Ferry riding crest of a wave for Cymru Premier debut

Briton Ferry Llansawel players celebrating winning the 2023-24 Cymru South title

Briton Ferry Llansawel manager Andy Dyer says their first game in the JD Cymru Premier will be an “extremely proud” day for everyone associated with the club.

Dyer’s side host Penybont in their opening game of the season on Sunday.

Promotion was achieved with the club seeing off the challenge of Llanelli to win last season’s JD Cymru South title and reach the top flight.

The Ferry secured the title with a 4-0 win over Ammanford in front of more than 1,200 fans, which Dyer described as “an incredible evening”.

Briton Ferry, League of Wales founder members in 1992, merged with Llansawel in 2009 to form the current club.

“It’s the biggest day since this merger happened,” Dyer told BBC Sport Wales.

“These are the things everyone off the pitch has worked extremely hard for and they should all be extremely proud.

“Fifteen years ago when this merger happened I can’t even imagine that the people who pulled it together were thinking, that this is where we would be in such a short space of time

“And 15 years is a short space of time in terms of what the club has achieved.

“There have been lots and lots of people along that journey – Carl Shaw being a big influence as a manager previously, then Andy Hill stepped in and pushed things on again.

“I suppose I’m just the lucky one that it fell to last year in terms of the football side of things.

“The Welsh Premier league’s been lacking a club in this area.

“The demise of Port Talbot unfortunately has left the Neath-Port Talbot area without a Welsh Premier club and we’ve been lucky I suppose to step up and fill them boots.”

Dyer himself has previous top-flight managerial experience from his time with Neath.

But he acknowledges the league has changed since his spell in charge of the Gnoll-based club more than a decade ago.

“First and foremost it is a much fitter league – the lads in there are athletes compared to 10 years ago,” Dyer said.

“The coaches are definitely far more advanced, teams are far more organised and there’s an identity with pretty much all the teams.

“And I suppose only having the 12 teams has made the league far more competitive than when I was in there.

“That 12-team system has only made the league stronger in my view.”

And what of Dyer’s ambitions for the new season?

“It’s got to be can we stay in the league? It’s that simple,” Dyer said.

“The first goal is let’s get up to speed and then it’s week by week.”