Merthyr Part-X Outlet. Part 1: F*cking Skateboarders | @Emsonite

Hello & welcome to a new blog series! As you can see we’re in Merthyr Tydfil. This is the closest club in the English pyramid to me. I’m from Abercynon so just a few mins up the A470. I nearly signed for Merthyr as a 16 year old. Scored 2 against their U-18s in a friendly in a 4-2 deafet, and they invited me along to train with them after the game. But while younger me was pretty decent at scoring goals, I was also pretty decent at scoring weed. Loads of old blokes got a story about how they could have made it. That’s mine. 3 training sessions and I didnt bother going again. Had other ‘interests’. I’m back now as a slightly more responsible 40-year-old as the first team manager. But the contract and rules they signed me up on are restrictive. And the owner/main sponsor is rather bizarre.

Merthyr Part-Ex Outlet

Part 1: Fucking Skateboarders

Merthyr used to be sponsored by Trade Centre Wales who used to brand themselves as the Part-X Outlet, as you can see in the pictures.

These days, Trade Centre Wales have expanded into multiple locations (including my hometown of Abercynon, which they controversially refer to as Cardiff-North). Now they brand themselves as having probably the UK’s cheapest cars. Spoiler alert. They don’t.

But let’s work with this Part-X idea from yesteryear. You might be able to guess where I’m going with this.

What you might not know is the owner of Trade Centre Wales. This handsome chap.

I don’t know his name. And I never heard of him until he appeared on the news, for confronting a bunch of kids on the skateboarding ramps who were ‘making too much noise’ next to his lovely big house. How very dare they.

Different things push different people’s buttons I suppose. In his case, it’s those fucking skateboarders.

So we’ve established he loves a good trade, and he hates skateboarders. So this is how this blog is going to work. We’re only allowed to bring in players if it involves a Part Exchange. Simple. I don’t want to set any targets yet, just going to see how good we can do.

Each trade will be assessed by the owner.

If the owner deems the trade good. He will be happy and you will see this face.

If he thinks he’s had a bad trade, he’s going to get angry and fuck up some skateboarders.

We need some players to start with though. So I’ve done my research and there are 18 players on the database that have played for Merthyr at some point. So they are all in my squad. And we’re starting life in Div 3.

A few familiar places here.

Including Nathan Jones, who could have stayed in Wales, been a PE teacher and married a gorgeous Welsh girl. In this blog he has done just that.

Lee Jarman is already wanted and wants a move to a bigger club so we’ll see what we can do on the exchange front with him first.

I did start a little test of this to see if this blog idea is feasible. Got bored and thought what’s the point so I’m blogging it in real time. I have no idea if this is going to work or how many weeks this will run for.

The plan is to make some money. Have a revolving door of players. This is only going to work if we generate wanted signs on my players. I can buy players from other clubs but only if there’s an exchange involved. For example, Jarman is wanted by Forest and valued at £1.3m. If I had the money I can and buy say Steve Stone for £5m so long as I trade in Jarman as part of the deal.

Very hypothetical example. Becasue we are currently shit. Stone would never go to us & I’m only starting with £100k in the bank like all the other Div 3 clubs.