To say the last few seasons have been a rollercoaster for the newly formed Taffs Well women’s team would be quite an understatement.
Made up of players who were part of the back-to-back title-winning Cardiff Wanderers, the team were having a successful season last year on the pitch, but off-the-field there was problems afoot after an application for the Adran Leagues was not made.
Coach Scott Thorne said: “I came in with the proviso that, this women’s team, who were winning and were top of the league, were going to be applying for their tier two license and will be going up through the leagues.
“It became quite apparent within the first month that the ambition wasn’t there within the Cardiff Wanderers.
Having won the third tier for the past two seasons, the former Wanderers couldn’t get promoted due to various factors, including not having a permanent home ground.
Talks began to look for a new home, a home where they could thrive and grow to the next level. After careful consideration, key personnel from agreed to move under the Taffs Well umbrella, a move that, in the end, always felt like the right one, as one player said.
Thorne added: “To move under the banner of a local men’s club is so exciting. They’re the team closest to us, we train at Tongwynlais so it’s nice to have the ground just round the corner.
“We played a couple of our fixtures at Taffs Well last season and the values at the club is great.”
With a permanent home and facilities to boot, things really appear to be looking up for the team that are so used to bouncing from place to place, a situation that put really pressure on the club’s staff.
“Bouncing around from ground to ground also put a lot of strain on the club staff,” Thorne commented.
“Every week, especially if the weather was a bit off, we couldn’t hire a grass pitch, we had to get funding to hire 3G pitches and things like that.
“A lot of that uncertainty is now taken away going into next season, and we also know they have a backup 3G pitch that they utilise.”
With one battle over, however, the team still face a very uncertain future, as vice-captain Georgia Brown explained.
“On the pitch, we’re facing a dilemma at the moment. Because we are technically starting as a new club, we’re going to have an issue over which tier we are entered into, which is our biggest sticking point at the moment.
“We’ve won the league two years in a row, we’ve reached the quarter finals of the FAW Cup, last 16 of the South Wales Cup, yet we’re potentially looking at being demoted and starting again from scratch.”
Of course, many clubs across the Welsh spectrum have been burned by the licensing decisions.
The prospect of dropping two divisions after such a big change is a prospect the players are certainly fearing. Taffs Well are regarded as a new club, and so for any new side being formed, they usually start at the bottom.
“At the moment it’s scary and we’re hoping there’s some change in where they see fit for us to enter the league.
“For the integrity of women’s football and support other players in leagues lower down, it’s not enjoyable for anyone if there’s such a difference in quality.
“There’s a lot that we want to do now to try and support and help our case. We love competition, we want to work hard and improve, but doing that in a lower league would be tough.”
Their anger is further compounded by other teams in and around them, according to Brown.
“It’s so frustrating because we deserve to be in tier two. Where else have you seen a team win the league twice and not been promoted?
“We’re in a position where teams around us are asking to be relegated or asking to remain in the league instead of going up, yet we’re begging to go up and are potentially going down one or two leagues.
“It’s so frustrating.”
Questioned about how the FAW could do things better, Brown paused before giving this response.
“What the FAW are trying to do in the long run is fantastic, in the sense that they want to solidify women’s football and make it sustainable.
“When it comes to the short term, which essentially of course leads to the long term, it is questionable in how it’s potentially managed.
“We’re seeing these team fold, we’re seeing teams like us having to move clubs regularly, just to make sure we maintain positions or maintain clubs.
“We’re trying to do what they [the FAW] have asked us to do, but we might still get punished for it. It feels very contradictory and harsh at times.”
For now, while questions and worries still hang overhead, Taffs Well can only focus on themselves and winning the league for an unprecedented third time.
Make no mistake, this team of players are incredibly close knit and will fight to win that title, but more than that, they are also difference makers.
The determination they show on and off the pitch is nothing short of admirable, and they urge anyone else in the position they’re in to challenge the status quo and to be happy.
“Fight for what you deserve and put yourselves in a position where you can be seen and heard. Not in the sense that you’re disrespecting anyone, but now we’ve done the research into where we could be
“It’s now a matter of putting us in the best place for the future and putting our name out there and be the trailblazers for where grassroots level clubs deserve to be.”
“Trust the process and keep enjoying the game.”
*Tongwynais FC would like to let it be known that they made an effort to invite the new Taffs Well women into their set-up which they believe would have prevented them from starting afresh. The players who had played at Cardiff Wanderers had played at their Iron Bridge Road home, before the formation of the Wellwomen.
The newly-formed Taffs Well Women will begin in the fourth tier of Welsh Women’s football after the South Wales Women’s and Girls League fixtures were released for the 2023/24 season.
Leave a Reply