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Exiled: The Incredible Story of Newport County AFC

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BBC Radio Wales - Exiled: The Incredible Story of Newport County AFC

How a group of fans took on football’s rulers to bring their club back to their home town

The story of the Welsh football team that was forced into exile twice and whose fans took on FIFA and UEFA for the right to bring football back to their home town

Commemorating 30 years since the death of Newport County and the birth of the club set up in its wake, this documentary traces the side’s extraordinary journey from non-league obscurity to the hallowed land of the Football League. 

It charts the dramatic events which saw the original County wiped off the football map in the late 1980s and the monumental efforts made to create a new club in its place. At that time the local council and the Football Association of Wales stood in direct opposition, so the club was forced into exile, setting up home 85 miles away in the sleepy Cotswold town of Moreton-in-Marsh. Most of their away games were closer than their home games, but over 400 fans followed the team’s season-long Magical Mystery Tour of the Cotswolds. It culminated in a Championship trophy and a return to their now dilapidated old ground, Somerton Park, where fans, players and staff licked the ground back into a state fit to call home as they charted their course back to the Football League. 

But two years later they were forced, incredibly, into exile again. As the club struggled financially, fans faced up to the prospect of losing their club for the second time in five years.  Forced to take drastic action, the supporters entered into one of Welsh sport’s most acrimonious battles. They found themselves facing up to the FAW and then Europe and the world’s governing bodies, UEFA and FIFA, who promised the end of Newport AFC and life bans from football for all club officials should they persist with their quest to return home.   

This dramatic, heartwarming and humorous tale charts how a group of regular supporters, with no experience of running a football team, took on the world’s sporting establishments to bring League football back to their home town,

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Exiled: The Incredible Story of Newport County AFC

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