Football: Cwmbran the little club with a big heart: 84 days after the European Cup final this season's competition starts in Wales tonight. Trevor Haylett reports

SOMEHOW, it was hard to imagine the same easy access to Bernard Tapie at Marseille or Silvio Berlusconi at Milan. 'Information about the game on Wednesday, sir?' the switchboard voice said. 'Ring George Thorneycroft on this number. He's the chairman and he'll tell you all you need to know.'

That is how it works at the bottom of the pile, even in the European Cup, which as well as being the most glamorous club competition is increasingly a device for making money, and plenty of it. The chairman has to sell tickets and answer queries.

This week, Thorneycroft's phone has been red hot. Eighty-four days after Marseille beat Milan to win the 1992-93 cup, we have come full circle in every respect. To a new season and the preliminary round of a new tournament. To Cwmbran Town, Thorneycroft's team, champions of the Konica League of Wales, v Cork City, champions of the League of Ireland. For sheer romance look no further.

However much the elite and the famous, owners, chairmen, managers and players might conspire on occasion to besmirch this wonderful game - and the involvement of Marseille in a match-fixing scandal throws a shadow over the start - you know its soul is intact when it throws up fixtures like the one to be played in this plain and ordinary new town which nestles at the foot of the Welsh hills some 10 miles or so north of Newport.

There is hardly a feel of football fanaticism about the place let alone an outpouring of passion for the European Cup, but we are assured that come seven o'clock tonight the clamour for victory will do justice to Old Trafford.

In the true traditions of the game and as a reminder of how it can divorce its cast from reality, Cwmbran clinched their place on a daisy-strewn pitch in Llanelli on a Bank Holiday Monday afternoon in May, the same day that Manchester United were handed their Premier League spoils. 'It feels absolutely great,' said Wayne Goodridge, a mechanical fitter who scored the winning goal three minutes from time. 'Now bring on United, Milan and Barcelona.'

Illogical and perverse? Absolutely. But deserving? Quite definitely. With the map of Europe continually being redrawn and a proliferation of small countries knocking on Uefa's door for membership, why should not Wales have their own representative, and why not Cwmbran?

After years of division and delay, the Football Association of Wales finally reached agreement two years ago for a national league. Cwmbran, outsiders at the start, outlasted Inter-Cardiff in an enthralling struggle.

'We have fantastic spirit both among the players and between the committee and the players,' Thorneycroft said. 'That saw us through. Others splashed money on new players but we just quietly got on with the job.'

While the team has only just completed the round of civic receptions, it remains a constant battle to spread the word of their success. Home is a council-owned athletic stadium and you can drive in unaware that that is where the nation's football champions reside.

Yesterday lunchtime a blackboard pointed visitors to a dressing-room where behind a single desk containing two pots, one full of coins, the other of cigarette ash, a club official was selling tickets for the big game.

'Our crowds are a big disappointment,' Thorneycroft said. 'It's the only thing lacking. Cwmbran is a town built from seven villages. Each has its own side and they seem to view us as a rival, even though we are in a different sphere. But there's great interest in this tie and we hope for a crowd approaching our 4,500 capacity. Even people from England and Scotland have been phoning for tickets because of the uniqueness of the occasion.'

Ironically, it was crowd potential - with a population of 47,000 it is the sixth-largest Welsh town - that attracted Thorneycroft when he quit Newport County nine years ago. The grandson of the club's founder, he foresaw the financial crisis but failed to win support for his rescue plan.

He is the only Cwmbran member with European experience, having been the Newport vice-chairman when they enjoyed a marvellous Cup-Winners' Cup run to the quarter-finals before losing cruelly to Carl-Zeiss Jena. 'We drew 2-2 over there but lost at Somerton Park 1-0 in the most one- sided game I have ever seen.'

It will be work as usual for Cwmbran's pounds 35 a week part-timers this morning before meeting for lunch at a local hotel. 'It has been hard throughout pre-season to keep their minds away from this game,' said Tony Willcox, the manager credited with much of the praise for taking this little club into the land of the giants. 'It's something we will remember for the rest of our lives.' Galatasaray, of Turkey, await the winners in the first round proper and after that, who knows? Cork are favourites, having recently signed the former Nottingham Forest striker Tommy Gaynor, and their experience could tell. But Cwmbran remain confident. If European success is centred on a solid defence, they are in safe hands, having conceded only 22 goals in 38 league fixtures last season.

It is a day Thorneycroft thought he would never see. He broke a leg stumbling on ice at the stadium in January. In hospital, he had a heart attack and was put on a life-support machine. Six weeks later, he walked out after a recovery doctors described as 'miraculous'.

And for an omen, what better than the support of Brian Clough, a notable winner of this famous trophy twice in succession with Nottingham Forest. It was Old Big 'Ead himself who opened the Cwmbran ground and their route to the stars back in 1973.

(Photograph omitted)