Ten years ago Monmouth Town's first team were struggling to a 1-1 draw with Burnt Barn in a dire October game in Gwent County Division Three.

The same season, last Saturday's opponents were beating Portuguese champions Porto in the Champions League.

Fast forward to October 2012 and the Town's footballers travelled to Jenner Park, Barry; home of the Welsh league leaders, seven times Welsh Premier champions, seven times Welsh Cup winners – and beat them.

True they had to ride their luck in a frantic last quarter of an hour and were distinctly second best in an attacking sense for the majority of the second period, but this was no fluke result.

This was not the work of travelling underdogs having a good day while the thoroughbreds had an off day. It was a well contested game of football by two evenly matched sides who had lots to offer all over the park.

The Kingfishers' ability to take the chances that were on offer was the deciding factor.

After a cagey and scrappy first 20 minutes Monmouth, sponsored by WyeMedia, had gained the upper hand and had started to string a few moves together with the returning Nick Harrhy (pictured below) at the heart of most of the decent work with his crisp passing and fluid movement, and Dean Palmer's deliveries causing some concern in the home defence.

Blackburn at the other end had to deal smartly with a couple of good efforts as Doidge and Nagi the attacking pair for the Dragons showing flashes of real quality and directness.

A couple of corners for Monmouth were dealt with relatively comfortably by the Barry defence but on the half-hour centre half Ben Evans got the better of everyone and headed in from six yards to give the travelling Kingfishers the lead, celebrating by breaking Monmouth's long jump record in the sand pit behind the goal.

Within five minutes it was two as Dan MacDonald got on the end of great through ball and clipped in over the advancing Bradley in Barry's goal.

The home side seemed stung into action and launched a series of raids that came to nought until, on the stroke of half time, a lapse of concentration at a throw in allowed Barry plenty of room to work the ball to Josh Bell, who let fly from 20 yards giving Blackburn no chance.

In the second half Rob Laurie replaced 18-year-old Max Fessey to give a bit more muscle to the midfield but Barry were clearly intent on making up the deficit.

For more on this game, see this week's Beacon (24th October).