Anyone who's played or watched any sport at St Ishmaels lately will know it's a great setup down there, with the clubhouse up there with the best around. Before Christmas the Mice sat firmly in mid table and weren't being spoken about as promotion contenders at all. However a impressive unbeaten run put Graham Ninnis team right in the picture, in fact the Mice remain unbeaten in the league since September when they lost 4-3 away to Narberth. September was a month to forget for Tish they lost three games and drew one, and at this point looked to be miles away from any promotion charge.

That all changed as Graham mentions in his interview, October began with a win over St Thomas Stars in a five goal thriller. It was followed by a 6-0 win over Cosheston and a win over Johnston. Tish went from strength to strength in the league, a draw to the champions made people realise Tish were a serious outfit. March was when from the outside interest in their results started to increase when they beat fellow promotion chasers Herbrandston. The result was convincing to say the least as the Mice put seven past their rivals.

Games in hand meant Tish never really occupied the top places in the league standings, however the form table showed the unnoticed, under the radar Tish were very soon going to become very noticed, very on the radar and in the end very promoted. A fantastic achievement for everyone involved and we sat down with first team manager Graham Ninnis to get his thoughts. 

Thank you for giving us your time Graham we thought we'd give you a bit of time to recover from any promotion celebrations. A massive congratulations is in order on accomplishing promotion back to the top division in the county. Did you think at Christmas time this was a possibility?

Thank you very much, in all honesty at Xmas I wasn't thinking about promotion at all, just trying to improve after a decent run of results was the aim then.

Well I don't think it was a late charge so much as steady progress, we seemed to go unnoticed for quite a while, after losing 4 of the first 5 games we went on a 17 match unbeaten league run, that's something the boys can all be proud of themselves for.

I think the Herbrandston game away was probably when most started thinking about it, knowing we had games in hand that was important to start catching them, especially wanting to go up in second place if we did manage it .

Obviously a season you'll look back on fondly but what was the stand out game for you this season?

The stand out game for me was the St Thomas stars games in the West Wales Cup, after winning that game there was a lot more belief in the team.

Also to 2 Monkton Swifts games, they were on a different level this year and congratulations to them for winning the league, drawing away proved to us we could compete with any in the league and winning at home with only 4 players over 21 in the squad was a also stand out moment

How did you celebrate the achievement?

We celebrated well after the last 2 games, a few bad heads in work this week, we have our presentation night on the 4th so I'm sure there will be more then

What's the plans for the summer now? Few months off, or straight into prep for the step up?

Definitely a good few weeks off then we'll start planning for a tough season ahead but one everyone is really looking forward too.

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