THE partnership building the Porthmadog bypass has ensured the town’s football team will be cutting a dash this season with a kit sponsorship deal.

Porthmadog FC sported its new AC Milan-style red and black home strip, courtesy of the bypass joint venture partnership of Balfour Beatty and Jones Bros (Civil Engineering), for the first time against Llandudno FC on Saturday at Y Traeth.

Phil Jones, chairman of the Huws Gray Alliance outfit, thanked the partnership for its generosity.

He said: “The bypass will benefit Porthmadog once it is built and the lads on-site are doing a great job. We are pleased the partnership has chosen to support us.”

The £35m Tremadog, Porthmadog and Minffordd bypass is being built for the Welsh Assembly Government. The long-planned new section of the A487 carriageway will improve journey times, ease congestion and significantly improve environmental conditions by enabling current through traffic to bypass the three towns.

Hefin Lloyd-Davies, partnership deputy project manager, said: “When we first came to Porthmadog to start work on the bypass we had nowhere to put our temporary site establishment and the football club was very good to us. We approached them and asked if we could use their car park and facilities and they were great about it. This is our way of repaying everyone involved.”

The striped home strip bears the bypass partnership logo and is a slight re-design of last season’s kit. The Ffestiniog Railway Company is sponsoring Porthmadog’s away strip for the new season.