cwmbran red

4 hours ago, havanatopia said:

The clouds have lifted, the typhoon winds have moved offshore and the sun has returned with a vengeance. Moreover I am back from the Boondocks. 

Good morning and good afternoon everyone.

Once upon a time when I was busy doing my Geography coursework I recall a field trip visit to Cwmbran. The nearest new town to Somerset was chosen because it offered lessons in urban planning that perhaps will once more be very relevant as Britain seeks ways of overcoming the continued shortage of homes across the land. Cwmbran was conceived in 1949 and was one of the earliest 'garden cities' that eventually would number 32.

Ebenezer Howard’s invention of the Garden City in 1898, based on a vision of combining the ‘advantages of the most energetic and active town life, with all the beauty and delight of the country’ in a high-quality sustainable community, was to revolutionise the way people thought about building towns and cities.

What typically comes to mind on hearing the words ‘New Town’? Modernist housing estates? Bleak architecture? Roundabouts? There is no doubt that the New Towns are often the butt of jokes (Big Tone?... lets be avin yuh!) about the failures of modern urbanism (often made by people who have never visited a New Town, let alone lived or worked in one), but their story is an intriguing one: of anarchists, artists, visionaries, and the promise of a new beginning for millions of people.

A Garden City is a holistically planned new settlement which enhances the natural environment and offers high-quality affordable housing and locally accessible work in beautiful, healthy and sociable communities. of course, in reality it might be a load of old poppycock but in my distant memory I do seem to have come away from Cwmbran thinking it had its merits. 

Milton Keynes was inaugurated in 1967 and has since grown to more than 250,000 people; arguably way beyond what a true Garden City was supposed to be. Interestingly Howard had envisaged his garden city concept creating sustainable communities of not more than 30-35,000 people and the very first town, in the world, was Letchworth in Hertfordshire just north of Stevenage which has a population today of around 33,000! 

New towns that have become league teams apart from Milton Keynes?.. Peterborough, a town founded in 1967, Stevenage 1946, Crawley 1947, Northampton 1968 and, in Scotland, Livingston inaugurated in 1962 and Cumbernauld in 1955 *.

The New Towns programme was quite possibly the most ambitious of any devised anywhere in the world. Its legacy, like any major works, will have its good and its bad but it served Britain well and the lessons learnt from the errors will hopefully translate into improved versions as the discussion on a swathe of 21st century garden cities increases.

Pete Winkelman brought a new league club to Milton Keynes which I have discussed in previous MK Match day threads and many have opined on the subject. Most, but not all, of the other new towns I have mentioned with league clubs grew organically as population and interest grew in what had hitherto been small villages or dispersed communities within much smaller settlements. 

* Milton Keynes is not the only 'franchise' club if you will. Livingston became the new home for Meadowbank Thistle of Edinburgh; I am sure that rankles to this day with Thistle fans. Fortunately the powers that be decided not to use the name Livingston Thistle. Equally Clyde from Glasgow moved to Cumbernauld although in their case they kept the name. In both of these Scottish examples the owners thought the fan base would be greater in their new locations a decision which seems to ignore the fans that were there, in the original long standing locations, in the first place. 

At least with Wimbledon the support was so strong and the will so galvanised that they not only started again, from scratch, but they have once more become a league team. The same cannot be said for Meadowbank Thistle. Can it?

I do not profess to be an expert on the on-going discussion and as football fans I am sure many would prefer to talk about the ball and not the history... thats what this thread is for; for anyone to drive the topic of conversation wherever they want it to go. I merely find it interesting how new towns came about, it relives my studies at school and it creates some strong and interesting feelings when a fan base is told their club is moving. And for all of that it makes the fixture, each time we play MK, all the more interesting.

So what say we for todays match then folks? Are we bouncing around Stadium MK in anything like the numbers of last year or is that far too much to ask? The scoreline and the support i mean.

Perhaps another draw? I would feel a lot more upbeat if we had another striker on board; have I missed a sneaky loan overnight?

1-1 I believe.

Tomlin this time from regular play.

Good and safe journey to all those going today, watch out for the roundabouts but enjoy the green open spaces of Milton Keynes. I don't think its all that bad and bring your litter home .

UTC.

MODS - I would have liked to have uploaded an interesting map but you have reduced the file size to 340kb and when reducing the file size under that size it is still not recognised.. some form of on-going glitch you have there I think.

 

I live in cwmbran and the best thing there is the shopping centre and free parking and basically it's the the same as my home town of yate and the same size