Sport and Culture
Sport features as one of the many reasons for pride in the Ebbw Vale area, including a top flight Welsh Premiership rugby union team, Ebbw Vale Rugby Football Club, that participated in the Celtic League and various European competitions until the restructuring of the Welsh Rugby Union that took effect from the 2003–04 season, effectively removing any professional rugby representation from the area. The Ebbw Vale rugby team is nicknamed 'The Steelmen' named after the steelworks in the town. These days Ebbw Vale RFC still compete at a semi-professional level in the WRU Principality Premiership along with the Welsh Cup. In 2007, the club finished 2nd in the Premiership in what was one of their most successful seasons ever.
In 1907 Ebbw Vale RFC switched to professional rugby league, becoming Ebbw Vale RLFC. It was the first rugby league club in Wales and the team won the Welsh League in 1909 and 1910. Rugby League has long disppeared from the area.
Also in the town there is a keen interest in cricket (of which the town hosted several Glamorgan County Cricket fixtures until 1996), bowls, swimming, and a large host of football and rugby teams at varying levels. Eugene Cross Park is the home of both the town's rugby and cricket clubs. However, cricket predates rugby and Ebbw Vale's first recorded match was played against Blaina as far back as 1852. During the 19th century the influx of people from the surrounding counties looking for work in the local ironworks and coal mines gave cricket a boost and in June 1879 "a meeting was held at the Institute to form a cricket club in the town".
In addition to the above the town also has a leisure centre which hosts facilities ranging from a gym, sauna, weights room, indoor 5-a-side football pitches, squash courts and a 33m long, 4m deep swimming pool with diving boards.
Ebbw Vale's theatre, the Beaufort Theatre, is the largest in Blaenau Gwent.
The town has been the subject of art works by notable painters including Nan Youngman and L S Lowry; the latter's 1960 Ebbw Vale, on display at the Herbert Art Gallery in Coventry, numbers among the largest works he ever produced.
Until the late 1800s, the Ebbw Vale area was largely Welsh-speaking, with the Welsh language dominant until the 1830s. There is very little evidence of Welsh on buildings for various reasons. For example, when St John's Church in Newtown was demolished for safety reasons in the 1970s, mainly English tombstones were preserved.
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