Chris Hilton scored just six goals in almost 500 appearances during his eleven-year association with Frickley Athletic, but one of those rare moments is regarded as one of the club’s greatest ever.
His dramatic late winner in the 3-2 win over Barrow (a side containing Grant Holt) in May 2001 kept Frickley’s hopes of completing the great escape alive and set up the final day showdown at Lancaster City where the Blues won to finish one point above relegated Leek Town in the NPL Premier Division table.
Prior to the late heroics, the 2000/01 season had already seen extreme highs and lows. Manager Stewart Barraclough left after a staggering 12-0 defeat at Worksop Town – the worst defeat in the club’s history – at the end of September, yet his replacement Steve Richards – the former Guiseley boss – incredibly guided Frickley to a FA Cup first round appearance at Northampton Town five weeks later. Twenty years on it remains their last appearance in the prestigious round.
Centring on the 2001 great escape, Hilton recounts some of his memories from his first spell at Westfield Lane in the latest ‘My Greatest Game’. The Stocksbridge Park Steels boss, one of Non League’s calmest managers, also recalls his early beginnings in semi-professional career at Frickley during the colourful reign of Billy Whitehurst – his first of numerous Frickley managers including Ian Thompson, Billy Heath, Mark Dempsey and Mark Hancock.
Frickley Athletic (Gary Duffty 55, Chris Hurst 78, Chris Hilton 84) 3-2 Barrow (Grant Holt 73, Kenny Lowe 83) – Tuesday 1st May 2001
The Teams
Frickley Athletic: Mark Wilkinson, Chris Hilton, Mark Tyrell (Craig Marsh 59), Dean Jones, Mark Ogley, Rob Hanby, Duane Beckett (Phil Brown 88), Steve Price, Leroy Chambers, Chris Hurst, Gary Duffty. Sub unused: Andy Gregory
Barrow: Bishop, Gill (Housham 57), Maxfield, Hill, Hall, Warren, Anthony, Holt, Peverell, Lowe, Ellison (Doherty 67). Sub unused: Turnbull.
Attendance: 225
“You don’t spend 11 years over two spells at a club and not feel attached to it. It was always a club that was a family-orientated club. Everybody who was there wanted to be there. Players could earn more money elsewhere.
“You still see all the great volunteers who have watched and worked for the club for years, if you go to a game. People like Ruth (Simpson), Penny (Wall), Paul on the gate. There’s a few who have passed away. Keith (Donkin) passed away. He was a fantastic bloke. Me and Dean (Jones) would always have a laugh because one of us would always get man of the match because we’d buy him half-a-bitter.
“We did seem to spend more time fighting relegation, we were never at the top end of the table. We were always bottom half. Obviously the Barrow game is the closest we got to relegation while I was there. But we did get to the first round of the FA Cup while I was there and we did win the Sheffield & Hallamshire Senior Cup when we beat Emley 3-0 (in 2000). That was the good Emley side too. There were some good performances in there, but in 11 years there was a lot of seasons where we were bottom half and if we got into the top half we’d had a good season.
“Andy Hayward was actually the person who got me down to Frickley and who introduced to Billy Whitehurst. I went to Rotherham United the year they bought Andy Hayward from Frickley. He’d just played a season upfront with Billy. I had just signed YTS at Rotherham when Andy turned up.
“Playing for Billy Whitehurst was certainly an eye-opening experience and a ‘welcome to Non League’. He expected things to be done a certain way whether you agreed with that or not. Some of his methods were slightly different. There was always togetherness, but there is quite a few stories I could tell you, but those might be for a different forum.
“As people know I’m a big believer in togetherness and going into the bar after the game. Some of it could have come from Billy, but it mainly came from Sam Pickering who used to run Hoyland Town Jags, the Sunday side. I played for them for ten years and we won the league numerous times. We won a cup every year. One year we went undefeated and did the treble. It was all about togetherness and Sam Pickering drilled that into me. It is the only Sunday side that I know that would have 25 players turn up every Sunday. Players who were not even in the squad would turn up and stop and have a drink afterwards. There was a family atmosphere and I picked up on that and brought it in at Worsbrough and Stocksbridge.
“Going back to Billy, he used to kick bags, walls, doors, anything – the dressing room was certainly interesting. You didn’t argue back with him. I’ve seen him kick walls and then see the walls shake.
“We played at Hyde once and one of his shouts from the side was ‘whatever you do, don’t let them get six’. We were 5-0 down at the time. That was his coaching. We were all looking round and thinking if we concede six we’re going to get wiped out. I think that was the game where we didn’t have enough shorts and one of the lads played in his boxer shorts because they were the same colour. We got in the dressing room afterwards and he’s kicked someone’s bag and it has flown across the room and hit the wall. Anything breakable in there was broke. He then said ‘you’re the worst set of players I have ever seen in my entire life’. We just looked at him and he then he went ‘but you’re all a good bunch of lads, let’s go and get a pint’. We ended up in the bar and it was forgotten about and basically it was see you at training.
“We used to have a football kitty and we all put in so we could have an end of season trip to Blackpool. He put it on a horse and didn’t tell us. He came in and said ‘I’ve got some good news lads, the kitty for Blackpool, I haven’t got it yet, but I will have it later’. We asked him what he meant and he said ‘I’ve put it all on a horse running at so on so’. We thought he was joking, but he went ‘no I’m not, but don’t worry because it will win’. Fortunately it did and we got our kitty back.
“I can’t remember where we were playing, but it was a coach trip and he took me off after 15 minutes. Mark Dempsey shouted ‘don’t be taking Hilts off’. But he turned round and said ‘there’s been two tackles there he should be winning’. Dempsey went ‘the second one was 70-30 in their favour’. But he was insistent ‘no, he should be still going through him, he’s bottled it, I’m taking him off’. Dempsey was just shaking his head. I trundled off ‘thinking I’ve travelled all this way for 15 minutes’.
“Dempsey, who is the current Manchester United first team coach, took over from Billy. He was alright, but he wasn’t around for long. Ian Thompson was my next manager and I enjoyed playing for Tommo. I always remember him getting sent off at Guiseley and going to stand next to the dugout. All the Guiseley fans started shouting ‘ref, ref, ref, he’s giving instructions from there, you need to get him out’. They ended up moving him away and he had to stand the opposite side to the dugout.
“Tommo left the summer after the 1999/00 season and Stewart Barraclough was appointed to replace him. We had a bad start and selling Andy Hayward to Bradford (Park Avenue) early on was a big catalyst as to why we struggled. The other problem with the team was that he (Barraclough) brought a lot of players in from Grimethorpe who had come up more than one level. It was hard for them to adjust. The players had done really well for Grimethorpe, but to bring that many players in at one time and expect them to adjust and hit the ground running straightaway wasn’t going to happen. That’s what got found out and it came to a head at Worksop.
“I was in the crowd with Chris Hurst and maybe a couple of others who also got dropped because of the results. He (Barraclough) felt we weren’t playing well enough as senior players and wanted to make a statement to say if senior players don’t play well they got dropped like everyone else. That’s all I could think as to why, but for some strange reason he decided to drop us all at the same time and it back-fired on him.
“Me and Chris were saying to ourselves that our face didn’t fit anymore so we’ll be both be probably leaving. It was a far too young side out there, especially when you went to Worksop back then with the side they had. People like Chris Waddle was playing and they were scoring goals for fun. I’m sure it was the year Kirk Jackson scored 40-odd goals which is hardly surprising if you have Waddle firing balls into the box for fun.
“I remember Craig Goodyear having a goal disallowed early on, but as the game went on and developed, we were like ‘wow, my word’. To lose 12-0 is unbelievable. Before the game had even finished, the board of directors had already collared us (me and Chris Hurst) and told us not to go anywhere and not speak to any other clubs because ‘he (Barraclough) would be relieved of his duties after the game’ and that they would like to speak to us after.
“So myself and Chris Hurst took caretaker charge and my first taste of management was in the FA Cup, bizarrely against Stocksbridge. We won 1-0. I think we did three games before Steve Richards came in as the new manager. David Hirst, the former Sheffield Wednesday striker, was actually in for the job at one point. He came into the dressing room after one of those three games. He said ‘hello’ to everyone and for whatever reason he decided against it. It would have been an amazing appointment, but I think I would have ended leaving as I think he’d have brought in a lot of ex-pros in.
“But Steve Richards got the job and he was more organised, very clear on how he wanted you to play, what he expected. He was totally different to Barraclough’s regime. You can see that in the results. He brought more experienced players in which settled the ship. He did a good job. Because he had played for Scarborough in the league, he had tons of contacts and he knew the league and knew the standard. Because of the experience he brought in over-time that season, when we went 1-0 down we didn’t crumble. We didn’t have a team with lots of flair. It was a team built to get us out of trouble and it was solid enough.
“To say we lost 12-0 to Worksop and nearly two months later we played in the FA Cup first round, it is remarkable. I still sit down and wonder how we did it? It was quite a turnaround. I was captain of the team too. To play in the first round of the FA Cup is fantastic for a Non League, but to captain the team was brilliant. I think we took 2000 people to Northampton and we lost 4-0. I played well that day and we put a good shift in. It is a game that always sticks in my head.
“Northampton had Marco Gabbiadini and Jamie Forrester upfront and they scored a lot of goals together if people remember. We had Wilko (Mark Wilkinson) in goal and one of them has chipped him from 40 yards. I’ll always remember it because when it has gone in the net, Wilko has turned round and started clapping. I thought ‘it was a decent goal and the goalkeeper is clapping the striker for scoring’. That was with five minutes to go and to be fair the Northampton fans clapped us off at the end and it was a fantastic day for the club. That was the only time I played in the First Round and it is the last time Frickley did as well. When we played at Frickley with Stocksbridge I remember someone saying ‘pop quiz for you, who was last captain of a Frickley side to play in the FA Cup first round’? Obviously the answer is me.
“Results continued to improve in the league, but the situation was desperate going into the final two games of the season against Barrow and Lancaster which we had to win to stay up. We needed six points so it was in our own hands to be safe. Before the Barrow game, there wasn’t doom and gloom strangely enough because we had managed to pick up a few results. The atmosphere was ‘we need to win this game’ and everybody in the dressing room believed we could get something. We were at home as well.
“I don’t remember how the game panned out. Grant Holt played for Barrow, but I honestly don’t remember him.
“Of course I remember my goal really well. I averaged a goal every 100 games I think. The ball was on the left side and we were pushing for goal because a draw was no good for us. When it is 2-2 with six minutes and you need a win you’re going to pile the pressure on. We were just getting the ball forward as quick as possible. As it was developing on the left side, I just decided because we were all pushing forward I may as well put myself in the box as another body. As it came into the middle towards Leroy Chambers, I was thinking that I was free and open and in because the full-back had gone to mark someone else. The ball got squared to me and I didn’t think, I just hit it first time. I could have had a touch and tried to beat the goalkeeper. I took it first time, not being the natural goal-scorer, but I hit it sweet and it flew in. I’d like to say stanchion, but we’ll go with high into the top corner. I just remember celebrating behind the net and everyone piling on top of me. My dad was in the stand and he always says that he vividly remembers shouting ‘square it, we’re a man over’ and then going ‘oh no its our Chris’. It was obviously an important game and my dad was thinking ‘we need a goal, what’s he doing up there’? If the goal hadn’t gone in we would have been relegated and the club wouldn’t have come back up. It shows now. They have had three good go’s at it and haven’t got back up.
“We then went to Lancaster and Chris (Hurst) got the winner and I was right behind him when he scored the header. I was ready to head it, but I’m glad he did because he was better in the air than me. The win meant Leek were relegated instead of us.
“As a player you always want to be at the other of the table, but to get out of that situation was a great feeling. You don’t want to be associated with a relegation. It was a fantastic achievement. Considering the position we were in, the fact we lost 12-0 that season and that we managed to stay up after winning the last two games, it ranks up there. People find it strange that it is a football achievement. To turn it round and be part of it was fantastic.
“With all what is happening in the world at the moment, it is a great opportunity to look back at some of the memories from years gone by and reconnect with people. I remember playing at Belle Vue with Frickley and beating Doncaster Rovers. One of the Top Gear presenters was there and there a lot of the Frickley lads who played that day I haven’t seen or heard from in years.”
Chris Hilton was interviewed by James Grayson
Look out for Part Two of Chris Hilton’s engrossing interview in the coming days.