The seaside resort of Rhyl on the North Wales coast is a place where I’ve spent a lot of time over the years. Prior to the boom in cheap flights and package holidays, Rhyl was a hugely popular destination with working class families across the West Midlands and North West – the resort was promoted as ‘Sunny Rhyl’ – and thousands descended on the town during the summer months.
Words: Dave Proudlove // @fslconsult
‘Come to Sunny Rhyl’ promotional postcard.
Photo Credit: National Railway Museum, York
Prior to the 1960s, the resort had a lively and diverse promenade which included a pier, and the National Coal Board opened a holiday camp to cater for the many mining families that looked to Rhyl for escape.
By the 1970s, Rhyl was looking to reinvent itself as growing numbers of working families took their holidays abroad. The pier was swept away, the promenade remodelled, and the futuristic Rhyl Sun Centre was built, investment that just about kept the town buoyant. However, it wasn’t to last, and by the mid-1980s Rhyl was falling into decline, a decline that became highly visible by the end of the decade and into the early 1990s.
Rhyl is one of the closest seaside resorts to North Staffordshire, and so hundreds of families from The Potteries would head there during the Potters' Fortnight, so much so that you were able to get a copy of the local paper The Sentinel there during the summer, so the town’s nosedive was tinged in personal sadness for me. Some of my earliest memories are of happy times there with my family filled with sea, sand, love and laughter, though this perhaps glossed over some early hints at the resort’s direction of travel. One holiday saw my Uncle Eric join us when we stopped in a particularly crumby hotel, looked after by a Welsh version of Basil Fawlty named Gordon. As Gordon made a hash of breakfast one morning, my Uncle Eric – channelling his inner Jilted John – enquired as to whether Gordon “really was a moron”, a punkish quip that went completely over the head of our host. This was the back end of the 1970s, but my mum and I still laugh about it today.
We eventually gave up on Rhyl a little and instead headed for Llandudno half-an-hour or so along the coast, and occasionally to Thornton Cleveleys a few miles north of Blackpool. Instead, Rhyl was treated to our presence for daytrips, mostly while we were staying in Llandudno.
Despite being a football nut since a young age and being quite familiar with Rhyl, I had no idea that the town had a football club until I was eight years old and one of our local clubs – Port Vale – signed an unknown striker by the name of Andy Jones in May 1985 from Rhyl.
The legendary John Rudge was the Vale’s manager at the time, and he was in the process of building a side that was to propel the club upwards, and few knew the lower reaches of the game – including the non-league scene – better than him.
Former Rhyl striker Andy Jones with Port Vale manager John Rudge.
Photo Credit: The Sentinel
By 1985, Rhyl had reached the Northern Premier League having been competing in English leagues since the early 1930s, and Rudge had become aware of young Andy Jones’ exploits with The Lilywhites, and was very keen to get him to Vale Park. However, as the 1984/85 season drew to a close, Rudge picked up that Jones had been offered a trial by Arsenal, and so drove from The Potteries to the North Wales coast and put a contract before him. Andy Jones accepted Rudge’s offer, and signed for Port Vale in a deal worth £3,000 to Rhyl.
Jones was a huge success at Port Vale. In just over two seasons at Vale Park, he scored 47 goals in 90 appearances, and helped the club clinch promotion from the Fourth Division, winning the Vale’s Player of the Year award in the process. This success saw him clinch a move to then First Division Charlton Athletic in October 1987, who paid a club record £350,000 for his services; it was also a record fee received for Port Vale.
I was actually at Vale Park when Andy Jones last appeared there ahead of his move to the capital. A schoolmate had won four tickets for Vale’s home game with Fulham on a wet and miserable Saturday in October, and having signed for Charlton, Jones was absent from the Vale side. However, half-time was a real treat for the home fans when Jones was brought out onto the pitch to say goodbye and was mobbed by a small group who invaded the pitch chanting his name. And it was a case of double delight when the half-time scores from elsewhere were announced and Stoke were 3-0 down away at Manchester City, a score celebrated in Vale Park as hard as a last minute Vale winner. The game itself was dreadful, ill-tempered, and finished 1-1. I was very happy to get home.
Andy Jones didn’t fare so well with Charlton – though he did earn six caps for Wales during his time there – and eventually returned to Port Vale for a short loan spell, before heading off to Bristol City – another short loan – Bournemouth, and finally Leyton Orient before drifting into non-league football again. He ended his career having made 336 league and cup appearances in the English Football League, scoring 116 times, a very good return. Alongside Barry Horne and Lee Trundle, Jones remains one of Rhyl’s most successful transfers.
Rhyl were Welsh Cup semi-finalists in 1926.
Photo Credit: Rhyl History Club
Despite my ignorance to their existence prior to the mid-1980s and Andy Jones’ arrival in Burslem, Rhyl Football Club has a long and illustrious history, and is one of North Wales’s most successful clubs.
The club was formed in 1878, and made their first home at a playing field near the Winter Gardens, their first kit being all black with a white skull and crossbones. The club went on to appear in that season’s Welsh Cup, but were knocked-out in the first round by Friars School of Bangor.
A number of other clubs were based in Rhyl at the time, and one of these was Rhyl Grosvenor who Rhyl faced in one of football’s earliest floodlit matches in February 1879. However, ahead of the 1879/80 season, the decision was made to merge the two clubs.
When the Welsh League was formed in 1890, Rhyl were one of the founder members though they lasted just one season before withdrawing and folding. The club was reformed in 1892 as Rhyl Athletic becoming founder members of the North Wales Coast League which they won in 1894/95. In 1900, the club moved to their traditional home, Belle Vue.
After experiencing numerous financial crises, the club folded once again at the end of the 1910/11 season, but was quickly reformed, this time as Rhyl United, rejoining the North Wales Coast League. Following World War I, the club took the decision to switch to North Wales Alliance before becoming a founder member of the Welsh National League (North) for the 1921/22 season.
Rhyl United won the title in 1925/26 before becoming a limited company in 1928, again taking the name Rhyl Athletic. By this point, the club had developed serious ambitions and within a year, applied – unsuccessfully – to join the Football League, York City instead were elected.
Rhyl lifted the Welsh Cup in 1952 after beating Merthyr Tydfil 4-3.
Photo Credit: Welsh Football Data Archive
During the early 1930s, Welsh football was in a state of disarray, and so Rhyl looked towards England once again, applying to join the Football League once more. Again, the club was unsuccessful, and so they went on to join the Birmingham and District League. However, the travel involved proved to be a challenge for the club, and so for the 1936/37, they joined the Cheshire County League, at which point, they dropped Athletic from their name, adopting the title Rhyl Football Club.
Following World War II, the club began to taste some serious success. They secured the Cheshire County League title twice in four seasons – in 1947/48 and 1950/51 – and followed this by lifting the Welsh Cup in consecutive seasons, beating Merthyr Tydfil 4-3 in 1952 before retaining the trophy 12 months later following a 2-1 triumph over Chester City, a result that meant that Rhyl became the first non-league club in modern times to retain the Welsh Cup. However, the club didn’t reach another Welsh Cup final until 1993.
The Lilywhites celebrate their away goals UEFA Cup win over FK Atlantas in Lithuania.
Photo Credit: Gareth Hughes
And as well as the Welsh Cup, the post-war years saw Rhyl reach the first round proper of the FA Cup on a regular basis, something that was a regular occurrence until the early 1970s. Their best run came during the 1957/58 season when they reached the fourth round, a run which included a 3-1 win at Notts County, while in the 1971/72 season, they made it to the third round where they were beaten by countrymen Swansea City.
Following the reorganisation of the non-league game in 1982, the Cheshire County League was dissolved, and Rhyl were placed in the North West Counties Football League First Division and during the first campaign, finished runners-up and were promoted to the Northern Premier League where they remained until 1992 when they took the decision to apply to join the new League of Wales which had been formed in 1991 due to a perceived threat to the Welsh national team from FIFA.
However, the club failed to submit their application in time, and instead were placed in the Cymru Alliance League which covered North and Central Wales, and was part of the Welsh league system’s second level. It didn’t take Rhyl long to gain promotion though – they clinched the title at the end of the 1993/94 season by six points, securing a place in the League of Wales.
Initially, Rhyl struggled in the top-flight of Welsh football, but after being taken over by a consortium headed-up by former Lilywhites player Peter Parry, they soon became competitive.
For the 2002/03 campaign, the League of Wales was rebadged the Welsh Premier League, and the following season, Rhyl lifted the title to qualify for the Champions League qualifying rounds – though the lost in the first round to Skonto Riga of Latvia – won the League Cup, the Welsh Cup, the North Wales Coast Challenge Cup, and reached the final of the FAW Premier Cup.
The 2004/05 season saw Rhyl end the season trophyless, but they did qualify for European football once again having finished runners-up behind TNS in the Welsh Premier League to secure a place in the UEFA Cup.
But Rhyl were to enjoy another positive campaign in 2005/06, winning their first ever European tie beating Lithuanian side FK Atlantas 2-1 at Belle Vue on their way to the second qualifying round of the UEFA Cup, and taking two pieces of domestic silverware, the Welsh Cup after beating Bangor City 2-0, and North Wales Challenge Cup following a 2-1 win over Denbigh Town.
Belle Vue, the home of CPD Y Rhyl 1879.
Photo Credit: Football Tripper
Rhyl continued to qualify for Europe, and at the end of the 2008/09, they reached the Champions League again after winning the Welsh Premier League for a second time during a record-breaking campaign – they broke the club record for most wins during a season, and the most consecutive wins. Their subsequent Champions League campaign was a brief and traumatic one though; the Lilywhites entered the competition in the second qualifying round, but crashed out following a crushing 12-0 aggregate defeat to Partizan of Serbia.
May 2010 was a bleak moment in the Rhyl’s modern history when the club had its Welsh Premier League licence revoked, and following an unsuccessful appeal, they were relegated to the Cymru Alliance League.
After an absence of three seasons from the Welsh top-flight, Rhyl returned to the Welsh Premier League having clinched the 2012/13 Cymru Alliance League title in spectacular fashion, going the entire season unbeaten – winning 24 and drawing 6 – while scoring 100 goals in the process.
It didn’t last though, and within a couple of years, Rhyl had gone into a tailspin and were at the lowest footballing ebb in their history, managing just three wins in all competitions during the 2015/16 season. However, that was nothing compared to what was to come, and following the suspension of all football as the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the club ceased trading and was wound up in April 2020 after failing to secure investment of £175,000 to keep it going.
Within a month, work had begun to create a phoenix club, with two members of staff working alongside representatives of the Rhyl Fan Association pulling things together. The fans group subsequently held a ballot to select a name for the new club, and CPD Y Rhyl 1879 was chosen. Within a few months, a deal had been agreed for the new club to lease Belle Vue, with an exclusive option to buy, something which is on the way to becoming a reality after they secured £378,600 from the Community Ownership Fund which will secure the ground, and enable the club to make improvements and expand its community operations.
On the pitch, CPD Y Rhyl 1879 currently finds itself in Ardal NW – the third tier of Welsh football – as the club battles to climb back to the upper reaches of the Welsh game.
Rhyl FC fans watching their team play in the UEFA Champions League.
Photo Credit: Getty Images
I’ve had a bit of a thing about Welsh football for some time. When I was a kid, I was always intrigued by the fact that the nation’s biggest clubs – Cardiff City, Newport County, Swansea City and Wrexham – played their football in the English Football League, and that some English clubs – such as Chester City and Shrewsbury Town – competed in the Welsh Cup. The interest grew on the discovery that Rhyl had a football club, and became more profound following the start of the League of Wales in 1992.
League football in Wales feels a lot less Big Time, an antidote to the gentrified English Premier League, and in many respects, it has the feel and spirit of English semi-professional football, which I guess is part of the reason for my attraction to it.
And because Wales is less urbanised, clubs are naturally smaller, as are their followings, and this is reflected by the nature and character of many of Welsh football’s grounds, some of which are simply glorious, such as Cae Clyd, the home of Blaenau Ffestiniog Amateurs, its spectacular backdrop created by the scarred topography sculpted by the area’s slate industry.
But perhaps the best is The Rock, where Cefn Druids – one of the oldest clubs in the Welsh league system – play their football, a fairly new ground that has been built in the abandoned Rhosymedre Quarry, a celebration of the Cefn-mawr’s industrial heritage, and a spiritual reestablishment of its links with football.
Belle Vue, the home of CPD Y 1979 Rhyl has a long history, and today it is a tidy and compact ground and – aside from the professional clubs – is one of Welsh football’s biggest grounds with a capacity of 3,000. The recent investment from the Community Ownership Fund will hopefully secure its future in the long-term and provide the foundations from which the club can rise again.
CPD Y Rhyl post-match celebrations after becoming league champions in 2022.
Photo Credit: CPD Y Rhyl Website
The decline of Rhyl Football Club in some respects mirrors that of the town itself, but while both fell on hard times, both can be seen as going through a rebirth. For a number of years, regeneration initiatives have been progressed in the resort backed by millions of pounds of investment by the local authority and the Welsh Assembley Government, which has led to improvements to the promenade and sea front, and dealing with the worst of the disused former boarding houses and holiday flats. And now the town’s football club may be on the brink of a renaissance backed by investment from the UK government, which can hopefully lead to a renaissance on the pitch.
Hopefully, Rhyl can be sunny once again.
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