WELSH rugby's civil war erupted in sensational fashion at Ebbw Vale last night as Newport owner Tony Brown was refused admission to the ground for the Welsh/Scottish League derby.

Club stewards were ordered by the Ebbw Vale board to stop Brown at the gates. And I was ordered out of the Vale club office for attempting to report a confrontation between rival chairmen David Watkins and Marcus Russell.

Vale board member Paul Russell blasted: "We refused Tony Brown entry for the same reason Winston Churchill would have not allowed Hitler to come to dinner. "Tony Brown and Keith Grainger (the Newport chief executive, also barred, but not at the match) have pursued a course of action the object of which is to see the demise of Ebbw Vale RFC."

A fax was sent to the Newport club yesterday afternoon informing Brown and Grainger they would not be welcome.

Brown, accompanied by Newport chairman David Watkins, was duly stopped by the stewards when he arrived, having travelled from Surrey.

"I have travelled 150 miles to watch a game of rugby," Brown told the stewards. "It's extraordinary to come up here to see the game and be refused entry. I've got no axe to grind with Ebbw Vale but this attitude is petty and unnecessary and it doesn't help the cause of Welsh rugby. It could rebound on Ebbw Vale."

Watkins tried to get the game called off in protest.

"We don't want to play," he said as he stood alongside Brown at the gates. "What is the game coming to?"

His wife Jane also protested: "My father (Wally Talbot) was chairman of this club for 20 years, he'd turn in his grave at this."

But Brown said: "We can't call the game off, I wouldn't dream of that. I feel very disappointed but I don't want confrontation."

With that he disappeared into the Bridgend Inn pub next to the club to watch the game on TV.

But Watkins went into the club and demanded to see Ebbw Vale counterpart Marcus Russell to try to get the decision overturned.

"This is the depths of oblivion", Watkins shouted at Russell. I was then ejected from the room for taking notes of events. And Watkins later joined Brown at the nearby pub.

PICTURE: Newport owner Tony Brown surrounded by reporters at the Bridge Inn in Ebbw Vale after being barred from last night's game