Not many players can say they were on the bench in an FA Trophy Final at Wembley literally eight weeks after paying £16 a week to play for Reckitts in the Humber Premier League.
Serial promotion winner Tom Nicholson, the former Bridlington Town and FC Halifax Town ‘keeper, can. The goalkeeper answered Billy Heath’s call to return to North Ferriby to be the substitute goalkeeper for the latter stages of their unforgettable 2015 victorious FA Trophy run. Ferriby number one stopper Adam Nicklin was even wearing Nicholson’s gloves when he saved the decisive penalty as Ferriby beat Wrexham in the shootout after a 3-3 draw after extra-time.
Nicholson has plenty of amusing tales from his career so far and he tells many in his interview with Non League Yorkshire, including:
- How his mentor and hero Billy Heath won the psychological warfare battle with Harrogate Town manager Simon Weaver.
- To the time key Halifax and Ferriby striker Tom Denton ‘lost his phone’.
This is Tom Nicholson’s Non League Journey
“When I sign for teams, they put that I played for Brigg Town and I’m like ‘did I’? I might have played for them once or twice. I played once for Garforth Town and that was once as their goalkeeper was injured. But still Garforth appears in my ‘biography’. People think I’ve had a few clubs and I’m a tracksuit collector. I’m not. What clubs say is my football CV is completely wrong and it does annoy me.”
Early Days
“I was at Hull City as a YT, but I didn’t get a pro deal and it was Peter Taylor who got rid of me. I went to College and played for England Schoolboys. I went to America for a few months, but didn’t enjoy it so came back. That’s when I signed for Barton Town Old Boys. I won the Central Midlands League with them and it was great. Neil Buckley was the manager.
“Then I went to Bridlington Town under Gary Allanson and Tim Hotte and that’s where I met the nucleus of the players I have stayed in touch with. Obviously Chib (Chilaka) was there and he was outstanding. Everybody says he’s the nicest man in football which is annoying and I’ve said this to him. If he had been mad and anger which he never is, he would have been an absolute world beater. He can’t be emotional and angry in a game for 90 minutes. When he has his back up, no-one can touch him. If he does hurt someone in a game, he’s the first one to apologise. You’re like ‘Chib, what you doing’? I remember us playing a Cup game for Brid and he scored five goals in a 10-0 win and he apologised to the other team for scoring so many goals. You just don’t do it. But he’s just a nice guy, one who you can always depend on and who will give you sound advice.
“We also had Ash Allanson, Ash Dexter and there’s a good story about Ben Knapper. He did a dissertation on heart monitors and someone contacted him saying ‘Arsene Wenger wants a meeting’. He thought it was a wind up. Anyway he bit and he turned up for this meeting and there was Arsene Wenger, offering him a job there and then. We never really heard from him again and then there was an article in the Daily Telegraph not long ago and all the Arsenal wages were plastered on it and there he was. (Ben Knapper is now the Loans manager at Arsenal)
“It was difficult at Bridlington as you had the Uni lads and the working lads and we were sort of separate, but it was a good season as we finished fourth and did well in the East Riding Cup. It was good, but nothing compared to Ferriby and Halifax.
“I played for Winterton Rangers during the 2009/10 season and we won the NCEL Premier Division under Peter Daniels. I won that with Danny Clarke, who’s another of Billy Heath’s boys. That was a close-knit squad, but I didn’t play too much as I went to them late on in the season.
“The following three seasons I played for Reckitts in the Humber Premier League and I won the league there. My mum wasn’t well so I wanted to stay locally so I wasn’t away from her for too long. I was literally turning up at games at 2pm and then going straight home. I have great memories from Reckitts and there were some great lads like Gareth Barstow. In the 2012/13 season we knocked Hull City reserves out of the East Riding Senior Cup. They had some first teamers playing and we lost to Ferriby in the final. That’s when I first met Billy Heath and the Ferriby lot. After three years with Reckitts I wanted a bit of progression and I started playing for Ferriby.”
Billy Heath
“Where do you start with Billy Heath? This year just gone was my first time away from him in six years.
“He’s an absolute winner who leaves no stone unturned. Some people say he’s not a great manager. But before any game I knew everything about the other the team. He could tell you who the weak link was. He’s always assembled a squad that has gelled.
“He has always been a father figure to be me on the footballing side of things along with his assistant Mark Carroll. It is funny because I used to live in East Hull and Billy used to do as well. He then moved to Willoughby which is a bit of a posh area. Because of the FA Trophy, we all got some money. I kept mine and never spent it and I ended up getting a house near Billy Heath in Willoughby. All the lads were like ‘are you moving in with the gaffer’? I was like ‘yeah that’s exactly what I’m doing’!
“If he told me to jump off a cliff, I would. If a game was 0-0 and he told me to go wind their bench up, I would. I owe him a lot.”
North Ferriby Journey Begins (2013)
“I was mainly on the bench and number two to Adam Nicklin throughout my time with Ferriby. In the first season we got the semi-finals of the Trophy and lost to Guiseley in the Conference North play-offs.
“But it was an important season as the disappointments made us more determined for the two years after. Bill did really well with his recruitment of young players. Curtis Bateson was an important signing from Scunthorpe. He was an unbelievable left-winger. So he was important as was Sam Topliss. Later on after we won the Trophy, Bill signed Ash Palmer is Stockport County’s captain and he was influential as was Ben Middleton.
“So I spent the whole of the 2013/14 season with Ferriby and then the start of the following campaign – the year we won the Trophy. I was on the bench a lot and I thought I need to be playing and Bill will ring if he needs me so I went to play for Reckitts.”
FA Trophy Final at Wembley
“It is definitely the highlight of career and from my point it was unbelievable because eight weeks before Wembley I was paying £16 a week to play for Reckitts. Billy Heath had rung and said ‘we’ve got an injury, can you come and play a couple of games in the Conference North and be the ‘keeper on the bench’? So I did and eight weeks later I was walking out at Wembley.
“The squad we have had was very thin on the ground as we only had 17 or 18 lads and it was the best squad I have ever been involved with. We didn’t have world beaters or a massive budget, but every single person in that changing room wanted to win. They was no-one in that changing room that anyone disliked, everyone was on an even playing field. Because we were such a close-knit side, that is what got us through each round. If you’re talking about key players, Tom Denton is one. He’s prolific, no-one can get near him. We had Adam Bolder who used to play for Derby County. He was an absolute general. When he spoke, everyone listened.
“We played Farnborough in the round before the quarters and it was the first time any of us has stayed overnight together. Me and Dents used to get up early, have our breakfast before going back to our room. We’d then come back with the rest of the team and have another breakfast! In the run-up to the game, Dents needed the toilet and the ones in the changing room weren’t working. He has disappeared to go to the loo. The gaffer is about to do his talk and he says ‘where’s Dents’? The door smashes open and Dents walks in with his elbow bleeding and a mark across his head. He goes ‘oh lads, I’ve just been locked in the toilet, I’ve had to climb through the top of the roof to get out of it’! We got battered in the first half of that game, but we won 1-0.
“In the quarter-finals we beat Ebbsfleet 1-0 after penalty expert Liam King’s late penalty. We had a centre-half who is now retired called Danny Hone. Basically him and a centre-half for Ebbsfleet were arguing all game and we had a corner. Danny Hone said something to him and the lad punched him in the face. The referee sent the Ebbsfleet player off and gave the penalty. We then beat Bath on penalties after two legs in the semi-final to get to Wembley.
“A week before Wembley, it was a bit stupid, but I played outfield for a team in the FA Sunday Cup semi-finals under a completely different name. My dad was going bananas with me.
“But the weekend we went to Wembley was an amazing experience. It is something you dream of when you are younger. Again, I got into trouble with work because I didn’t tell them I was going to Wembley. We travelled during the day on the Friday so I rang in sick, thinking I’d get away with it. I’d not thought that Calendar and Look North were doing something at midday so there’s me giving high-fives to kids at schools in Ferriby. My boss is like ‘what is he doing’? I turned my phone thinking ‘I can’t answer this, I’ve told him I’ve got the runs’.
“We trained at West Ham’s training ground on the Saturday and then on the Sunday you had to pinch yourself. I didn’t realise you had to go underneath the stadium to get into Wembley. The back of your neck is tingling and you walk in and we were lucky enough to get the home changing room. It was amazing.
“In the warm-up, Adam’s (Nicklin) gloves ended up getting ripped and he didn’t have anymore with him. I couldn’t believe he hadn’t brought any spares. So I had to give him a pair of mine.
“Before the game, Adam Bolder did a big speech with all 17/18 of us. Everything he was said was ‘wow, this is it for some of us’. But we went out and Wrexham absolutely battered us. They were a league higher, but the turning point was when their gaffer (Kevin Wilkin), who got sacked the next day, took Dean Keates off. Keates had been running the show in midfield. Keates was swearing and having a right go at him. Billy brings Nathan Jarman and Ryan Kendall on. Liam King scores a penalty and we’re back in it. Ryan Kendall then equalises. He scored again in extra-time and obviously it went to penalties.
“Before the shootout, I said to Adam (Nicklin), ‘let’s be fair, we don’t lose penalty shootouts’. He laughed and he obviously saved the last penalty. If you watch the video, he comes sprinting over and we both celebrate together. We have been quite close as we have been friends since we were 15 as we were in the East Riding and Hull School teams together. So it was quite fitting that we had that ten-year gap before reuniting at Ferriby and kind of special that we had that moment. Although I was thinking ‘will he give me my gloves back’? I believe his shirt and the goalie gloves are in a frame in his house.
“You see the pros go up the steps at Wembley and you think ‘this can’t ever happen to you’, especially when you get to 25/26 and you’re playing at Reckitts. But I did and it was an amazing moment when we were lifting the trophy.
“Two weeks after we had a Civic Reception and the bus set off from Ferriby and they were loads of people there and it was fantastic. It was a nice last moment to celebrate it. One of the boys, his wife was a professional photographer so she got a lot of photos for us. We’ve all got our shirts and we’ve all kept what we got given.”
2015/2016 Promotion Season
“I spent time on loan at Goole under Lee Morris that season helping to keep them up, but I also played 11 times for Ferriby.
“We played Lowestoft away on a midweek, the longest trip in the league, and the day started with the coach turning up late at 8am in the morning. Ryan Kendall was ill with diarrhoea on the way so we stopped at the services to let his missus collect him. But then after waiting for her, she said she couldn’t come so Ryan had to sleep on the coach all the way there.
“We turned up late at 8.30pm and the referee said ’no warm-up. Lowestoft thought they were going to batter us, but they never got close to us. We won 3-0, but Mark Gray ran off halfway through the game with diarrhoea as well. He just sprinted off and the gaffer was like ‘where’s he going’? The physio followed him and came back and said ‘he’s not coming back Bill’.
“After the game we went to the coach and the driver puts his key in the ignition and the coach doesn’t start. The driver goes ‘oh lads, I’ve been watching a DVD, the battery has gone’. This is at Lowestoft, the furthest trip and the coach has broke down. We went into this pub and we all playing darts, pool, eating Chinese’s. This pub was ransacked by Ferriby players and the pub must have made a killing. The gaffer paying for all the drinks. We must have got home at 6am, it was horrendous.”
Denton Destroys Boston United
“The play-offs games were fantastic, especially the Boston games. They didn’t like Ferriby or Billy so the game at their place the crowd was going mental. Dents and Chib Chilaka are very similar as Dents, if he ever elbows someone he always apologises. Scott Garner and Carl Piergianni who went to Salford, both went to smash Dents and missed him and head-butted each other. Blood went everywhere. It was horrendous. But Boston won the first leg 2-0.
“So they had to come our place and Garner and Piergianni had to play with face-masks on. Their manager Dennis Greene turned up in this three-piece suit and we were like ‘what are you doing’? Ben Middleton, Ash Palmer and Tom Denton had a car school and they stopped off at the petrol station in Ferriby. The pub is next door and Dents went in for his Lucazade. When they were driving of,f these Boston fans surrounded his car and someone threw a Kopperberg glass bottle at Dents’ car, shattering the glass. In the changing room, he was not saying anything. Normally we’d be chatting about cricket and horse-racing. He was in a right mood. In the first minute Dents was kicking, elbowing, biting, scratching. We’re like ‘what’s going on here’? Piergianni ends up bringing him down for a penalty in the first ten minutes. Boston couldn’t deal with him. Liam King scored the penalty, 2-1. Dents made it 2-2 and he ran over to the Boston fans celebrating in front of them. The fans were trying to get on the pitch and trying to throw blocks of wood. It was like a scene out of a war film. Danny Clarke got the winner and we were into the final. We were celebrating and it was bonkers as the Police had to intercept the Boston fans who tried to run over to us.
“The final was against Flyde and people were coming out with cr*p like ‘it will be the worst attended final ever’. But here we were with not a great budget and against a multi-million pound club in Fylde. We won 2-1 after extra-time thanks to Danny Hone. It is a great memory. But we did know that Billy and Bobby (Mark Carroll) were having interviews with Lincoln City. It was between them and the Cowley brothers. After the game it was fantastic, but we got told the budget was being slashed and that we didn’t know if we would exist anymore. The club obviously survived, but we all jumped ship to Halifax.”
Halifax and Second Consecutive Promotion (2016/2017)
“Pre-season was going alright and Bill brings Scott Garner in. Garns had been the captain of Boston and Liam King, who came to Halifax as well, had been the captain of Ferriby. They hated each other. Garns once got sent off for punching Kingy in the face. Garns turns up and the first thing he says in the changing room, bear in mind it is basically the North Ferriby team, ‘right lads, I’ll tell you why I’ve come. I’m never going to beat you on the opposite side, so I’ve joined you’. We all burst out laughing, but he was being deadly serious. He came to Halifax to win things and we did as we went up again in the play-offs.
“We played Harrogate Town away in the FA Cup and all week Harrogate trained around one thing, ‘how to stop Tom Denton’. We were out warming-up and Billy hadn’t named the team. I was doing the warm-up and the referee says to me ‘where’s the gaffer’? I said ‘he’s in the toilet’. They go in and he’s not there. Bill’s gone missing. No-one knows where he is and he’s got the forms. The referee going ‘you’re going to get fined if you don’t give me this team sheet, you need to find Billy Heath’. It comes to 2.45pm, 15 minutes before kick off and he suddenly reappears with the sheets saying ‘oh I’m really sorry, I had to take an urgent phone call’. Simon Weaver has been given the team-sheet and he comes charging out of the referee’s dressing room and screams all his lads in. So all these Harrogate players come sprinting off the pitch like there’s to be a mass evacuation. It turns out Bill has dropped Dents and put him on the bench. All week Harrogate had thought it would be all long ball, long ball to Dents and now they needed to work out how to handle Richard Peniket. Pen one of the best strikers I’ve played with and they couldn’t deal with him. In the last minute they got a corner and we were 1-0 up. They threw everyone up, including the goalkeeper, and it got cleared and Jake Hibbs scored from the halfway line into the empty net. We went mental and as we went off, there was a 22-man plus brawl. Simon Weaver was not a happy man.
“It got to Christmas time and there were rumours that Bill might get the sack. Results weren’t brilliant and before we played against Chorley, Bill had told me that he thought he would be getting sacked. We ended up winning 2-1 and Bill stayed and we hardly lost again. But Bill brought in Sam Johnson who was at Port Vale and he also had Steven Drench who had a good deal and didn’t want to leave. So I said to Bill, ‘I’ll do whatever you tell me to do’. He said ‘Dave Frecklington needs a goalkeeper at Gainsborough so you’ll get game-time’.
“Gainsborough were struggling and I loved my time on loan there. It was getting to the end of the season and we ended up playing the teams who were in the play-offs. So I started thinking ‘if we take points off these teams, it will be help Bill and Halifax’. We played Salford and if we won, we’d be safe. Salford needed to win as they were trying to finish second which is massive as you have home advantage in the play-offs. We beat them and it was carnage as we were staying up.
“Bill brought me back to Halifax for the play-offs and for the final against Chorley I was on the bench. It was fantastic and there were crazy scenes.
“But going back to the semi-final, we played Salford and the games feature on the Class of 92 documentary. They should have beaten us as Richie Allen missed an absolute sitter. It went to penalties and we were all in the huddle and Bill said ‘lads, I don’t lose penalty shootouts’. We had a giggle, but the lads who were at Ferriby like myself, Danny Hone, Liam King, knew it was true.
“In the final against Chorley it was heading towards penalties and we weren’t bothered. As it happens, it didn’t go to penalties and guess who scored the winner? Garner! So here we are, promoted to the Conference again. So I stayed, but Bill got the sack in the January (2018). We as lads were upset as we didn’t really agree with the decision. We weren’t in the bottom four or in the top half. The new manager came in and I wasn’t a big fan to be honest.
“But it was brilliant at Halifax overall. Matty Brown, it was carnage with him, he’s a real live-wire. It was a very similar to Ferriby and the nights out were superb. The play-final night out is one I’ll always remember.”
Tom Denton Prank
“We played a London club away at Halifax and we found Dents’ mobile so me and Connor Oliver took it on the bus. Off someone else’s phone, Dents has rang the phone and Connor has answered in a London accent pretending to be a steward. Dents has obviously said ‘please can I have my phone back, it has loads of photos on’. Connor was saying things like ‘you’ve just scored against us, you’re not going to get it back’. Dents was nearly crying at the back of the bus. A lad called David Lynch, who didn’t know it was a prank, grabbed the phone off Dents and said ‘you better give this phone back now or we’ll come back down and we’ll get you done, it is just not on this’. Dents is offering £200 for his phone back and you should have seen his face when he came down to the front of the bus. We didn’t tell him until 20 minutes from home. It was a brilliant prank.”
Reunion with Billy Heath at Alfreton (2018/19)
“Billy got many of his Ferriby and Halifax men back together and we went into that season thinking we were going to get promoted again. We had a decent squad and not long into the season, Chesterfield put a bid in for Dents and he chose to go. I don’t think Bill ever replaced him properly. It wasn’t the same and we didn’t get in the play-offs. A lot of the Ferriby and Halifax lads that Bill has had over the years, I don’t think there’s many of us left at Alfreton. We’re also getting older.
“Bill has probably got to find a new band of players or a different style of playing. The game is changing and everyone wants to play football. There’s not many direct managers around. Target men are also a dying breed. I can’t think of anyone who is a Tom Denton in the Conference North.”
2019/20
“The season just gone wasn’t great for myself. I went to Grantham and we were second in the league, but things weren’t right so I said I didn’t want to be associated with this so I left. Nathan Jarman was the assistant manager to Steve Housham at Lincoln United so I went there. I was enjoying it and we were winning games. I then got a call off Mark Bower at Bradford (Park Avenue) in the Conference North to say could I sign? I had to have the dreaded call with Nathan Jarman. He’s one of my child’s godfathers and he was fine. He said ‘go enjoy it’. I went to Bradford and we were bottom of the league and ten points adrift. It was very difficult and getting beat every week, but I was playing and that’s all I wanted. Things were looking up for us and we started winning the odd game. We played promotion chasing King’s Lynn away and we won 1-0. We thought we might get out of it, but then the season came to a halt.”
The Future
“I’ve spoken to Bradford, but they’re saying that because of what’s happened in the world, there’s not a lot of money in the budget. The pitch is becoming 3G and I would have enjoyed it because I like playing out from the back, but I said to the gaffer ‘I can’t travel for the money you have offered me’. I think a lot of the lads have said the same. I’ve spoken to a couple of other clubs to be honest. I’ve seen lads signing for clubs, but I don’t see the point in signing for anyone yet because no-one knows when the season is going to start. I don’t want a situation where a ‘keeper in the Conference North could get injured doing whatever, opening a spot up, and I’ve already signed somewhere else. People could change job too and not be able to play so I don’t want to make a rash decision.”
Summing-Up
“Some lads say ‘he’s a goalkeeper who loves to be on the bench’. At times it was financially it was better for me to be involved and because of the way Bill looked after me, I’ll never thank him enough. But since getting older, I want to play. I’ve got a little boy now and I don’t want him to go into school and say ‘my dad does this’ and someone goes ‘he’s just on the bench all the time’. I want him to see me play. I have no regrets whatsoever from my time at Ferriby and Halifax. If there are any regrets, Dave Frecks promised me the world at Gainsborough (2017) and I probably should have signed for him, but for me when was the next opportunity for me to have my name on the back of a shirt going to come? So I was not going to let the opportunity of playing Conference football slip from me. I played three or four games and I achieved what I set out to do. The dream was to play League One or Two as a young boy and when that dream is taken away, the next best thing is to play Conference football.
“I can look back with a lot of pride at my career so far – at the memories, the medals, the friends I have made. I’ll never forget these things, especially Wembley.”
If you have enjoyed this interview and the Non League Journey interview series, please watch the video at the bottom of the page and consider making a donation to the not-for-profit organisation NLY Community Sport which provides sport for children and adults with disabilities and learning difficulties. CLICK HERE to visit the JustGiving page.
NLY Community Sport, run by James Grayson and Connor Rollinson, has always had combatting social isolation at the top of our objectives when running our Disability Football teams so when the green light to return is given, our work will play an important role in reintroducing our players, who have disabilities and learning difficulties, back into society.
We have six teams, a mixture of Junior and Adult teams – Nostell MW DFC, Pontefract Pirates, Selby Disability Football Club and the South Yorkshire Superheroes (Barnsley) – across Yorkshire.
Like most organisations, we have been affected financially by the Coronavirus and we have incurred losses which we cannot recover. We have not been hit as badly as other organisations, but we do need raise £2000 to put us back at the level we were at in mid-March and enable us to make a difference once again to our players’ lives in the future, without having financial worries. As each day goes on, a substantial number of our players become further isolated so we need to be ‘ready for action’ when restrictions are lifted.
Any amount raised above £2000 will be put towards new projects (when the world returns to normal) designed to further benefit people with disabilities and learning difficulties. You can learn more about the organisation HERE and on our Facebook page.
Watch the video below to see highlights from our three years as an organisation. The video was produced for our players at the end of March to remind them of good memories from the last three years.