Memories of a non-league reporter

BBC Radio Lancashire's Simon Sandiford looks back at some of the promotion races he has enjoyed over the years...

If someone had asked me how many promotion campaigns I had attended over the years, I would be able to say I had seen quite a few. Sometimes I have seen just the final “will they, won’t they” game, or in some cases the last few matches in the promotion run-in. It wasn’t until I thought about it in more detail though, did I realise quite how many I had seen over the years.

 

The 1990/91 season was the first that I started watching Ashton United regularly and it was clear that they fully intended to go all out for promotion as soon as possible. Lots of work had been done on the ground, executive boxes positioned, attractive football on the pitch and the fans were coming to watch. In the end that season they finished 3rd and it wasn’t without its controversy.

I went to two games in March 1991, and both had programme notes that made interesting reading. Leading up to the 1-1 draw with Skelmersdale United that I watched, Ashton United were still well in the running for promotion. Ten days earlier though Flixton had fielded nine men in a game against leaders Knowsley United and so were thrashed 10-1.

Ashton United and Colwyn Bay, who were chasing Knowsley for the promotion spot, were less than impressed, with goal difference a possible decider in the run-in. The Ashton United programme suggests a solution that the top 4 decide promotion by a set of play-off fixtures at the end of the season. That was quite radical, as play-offs weren’t in place in non-league leagues, at least that I knew of then. In the end Knowsley United won the league by 7 points from Colwyn Bay.

 

There was further controversy to come as Ashton United finished 3rd overall, and there turned out to be two promotion places available at the end of the season. This was the season when talk of the Welsh clubs leaving the English pyramid started in earnest – and indeed it was at the end of the following season 91/92 that the exodus took place.

So I distinctly remember a campaign of sorts to get Ashton United promoted to the Northern Premier League Div 1 because Colwyn Bay would probably be leaving the pyramid soon, so they didn’t need to be promoted. Colwyn Bay didn’t end up leaving anyway, but it would have been a strange way to secure promotion.

 

The other interesting point came in the other game I went to that month – a 3-2 win against Bacup Borough. Karl Marginson (later to become famous as a Rotherham United player and more recently of course FC United manager) – in 1990/91 he was leading the scoring charts for Ashton United and it was clear that a big club would come in for him at some point.

News had broken in the week of the Bacup game though that he had been banned for 84 days by the Manchester County FA for his sending off in a game against Prescot Cables. There’s a rant almost filling one page of the programme about this. There’s no mention of exactly what he did to get sent off, but whatever it was, that punishment does seem a bit harsh!

 

So on to 1991/92 and this time Ashton United successfully achieved the promotion they wanted, and I was lucky enough to get to see the vast majority of the run-in to the title. With Colwyn Bay and Knowsley United out of the picture this season, it was left to Great Harwood Town to attempt to spoil the Ashton promotion party. Indeed Great Harwood had done the double over Ashton United in the league.

The league table leading up my visit to Bootle’s Bucks Head ground to see Ashton win there 3-2 was bizarre. Great Harwood Town were top of the league by a clear 20 points, but had played 8 games more than Ashton. Ashton had just won 10 and drawn one of their previous 11 games - and would go on to make that 18 won and 2 drawn from 20 before losing to Bamber Bridge 4-0 in the Floodlit Trophy Semi Final 1st Leg.

 

Of that long unbeaten run, I saw the Bootle win, then a close 2-1 game against Bradford Park Avenue at the end of March. Before this win, the gap at the top of the table had reduced to just 14 points, but with 6 games in hand! Still a tall order to catch Eric Whalley’s Great Harwood but one that would end up successful.

 

In mid-April I saw Ashton travel to Flixton and the gap was now narrowed to 12 points with 7 games in hand. Ashton won 2-1 to move even closer and it now appeared likely that they would do it after all. But their next game was a trip to Prescot. I didn’t go to that game, and up to that point Ashton had won every single league game I had seen that season. So maybe not surprisingly they lost 1-0 to throw the championship race back open again.

 

The next game I saw was a home clash with Vauxhall GM and a good 2-0 win. It’s hard work to see where the table was up to by this time, because the one in the Flixton programme was more up to date than the one printed in the Ashton United programme 8 days later!

 

Three days afterwards I decided to go to see Ashton at one of their longest away trips – Eastwood Hanley, based near to Stoke. Now this was 1992 – I was at university in Liverpool, and I travelled to each home and nearby away game by train or bus. This was a Saturday afternoon match, so I decided that it would be good to go on a day out to Stoke.

I set off ridiculously under-prepared, arrived at Stoke train station and bought a local A-Z. After several hours of finding the right bus to catch and getting very confused with exactly where I was going, I eventually found myself in what I thought was the right place about an hour after KO. Turned out I wasn’t even at the right ground.

Luckily the Trentmill Road home of Eastwood Hanley was actually next door and so given that I had missed more than half the game, I was hoping I might get at least a reduction on the way in. No such luck – full price or you don’t come in said the burly gateman. Ashton were 1-0 down after a goal on 10 minutes and never managed to get the equaliser, and it was starting to seem as though Great Harwood would win the league after all.

 

Two days later, I went to the final home league game of the season – a Monday night match against Blackpool Rovers - that being the name they were called after Wren Rovers and before Blackpool Wren Rovers, or they might have been calling themselves Blackpool (Wren) Rovers then - anyway. It was going to be a tough game against the team that would finish 4th , as they had done Ashton a massive favour by beating Great Harwood a couple of weeks earlier.

It was a 2-1 win for Ashton to keep the title race going, but the most fascinating thing about this game was the programme produced. It was more like an encyclopaedia than a programme! It was priced a massive £2.50 (compared to the normal 50p, it was a major price hike!) but it was about 5 or 6 times thicker than normal and was bound specially with a plastic cover on the front and back.

Interestingly the front cover states “SPECIAL EDITION! Probably the WORLD’S largest football programme for Monday 27th April 1992”. I’m sure it was the world’s biggest for games played on 27 April 1992 but whether it was actually the biggest in the world, I’m not sure.

Inside there were loads of adverts and very tenuous links with the match against Blackpool Rovers. For example there are three pages of pen pictures from the Flixton side that Ashton faced in the Manchester Premier Cup Final 10 days earlier!

 

So after that win came a trip to Maine Road the following Saturday, which I didn’t go to (I for some reason went to see Gary Lineker’s last ever game for Tottenham at Old Trafford), although I was at the Raab Karcher Cup Final at Gigg Lane to see Ashton beat Burscough three days earlier. A Maine Road win would have handed the title to Great Harwood but Ashton did what they had to and won 2-1 to set up a dramatic last day all-or-nothing game at Bacup Borough.

 

Great Harwood had long since finished all their games, and so they were just hoping for Ashton to lose and the title was theirs. A draw would have been good enough on the night for Ashton to complete one of their best ever seasons and get promoted to the Northern Premier League. It was a big crowd with a healthy number of visiting Ashton United fans as well as a number of Great Harwood supporters hoping to see their side clinch promotion as well.

In addition, rumours had it that Great Harwood manager Eric Whalley was in the crowd. With the match being videoed for Ashton United, as the match was drawing to a close, my job was to find Eric and convince him to be interviewed on the video. Well, considering I had no idea what he looked like, or exactly where he was

in the crowd, that was going to be a difficult job.

It turned out that I did manage to track him down, but not realising it at the time; he

denied it was him and pointed me to some other random people. At the final whistle there was a pitch invasion and the celebrations. It turned out later though that all the drama had not been necessary because due to the Welsh clubs’ resignations from English football, both Ashton United and Great Harwood took their place in the NPL the following season anyway!

 

My next game at North West Counties Level came seven years later in 1999 – and it was another one packed full of end of season drama. Earlier in the year I had started helping out a local radio station with reports and commentary on various sports but mainly Unibond League club Runcorn, where I did home and away games throughout the season.

By the time Saturday 8th May had come around, Runcorn’s season was over, and the local football interest in the area had now switched to Warrington Town’s attempt to get back into the North West Counties Division 1 after their relegation the previous season.

There was just this one match to go – at Maghull – and it was a match that was also to be Maghull’s last ever in the league before they were demoted to the West Cheshire League due to their facilities not being at the right standard.

So my job as local radio reporter was to bring all the atmosphere from the game back via reports on my mobile phone to the listening public of Warrington. Everything started well. It was bright and sunny, and lack of facilities didn’t seem to matter. There was absolutely no shelter around the ground, and apart from a slightly raised grass slope behind one of the goals, there was nowhere to go that gave a good view of the pitch at all.

In fact as soon as the healthy crowd arrived, I couldn’t see the pitch unless I shoved myself to the front. The situation was such that if Warrington beat Maghull, and Abbey Hey didn’t manage to beat Darwen, then Warrington would be promoted.

However if Abbey Hey won by 4 or more goals better than Warrington won, then Abbey Hey would be promoted. If neither side won, then Squires Gate would not be overtaken and would be promoted instead.

So with the number for Darwen’s ground ready in my phone to keep updated on the goings on there, the game got under way at Maghull and I was careful to explain on air what the ins and outs were. Originally I had thought it would be a good idea to go inside the clubhouse to do my phone reports, but I realised I couldn’t see anything except the back of people’s heads from in there.

So I returned to the back of the crowd, only to realise that an early goal had gone in for Warrington just out of my line of vision. Quickly I ran round behind the goal that had been scored into and asked the Warrington fans who had scored it and what had happened.

Most people seemed to have no idea what had happened inches in front of them, until at last I found someone who could at least tell me who had scored. So I went on air to tell of the good news. The 1-0 lead remained intact as the game went on, and news came through that Abbey Hey were losing at Darwen as well.

Midway through the second half I’m starting to sound confident now that Warrington Town would be promoted. Just as I ended the report, it became obvious that I personally had given the kiss of death to Warrington’s chances.

 

The first thing to change was the weather. It went from bright sunshine to a thunderstorm and torrential rain in the space of a couple of minutes. It then became obvious that I had nowhere to stand where I could see the game and also not get soaked. Any notes I had made of the game at this point were completely useless and I couldn’t write anything else down as the pen didn’t work any more. Then came Maghull’s equaliser and news from Darwen that Abbey Hey had equalised as well.

At this stage with 15 mins left, Squires Gate would be promoted. It then got worse – Maghull took the lead and Abbey Hey took the lead almost at exactly the same time. So just a couple of minutes after leaving the population of Warrington convinced that their team were about to win promotion, I went back on air, soaked to the skin, explaining how suddenly Warrington were on the verge of throwing it all away. They never did get the equaliser, and Abbey Hey eventually won 3-2 at Darwen to secure promotion with Fleetwood Freeport, who had won the league by five points.

 

I started doing games for Radio Lancashire at the end of the following season, and the first game I did was Lancaster City winning the Unibond Challenge Cup Final. I didn’t get to see a North West Counties League game that season, but I was lucky enough to see the start of John Coleman’s Accrington Stanley side’s rise to the Football League, reporting on the last 3 games of their Unibond Division 1 season culminating in promotion.

That final game of the season was a classic reporter’s nightmare as I had to report live on my mobile phone high up on some very temporary scaffolding due to being convinced to multi-task by doing live commentary onto the club video at the same time. So on the video I am commentating on goals followed by a pause while I phone the radio, followed by me talking to the radio studios near the microphone (as there was nowhere to go to get away from it). Then you hear the radio goalflash before a bit more silence and I carried on as normal onto the video. The only bit that was edited out was when I commentated on a streaker running on to the pitch!

 

The 2000/01 season had Rossendale United, Ramsbottom United, Clitheroe and Fleetwood Freeport all going for the North West Counties League title. The first relevant game for me was the mid-March clash between Rossendale United and mid-table Curzon Ashton. Rossendale could go top of the league with a win as leaders Salford were not playing on this Tuesday night.

As always, the game got good coverage on Radio Lancashire with it given equal airtime as any home football league game. The Rossendale team included Craig Sargeson, Jason Heffernan, Ged Walsh and keeper Mark Andrews – seems like only yesterday watching them at Dark Lane – and other stars Jody Banin and Jerome Fitzgerard weren’t playing in the Curzon game – I don’t think Banim had quite been signed at that point.

True to form Rossendale won 4-1 to go top. Paul Heavey with two goals, Craig Sargeson and Patrick Lauber with one each did the honours. Forward to 7th April and Dale are now top of the league by 3 points with still 10 games to go! They looked to consolidate with a win at lowly Nantwich Town at Jackson Avenue. Jim McCluskie was now Manager of the Month and another great win was secured here. This was the featured non league game again on air on the Saturday afternoon. Jody Banim scored twice and Craig Sargeson got the other in a 3-2 win that set up Dale for a real chance of promotion.

 

A week later was Easter weekend and I went to the Bank Holiday Monday clash at Cheadle Town where Fleetwood Freeport needed to win to have any realistic chance of staying in the hunt. I was hoping to see a multiple goal thrashing at the Park Road Stadium given some of the results Cheadle Town had already suffered. In March they had lost 4-1 to Clitheroe, 9-1 to Rossendale, 7-0 to Abbey Hey and then three days later 13-0 against Clitheroe!

Bizarrely four days after that they beat Flixton 2-0, so it should been no surprise that the seven goals on the day were spread more evenly than I was expecting. It finished 4-3 to Fleetwood to keep their hopes just about intact, and it made sure I was barely off my mobile phone providing live goalflashes.

 

The next game I did was back to Dark Lane and Rossendale’s clash with Maine Road with still 5 games left. Again it was another fully featured game on air – Dale now 3^rd and so needed desperately to win - and they did win 2-0. Both goals though didn’t come until the final 5 minutes when Craig Sargeson and Jody Banim beat the Maine Road defence to set up a dramatic end to the season.

 

I didn’t get to get back to cover this title race until the final match of the season – a dramatic last Saturday 5th May at Flixton. It was my first visit to Flixton for many years and I didn’t manage to get hold of a programme, or a team sheet, which makes radio reporting a bit difficult! I had to listen carefully to the tannoy announcements and took my place in a small seated area near the corner of the ground. It didn’t give a very good view and I was hoping there wouldn’t be too much controversy in case I missed it!

As it happened it all went according to plan with Clitheroe and St Helens drawing 0-0 and Dale’s 4-0 thrashing of Flixton handing the title and promotion to Jim McCluskie’s men. Jody Banim and Craig Sargeson got two goals each. After the match the trophy was presented and I managed to get Jim McCluskie to speak live on air around 5.10pm while trying desperately to deflect screaming fans away from him so he could be heard on the radio.

 

I only briefly was involved in the Division 2 promotion race in 2001/02 when I saw Squires Gate play host to Castleton Gabriels in mid-April. The programme for this game claimed it was a Tuesday but it was clearly a Saturday afternoon! I had spent the morning at Blackpool Pleasure Beach and had managed to get lost on the 5 minute journey from there to School Road. I eventually arrived with just minutes to spare before I had to do a match preview live.

Squires Gate had the previous week won 3-0 at Colne and were in 3rd place against a bottom of the table Castleton. Lee Catlow was the division’s top scorer with 35 goals up to that point, and so another multiple goal result was on the cards. I can’t remember the score of this game but I think it was a relatively tame 2-0 home win that kept Squires Gate in the promotion hunt. They finished 3rd at the end of the season missing out on the top two by 3 goals, but were promoted anyway.

 

In the 2002/03 season I saw Bacup Borough get promoted despite not playing, when Padiham lost at home to Castleton Gabriels. That was the featured non league game on a Tuesday night, despite the early kick-off at the Arbories. Before the game got underway of course, Padiham were more bothered about their own promotion chances. The home match programme highlighted the scenarios that would allow it, which mainly involved them winning their remaining five games.

Castleton Gabriels’ win dashed the Storks realistic chances, and gave Bacup promotion instead. The game kicked off at 6.15pm due to the floodlights not being

sorted. For me that meant that I was not able to get in my first report of the night until the second half was almost underway.

Padiham had gone ahead after just 20 seconds from a Dean Stowe goal. Keith Tottingham equalised as we approached the break, lobbing the keeper Kirk Marsden. Ian Pilkington almost put Padiham back ahead midway through the second half as he hit the post, but it was celebration down the road as Bacup secured promotion with a Mark Dunning winner for Castleton in the 80th minute.

It seemed bizarre for me having to do an upbeat celebratory goalflash and then final report with Padiham having effectively knocked themselves out of the promotion running, but Bacup’s promotion held the headline news throughout the rest of the sport programme. It also seemed strange to be going home from a match when it would be normally barely into the first half.

 

One year on and this time Division One was all about Clitheroe. Nantwich Town hosted a classic championship decider, as a point or more for the visitors would take the title to Shawbridge. A defeat would hand it to Mossley. So a sizeable Mossley crowd were there to see if Nantwich would do them a favour. I was there for Radio Lancs in the high stand over the halfway line.

Clitheroe could have won the league the week before at home in front of over 500 at Shawbridge, but agonisingly lost 1-0 to Newcastle to set up this 1st May clash.

Promotion to the Unibond League was already secured for both sides, but that didn’t take anything away from the occasion. It was dramatic stuff as well as Clitheroe led 2-0 at the break with two Gary Jackson goals in 10 minutes as it looked all secured.

Nantwich though put the proverbial cat amongst the pigeons as they equalised with 15 mins remaining. Clitheroe held their nerve though and Neil Reynolds grabbed a late winner to prompt the touchline celebrations that only a title win can. I had been giving dramatic goalflashes and updates throughout the game and had almost lost my voice with the celebrations going on around me as I relayed the lifting of the trophy.

 

The next significant coverage was Nelson’s promotion run in at the end of the 2005/06 season. This was also Accrington Stanley’s promotion to the Football League season, and I had been home and away with them for much of the time. As the big gun commentators were used for the climax to the Conference win, I went to watch the real action in NWCFL Div 2.

Despite it being 15th April, Nelson still had 12 games left to play as I saw them travel to Oldham Town. So while Accrington were getting promoted with a 1-0 win at Woking, news of Nelson’s 2-0 defeat was getting through, and it looked like the hopes might be over already.

 

A 1-0 win against Padiham set up the next featured match the following Saturday as next to bottom Leek CSOB visited Victoria Park. A 3-1 win renewed hope of a late challenge to the 2nd place promotion spot, 3rd place may also have meant promotion depending on how the end of season reorganisation went.

 

I also attended the following Tuesday night’s trip to Ashton Town – and shockingly this was the first time I had been to a non league match without doing live reports for around 10 years. There was no sport programme on that night, so I couldn’t do any updates, but as the game was only a few miles from where I lived then, I couldn’t resist going to support Nelson anyway.

It was the first time I had ever been to Edge Green Street and I had lots of spare time to look around and buy a pie and things I don’t normally get to do. Nelson won 2-0 and had to then go to Leek CSOB the following Saturday. They won that 2-0 while I had been assigned to watch Accrington Stanley’s last non league game before promotion – at Kiddeminster Harriers.

 

So onto 1st May and Nelson’s big clash with Flixton at home, and annoyingly I couldn’t go to that. Nelson as good as blew their chances of 2nd place though with a 2-1 defeat, but still wanted that 3rd place that eventually turned out to be enough to get them up. Two days later they managed a 1-0 win at Darwen, again that I couldn’t get to, but I did report live from Cheadle Town – my second ever visit there – on the following Saturday.

Another win, this time 2-1 kept the hopes alive. I wasn’t able to get to the Monday night 2-2 draw at Chadderton, or the Wednesday night 1-0 win against Cheadle, or the Friday night 7-2 win over Eccleshall. But an amazing Monday night match at Castleton Gabriels wrapped the season off with a 10 goal thriller to finish off Nelson’s season in 3rd place. It was another game I watched without my radio hat on so to speak and it was a great way to end another long season!

 

The 2006/07 season saw an interesting visit to the Riverside Ground and I was lucky enough to get to see FC United’s promotion to the Unibond League secured with a win at Ramsbottom, in front of their biggest ever crowd. Officially I was there to see Ramsbottom attempt to halt FC United’s promotion of course. It is always a surreal atmosphere being at a game where the other side has more to play for than the side you are reporting on.

It happened to me as well this season when I was at Gigg Lane to see Bury desperately trying to score against Accrington Stanley to secure automatic promotion. Here at the Riverside, FC United desperately wanted the win, and it was Ramsbottom who went ahead after just 10 minutes from a great run and goal by Steve Maden. Stuart Rudd was sent off for FC United but Jerome Wright equalised before the break.

A very contentious penalty taken by Nicky Platt though was enough to give the win to the visitors and spark the expected pitch invasion as FC United secured promotion. My vantage point for the game was just behind the dugouts at pitch level, and it was very noisy surrounded by the FC United fans - but I only was needed for the match preview and half time update this time.

 

With the 2007/08 season was mainly concerned with Kirkham & Wesham’s FA Vase run, and that dramatic Wembley win, I never got to go to see them actually clinch promotion that time round. The 08/09 season saw the newly named AFC Fylde almost throw away the title to New Mills – as they had done the season before, although promotion had been gained with the 2nd place finish. This season it was New Mills again involved, and they had managed to claw back a big Fylde lead from earlier in the season, and gone ahead at what had seemed to be just the right time.

The last day of the season led to the classic “winner takes all” scenario. AFC Fylde had to win to overtake New Mills and clinch the title and promotion. This time round, second place would not be good enough. Unusually for a non league game, I was not the only radio reporter present. For FA Vase games I sometimes doubled up as reporter for the other team’s local BBC station as well as on Radio Lancashire. The game itself was much closer than the 5-0 scoreline suggested.

As it became more obvious that the Millers were going to miss out, the New Mills radio man – who was at his first match as a reporter – was becoming more and more disappointed that he wasn’t going to have his debut marked with a New Mills promotion party and get to commentate on lifting of the trophy.

It reminded me again of my ever first Radio Lancashire game when I did get to commentate on the celebrations of a trophy win – something many reporters never get to do at all - when Lancaster lifted the Unibond League Cup – and I was lucky enough to be part of the commentary team at Wembley to see the drama unfold in the Vase Final last year.

It was quite a contrast to my first ever radio match of any description in 1999 – a rugby league pre-season friendly match at Widnes’s Halton Stadium against the newly reformed Oldham. The only thing I remember about it was making the reporter’s classic mistake – mentioning something and then realising that you don’t have any idea what you are talking about – I mentioned that a minute’s silence would take place before kick off.

I could tell what was coming next as I handed back to the studio – the presenter wanted to know what the minute’s silence was for… and that made sure that I always (well nearly always) now check these things out first before mentioning them!

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