There was just one vital ingredient missing as Penyffordd prepared to face Penycae in the Welsh National League First Division – nobody could find the referee.

So, Penyffordd manager Roy Tunnicliffe and some of his players retraced their steps to the changing rooms at Abbot's Lane School and made a startling discovery.

There they found the unfortunate match official, Mark Stokes, locked in his dressing room. In fact, he had been trapped there more than 10 minutes, but his repeated kicking at the door in a desperate attempt to attract attention, had gone unheard.

Roy described how the ref had been on his own in the dressing room when one of the players from the Penyffordd team went in to change his boots.

Not realising the referee was still in the room, he locked the door behind him.

"The pitch is 50 yards away from the changing room so we couldn't hear anything. It got to three or four minutes before the kick off and there was still no sign of the referee.

"I said we'd better go and look in case he had fallen over and bumped his head or something."

"When we got there he'd been kicking at the door for 10 minutes. It's quite funny really."

After the referee was released, Penyffordd went on to beat Penycae 5-0.

James Barnes and Richard Chapman both scored with Gareth Lloyd netting a hat-trick.