2025 Sports Round Up

2025 was a decent year for sport for me. It will come as no surprise that football was the sport I watched most. I went to 53 football matches - which averages out at a smidgen over one a week for the year! Here's my 2025 report from Futbology.

The highest score of the year was in my first game of the year: Cardiff Draconians v South Gower back in January. This year the Dracs were my most watched team. 

Here's my map of new football grounds I went to this year. I saw Shrewsbury in Oldham, Exeter, High Wycombe and Swindon. The Northernmost ground was Ainslie Park, home of Spartans in Edinburgh. Most of the new ones in South Wales were from watching the Dracs away and a couple were from watching Caldicot Town, the club for whom my friend Ben plays. 

I went to four cup finals in April and May, including seeing Shrewsbury Town's under-17 team win a cup in a final played at Cardiff City Stadium. Shrewsbury's senior side had a poor season and were relegated from League 1. Meanwhile, Cardiff Dracs got promoted to the Cymru South (the Welsh second tier). Both sides have continued their form into the 2025-26 season, Salop hovering dangerously near the drop zone in League 2, while the Dracs finished the year sixth in their division.

My favourite football photo of the year -
 Trefelin v Cardiff Dracs (Welsh Cup)

Along with live football, I enjoyed watching the women's Euros on TV over the summer. I thought it was a great tournament. England won - their second title in a row. Wales found it difficult in their first appearance in the finals. (Here's a full write up.)

However, it wasn't all football! I went to a rugby international in Edinburgh. It was my first rugby game for almost 3 years and my first ever visit to Murrayfield. I was very impressed with the stadium even though the game was a blow-out. (Blog post about the weekend.)

I also made it to two Cardiff Devils ice hockey games. One was a friendly against Concordia University from Montreal (pics on my bank holiday sportsfest post) and the other was on our wedding anniversary. 

My sports participation this year was minimal. But Cathy and I had two full rounds of mini-golf. The first was at Legoland and we also played underground mini-golf in Blenau Ffestioniog during our North Wales holiday. 

But I have been getting my fix of table-top sport. I played 12 games of Blood Bowl with Bryan in 2025, which averages as a game every month, although when we met up in December we spent the time unboxing the new updated version of the game. 

My final Blood Bowl record for 2025 was played 12, won 5, drawn 5 and lost 2. I used several different teams in the course of the year including three teams I built and painted - the black orcs, the wood elves and the Norsemen. You can see all my match reports on my Blood Bowl index page. 

I have a few aims for 2026. I'd like to do some more activities, watch a few different sports, and keep up my football-going, if possible. I have an overseas trip lined up with a football match on the itinerary already. Hopefully more opportunities will come. (If you want to challenge me to a game of mini-golf, get in touch!)

Anniversary hockey night

After our trip to see the Cardiff Devils on August bank holiday, I noticed there was a game on the night of our wedding anniversary. I bought the last pair of tickets left in the 'home' end and so, for our 27th wedding anniversary, we watched some hockey!

The ice hockey season starts with the Challenge Cup games. The opponents were Manchester Storm. The arena was almost completely full. A fun night beckoned. 

I'd joked with friends that 27 years is the "ice and violence" anniversary. There was a surprising amount of violence in this game. Lots of punch ups resulted in 38 minutes of accumulated penalties in the first period alone. A Storm player got done for "checking to the head". Later a Devils players incurred a 2 minute, 5 minute and 10 minute penalty all for the same incident. The 10 minute was for "instigating" because he started the fight.

The actual hockey in between the scraps wasn't great. Cardiff were the better side but only scored their first two goals when they had an advantage of a power play. Their third goal came after Storm had a late goal disallowed - I think because there was interference with the Devils goalie. With just a couple of minutes to go Storm took their netminder off to give them an advantage in attack but the Devils broke and a player scored from the halfway line into the unguarded goal. 

There was a reminder among the honours banners of how thing were different in ye days of olde. Remember cigarette sponsorship?

So the final score was 3-0. A reasonable win and a happy result for our anniversary.

Bank holiday sports fest

It was quite the bank holiday sports fest for me. Four sporting fixtures. Three away trips for teams I support. Two university teams. And one railway museum as an added bonus. 

The weekend began on Friday night with...

Pontypridd United v Cardiff Draconians

Dracs ready in red

The Dracs have a bingo card this season. Play like a herd of deer in the headlights for the first 20 minutes. Give away at least one avoidable goal. Goalkeeper Harry Johnson will do one crazy thing that has me biting my knuckle and muttering "Oh, Harry, what are you doing". Someone on the bench gets a yellow card. Then finish the game strongly playing like a team that deserves to be at this level. On Friday they ticked all the Dracs Bingo boxes. And some.

I went to games at Pontypridd United a few times when they were on an upwards trajectory and made it into the Cymru Premier Leaguer. However, it feels like they are declining now. Their temporary stand behind the goal got repossessed a little while ago. The pagoda they used to put up at the entrance has been replaced by a table and a cash box. The bar area in the university building isn't being used any more. Their supporters seemed outnumbered by a noisy Dracs away following.

The home team took the lead after a player controlled the ball on the ground with his arm then scooped the ball forward with his leg. A team mate got the goalward side of the last man and went down in the box. It was a penalty, but the Dracs fans who saw the handball were incensed by this turn of events. Unfortunately the ref didn't appreciate the abuse and from then on on proceeded to dish out yellow cards to Dracs players for offences that went unpunished when emulated by Ponty players resulting in more angry comments from the sidelines. 

By the end of the first half, the Dracs had learned the Ponty defence were commanding in the air, but couldn't play on the floor. After the break a lovely passing move brought the Dracs level and then a drilled pass sent a Dracs forward through. Despite an attempted drag back by the defender, the Dracs scored to make it 2-1. Then the ref got involved again. Two quick yellow cards dished out, we think, for sarcasm saw one of the Dracs wingers sent off. A midfielder picked up a second yellow card for a dive with less than ten minutes of normal time to go. He admitted it was a dive as he walked to the dressing room in front of the Dracs fans.

Down to 9 men, the Dracs dug in. Long clearances into empty space in the channels kept the Ponty goalie busy scampering across the pitch to wallop the ball back. Harry the goalie had been booked in the first half after dashing out of his area and colliding with a player - that was his bingo card moment. But in additional time he pulled off two awesome match-winning saves - a block on the goal-line he dropped down to and a reflex save to tip a shot over the bar.

The win gives the Dracs their first points of the season and they moved up to 11th in the table. Their game on Monday has been moved and its cup action next weekend. But this was a massively important win and hopefully it will get their season going.

The next day, I set off down the M4 to watch...

Swindon Town v Shrewsbury Town

Before we got to the match, Paul, Paul and I went to STEAM, the GWR museum. It was an interesting museum with a well-ordered set of interactive exhibits and some big gleaming static green and black GWR locos. Highlights included being able to walk underneath a loco and some of the odder items like a Scammell tractor and a Wickham trolley made to look like a little car. 

After lunch we headed to the County Ground for the battle of the STFCs. Both teams have rather fallen from grace and are slumming it in the basement division now. The County Ground is too big for the current level of support and one end was empty.

After conceding four goals in both their previous league away games, I thought there was a good chance Salop would be on the end of another battering. After 5 minutes Swindon passed the ball around the Salop players like they were cones on a training exercise and scored, and I wondered how bad it could get. But after that, Salop forced some chances, Swindon sat deeper and deeper content with making breakaway attacks when they could.

That pattern continued in the second half until Shrewsbury got a deserved goal on 87 minutes. It looked like they might pick up their second point of the season but 7 minutes of added time proved too long for them. The defenders backed off Swindon sub Billy Bodin, inviting him to shoot. He shot. He scored. Absolute limbs in the home end behind the goal he scored in. Despondency around me in the away section.

Overall, both teams were poor really. Both struggled to retain possession and neither were good enough to capitalise on gaining possession. It's hard to tell whether Salop have improved from their previous hammerings in terms of performance. However, it was yet another defeat and right now the result is all that matters.

Despite the result, I enjoyed the apple rolling challenge at half time.

On Sunday I switched out sports and companions and went to...

Cardiff Devils v Concordia Stingers

Every time. I go and watch Ice hockey I think I should go and watch ice hockey more often. This was my first time in the Vindico Arena since an international game about 18 months ago, and my first Devils game for almost 3 years when I did a "two sport twofer" with my brother, Dave. Best of all, Cathy felt well enough to come with me and was able to stay for the full game.

This was an intriguing match up. Concordia is a University in Montreal who have also played against Nottingham Panthers on a short UK tour this month. They have a lovely maroon and dark yellow kit combination. Sadly there was no visitors merch on sale but I did go a bit daft in the Devils club shop and bought six pin badges!

The Devils spent most of the first quarter peppering the visitor's goal but couldn't get the puck past the Stingers massive goalie, who I think had the surname Vrbitec. I'm not sure how tall he is and he's not on Concordia's roster to check, but he towered over his team mates. He was excellent at stopping shots and, for a big man, dropped down fast to block any low attempts. After sustained Devils pressure, Stingers scored against the run of play and led 0-1 at the end of the first period.

Things got spicy in the second period leading to lots of power plays. At one point the Stingers were two players up due to Devils players being sin binned after trying to squash the netminder, all other attempts to score having failed. Eventually the Devils did find a (legal) way through to equalise but the announcer had barely listed the assist and pre-assist before Concordia scored again. It was 1-2 at the end of the second period.

Devils started the third period a man down and Stingers quickly made it 1-3. A fightback saw an excellently worked goal for the Devils. Cardiff took their netminder off for the last 2 minutes to try and force a tying score, but again the giant in the Stingers goal proved more than a match for a frenetic series of shots. The goalie was given man of the match by the sponsor to much applause from the crowd none of whom seemed to begrudge the visitors their win.

I love the atmosphere at ice hockey, the pantomime around it. And I really laughed at how the mascot was put to work helping clear up after "chuck a puck" in the second break.

Mascots have to earn their keep these days

After chilling in the ice house on the Sunday evening, on the hottest every August bank holiday Monday in Wales I went to my fourth and final sports event of the weekend:

Cardiff Metropolitan v Barry Town

Cardiff Met have a new logo that includes the year 1957. But I suspect they are fabricating a history they don't have. 1957 doesn't link to any known football team of the many institutions that feed into their history. Before the game I spoke to Dave Collins, the editor of Welsh Football magazine, about it and even he didn't know why they have settled on that year. It could possibly be linked to one of the precursor clubs that formed Inter Cardiff whose place in the League of Wales was taken over by UWIC before they rebranded as Cardiff Metropolitan. Anyway, they have a mural with their new badge and the year on it. 

There might be more change coming as the Met are apparently going to drop "university" from their name as well. I'm not sure what that means for their long-term outlook. Their relationship with the wider university has worked quite well for them for several seasons and this looked like the weakest, and also the shortest, Met team than I have seen in a while. 

Paul, Paul, Val and me

Cyncoed Campus looks different in the sunshine. I'm used to November mizzle and darkness not blazing almost 30 degree heat. Fortunately there was a brisk breeze blowing across the pitch to keep us slightly cool in the corrugated iron stand. But the first half was dismal and I'm convinced the heat and the cross-wind were factors in the dismality.

Welsh football's other Ryan Reynolds

Whatever the Met coach said at half time worked because the team came out fizzing, forced some good chances and scored a well worked goal. Barry had nothing in reply until a desperate roll of the dice with a centre back coming on as a makeshift centre forward. This changed the impetus of the game and two minutes into stoppage time Barry forced an equaliser. They even had a couple of chances to nick all three points but couldn't convert any of them.

The draw meant that of the three football teams I supported this weekend, one won, one lost and one drew. It all feels very balanced.

International Ice Hockey

A couple of weeks back, my friend Steve mentioned that Olympic qualifying ice hockey matches were taking place in Cardiff this month. Great Britain had three games lined up as part of their qualifying campaign and we decided to go and watch. Bryan and Tony joined us for a fun night out.

We went to the first evening game of the tournament - Great Britain v China. I was expecting a reasonably close game - GB are 20th in the World Rankings, while China are 26th. However, it turned into a bit of a blow out, with GB racking up a 10-1 victory.

GB came onto the ice in attack mode and peppered the China goal with shots. We were sat behind the goal, and the netminder was kept very busy. He did well to only concede two in the first period, making a number of fine reflex saves. 

The second period was quite dull for us because we were sat behind the GB goal and saw barely any action. Meanwhile at the other end of the rink, GB scored five goals. GB scored again at our end in the third period before China finally got a goal. I was feeling a bit sorry for them by that point so cheered when it went in. It's a long way to travel from China to Wales to then get tonked. 

It's rare I'm in a crowd that's chanting "We want ten! We want ten!" Even rarer that the crowd gets its wish. But the tenth goal went in to a loud cheer. We then had the amusement of a broken scoreboard reading GB 0-1 China, because it wouldn't display a two digit score. 

It was a very clean game, with a handful of players serving two minute penalties in the sin bin, for fairly innocuous fouls. There were no silly fights or roughing, which meant both teams just got on with the hockey. GB used the boards well, sending the puck round to players on the other side of the ice to switch the play with devastating effect. China had some good players but they played more as individuals rather than as a team and could rarely get on the offensive.

Great Britain are playing Serbia and Romania in their next two qualifiers over the weekend with the aim of making it through to the next round of qualifying. 

Every time I go to watch ice hockey I remember how much I enjoy it. Even watching the techs wielding power tools and driving big vehicles as part of the playing surface maintenance is fun!

Two sport twofer!

Last Saturday I managed my latest "twofer". It's always a special day when I get to go to two games and this time it was in two different sports - and neither of them was football!

About a week before, my brother, Dave, messaged me to ask if I had anything planned for Saturday as he had been offered some tickets for the Wales v Australia rugby international at the Principality Stadium (which I still call the Millennium Stadium). I didn't have any firm plans. Dave then decided to make a full day of it and asked if I fancied going to the ice hockey game that was due to start at 7pm. I thought that sounded like a great idea and the "two sport twofer" was on!

I suggested to Dave that he try and get to our house a bit early as rugby traffic can be a nightmare. He arrived late morning, we had lunch and then went to the Stadium. Because it was raining, we decided to go in early, and because the roof was closed and in rugby you can take your drink to your seat, we were able to sit in the dry and watch all the build up.

A friendly steward saw we were trying to take a selfie and offered to take our photo.

There was quite a pre-game show, with marching bands and large choirs performing just about every Welsh themed song you could imagine, from Yma o Hyd through to Sospan Bach, with The Green, Green Grass of Home, Delilah, and Cwm Rhondda along the way.

There was also a significant amount of pyro - the things that look like wheelie bins were actually massive flamethrowers. I didn't get too many photos as they all went off because I filmed a video of most of the display instead.

But you can see all the smoke in the air just as the teams lined up for kick off. A lot of this came from the fireworks that exploded in the roof beams. 

Our seats were near one of the try-lines. We had some good views of attacking line-outs. First for Australia...

...then for Wales, in the second half. 

Wales were winning for most of the match, but Australia came back into the game, Wales ran out of steam and eventually the Aussies won 39-34. The regular fans sitting around us weren't too happy and the consensus of the grumbling was that it was time Wales found a new coach.

Having been lulled into a false sense of dry security being sat in the stadium with the roof closed, going outside into the rain was a shock. We walked down the Taff Trail to the ice arena and got there with almost an hour until face-off between the Cardiff Devils and Coventry Blaze. 

Ice rinks aren't really the place to go to dry off after walking in the rain, but the cafe was warm. We had some food there and sort of semi-dried out. 

We were sat right behind one of the goals. The steward was very friendly, but this time Dave took the selfie without any help. 

We both noticed a very small player in the line up waiting to have their name called out during the introductory line ups. It turned out they were actually the game mascot rather than a member of the roster.

Speaking of mascots, we were next to the 'singing section' of fans. At one point the Devils mascot, Taz, was in the crowd banging a drum and leading the singing. Taz had a shirt with the number 666 on the back, which made me laugh. 

Previously, the Devils mascot was called Lucy Fur, but I think that joke was a bit too clever for most people so now it's Taz like a Tasmanian Devil. 

The game itself was low-scoring. Ot was 1-1 and the end of the first period and the next two periods were completely goalless, despite the Devils having a player advantage at least five or six times as a succession of Coventry players spent two-minute stints in the sin bin. 

As the game went into overtime I texted Cathy to say we might be later back than planned, but barely had I sent the text then Coventry scored the sudden death winner and the game was over. Only 16 seconds of overtime had been played. 

The Blaze players crowded over near where the away fans were cheering to celebrate the win.

The rain had just about stopped so we got home without getting much wetter. We even stopped off in a supermarket on the way home to buy some mince pies. We ate them while watching the World Cup highlights show to round off the sporting day. 

How to score an own goal in ice hockey - the Cardiff Devils 'Shirt Off His Back' prize "draw"

I went to see the Cardiff Devils play last night. They drubbed the Coventry Blaze 8-0. The new ice arena was a sell out. The crowd got behind the team all night and thoroughly enjoyed a well-played, good-spirited contest with only 4 players sin binned all game.

However, the talk on Twitter after a comprehensive eight goal shut out victory was all about something completely incidental to the game - the much-hyped 'Shirt Off His Back' promotion, which last night was giving away all 23 squad shirts. That's 23 chances to win, they said.

At the end of the game the winning numbers were displayed on the big screen.

Here's a close up. See if you spot anything.

How about some sequences?

Yes, that's right. The first five numbers were in sequence. Then there were another four winning tickets in sequence. Given that people tend to buy tickets in bulk (because there is a discount) it seemed very likely that one or two people were winning multiple shirts. There were some boos and I heard one guy shouting "Fix". As we left, there were people talking about the draw being dodgy.

I tweeted about my "scepticism" about the draw and soon discovered there were a lot of angry tweets from other fans about it. Words like "scam", "swindle", "cheats" and "fix" were being used. Rumours started that corporate sponsors had been guaranteed shirts, or that people connected with the club won, and that someone did indeed win five jerseys and had sold one online for £2,000 within a couple of hours. Regardless of whether the rumours were in any way true, in this environment of fake news, you could see people would be willing to believe them. The Devils official account meanwhile just retweeted happy tweets about the victory and said nothing in response to the angry comments.

This is a huge PR own goal. Reading the tweets, the people who are most annoyed about this are the really loyal fans. I admit I'm a part-timer. This was only the second game I've been to this season. But when people who have chosen to use the club's logo as their avatar or a hockey related picture to represent themselves are blisteringly critical of the club then the damage is really done.

To give you a flavour of the anger, here are some of the tweets I read last night (quoted anonymously):

“@cardiffdevils great game but utter shambles and scam for the SOHB draw...”

“Any chance of a refund? @cardiffdevils this is total garbage. Who shuffled this? Stevie wonder.”

“@cardiffdevils sohb rip off swindle! Loads in a line what draw is that! 9k potential numbers.. The great swindle”

“@cardiffdevils you should be utterly ashamed of your selves. SOHB was a fix. Total loss of respect for the club!”

Anger soon spilled over into suspicions and accusations:

“I'm no statistician but this many consecutive numbers isn't far off the first 5 lottery numbers being 1, 2, 3, 4, & 5.”

“the problem is they are more than a little fixed” 

“How much did some corporate sponsor have to pay @cardiffdevils today to guarantee 5 Jerseys in the Sohb draw? #randommyass #fix”

“and the guy who won 5 just sold the Kearney shirt for 2k”

Shirt Off His Back and the other draws the Devils operate are a way for the club to make some extra money. I don't know how important an income stream it is to them, but I hope they aren't relying on it, given the reactions of some fans:

“There will be a lot of people refusing to pay again, including us! I actually feel for whoever won 5, they've got to feel bad.”

“first time in months I bought thinking better odds!  It's a lot cheaper to buy a jersey than the ticket money I spent weekly”

“Think a statement needs to be made regarding that SOHB draw tonight @cardiffdevils you will lose a lot of buyers after that”

And for some people, it confirmed their feelings of mistrust about the draws and their decisions not to take part:

“I never buy SOHB and this is why. Not down to luck it's down the highest bidder. We are a money grabbing club now”

“And it seems I made the right decision a couple of months ago to stop buying SOHB (and 50/50) tickets.”

There were some suggestions about how the Devils could regain the trust of fans after this debacle.

“SOHB raffle would have been so good if each player had drawn their own number live on the ice at end of the game. #justsaying”

 “the draw should be on ice after chuck a puck no cheats then”

I will still go to the occasional game. It's a fun evening out and I enjoy watching ice hockey. But as quite a few other people have said, I am very unlikely to bother with these draws again. I have no problem with not winning draws that are drawn openly and fairly. But if it feels like there is no chance of winning, then I've got better things to waste my money on.

This isn't the worst PR disaster of all time and could quite easily be fixed. The club should acknowledge the anger and that the draw could have been done differently and better. There should be a commitment to greater openness and transparency for all future draws.

The bottom line is this is about reputation. Do the Devils want to be known as a club that organises a prize draw so incompetently it kills off its revenue streams by alienating its fans? The club needs to do something to rebuild trust with its supporters.