1876 - 1

I am Number Six.

But I am not a prisoner. I am a free man, indeed.

But I am number six today because it's warmish outside and I've got a pair of shorts on.

These shorts were match-worn in the 2013 Welsh Cup Final. (I think that's what I was told when I bought them from the club shop).

Specifically, they were worn by Michael Johnston, who was absolutely ridiculously sent off for two nothing challenges - the second of which was completely bought by the wily old fuck Andy Parkinson, who can be seen gesturing 'off you go' to the City defender as he dived.

Refs are shit aren't they. Ah well.

Now these shorts are special for various reasons. First off, I've got official Bangor City shorts and that is still a thrill and I don't care. Secondly, that game was very, very significant. The normally ice-cool Dave Morley missed a penalty with the score 1-0 to Prestatyn. City were all over them at that stage.

Bangor did equalise, but ten men couldn't cope in extra time and the mini-squealers won 3-1 to get to Europe.

Morley was a great player for Bangor. Similarly, the fat bastard in goal for Prestatyn was usually absolute tripe on Sgorio highlights. Except when he played us. Then he became Lev Fucking Yashin.

That penalty miss, that sending-off, the way it unfolded was the first real step in the unravelling of the championship-winning squad. Three years later and a couple of relegation scares, sans money from Europe, and Bangor City were fairly close to being unable to fulfil their financial commitments. The Vaughans got their claws on it, and so here we are.

But, let me be absolutely clear about this, because it's important: correlation is not causality. In my time, in my four decades as a fan and occasional programme-writer and columnist and journalist, City have either been on the brink of going bust or actually gone bust and had to re-form another company probably four times (that I know about). What didn't happen was a schism between fans.

I am number six and I am a free man.

And the free man in me knows intimately all that history, all the sweaty farts of a doomed cup final, all the bad times and occasional good ones. And knows that the spirit of a club is in its fans, its players, its backroom team all pulling together. In one way, you could posit that Bangor City is dead. Vaughan FC killed it.

But that's not true.

The spirit of all that lives on. The fans, the people behind the phoenix club, the atmosphere and the excitement is in Bangor 1876. We are Bangor. We're starting again at Tier 5. We're reclaiming what always was ours. Everything that is vested in the club, the shirt, the memories and the hopes and dreams lives on. You cannot kill an idea. And the idea of a community club, happy to bring back the camaraderie and social value, that can speak Welsh, is a powerful one.

All that lives on in a pair of cheapish shorts, a bit shiny and frayed at the same time. It lives on because of the power of all that has preceded it, and all that there is to come.

Hanes a balchder. Dan ni yma o hyd.

EDIT: Wonderful video here too. Sums it up completely. The past is ours. The future is ours.