IT’S BEEN a long time coming. At 3pm today Newport will have a Football League club after 25 long years in non-league exile.

All the signs are there will be a bumper crowd at Rodney Parade this afternoon as Newport County take on Accrington Stanley in a truly historic match.

Today is a marvellous day for everyone concerned with the club, but particularly for those fans who supported County throughout that quarter of a century.

Many of them will be at today’s match to celebrate a return to the Football League that seemed almost impossible in the club’s darkest days.

Others will have passed away in the intervening years. Today is for them.

It is also for the various people who have run the club, often on a voluntary basis, for the last 25 years.

That fantastic day at Wembley back in May marked the end of Newport County AFC’s long road back to the promised land of the Football League.

But that is history, just like the last 25 years.

Today is a new dawn for the club that refused to die.

Today Newport County starts making a new history as a Football League club.

The Argus has been with County every step of the way over the last two and a half decades.

That will never change. Up the County!