WHAT A WONDERFUL MERTHYR AFTERNOON AT STOKE LANE !
The sun shined, the crew from Merthyr Town arrived in force and a wonderful afternoon was had by many at Stoke Lane.
The Merthyr supporters were a fantastic credit to their club and were well received by the Millers faithful. Some of the flags they positioned around the ground were a site to behold and with a happy hour and Dj Sanj on the decks, the afternoon kicked off in style.
Better was to come with three Nottingham Forest Legends in the ground, John Robertson, Garry Birtles and Colin Barrett, three of Forest’s greatest ever players along with brilliant Talksport presenter Jonny Owen and Cass Pennant, another prominent figure from the world of Tv documentaries.
Cass on behalf of Old School Fc Clothing company was the programme sponsor with Danny’s Tattoo Parlour sponsoring the Matchball and Boatsy sponsoring the Man of the match awards and mascot, it was great to see his lad Charlie in his Millers kit.
A massive thankyou to all of our very special guests and sponsors for their support on what was a very special day.
On the football side, the Millers came to the party and after a 4-0 drubbing at Staveley in midweek, a few key players returned to the starting line up and lit up the Bill Stokeld stadium with an excellent display running out 3-0 winners, with a brilliant goal from Arron Opoku and excellent finishes from Tyler Blake and Niall Davey.
There were various man of the match awards from the collection of sponsors, but Aaron Opoko deservedly got the official award from Boatsy and his experts who included former Scottish footballer Mark Slythe who travelled down from Scotland for the game and is quickly becoming a good friend of the club.
Merthyr through Vice Chairman Mark Evans who is also a member of the Welsh Fa was one of many enjoining the afternoon and has invited the Millers to a return fixture at Merthyr next year, we suspect it will be an invitation accepted.
After the game, the Millers supporters club carried out the 150 club draw and Callum Thomas will be delighted to hear he has won £150, full results are on the Supporters website.
After the game, the British and Irish Lions took centre stage on the club’s new 65″ Television screen and then it was time for the trumpet to come into play, with a distinguished trumpet player indeed who belted out Jerusalem and Sweet Caroline among many others, it was a fitting end to what had been a fantastic afternoon.
Jonny Owen then led the contingent including fans and players into Nottingham to sample some night life, we hope they lit up the city centre as they had lit up Stoke Lane, we are confident they will have done, what a fantastic bunch of people and certainly some of the friendliest to have ever visited Stoke Lane and all at Carlton wish them all the very best in the forthcoming season, we will be looking out for their results!
