Newport County: Why survival means so much for a club still scarred by the past

Another in tears last Saturday was former defender Mark O’Brien, now club ambassador but the goal-scoring hero of the last time Newport won on the final day to secure league status in 2017.

“It’s perhaps only since taking this role I’ve properly understood what it meant that day,” says O’Brien, Irish-born but now fully Newport having stayed in the city when heart problems forced his retirement from playing at the age of 27.

“I knew the passion but not the impact on the city, on people’s lives. People have come up to me thanking me not just for saving the club from relegation, but for saving their jobs.

“When this club is successful – and we’ve seen it with cup runs and the like – everyone benefits. People don’t travel from afar, this support is generational, it’s right around you, so success just brings so much joy.”

O’Brien admits he too has had lingering fears but, like so many around Newport, has tried not to think of them.

Instead, he has flooded fan message groups on social media with a reminder that the club – with all its past – has always fought to the end.

Indeed, amid the flares and the fervour of last weekend’s late win, manager Christian Fuchs – he of the unlikeliest Premier League title win – said he saw the fans after the final whistle putting fears and frustrations aside, how it helped drag his side over the line, he saw “what is possible here”.

All season, it is has been one set of possibilities that has plagued the thoughts of Newport County fans.

They will hope more than most they are not scared to think of what’s to come on that long bus trip home from Barrow.