Sports and Leisure
- Cricket
Hills Plymouth Cricket Club is the oldest established Cricket club in the Merthyr area, based to the south of the town. Penydarren Country XI Cricket Club was founded in 1971 and currently play at the ICI Rifle Fields Ground.
- Boxing
Merthyr is particularly known for its boxers, both amateur and professional. Some famous professional pugilists from the town include: Johnny Owen, Howard Winstone, and Eddie Thomas.
- Football
In sporting terms, Merthyr is widely recognised for its football team, Merthyr Town. 'The Martyrs' currently compete in the Evostick Southern Football League and play home games at Penydarren Park. The club had their proudest moment in 1987, when having won the Welsh Cup and qualified for the European Cup Winners Cup, they beat Italian football team Atalanta 2–1 at Penydarren Park.
The town was once home to a fully professional Football League club, Merthyr Town F.C., which folded in the 1930s and Merthyr Tydfil AFC were founded in 1945. The year of 2008 marked the centenary of football having been played at Penydarren Park (1908 – 2008). After going into liquidation in 2010, the club switched grounds to.
- Golf
Merthyr Tydfil Golf Club is situated on the southeastern slopes of Cefn Cil Sanws, a rough gritstone and limestone hill northwest of the town. It is one of the highest golf courses in Britain. Morlais Castle Golf Club is situated adjacent to the ruins of Morlais Castle on Morlais Hill, approximately 2 km to the east and at about the same altitude.
- Rugby union
The local rugby union club, Merthyr RFC, is known as 'the Ironmen'. Merthyr RFC was one of the twelve founding clubs of the Welsh Rugby Union in 1881.
- Rugby league
Merthyr Tydfil is home to the Tydfil Wildcats Rugby League team who played at The Cage in Troedyrhiw until September 2010. For 2011 the club is hosted by Dowlais RFC. Merthyr Tydfil was one of the first rugby league sides formed in Wales in 1907 and notably beat the first touring Australian side in 1908.
Read more about this topic: Merthyr Tydfil
Famous quotes containing the words sports and, sports and/or leisure:
“Sports and gallantries, the stage, the arts, the antics of dancers,
The exuberant voices of music,
Have charm for children but lack nobility; it is bitter earnestness
That makes beauty; the mind
Knows, grown adult.”
—Robinson Jeffers (1887–1962)
“It is usual for a Man who loves Country Sports to preserve the Game in his own Grounds, and divert himself upon those that belong to his Neighbour.”
—Joseph Addison (1672–1719)
“A broad margin of leisure is as beautiful in a man’s life as in a book. Haste makes waste, no less in life than in housekeeping. Keep the time, observe the hours of the universe, not of the cars. What are threescore years and ten hurriedly and coarsely lived to moments of divine leisure in which your life is coincident with the life of the universe?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)