The New Saints F.C.
Also written as The New Saints.
The club
The New Saints of Oswestry Town & Llansantffraid Football Club, commonly known as The New Saints and often abbreviated TNS, trace their history to Llansantffraid F.C., founded in 1959 in the Welsh border village of Llansantffraid-ym-Mechain. The club worked up through the Central Wales League in 1990-91 and the Cymru Alliance in 1991-92. In 1997 the computer company Total Network Solutions began sponsoring the club, which became Total Network Solutions Llansantffraid and then, from 1998, Total Network Solutions F.C. A 2003 merger with the financially struggling Oswestry Town F.C. brought the English market town into the club's name, and when Total Network Solutions was acquired by British Telecom the club took its present name, The New Saints, in 2006. Both prior names, Llansantffraid and Total Network Solutions, are genuine parts of the club's history rather than a separate entity.
This is not Connah's Quay Nomads, not Penybont, and not Caernarfon Town. Those are three other, separate Cymru Premier clubs; this dossier concerns only The New Saints, the Oswestry-based club that plays under the Welsh Football Association despite its ground sitting across the border in Shropshire, England.
The home ground is Park Hall in Oswestry, capacity 3,000 and all-seated. UEFA regulations do not permit European home fixtures to be played there, so for continental matches the club has used Shrewsbury Town's New Meadow instead. Playing colours were not established in full detail from the sources read here beyond a white home kit with black trim, a teal or cyan away kit and a yellow or gold third kit. The chairman is Mike Harris. The head coach is Craig Harrison; the date of his appointment was not established from the sources read here.
Recent seasons
The New Saints have been the dominant force in Welsh football this century. Since 2001-02 they have finished as champions or runners-up in the league in every season bar one, 2008-09, when they finished third. They won the Cymru Premier (formerly the League of Wales and Welsh Premier League) in 2023-24, 2024-25 and 2025-26, their sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth titles, making them champions again heading into 2026-27. Detailed points totals and match-by-match records for these seasons were not established from the sources read here.
Honours and landmarks
The New Saints have won 18 league titles across the League of Wales, Welsh Premier League and Cymru Premier eras: 1999-2000, 2004-05, 2005-06, 2006-07, 2009-10, 2011-12, 2012-13, 2013-14, 2014-15, 2015-16, 2016-17, 2017-18, 2018-19, 2021-22, 2022-23, 2023-24, 2024-25 and 2025-26, easily the most of any Welsh club; their nearest rival, Barry Town United, has seven. Earlier in their history as an amateur club the side also won the Montgomeryshire Amateur Football League in 1969, 1970, 1983 and 1987, and the Cymru Alliance in 1993. A fuller list of Welsh Cup and League Cup wins was not established from the sources read here, though a Welsh Cup win in 1995-96 is recorded.
On 30 December 2016 The New Saints beat Cefn Druids 2-0 in the Cymru Premier to extend a winning run to 27 consecutive matches, surpassing the 26-match record set by Ajax in the 1970s for the most consecutive victories by a top-flight European club. In 2024-25 the club became the first Welsh domestic club to reach the league phase of a major UEFA club competition, the Conference League, and within it beat FC Astana 2-0 at New Meadow for what is recorded as the first win by a domestic Welsh club in the league phase of a major European competition.
Notable scorelines
The club's Champions League first qualifying round tie against Sabah of Azerbaijan in July 2026 finished 4-1 to Sabah on aggregate, having lost 2-0 away and 1-2 at home; further historic biggest wins and defeats in domestic and earlier European competition were not established from the sources read here beyond what appears under European record below.
European record
The New Saints reached the league phase of the 2024-25 UEFA Conference League, the first Welsh club to do so. Having beaten FK Panevėžys 3-0 on aggregate in the play-off round to get there, they lost their league-phase away games 0-2 to Fiorentina, 0-1 to Djurgårdens, 1-2 to Shamrock Rovers and 0-2 to Panathinaikos, and lost 2-3 away to Celje, but beat FC Astana 2-0 at New Meadow, their historic first league-phase win in a major UEFA competition.
In 2025-26 they lost to Shkëndija 1-2 after extra time in the Champions League first qualifying round, then went out of the Conference League second qualifying round 0-2 on aggregate to Differdange 03.
Quotes
No directly quoted material was confirmed from the sources read here.
Right now (2026/27)
Craig Harrison remains head coach for a 2026-27 campaign that opened with The New Saints again the reigning Cymru Premier champions, entering the Champions League as Welsh champions. In the first qualifying round they were paired with Sabah of Azerbaijan. The first leg at the Bank Respublika Arena in Masazir on 7 July 2026 finished 2-0 to Sabah, with goals from Joy-Lance Mickels in the 28th minute and Rahman Dashdamirov in the 42nd, in front of 7,000. The return at Park Hall on 14 July 2026 finished 1-2, Josh Lock scoring for The New Saints in the 89th minute after Veljko Simić had put Sabah ahead in the 66th and Kaheem Parris had added a second in the 84th, watched by 1,179. Sabah went through 4-1 on aggregate.
That defeat dropped The New Saints into the Conference League second qualifying round, where they were drawn against FC Flora of Estonia. They lost the away leg 0-2 and the home leg 1-2, going out 1-4 on aggregate; the exact dates, scorers and venues of that tie were not established from the sources read here. With that, The New Saints are out of Europe for 2026-27 and their focus turns to defending the Cymru Premier title, which expands to 16 teams under a revised format from this season. The club's results and position in the 2026-27 Cymru Premier so far were not established from the sources read here.
Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Saints_F.C. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cymru_Premier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026%E2%80%9327_UEFA_Champions_League_qualifying https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026%E2%80%9327_UEFA_Conference_League_qualifying https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FC_Flora
Researched and written for not4quarters. Where a fact could not be established from the sources read, this page says so rather than guessing.