Veteran Steve Evans comes out of retirement for Caernarfon

Caernarfon Town have announced the signing of former Welsh international centre-back Steve Evans and Iwan Cartwright.

The arrivals of Cartwright and Evans follow the permanent arrivals of Dion Donohue, Danny Gosset, and Robert Hughes, and the loan signing of Liverpool’s Jakub Ojrzynski.

Evans, registers as a player at 42-years-old and will become the oldest registered player in the league. He does have a long way to go to become the oldest player to feature in the league though with Tomi Morgan being 53 when he featured for Porthmadog in 2010.

The experienced defender earned seven caps for Wales between 2006 and 2008 and is the only non-league player to play internationally for Wales since 1930. The Wrexham-born defender spent time in Crewe Alexandra and West Bromwich Albion’s academies, before joining The New Saints in 1999.

He went on to make 261 appearances for TNS over two different spells, winning the league four times and was named the league’s player of the season for 2004/05. Evans also had a spell with Wrexham between 2006 and 2009, and he also spent time on loan at Connah’s Quay in the 2014-15 season. Evans’ last playing club was Lex Glyndwr in 2016/17.

Following the end of his playing career in 2017, Evans became Scott Ruscoe’s assistant manager at TNS, holding that role until both Evans and Ruscoe were let go by the club in March of this year.

Commenting on his move to The Oval, he said: “Thanks for the great welcome. Looking forward to helping the team grow and continuing to learn in a new environment.

“I can not wait to play in front of the Cofi Army, I’m excited by this new challenge.

After taking part in all three of Caernarfon’s pre-season friendlies so far, Evans expressed his relief at getting back into football; “I’ve been out of it for a few months now. I’ve played many times against Caernarfon and coached against them as well.

“I know a lot of the players from coaching against them, we’ve got some really exciting players here. My job will be come in, do well as a player, and use my experience of the level I’ve played at to guide them on the pitch and make them better players, and hopefully, get them to help me do a bit of running as well!”

Caernarfon have also announced the signing of midfielder Iwan Cartwright. The 24-year-old Wrexham academy product joins after three and a half years at Cefn Druids, where he made 79 league appearances.

Speaking to the club’s website, manager Huw Griffiths is clearly pleased to fill the hole left in the Cofis’ defence following the departure of Gareth Edwards; “He has a lot of experience and I am sure that everyone who has seen our friendlies so far will know what he offers us.

“He will help the youngsters in our squad and will make sure that what we as a management team want from the players will happen on the pitch.”