NEWTOWN Football Club will bask in the limelight this weekend as the club marks its 1,000th top flight game.

Cardiff Met are the visitors to Latham Park with the Robins having already secured a place in the top six following last week’s last-gasp draw in the reverse fixture.

It means the club can relax and go into the game knowing their season remains very much alive having dodged the relegation conference for another season.

Club chairman Howard Ellis invited the community and all football fans to Latham Park to mark the momentous occasion with the Robins only the second club to achieve the milestone along with mid Wales rivals Aberystwyth Town

Ellis said: “It’s another milestone for the club being founder members to achieving our 1,000th league game against Cardiff Met.

“It’s been a massive achievement to where we are today to when the league was formed back in 1992.

“There have been a lot of ups and downs but as a club we have managed to stay in what now is the JD Cymru Premier League.

“I am so pleased we have reached this achievement especially for our supporters some who have been following the robins when the league was formed , also our sponsors and all our volunteers.”

A roll of honour of past greats and club legends will help mark the occasion.

Ellis said: “We will be marking the occasion with ex-players managers and chairman to share the occasion with us when hopefully we will see our best crowd of the season.”

For 30 years the club has enjoyed highs and lows as Latham Park has evolved and become home to generations of supporters.

Originally one of the so called ‘Irate Eight’ Welsh clubs to have refused to join the new league, the club struggled in its new surroundings in the inaugural season and narrowly avoided relegation.

In 1996 Newtown ended second to runaway champions Barry Town and qualified for the UEFA Cup for the first time.

A 4-1 defeat at home to Latvians Skonto Riga went down in history as Romilly Brown scored the club’s first ever European goal before losing the second leg 3-0.

The Robins returned to Europe in 1998, holding Polish side Wisla Krakow to a goalless draw at Latham Park but were crushed 7-0 in the second leg.

However declining fortunes at the start of the 21st century saw the club struggle and almost relegated in 2007 with the club ending second from bottom and only spared due to a lack of compliant applicants from the second tier.

The Robins dodged the drop in 2010 and 2012 on technicalities before the arrival of Chris Hughes in 2014 sparked a great revival with the club since going on to qualify for Europe twice as well as reaching the final of the Welsh Cup for the first time in more than a century.