The Welfare Ground is steeped in history that Wakefield FC, as Emley, made
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Non League Football’s worst kept secret has finally been officially revealed.
Wakefield FC have folded and ended a 14 year long attempt to establish semi-professional football in the city.
Ultimately this day has been dawning for a long time.
But the plan to conquer Wakefield almost worked right at the start at the turn of the century.
Ronnie Glavin’s side were still riding the crest of a wave from their FA Cup 3rd round trip to West Ham in 1998 when the club controversially moved from Emley to Wakefield.
Glavin had built a powerful squad with the likes of Danny Day, Simeon Bambrook, Steve Nicholson and winger wizard Rory Prendergast and the Football Conference beckoned at one point.
It all came down to one game. Over 3000 people crammed into Belle Vue for the third to last game of the season to see Emley take on Stalybridge Celtic – the winner would win promotion.
Wakefield lost and the rot set in.
Had they won that match, Conference Football would have been theirs and who knows how the future would have turned out?
The Emley name began being removed from 2002 when the club was re-named Wakefield & Emley in 2002. Emley was gone from the name by 2006.
Crowds dropped and dropped and the supporters who travelled from Emley to see their team soon adopted AFC Emley as their new club when football returned to the village in 2005.
There was a brief respite when the club appeared to have found a long-term home at College Grove in the heart in Wakefield.
The former Rugby Union ground was perfect for them, but the 2012 Olympics came and Hockey is now played there.
The owners of College Grove wanted to rip the football pitch up and turn it into an artificial pitch so foreign countries could train on it.
From then on, Wakefield FC became more like a touring theatre company than a football team.
First up was a year-long stay at Ossett Town which didn’t really suit either party, if the truth was known.
It was during their time at Ossett that the club chose to go amateur and quite how Paul Lines kept them afloat in the Evo Stik Division One North in those circumstances is remarkable.
A return to Wakefield Wildcats’ Belle Vue followed for two seasons, but it is clear that the clubs did not exactly meet eye to eye.
A rent hike forced them out and even out of the Evo Stik.
Supporter numbers had hit a record low and the club were just relying on generous financial contributions by their directors.
Ultimately this could not continue without the support of the City of Wakefield and it’s council.
You can’t blame for the shareholders for winding-up the club because if it hadn’t happened last week, it would have happened at some point over the next 12 months as the club had been limping on since their from College Grove exit.
It is a sad decision when you consider the amount of work the likes of the late Peter Maude, Peter Matthews, Alan Blackman, Simon Turfrey, Dan Brownhill put in to keep them going.
The sour taste it does leave is in the mouths of the League and AFC Emley.
They have been messed around for over three weeks when a major decision on the club’s part over their future could have been decided at the end of last season.
But, what’s done is done and it is now down to Darren Hepworth’s Emley to create new chapters to the club’s rich history at the Welfare Ground.