From the match programme:-
"NOTES"
"Every year there seems to be general agreement that the football season is too long, yet each season we seem to go to press for the opening match a little earlier!"
"We are able to revert this season to an eight-page programme which will, we hope, prove of interest and appeal to our Supporters. On page 6 of each issue space will be devoted to the activities of Youth and Junior Rugby in the district. Following the lead of the Welsh Union themselves, Youth Rugby will be emphasised most strongly this season - a right which nobody will deny - and our contributor will cover this aspect of the game in as wide a sphere as possible."
"Newport get down to business with few preliminaries to-day, and it is indeed unusual to open the season with Cross Keys as visitors. The Western Valley Club will certainly provide opposition of the sternest type, and with an away game at Bristol next Saturday the opportunity to assess the strength of this season's Newport side will be early apparent."
"With due allowance for opening of the season optimism it is fair to state that prospects for Newport Rugby this year are good; indeed, they must be rated above any other post-war season. Hedley Rowland, very fit and fully recovered from his illness, seemed an automatic choice to renew his inspiration of the team. He thus joins a select band of Newport captains whose privilege it has been to extend their captaincy beyond one season. L. E. T. Jones, the appointed vice-captain, is a grand forward who will prove a strong leader of the pack and an able deputy."
"At the time of going to Press the Newport team for to-day's opening match is not selected, but with practically all last season's very successful side available - "Bunner" Travers is a noteable exception, of course - it is likely that there will be few other than familiar faces on view."
"If our supporters can derive the same satisfaction from the team's performances as was provided by Newport last season, then the term of Rugby ahead will indeed be a happy one."
" "Chick" Mogford "
"In 1946, on the occasion of the Boxing Day match against the Watsonians, it was our pleasure to produce a programme in aid of a Testimonial Fund which had been opened by the Newport Athletic Club to mark the retirement of "Chick" Mogford. In that issue we wrote of him:
'We're not going to say a lot about "Chick." We know he wouldn't wish it. Everything he has done has been whole-heartedly in the Club's interest. He wants no praise for it. To him it has been "all in the day's work " - dutifully done and with special attachment, perhaps, to the game of Rugby and the hundreds of Rugby men who have come under his influence. "Chick" has been guide, friend and mentor to a long succession of Newport Rugby teams. He has been a personality in the Newport Club, the character of which one meets only once in a lifetime.' "
"And now "Chick" is no longer with us. In sharing the loss which a host of friends and sportsmen in Newport and all over the country must feel at the news of his death just a week ago to-day, we feel we can add nothing more fitting than those quoted words of that happier occasion three years ago. On behalf of the Newport Club, past and present Players, and Supporters, that is our sincere tribute to the memory of "Chick" Mogford."