Newtown Football Club is one of the oldest clubs in Wales, being formed in 1875 and is one of the founder members of the F.A.W. In addition being one of the founder members of the League of Wales, now known as the Welsh Premier..

The club have a long and proud tradition with the move in the late 1980’s into the Northern Premier League being part of the progressive nature of the club. Way back in 1877, Newtown took part in the first ever Welsh Cup tie on Saturday 13th October against Druids of Ruabon. Newi Cefn Druids now members of the Welsh Premier are derived from this club. Wrexham went on to win the competition but in the following season, Newtown Whitestars beat the favourites Wrexham 2-1 at Oswestry and in fact were the first club to receive the famous trophy which has only been purchased a few months earlier.

Over the years the club have played at a number of but the officers and general committee of the late 1940’s took the decision to purchase and construct a new playing headquarters at a site to be called ‘LATHAM PARK’. This decision was a farsighted one, and the present board officers, committee, supporters and players owe much to their counterparts of some 60 years ago. During the past seasons, many ground improvements have been made. The Control Techniques stand has 420 covered seats with dressing rooms for the club and the community use. A further stand has been constructed at the Llanidloes Road end of the ground and the old stand has been improved with new seating as well as new ‘dug out’ facilities. The ground is named Latham Park to honour a local sporting hero Captain George LATHAM who played for Liverpool, Stoke City and Cardiff City being capped twelve times for Wales at the start of the century. He joined Cardiff as a player in 1911 and played a major role in the development of the club and their entry into the Football League. He later became the Cardiff City trainer and held this position when Cardiff had their historic F.A. Cup victory over Arsenal in 1926/27.

During the 2004/05, the clubhouse was extended with the building of a new function room with a 200 capacity. This coupled with upgrading of floodlights and a new pitch draining system results in a ground and social facility to equal and in non-league football. Most recent addition in Oct 2009 is a magnificent new media room with balcony which also acts as an exclusive sponsors lounge on club match days. In early 2004, the club was awarded the prestigious UEFA Licence being the first Welsh Premier club to receive this major award. During the last 11 years, the club have hosted not only our own UEFA cup ties against Skonta Riga (1996) and Wisla Krakow (1998 but a host of other games including U21 Internationals, full ladies Internationals, Champion League and UEFA ties for other Welsh Premier Clubs as well as full U15 and U18 Internationals.The Welsh Cup final has been hosted on two occassions at the ground

The ground is currently sponsored by Mid Wales Leisure and is known as Mid Wales Leisure Latham Park.

Newtown enjoyed success in the Welsh Premier finishing runner up on two occasions enabling the club to venture in to European Football. Only three managers have managed the club since the formation of the Welsh Premier, Brain Coyne (1992-2004), Roger Preece (2004-2006) and Darren Ryan (2006 to date)

Darren Ryan continues as first team manager having recently gained his A licence and on course to obtain his pro-licence . Rhys Stephens as his Assistant with Martin Carroll managing the Reserve team  The club formed a link three years ago with Coleg Powys to form an Youth Academy College where students will be given the opportunity to learn whilst participating in the College league. In addition the club runs a number of Junior teams ranging from U9’s to U16’s. The Junior section of the club is known as Newtown Whitestars managed by Junior Development office Nicky Morris. 

22 July 1998 - Preliminary Round
1st Leg - Latham Park, Newtown

NEWTOWN (O) O
WISLA KRAKOW (O) O
Latham Park Attendance: 1,200

NEWTOWN: Barton; Thomas M (Line), Evans G, Reynolds, Thomas A, Roberts, Evans M, Wickham, Williams, Yates, Ruscoe.

WISLA KRAKOW: Sarnat; Kaluzny, Bogdan, Wegrzyn, Pater (Nowak), Kaliciak, Czerweic, Kulawik, Sunday, Zajac, Nicinski (Dubicki).

Referee: S Prolic (Bosnia-Herzegovina)

The Mid Wales outfit produced a tremendous battling performance to stifle a side that had finished third in the Polish League and who were now competing in Europe for the sixth time. Wisla camped in Newtown's half for much of the game but the home side always looked capable of hitting back on the break.

Jonathan Williams burst onto Justin Wickham's pass and forced a hurried save from Wisla keeper Artur Sarnat. Wisla's experience told as they forced numerous corners, but with skipper Colin Reynolds and Aneurin Thomas pillars of strength at the heart of the Newtown defence, goalkeeper Michael barton was rarely troubled.

29 July 1998 - Preliminary Round
2nd Leg - Wisla Stadion, Krakow, Poland

WISLA KRAKOW (2) 7
NEWTOWN (O) O
Wisla Stadion Attendance: 10,000

WISLA KRAKOW: Sarnat; Zajac, Wegrzyn 66, Matyja, Dubicki, Pater 62, Kulawik 28, 46 (Piszczek), Czerwiec, Sunday 35, Nicinski 54 (Skrzinski), Kaliciak 49.

NEWTOWN: Barton, Line, Evans G, Reynolds, Thomas H, Roberts, Wickham (Clifford), Williams, Yates (Commerford), Evans M, Ruscoe (Davies).

Referee: I Baskakov (Russia)

A Newtown party of 6O, including club officials and Latham Park staff, left Heathrow for Warsaw two days before the date of the second leg. The journey would be completed by a three hour coach trip to Krakow. Kevin Morrison had not recovered from his ankle injury and would miss out.

Newtown fought bravely and held out for almost half an hour before the Wisla skipper, Tomasz Kulawik, put the Polish side in front. Shortly afterwards, Nigerian Under-21 cap Ibrahim Sunday unleashed an unstoppable shot to virtually seal the tie. The Robins wilted in the second period and the poles ran in five goals in a twenty minute spell shortly after the resumption. The League of Wales side rarely managed to reach their opponents half, and all they had to show for their efforts was a feeble shot from the right foot of Jonathan Williams.

Not even the introduction of their new recruit - the former Bristol Rovers and Welshpool striker, Steve Clifford - made any impact.

The greatest problem the Newtown players encountered were the humidity levels, that really handicapped their performance.