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Ricky’s eager to fly for the Bluebirds
Ricky Watts is a very talented young sporting all-rounder who has run for Wales, plays golf to a high standard and has represented Pembrokeshire School on rugby – but his ambition is to become a regular in the Haverfordwest County first team and eventually go on to become a professional footballer.
At 17 years of age he has already made his first team debut for the Bluebirds after coming on for the final 35 minutes of their last game of the 2008/9 season against Neath on the Bridge Meadow, where manager Derek Brazil slotted him in on the right side of midfield and Ricky played well in a 3-0 victory. It certainly whetted Ricky’s appetite because he has trained hard at the start of this new campaign and although he can still play regularly for the youth team under the watchful eye of Ronnie Beynon he is definitely in the running for more games in the first team – and can also play for the Pembrokeshire League side in the first division as a means of gaining more experience.
Family involvement
and a Bluebird begins
That Rickey should be so involved in football should come as no surprise because his dad, Chris, and uncles Richard and Nicky all played football to a good standard at Camrose – and after Ricky had started out kicking a ball in the back garden he set out with Camrose under the watchful eye of George Barrah and played in the central midfield there until he was 16, scoring more than his share of goals and helping them do quite well in the table.
At 16 Ricky joined Haverfordwest County and under the guidance of Ronnie Beynon and Steve Briers was soon a regular in the youth side and also playing for the club second team in division one. They came third in the McWhirter League as they played against the best young talent from across South Wales and although it meant a lot of travel Ricky was delighted because it gave him a real taste for the game at a higher level.
Golfing prowess – and a hole in one!
Golf is Ricky’s other main sport and he showed his prowess on the golf course by reducing his handicap from 30 to just eight in three short years. He represented STP School team as they won the County Schools Golf Championship and the team went to Builth Wells for the Welsh Finals and came a creditable third, only just missing out on a trip to the Belfry for the British Finals. Ricky plays regularly at Priskilly and has already shown his match play capabilities by winning the Scratch Cup and the Roch Open twice (a Stableford competition). Whilst he was in school he played two or three times a week in winter and up to five times in the summer but might find that a little harder now that he is off to college to study Public Services and carpentry at the Pembrokeshire College, where he will play for the Sports Academy in football.
He often plays golf against dad, who plays off 16 and insists on being given his shots, and says that he regularly beats Watts senior despite that eight-shot differential, and the family quartet of mum Sue, dad Chris and brother Jamie (aged 15) sometimes play a round together. It was in one such game that Ricky achieved his only hole in one, at the 135-yard eighth hole at Priskilly, where he watched his drive go straight and the ball bounce twice before skipping straight into the hole. Ricky was naturally delighted, especially since it was Chris who coughed up for the customary drinks at the 19th hole!
Other sports
Ricky is a talented all-round sportsman and he has also competed for Wales in athletics as a 400 metres runner who not only won the Pembrokeshire Sports for a number of seasons, starting out at 200 metres before progressing to the one-lap race to win not only the Dyfed Schools’ Championships but capped even that when won the Welsh Schools’ title at Builth Wells. This fine feat qualified Ricky to compete at the British Schools’ Championships and he came a creditable sixth place against athletes who were training almost full time, and he was selected to run for Wales at both Builth and Bedford – and is rightly proud of his two Welsh vests, which he keeps at home.
Not content with that little lot, Ricky has also played for Pembrokeshire at rugby as an outside centre or winger. He started playing at STP School and was a member of Haverfordwest RFC juniors at under 14 and under 16 before joining the youth team for a while and scoring his fair share of tries throughout his time with the oval ball game.
No option other than football
But then he found rugby and football clashing and there was no option for Ricky but to focus on his football because that is his favourite sport. He has already been training hard at the Bridge Meadow Stadium and is eager to carry on where he left off last campaign.
The staff there are very pleased with his progress and youth coach Ronnie Beynon told pembrokeshiresport.co.uk,
“We are delighted with Ricky because he has an old head on young shoulders and reads the game very well. He has built on his strengths and polished his weaker points so we expect great things of him in the future if he maintains his current rate of progress.”
“It is a view shared by first team boss Derek Brazil, who said,
“I moved Ricky into the senior squad and gave him a run-out at the end of last season, where he showed me that he has the capability to succeed. Now he must really knuckle down to hard training and force his way into a regular spot, as other local youngsters like Bobby Briers, Jack Christopher, Nicky Woodrow and others have done.”
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