The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: The Rise and Fall of Pontypool RFC by Alun Carter and Nick Bishop, Mainstream Publishing.

FOLLOWING up their 2008 best-seller, the critically-acclaimed Seeing Red: Twelve Tumultuous Years in Welsh Rugby, was always going to be a tough gig for former Pontypool and Wales back row forward Alun Carter and his writing partner Nick Bishop, but they have come up trumps once again.

Never afraid of pulling their punches, the duo’s ‘difficult second album’ after such an accomplished debut is real treat, not only for Pooler’s fans looking to relive the halcyon days of the 1970s and 1980s, but also those interested in what made the great club tick during those heady times in the amateur era when they were loved by many and reviled by even more for their confrontational and committed style.

Seeing Red chronicled Carter’s tenure as head analyst during a typically roller coaster period in the Wales national team’s fortunes during 1998 and 2007.

And this is another entertaining account of a turbulent time which saw giddy heights and gut-wrenching lows, told through the voices of club legends like their revolutionary coach Ray Prosser, a top forward in his day for Pontypool, Wales and the Lions, as well as star players like Graham Price and Terry Cobner.

It attempts, and succeeds, in getting under Pontypool’s skin to demonstrate just how the club became the most feared and successful in the British Isles in the seventies and eighties, bouncing back from some lean years as also-rans.

When Wales ruled the roost in Europe 40 years ago, many of the pack were the hard men who were reared on the playing fields of Pontypool Park under the eyes of ‘Pross’ and his trusted lieutenant Ivor Taylor, father of Wales and Lions centre Mark Taylor.

There are some vivid vignettes involving the key characters of the time, including moving accounts of club stalwart and physiotherapist, the late Eddie Mogford who clearly meant so much to Carter.

It doesn’t shy away from the club’s difficult transition in the professionalism era, from decline to near extinction last year after a near ruinous legal battle against the Welsh Rugby Union almost put them out of business.

And yet the book gives the club and its fans real hope they will once again see the good times back under benefactor and saviour Peter Jeffreys and current coach Mike Hook.