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Association History

The Monmouthshire Football Association was founded on the 4th October 1911 in the Savoy Hotel, Station Approach Newport. Leagues and Clubs affiliated to the South Wales and Monmouthshire F.A. In 1958 the Football Association of Wales made the decision that the Associations’ area will be the geographical area of Monmouthshire. It changed its name to the Gwent County Football Association in 1974. In the early days the Association did not have any permanent home. They started using rented offices in Skinner Chambers and then held meetings in various hostelries in Newport amongst those were the bunch of Grapes where the host was Davy McDougall the first captain and manager of Newport County. From 1968 until 1985 the Courtebella Club was used before a permanent home was found in the Civic Centre Newport. The Association is responsible for Leagues and clubs throughout Gwent with some 300 clubs now affiliated and approximately 9000 players.

There is increase in the number of girls and ladies teams and the Association in partnership with the FAW trust will shortly be setting up a Girls Performance Centre to encourage girls to get on the ladder to an international cap. It wasn’t until 1968 that the Association gained representation on the Football Association of Wales. There have been a number of players from Gwent who went on to get full caps with Wales. Some of them include Nathan Blake, Danny Gabbidon, Darcy Blake, Chris Gunter, Ryan Doble, Jeff Thomas, Glyn Garner, Mark Aizlewood, Steve Lowndes and Peter Nicholas. Another person who went on to receive a cap was our goalkeeper in 1996 – it wasn’t for the FAW it was Ryan Jones captain of the Welsh Rugby Team. Quite a few players from Gwent went on to play Amateur Football for Wales including Ken Brown, Graham Reynolds and Idwal Robling.

Cliff Kingston who was Secretary of the Newport & District League and a life member of the Association refereed the first English FA League Cup Final in 1961. He also refereed many internationals at all levels. 2008 saw the FAW enter the Uefa Regions Cup. This cup was for grass roots football and was competed for between the 6 Area Associations in Wales over a two year period. The winners then went on the next stage by representing Wales. We were fortunate to will the first two competitions and went on to represent Wales in Israel and then last year we represented Wales in Croatia. In 1961 the Association celebrated 50 years with a gentleman only dinner held in the canteen at Lovells.