All that Celtic and Cwmbran Town have in common is that their names begin with the same letter, but such is the appeal of cup competitions that the unlikely bedfellows face each other tonight, at Cardiff City's Ninian Park, in the UEFA Cup first qualifying round.
Cwmbran have moved the match from their ground to accommodate the expected swell of Scottish supporters. "Our average gate is only 200," said the League of Wales club's manager Tony Wilcox. "Their's is some 300 times as many." Wilcox is an experienced campaigner in Welsh league football, but pitting his wits against Kenny Dalglish and John Barnes is one step beyond his world of Hollywell and Aberystwyth Town.
"The romance of the cup," he called it, though a local bookmaker is taking a less than romantic view by offering odds on Celtic setting a goals record for European competition, reckoning that the 21 piled up by Chelsea over two legs against the hapless Luxembourg club Jeunesse Esch in 1971 is under threat.
"We have had a bit of trouble in training recently," said Wilcox. "A few of the lads have been away on holiday, but only last week I made my record signing." Deiniol Graham joined from Colwyn Bay for £6,000, but it is money which will be easily recouped by Cwmbran's share of the gate receipts from the two-leg tie.
"Pitting my wits against Dalglish is not exactly the sort of thing that happens every day," said Wilcox, a community housing manager in Cardiff who reckons his previous biggest match was as a player 12 years ago when Ton Pentre faced Cardiff City in the first round of the FA Cup.
For his first game in charge of Cwmbran he found that he had only 10 players for the trip to Haverfordwest Town, but after desperate telephone calls he ended up with even a substitute. "Football at our level is about that," he said. "We know we have next to no chance against Celtic, but for the players it is an experience they are unlikely to savour again."
