 2003 by UEFA (which initially objected to two clubs from different governing bodies merging).

The 2003/04 season was trophyless for TNS, as they were runners-up in the League of Wales to Rhyl and were losing finalists in the Welsh Cup, also to Rhyl. The next season, 2004–05, proved much more successful, as TNS won a League and Cup double.

During the 2005/06 close season, after newly crowned Champions League winners Liverpool were initially denied a place in the next season's competition, TNS offered to play a one-legged tie against the Reds for TNS's place in the first qualifying round.^[2] After UEFA reached a compromise by which Liverpool were placed in the first qualifying round of the competition, TNS and Liverpool ended up drawn against one another anyway. The first leg was at Anfield, when Liverpool won 3–0 by a Steven Gerrard hat-trick, while in the second leg played at Wrexham, Gerrard scored two more after coming on as a substitute, to add to one by Djibril Cissé for another 3–0 TNS defeat. Although defeated the team drew praise from many quarters most notably the young Northern Irish goalkeeper Gerard Doherty, of whom Rafael Benítez said, "The goalkeeper saved a lot of goals and for me he was the best player in the two games".^[3]

The New Saints F.C.

In early 2006 the club's sponsor, Total Network Solutions, was taken over by British Telecom,^[4] as a result of which the sponsorship arrangement lapsed at the end of the 2005/06 season and it became necessary to find a new name for the club. After a trawl for naming ideas, including an attempt to sell the naming rights on eBay, the name "The New Saints" was agreed upon as appropriate to the clubs' history — Llansantffraid was always known as "The Saints", while Oswestry had strong connections with Saint Oswald, while handily retaining the initials "TNS". A new club badge was also developed at the same time, featuring a dragon to represent Llansantffraid and a lion representing Oswestry.^[5]

On 10 February 2010, the BBC reported that the New Saints had applied to play home games at Chester City's Deva Stadium from 2010 to 2011, after having been turned down for a grant to help fund the construction of a new 1,000-seat stand at Park Hall. At the time, the mooted move was complicated by Chester City's financial struggles and by governance issues. Deva Stadium's pitch and stands lie in Wales, but outbuildings on the site that housed the club offices are in England, and Chester City were under the jurisdiction of the English Football Association.^[6] Chester City were liquidated a month later due to overwhelming debts; in any event, the New Saints were granted a domestic licence by the FAW in April 2010 and remained at Park Hall for 2010–11 season. The New Saints were crowned 2009–10 Welsh Premier League Champions.

The New Saints entered the Champions League in 2010–2011. They were drawn against League of Ireland Premier Division Champions Bohemians in the Second Qualifying Round, they lost the first leg 1–0 at Dalymount Park in Dublin on 13 July 2010.^[7] However they won the second leg at Park Hall 4–0 and won the tie 4–1 on aggregate, the first ever tie won by the club since their European debut in 1996.^[8] Bohemians manager Pat Fenlon later labelled his teams' performance as 'disgraceful' and said 'the players let the club, league and country down'.^[9] The result was labelled by others as the worst result in Bohemians 40-year European history.^[10] The Saints advanced to play Belgian Pro League Champions and European Giants R.S.C. Anderlecht. The Saints were beaten 3–1 in the home leg held in Wrexham and 3–0 in the away game at the Constant Vanden Stock Stadium in Brussels. The Saints then played CSKA Sofia in the Europa League playoff round but were beaten 5–2 on aggregate. As league runners up during the 2010–11 season the Saints entered the Europa League qualifying rounds in 2011. They managed to beat Belfast club Cliftonville F.C. 2–1 on aggregate in the First Round but were eliminated by Danish club FC Midtjylland 8–3 on aggregate in the following round.

Cultural references

"Dancing in the Streets"

On the Sky Sports football show Soccer Saturday, TNS's name is gently mocked by the programme's main presenter, Jeff Stelling. At the end of the day's classified check (in which the Welsh Premier League is always the last set of results given, and in which TNS are often alphabetically last), if TNS have played and won at home, Stelling invariably uses his now famous catchphrase "They'll be dancing in the streets of Total Network Solutions tonight!",^[11] since updated to "dancing in the streets of the New Saints". Stelling's joke was also occasionally aimed at fellow Welsh side, Airbus UK in 2005/06. Stelling's joke may ultimately derive from the accidental 'they'll be dancing in the streets of Raith', claimed to have been said by football commentator Sam Leitch in the 1960s during a match by the Kirkcaldy-based Raith Rovers, though the phrase is better known as a stock phrase of rugby commentator Bill McLaren, often stating "they'll be dancing in the streets of..." and inserting in the name of the winning team.^[12]

Other

TNS are mentioned in the song "This One's For Now" by the band Half Man Half Biscuit on the album Urge For Offal.

Futsal

The club's Futsal side has also seen success, having been winners of the inaugural FAW Futsal Cup in 2011 and reaching the final in 2012.^[13]

History in European competition

Season	Competition	Round	Club	Home	Away	Aggregate
1996–97	UEFA Cup Winners' Cup	QR	Ruch Chorzów	1–1	0–5	1–6
2000–01	UEFA Champions League	1Q	FC Levadia Tallinn	2–2	0–4	2–6
2001–02	UEFA Cup	QR	Polonia Warsaw	0–2	0–4	0–6
2002–03	UEFA Cup	QR	Amica Wronki	2–7	0–5	2–12
2003–04	UEFA Cup	QR	Manchester City	0–2	0–5	0–7
2004–05	UEFA Cup	1Q	Östers IF	1–2	0–2	1–4
2005–06	UEFA Champions League	1Q	Liverpool	0–3	0–3	0–6
2006–07	UEFA Champions League	1Q	MYPA	0–1	0–1	0–2
2007–08	UEFA Champions League	1Q	FK Ventspils	3–2	1–2	4–4(a)
2008–09	UEFA Cup	1Q	FK Sūduva	0–1	0–1	0–2
2009–10	UEFA Europa League	1Q	Fram Reykjavik	1–2	1–2	2–4
2010–11	UEFA Champions League	2Q	Bohemians	4–0	0–1	4–1
2010–11	UEFA Champions League	3Q	Anderlecht	1–3	0–3	1–6
2010–11	UEFA Europa League	PO	CSKA Sofia	2–2	0–3	2–5
2011–12	UEFA Europa League	1Q	Cliftonville	1–1	1–0	2–1
2011–12	UEFA Europa League	2Q	FC Midtjylland	1–3	2–5	3–8
2012–13	UEFA Champions League	2Q	Helsingborgs IF	0–0	0–3	0–3
2013–14	UEFA Champions League	2Q	Legia Warsaw	1–3	0–1	1–4
2014–15	UEFA Champions League	2Q	ŠK Slovan Bratislava	0–2	0–1	0–3
2015–16	UEFA Champions League	1Q		–	–	–

Notes

QR: Qualifying round
1Q: First qualifying round
2Q: Second qualifying round
3Q: Third qualifying round
PO: Play-off round

Honours

Promoted to League of Wales: 1993
- Champions (9): 1999/00, 2004/05, 2005/06, 2006/07, 2009/10, 2011/12, 2012/13, 2013/14, 2014/15
- Runners-up (5): 2001/02, 2002/03, 2003/04, 2007/08, 2010/11
Welsh Cup winners (4): 1995/96, 2004/05, 2011/12,^[14] 2013/14
- Runners-up (2): 2000/01, 2003/04
FAW Premier Cup winners (1): 2006/7
League of Wales Cup Winners (6): 1994/95, 2005/06, 2008/09, 2009/10, 2010/11, 2014/15
- Runners-up (1): 2012/13
Welsh Intermediate Cup Winners (1): 1992/93
Cymru Alliance League Winners (1): 1992/93
Highest attendance: 14,563 against Liverpool, 2005
First progression in European football (4–1) agg -v- Bohemian, 2010
Shropshire Senior Cup: 2011–12^[15]

Biggest victories and losses

Biggest League of Wales win: 9–1 v. Bangor City FC in April 2014
Biggest League of Wales defeat: 0–10 v. Barry Town in 1997

Current squad

As of 7 October 2014.

Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.


No.	Pos.	Nation	Player
1	GK	ENG	Paul Harrison (Captain)
2	DF	WAL	Simon Spender
3	DF	ENG	Chris Marriott
4	DF	ENG	Philip Baker
6	DF	WAL	Kai Edwards
7	MF	ENG	Scott Ruscoe
8	MF	ENG	Sam Finley
9	FW	NZL	Greg Draper
10	FW	WAL	Matthew Williams
11	MF	ENG	Ryan Fraughan
12	MF	ENG	Christian Seargeant


No.	Pos.	Nation	Player
14	MF	ENG	Jamie Mullan
16	DF	WAL	Connell Rawlinson
18	FW	ENG	Michael Wilde
19	FW	WAL	Jamie Reed
20	FW	WAL	Alex Darlington
21	MF	POL	Adrian Cieslewicz
22	FW	ENG	Scott Quigley
23	MF	WAL	Aeron Edwards
25	GK	WAL	Chris Mullock
33	DF	WAL	Luke Douglas

Out on loan