SO the gravy train known as the FAW Premier Cup has stopped and those who run Newport County must be scratching their heads trying to come up with ideas which could net some £280,000.

Because give or take a grand or two, that's how much the club has earned from the competition which, if the truth be told, never really caught the public's imagination.

That's a hell of a lot of money, but with it Newport have hardly set the world alight in terms of successful promotion campaigns have they?

Without it... well that's why Newport simply have to get out of the Blue Square South at the end of this season.

The template is there for success because Aldershot Town, like Newport a reincarnation of a defunct former professional club, have recently clinched a place in the Football League - after being reformed on Wednesday, April 22, 1992.

Newport were reinvented three years earlier in June 1989 and while it's very much appreciated that two separate spells in exile certainly didn't help their cause, the club could do worse than book a trip to meet Aldershot officials to see exactly how its done.

Nearly 20 years in football backwaters is far too long and it's time now for Newportto re-evaluate the way it is trying to achieve its goals.

Much rides on Saturday's home game against Fisher Athletic. A win for manager Peter Beadle's men will maintain the dream while defeat could well lead to sweeping changes - on and off the field.

But whatever table Newport feast on in 2008-09, there'll certainly be no gravy on it!

Can't quite work out why the Gwent Senior Cup final between Caldicot Town and Cwmbran Celtic is to be played on a Thursday night - instead of a more user-friendly Saturday.

The match is to be played on May 8 with a 7pm kick off at Abergavenny Thursdays' Penypound Stadium, the venue for last season's Saturday final.

That match drew a good-sized crowd and without doubt this year's competition finale will attract less people - and that's not just because the finalists would not have been tipped to reach this stage at the start of the season.

Arranging the game on a week night cause all sorts of problems. Some players will not be available on both sides while those fans who must use public transport will also be disadvantaged.

The guilty party here is the Gwent County Football Association, which has managed to find Saturday dates for the lesser Amateur Cup and even its Youth Under-13s Cup finals!

Yet for their showpiece match of the season, they've only succeeded in tucking it away on a nondescript weekday night Shame on you gentlemen.