It’s the annual pina colada festival in the Witton area of Cheshire – the song about the drink, which topped the US charts in the late 1970s, was written by someone local to the place and they’ve spotted the commercial opportunity – so there are people walking around dressed as pineapples and wearing big yellow glasses on Saturday lunchtime. But life has not exactly been a cocktail party for Nelson, an East Lancashire ninth tier club, just lately.
They breeze through one of the challenges which faces them after arriving to face opponents one step above them in the pyramid. Their new yellow away kits for the season haven’t arrived and last season’s issue, which they’re still using, don’t have a No 18 jersey – needed today because you’re allowed seven subs in the FA Cup. Someone finds a white marker pen and inks the number on to a plain yellow away shirt. Wearing numbers on your back is mandatory in the tournament.
This is a minor obstacle compared with the floodlight problems which has been testing Nelson minds since we left them celebrating extra preliminary round victory at their ‘Little Wembley’ ground two weeks ago. That was the first part of our journey to Wembley told in 13 instalments, following a club as far as they go and then picking up with the team who knock them out, all the way to the final.
They’d signed off on a £30,000 contract, helped by FA grants, to replace the system of lights which had started to fail during evening games, only to find that the new ones still didn’t work.
The approved contractors didn’t seem to have mentioned that the cables and wiring supplying the lights also needed ripping out, and yet were sending the club legal letters demanding payment, as Nelson’s directors sought advice from the FA about the black hole they risked disappearing into.
Inside the home dressing room at the Bedspace Trust Community Stadium
Nelson captain Bill Priestley receives some treatment ahead of kick-off
A home steward – proudly sporting Witton Albion’s colours – tucks into a pie at half-time
When we caught up with Nelson at their league away game at Charnock Richard in Lancashire, last Tuesday night, the floodlights were the prime topic of conversation as the players arrived in the car park. There had even been talk of a temporary ground move, which did not exactly delight the North West Counties League. Nelson’s proactive club sponsor Monks Contractors had offered supplying temporary structures.
In the end, they just went to work again. Volunteers helped dig two 100m trenches to lay the new cabling to the new lights and on Wednesday, they flicked the switch once more. ‘Let there be light?’ The look on Nelson director Rob Doherty’s face as the visiting contingent are welcomed into Witton’s snug little boardroom suggests so. ‘As of three days ago, they were working,’ he relates. The FA provided emergency funding.
Both these teams badly want to win this FA Cup Preliminary Round game. In his extremely modestly proportioned office Witton manager Benny Harrison, whose day job is a teacher at a special educational school, reflects at 2pm on the profound effects Marine experienced after playing Tottenham in the Third Round in 2021. The windfall helped win them two promotions in three years.
But as the rival teams’ executives gather in that boardroom, there’s a sense of mutual empathy about the existential threats which can be just around the corner for any non-league club.
‘There’s what goes on out on the pitch, and the fans and all that the lovely stuff,’ says Witton director Paul Sanderson, when Nelson relate their floodlight troubles. ‘And then there’s survivability stuff that fans don’t know about. Trying to navigate things that can threaten your existence if you’re not prepared for anything.’
Nelson were on a precipice before new co-owners Stewart Fort and Chris Price arrived three years ago, invested and built up the team of volunteers who are their lifeblood. But Witton’s excellent little club museum, charting a 139-year history and signposted ‘Probably the best non-League football museum in the world’, shows that they’ve also ridden football’s rollercoaster.
The museum chronicles the club’s journey to the 1992 FA Trophy final at Wembley, where they lost to Colchester. That period, which included a brief stay in the Vauxhall Conference, saw them splashing the surplus earned after selling their old ground to Sainsburys and building a new one, on players. The rewards were painful temporary. Witton struggled when the money ran out and the new stadium required major repair sooner than anticipated.
The sun’s out, though, and the FA Cup is blowing everyone’s troubles away. ‘Welcome to the best football competition in the world by a long chalk,’ states the stadium announcer. The appropriately named Witton groundsman James Spruce is reversing his mower out onto the excellent playing surface, his partner Katy Hulse is nursing a pina colada and her friend Barbara Bazley is watching the warm-up.
Groundsman James Spruce applies the finishing touches to the playing surface
Katy Hulse (left) enjoys a pina colada with her friend Barbara Bazley
Albion statistician Phil Chadwick has helped to curate one of the best club museum’s in non-League
Nelson’s 87-year-old superfan Harry Manning’s immaculate handwritten notes will be converted into a match report for the local Nelson Leader
‘When you make s*** decisions, it goes pear-shaped, so if someone makes a s*** decision, back them up and help sort it out,’ shouts assistant coach Liam Lishman, as he puts the squad through their paces. Thursday’s training session focussed on not allowing Freddie Garbutt, Witton’s towering 22-year-old striker, the chance to control and shoot.
At Charnock Richard, Nelson won 2-0, led by their own dangerous target man Sefton Gonzalez, who scored and hurled himself through his trademark somersault. Today, goalkeeper Chris Thompson is back after a bout of sciatica. There’s optimism in the air.
Against the backdrop of the chemical plants in salt-mining territory, Nelson discover what they’re up against in Garbutt and Witton’s attacking pace. Nelson wing-back Darren Holden, outstanding in the previous round and at Charnock in midweek, is operating in his own half far more, protecting Nelson territory, yet removing one of the Lancashire team’s attacking dimensions.
Jamie Edwards, Nelson’s force field, draws a sharp save and Gonzales has just headed a great opportunity into the ground when Witton’s Garbutt leaps to meet a corner and send his team ahead.
He’s one of only two players Witton have signed up to a contract, protecting his match fee if he’s injured and protecting the club if someone else tries to sign him, Witton chairman Graham Wood relates, back in the boardroom at half-time.
The winners today will collect £1,444 in prize money and that would be just as precious to Witton, a fan-owned club with 400 registered shareholders, none of them hugely wealthy, who are currently trying to make a community football facility.
Nelson players warm up at the side of the pitch before kick-off
Witton Albion play in the Northern Premier League Division One West, one divsion higher than Nelson
Visiting goalkeeper Chris Thompson keeps a Witton Albion player at bay
Freddy Garbutt’s first-half goal settled the game and sent Witton through to the next round of the FA Cup
Home boss Ben Harrison addresses his players at full-time
‘That will bring us an income to put back into the club,’ says Wood, who has helped bring a commercial sponsorship deal with a locally based homelessness charity.
Nelson dominate a second half in which Holden is pushed forward more, encouraged by his wife Abi, who is live tweeting the match for the club’s website with another volunteer, Amy Holden, and taking photographs for next week’s match programme and the website.
In the main stand, 87-year-old superfan Harry Manning’s immaculate handwritten notes, which will be converted into a match report for the local Nelson Leader, reflect the growing frustration. The ‘18’ inked onto sub James Hooper’s jersey is impressive. But it’s raining in Nelson hearts when the whistle blows and they tumble out of the competition.
Manager Arron Ripley stands in the sun-dappled centre circle ten minutes later and reflects on the way his ambitious side are evolving. ‘Last year we’d have kept launching it in a situation like that but we’re looking after the ball. We look like we’re enjoying it. We just weren’t clinical enough.’
Nelson can return fortified to their league campaign, confident, in so many ways, that the lights will stay on.
