Bangor City are about to lose their soul

The news that Asda have exchanged contracts with the developers of Bangor City’s famous old Farrar Road Ground means that the biggest club in the Welsh pyramid could be moving into a new ground at Nantporth as early as next season. Asda’s deal is subject to planning permission, but both parties are confident that the deal will now go through. From 2011/12, Bangor City Football Club will change forever.

Farrar Road is decrepit now, as the club have been waiting to move to this new ground since 2008. Each season work is done to make sure it meets the Welsh Premier’s minimum requirements, but it is a shambling, paint-peeled crumble of a ground. Nonetheless, its terraces and wooden stands still resonate with the echoes of glorious nights gone-by that would seem inconceivable to the uneducated visitor.

Bangor v Napoli 1962

Bangor’s most famous game was the victory over Napoli in the European Cup Winner’s Cup in 1962. An official capacity crowd of 8,000 thronged to the scruffy stadium nestling in the dip of City to see the Welsh Cup holders win 2-0 against the Italians.

This was a stadium at the heart of its community, providing European football to a mainly rural/coastal area whose nearest big club was Wrexham, a 2-hour drive at that time.

Ohh the lads you should have seen their faces, walking down the Farrar Road to see the Bangor Aces.

Napoli weren’t the only big European side to come to the little ground overlooked by Bangor’s University. In 1985, an Atletico Madrid team, jammed with international players, turned up expecting to coast to victory against the UK’s last remaining team in European competition that season. Eight foot high perimiter fences were erected which remained as a reminder of the occasion for more than a decade. They lent an sinister air to games played in front of hundreds, rather than the 5,000 which officially watched the City lose 0-2. Unofficially, there were many more at that game.

Farrar Road

It was 1995 when I first made a visit to the ground. A car-full of Cardiffians made the five hour drive to Bangor to watch the UEFA Cup defeat to Widzew Lodz. I was smitten. Here, in one of the most beautiful, remote parts of our country was a proper football ground. It had fans who cared just as much as we did, and the Bangor City support that night for a team that was outclassed stayed with me. It even influenced my decision to move my family to the area a decade later.

These were glory nights for a stadium that sits right at the centre of its community. Bangor citizens rightly have a pride in their club’s achievements that are tied inextracibly with their ground. It is still the best supported semi-professional Welsh club, and crowds average between 500-1,000 depending on the success of the team. Local derbies against Caernarfon can attract over 2,000, and this is still one of my favourite derby matches.

But football has changed. UEFA impose stricter criteria each year for small clubs competing in Europe. Farrar Road fails to meet the required amount of seating, so home games are now played at Wrexham’s Racecourse ground. UEFA insist on absurd minimum requirements for any team which qualifies for the Europa League: an all seater-stadium with a minimum of 1,500 seats; seating for 600 VIPs, two TV studios, and secured parking for 100 VIPs.

So Bangor City knew they had to find a new ground in order to progress. The City Council hold the keys to Farrar Road, and the club are leaseholders. A new site was found at Nantporth on the banks of the Menai Strait, and despite opposition from environmentalists concerned about the impact of floodlights on the bank of this area of natural outstanding beauty, planning was approved.

Disappointingly, however, original plans for a 3,000 seat stand have been amended, and Bangor’s new ground will only seat 600-800 people. There will be a standing capacity of 2,000, but this means that European football will still have to be played miles away from home. This isn’t a progressive move, it’s just pointless. I don’t think any fans would have been supportive of a move if the limited capacity of Nantporth was known beforehand.

There are also concerns that the new ground at Nantporth is hemmed in by the natural geography of that area, leaving no room for future development.There is only one entrance in and out of the ground, which is sited on an artery road some 45 minutes walk from Bangor City Centre. A bank on the Menai side of the ground would need to be moved if the ground was ever to be developed further.

Plans for Nantporth

It’s a concern admittedly. Bangor City’s heart and soul will be lost by the move away from Farrar Road. I’ve been to desolate new grounds with no character, like Haverfordwest, who made a similar move away from their old home. But what can be done? Bangor City are merely a pawn between council and developers. It’s not like they have the funds or resources to develop Farrar Road, so this is the only option.

This isn’t the place for a discussion on town planning, but Asda’s boast that 250 jobs will be created is disingenuous. How many small businesses will be destroyed by another City Centre superstore? How many people will be made unemployed, and how many will suffer from the loss of match day trade in that disintegrating area of Bangor? The area around Farrar Road lost its cinema, and a major hotel  a few years ago. Now its football ground will disappear.

There will be some benefits from the new move. A clubhouse is the life-blood of a small club, and that will be a welcome addition. But with the new grounds location, isolated, away from the City Centre, it will be lightly used outside of match days.

New Nantporth site overlooks the Menai Strait

There will be a new training facility. I can’t see how Bangor’s first team can justify training an hour away in Fflint once this is provided. That has to be a good thing for the area. Likewise, the club’s Youth Academy shouldn’t need to rent facilities at Bethesda and hire the University fields for home games.

There’s no point in pretending that everybody is happy to move away from Farrar Road. In fact I don’t think even those who back the move are ecstatic.I know one lad who travels to every home game from Northampton. I can’t believe he will make the same emotional journey to the new ground.

There is something about watching a game in a historical, romantic venue where ghosts of footballers bring back memories of better times. It’s worth making the trip to a dull game, just for the warmth and security you get from the cradle of that bosom of rickety stands and the feel of the concrete under your feet, rounded and worn by generations of your own family before you. That’s what makes a football ground, not a flat pitch and VIP parking.

I genuinely believe that our generation will be looked back upon as the people who allowed our historic sports grounds to be destroyed. The amount of destruction has been criminal. Ten years ago, I was watching a game at Scarborough’s 100-year old stadium. Look at it now. Ninian Park has gone to be replaced by something modern and shiny. In Llanelli, people are now discovering how much they loved the old Stradey Park. In Cardiff, the famous City Arms closed its doors once the rugby club moved away.  Stadia create communities, and their removal destroys them.

Wembley has gone. Roker Park has gone, Ayresome Park, Old Fellows Park, Saltergate, Somerton Park, The Vetch. What will future generations think of us? These were architectural and socially important jewels that we replaced with breeze-blocks on industrial estates. And Bangor City is next.

How Farrar Road could look after development