Mold Alex FC

A brief history of Mold Alexandra Football Club

On 20 December 1929 local newspaper The Leader reported that “a new junior team has been formed in the town. It is known as Mold Alexandra and the ground will be Alyn Park, Maes y Dre. Royal blue jerseys and white knickers are the colours and the team is open to play any junior team in the district”. A series of friendly fixtures were soon arranged and after nine matches a 100% record had been achieved.

The Alex even played one match at Broncoed Park, home of Mold Town, as a fund raiser for the senior club. By the end of the season Mold Alex had played 20 matches, won 17, lost 2 and drawn 1, and the club joined the Mold, Deeside and Buckley League for the 1930/31 season. The Alex played their first competitive match at Chester Road, Flint on 30 August 1930, where the visitors beat Oakenholt St David’s FC by a score of 5-3. Later that season the first silverware arrived at Alyn Park when The Alex beat Glasinfryn FC 5-0 in the North Wales Junior Cup, on a treacherous pitch at Eirias Park. In the new club’s second season the Flintshire Amateur League was won, along with the League Cup, making it a double success.

Mold Alex continued in local football until 1937 when, along with Flint Town, the Alex joined neighbours Buckley in the West Cheshire League. Follow World War II football in North Wales was booming and big matches would attract large attendances including considerable travelling support. In 1946 Mold Alex erected what was described in the press at the time as “a fine shelter which would afford protection for 300/400 spectators”. In 1947 Mold Alex became members of the Welsh National League Wrexham Area and did not leave the competition until 1990.

By the 1979/80 season the club were celebrating their fiftieth anniversary and a special dinner was held at Theatr Clwyd to mark the event with guest speaker Joe Mercer. This was to be the start of a successful decade for the Alex and Cup wins and League Championships arrived with regularity at Alyn Park throughout the 1980’s. During the summer of 1990 Mold Alex were invited to join the new Cymru Alliance competition for the top teams in North and Mid Wales. Just two years later in 1992 Mold Alex became founder members of the League of Wales, the first ever national league in Wales. This was to change the face of football in Mold, and Wales, forever but after just one match at home to Inter Cardiff, Mold were dramatically thrown out of the League for failing to meet with ground criteria. With the help of landlords Synthite a stand was built and floodlights were installed by the local council and Mold were reinstated to the L.o.W. The following summer a roof was built over the stand, turnstiles installed and the standing cover extended substantially.

In the first two years of the L.o.W. Mold finished in a respectable mid table position and many a fine footballer graced the Turf of Alyn Park in the blue of Mold. Striker John Norman went on to play Conference football with Morecombe FC and enjoyed a number of good runs in the F A Cup. Both Stuart Rain and Carl Smythe moved on to Connah’s Quay Nomads and made many, many appearances in the League of Wales. Stuart is currently third all time record goal scorer in the league of Wales with 147 goals from 298 starts upto the end of the 2004/05 season. Mold Alex even signed a Wrexham FC striker, Tony Merola, on loan for a couple of months in the 1994/95 season. However after three years of playing at the highest level of Welsh Football, the Alex were relegated on the final day of the 1994/95 season in front of BBC TV cameras at Alyn Park.

These were interesting days at Alyn Park as the club lurched from crisis to crisis but some how the club pulled through and we look back with fond memories of the never ending coach trips to South Wales. Many people put in a lot of time and effort to keep the club going but without the backing of a main sponsor or group of local business people the Alex were always doomed to relegation. Mold returned back to the Cymru Alliance for three years, under the management of Colin Darcy and the Steve Wilday, with mixed results but in 1998 the club was unfairly relegated to the Welsh Alliance League. The Committee took the brave decision to reject this move and the Alex Reserve team, managed by Steve Griffith, became the new first team, ending up in the Welsh National League Division One. A regular in the side of 1998/99 side was a young Danny Collins who left the Alex for Buckley and has recently joined premiership club Sunderland and earned a full Wales cap at international level. The club was rewarded with promotion to the Premier Division at the first attempt and at long last the tide was beginning to turn. In the summer of 2000 the club appointed Dave Williams and Gary Austin as its new management team and they set about assembling a squad of the best local players available. The Alex won its first silverware in over a decade when the Premier Division Cup was won in June 2001 and the following season the team went one better, achieving a League and Cup double, remaining unbeaten in the League until the final match of the season, by when the championship had been already won. In the winter of 2001/02 the club reluctantly agreed to sell top goal scorer Chris Boulton to Bangor City for a club record transfer fee. The Alex consolidated their position in the Cymru Alliance in the first year back but at the end of the 2002/03 season Dave John and Les Reece stepped down as the first team management duo.

The Club did not hesitate to offer the position to ex Wrexham and Chester City professional Jon Cross who was already involved as a player and a coach at Alyn Park. However, at the halfway stage of the 2003/04 season, the Committee replaced Cross with ex-boss Dave Williams with player Gary Emberton acting as assistant, and the club successfully secured their position in the second tier of welsh senior football. In the summer of 2004 ex Alex player and Flint Town United manager Terry Wheeler was appointed as first team manager but unfortunately Terry only lasted in the Alyn Park hot seat until the autumn. Again Dave John took over for a short while until ex Wrexham professional Tony Merola was appointed manager in early 2005, initially until the end of the season.

At the beginning of the 2005/2006 Tony was appointed as permanent manager and in the first season back in the Welsh National League Mold finished in ninth position. The following season Mold finished third and missed out on promotion after losing a vital game at Cefn United which could have sealed the second place required.

Due to work commitments Tony resigned as manager before a Welsh Cup second round tie at Caersws on October 6th 2007. At the end of the game Tonys assistant Danny Seamarks accepted the role of caretaker manager and soon this became permanent with club coach Andy Crabtree stepping up to assist Danny. The duo led Mold to the League Cup final but the club lost to Brymbo finishing the game with nine men. After the home of champions Brymbo failed a ground inspection by the Cymru Alliance management Mold were invited to take promotion after finishing second. This was confirmed at the Cymru Alliance AGM held at Llandudno in June.

The club continue to play at Alyn Park the home of Mold Alex since 1929 and over recent years the ground has held the Mold bonfire display,fairground,stunt show and circus.