The next item, therefore, is the 90-second statements. Dawn Bowden.

Diolch, Llywydd. It’s been 30 years since Wales witnessed one of the greatest sporting achievements, when Merthyr Tydfil Football Club beat the mighty FC Atalanta from Italy in the UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup. That September evening in 1987 was a memorable night for the club when they beat Atalanta 2-1 at Penydarren Park, and we should remember that, to this day, Atalanta remain a club in the Serie A league. So, while young Welsh fans may dream about Gareth Bale and Hal Robson-Kanu, it was Kevin Rogers and Ceri Williams who delivered the goals for Merthyr in front of over 8,000 fans at Penydarren Park. And still, today, the echoes of that great night and that fantastic victory in European football can still be heard over the decades. There’s now a film about the occasion, ‘The Martyrs Of 87’, which provides a new opportunity to enjoy that great night.

Those of you who follow football will know that that the club did subsequently hit hard times but, thankfully, returned as Merthyr Town FC, and, if you pay a visit to the LoadLok Penydarren stadium today, you will find a ground with great facilities that is fit to support young footballers for many years to come. So, can I place on record my best wishes to the current manager, Gavin Williams, and the playing squad for the remainder of this season? Thirty years may have passed, but that night of glory against Atalanta is not forgotten.

Llyr Gruffydd.

The twenty-second of September 1934 was a Saturday. Some miners at the Gresford Colliery had swapped shifts so that they’d be able to go and watch Wrexham play football that afternoon. But, of course, they were never to make the match as an explosion 2,000 ft underground ripped open the Dennis shaft in the early hours of that morning.

The disaster claimed 266 lives, all local colliers, whose families rushed to the colliery pithead. Only six men, on a break, escaped from that shift. Volunteer rescuers, armed with only nose clips and canaries against deadly carbon monoxide gas, went down to try and save any survivors. Three of the rescue brigade from the nearby Llay colliery also perished. The families waited in vain until Sunday night, when it became apparent that nobody was coming up from that Dennis shaft alive. Popular reaction was immense and immediate: £566,000 was raised for widows and the children of those lost—the equivalent of around £30 million today. The surviving miners were effectively abandoned by the pit owners and had to sign on the dole at a time of mass unemployment.

The Gresford Colliery is now closed, the tip its only visible reminder of a pit that employed 2,200 workers. But a lasting memorial to the 266 lives lost stands outside the Gresford colliery club, and this statement is also testimony to their sacrifice and the sacrifice made by countless Welsh miners over the years. The bodies of those caught in the explosion remain entombed deep underground, but they will never be forgotten.