Jose Mourinho was basking in the glory of his second Premier League title as Chelsea manager when Steeton sent out an SOS call to Portugal for a new manager in the summer of 2006.
They persuaded Jose to take the job. Just not the famous one. They got Roy Mason, or @SteetonJose if you call him by his Twitter handle. The difference between the two is Mason sticks around for forever and not for only three years.
Fourteen years on since his appointment Mason has overseen the incredible rise of Steeton from the lower depths of amateur football in the now-defunct West Riding County Amateur League to the previously unthinkable heights of Non League and North West Counties League football.
He’s been the perfect for fit for Steeton and there’s been around 500 games, trophies, an appearance at Elland Road, Hummel kits, plenty of Madness, unexpected three points and plenty of fun.
This is Roy Mason and Steeton’s Non League Journey
Playing Career
“My football career began as a 17-year-old lad playing Sunday League football in the 1980s with a team called the Druid Arms, a Keighley Sunday team. Rob Harness, the player/manager, played for Haworth on a Saturday and he asked me who I played for on a Saturday? I didn’t, I went to watch Bradford City on a Saturday. He said ‘not anymore, you’re playing for Haworth with me now’.
“I played for them for a few years and then Peter Turbitt – the ex-Bradford City full-back – had just taken over a team called Phoenix. This is before they became Keighley Phoenix. It was quite a young team which had gone from playing Sunday football to Saturday football. I ended up joining them and having the distinction of scoring the first ever goal for Phoenix in Saturday football. I still remember it against Crag Road.
“I started off as a striker and I scored a few goals playing alongside Paul Ettenfield. We were sort of a little and large partnership. As I got older I ended up playing in defence and I was probably a better right-back than a striker.
“I had a little fall-out after I had an injury at Phoenix and I ended up going to Steeton in I would say 1993. I played the best part of a season with Steeton, but then I broke my leg in the April. I was out of 18 months and by the time I got back fit, I went back to Phoenix. Within that time I did some committee work, doing a programme, getting sponsors and I ended up as player/chairman for quite a while. At the time Phoenix was managed by a big friend of mine Paul Ettenfield and we didn’t have many non-playing members. It was a team which had risen really fast to the top of the West Riding County Amateur League and won it. The players were mucking in. I think Graham Binns was the treasurer and we had another player as secretary so the players were doubling up in committee roles.
“I actually moved house to Steeton in 1999 and in 2002 my daughter had just turned two. By now I had two kids and Phoenix were struggling as a few players had left and Paul had left as manager. There was more falling on me on the committee side and I just wanted to go somewhere I could play football and enjoy it and not worry about the committee side. I ended up going to Steeton. A school friend of mine Jeremy Fay had taken over and I think the year before I went they had won the County Trophy for the first time. There was a little buzz and some cracking young lads like Jamie Longley, James Gill, Adam Smith, my current assistant, Damien Whiteoak who went onto be club captain. Daniele Gaudiosi is another one.
“The season after that when I was in my thirties I ended up dropping down to the reserve team and I took on the role as Stephen Narey’s assistant with the reserves. I did that for a year and Stewart turned round to me and said ‘look it is your team now, I want you to take over as manager, I’m stepping down’. In all honesty I hadn’t thought about becoming a manager. I was just enjoying doing a bit of coaching. It coincided with Paul Ettenfield taking over as first team manager of Steeton.
“I did the reserve team manager’s job for a year and at the end of the year Paul decided not to continue as first team and the committee asked me if I would like to be first team manager.
“When Paul left, a lot of players left and I had to rely on the previous season’s reserve team squad to keep us in the First Division of the County Amateur League. The committee just asked to me to try and keep them in the Division. We survived and the rest is history.”
Steeton’s SOS Call to Portugal (2006)
“I got the job less than three weeks before the start of the season. I was actually on holiday in Portugal. If you remember most clubs had a forum on the website. This is before social media. I had seen that Paul had left on the fans forum when I was looking at it in an internet cafe in Portugal. Joe Bryceland who was Paul’s assistant, he was messaging me too and telling me the committee wanted me to do the job. I was like ‘I’m on holiday’. I hadn’t even previously given it a thought. Maybe I should have spoken to the wife and thought it through, but me being me I just accepted the job and told her afterwards.”
First Season (2006/07)
“I took it over and Joe Bryceland stayed with me. We got off to a flying start. I managed to sign a striker called Colin Horsfield, another ex-Phoenix player from Keighley Shamrocks. We needed a good goalkeeper and a good striker if we were to have a chance. I got a young goalkeeper from Silsden called Chris Wheater who performed excellently that season. We actually played Keighley Shamrocks in the first game and we beat them 5-1. Shamrocks were favourites for promotion and ultimately did win promotion. Colin got a hat-trick for us and I thought ‘this management lark is quite easy, there’s not much to it’. Then I don’t think we won a game in the next six matches. We would have the odd good result and then we’d have a few poor results. It is very difficult to bring players in when you’re struggling and at the time I think people saw Steeton as a sinking ship.
“At the time we were competing with Keighley Shamrocks, Long Lee, Bronte Wanderers and of course you had Silsden who had recently gone into the North West Counties. Some of the better players Steeton had when I first joined were now playing semi-professional football at Silsden.
“What I tried to do from day one was try and instil some professionalism. We didn’t even have a club badge. I actually sat down with my son who was about four or five and we designed a badge which was basically a copy of the AC Milan badge. The kits we had were cheap kits we bought off the internet. I got us a puma kit and it was the first time we had a branded kit. We got a proper sponsor as I managed to convince Colin Horsfield’s electrical company to give us some money and it was by far the biggest shirt deal Steeton had ever had.
“Slowly we started getting players back like Stevie Barker, Lee Barker, Jody Proctor, Daniele Gaudiosi. I got Arley Barnes and Joe Park to come. They were both 16-year-old kids. We got one or two promising young players coming through and I thought we had to attract the best young players who would see Steeton as the starting points in their careers.”
Turning Point
“It was in my third season when it started coming together and I know it sounds ridiculous, but it coincided with us moving to using Hummel kits. Everyone loved the Hummel kit and we looked good in it. I was at work and I was talking to the guy who bought men’s wear and I asked him who he dealt with at Hummel because we had just got our kit and I wanted to tap him up for sponsoring a page in the programme. He gave me his details and it turned out the Hummel rep actually lived in East Morton and had played for Steeton years ago. Suddenly a free away kit had landed on our doorstep. We were like ‘wow we have a proper home and away kit for the first time’. We started getting the Hummel tracksuits and the Hummel polo shirts and I think a few people thought ‘they look smart’.
“I got a call from Stewart Airdrie who was then the Barnoldswick manager and he tipped me off that Graham Holmes was leaving Barnoldswick and was about to sign for Keighley Shamrocks. He said ‘get in there because he’d be a big signing for you’. So I rang Grezzer and he said ‘I’m signing for Shamrocks Roy’. I said ‘don’t sign for them until you’ve seen us. Have a face-to-face meeting with me and come down for our game tomorrow because we’re a better side than people think’. He came down and I said ‘what do you think’? He said ‘I want to sign’.
“Graham Holmes was a massive signing for us. Not only because he was a great footballer and great servant for the club, he was also very popular with lads in and around Keighley. Graham joined us around February (2009) and in pre-season I got a call from Andy Holden who was struggling with injury at the time. He said ‘we’re hearing good things about Steeton, but I’m going to be struggling until Christmas, but is it alright if I come down and train’. He also said a couple of other players would be interested. Michael Rhodes was one of them and he was Silsden’s regular right-back. I knew it would be a statement signing. On the back of that he said I may be able to get Lee Reilly. That would have been huge because he was the best striker in the area. He asked to play in a couple of pre-season games to see what it was like. We played in a game and we won by ten and he scored seven and he signed. Suddenly we had the nucleus of a good squad and we had a real chance of promotion.”
Promotion to WRCAL Premier Division (2009/10)
“I can remember the first game of the season as clear as day. We played Hunsworth and we battered them. Michael Rhodes missed a penalty and they went up the other end and nicked it to win 1-0. We couldn’t gel when we should have been flying with the players we had. We went to Hemsworth reserves and we got beat and I read the riot act and I said to my assistant manager Rob Horton ‘I have had enough mate, we have got these players here and we should be storming this league. We aren’t going up. Today has blown our chances of promotion’.
“But then we won our last 14 games, I think it was. We won the title on the last day of the season after beating Bronte Wanderers as Hunsworth lost. They had to win to pip us. To win promotion we won at Salts on the Tuesday night and Lee Reilly was struggling. He said ‘I’m 50% fit, I can’t be doing any chasing back’. Well he never did much of that anyway. I said ‘I’d rather have a 50% Lee Reilly than no Lee Reilly’. He struggled the whole game, but he scored twice and we won 2-0 and got us promoted.
“I wouldn’t say it was one of the best nights, but it was a night we needed. I think if we hadn’t gone up that year it would have raised a lot of questions because of the players we had recruited. It would been a set-back because those players were happy to play in the first division for a season, but not a lot of them would have played in it for two. If I hadn’t gone up that year, I would have probably given it another year, but I probably wouldn’t be Steeton manager today so it is probably a defining game.”
Journey to Elland Road (2013-14)
“We had some good seasons in the league and then we had the cup run in 2014 in the West Riding Challenge Cup. The round before the quarter-finals we drew Oxenhope and they were big rivals and they were a bogey team. We beat them convincingly and I thought this could be our year. The next round was Brighouse Town reserves and Paul Quinn, their first team manager at the time was playing. We played Goole in the semi-finals at Woodlesford and that night is probably one of the highlights.
“We took two coach-loads of supporters and there were quite a lot of young lads who had brought a drum and unbeknown to us they had brought green flares into the ground. It kicked off a little with the Goole supporters and at one stage we wondered if the game was going to start because there was myself and the Goole manager in with all these lads saying ‘calm down, calm down’.
“When Michael Rhodes scored the penalty for us to win 1-0, all you could hear was these lads banging the drum while green smoke appeared. They never stopped singing all game. The players said that when they were getting tired the singing pulled them over-the-line. The atmosphere in the changing room was unbelievable. There were supporters in there as well.
“After the game I went onto both supporter buses and I’ll never forget going onto the first bus and before I say a word the whole bus started ‘Mason Mourinho’ and I had a tear in my eye. We were a village club and we had come from nowhere and I’d seen people with Steeton scarves on. We’d never produced Steeton scarves ever before. When we got back to the Goatshead, the place was full of supporters and the whole pub just cheered when we walked in. It brought a lump to everyone’s throats.
“When I look back we were overawed by Elland Road and as a club we were happy just to have got to the County Cup final. Unfortunately when we got to Elland Road we were froze as a team. Fields were a good side and I knew their strengths and they were good at set-pieces. We had gone through everything and three of the goals we conceded were through set-pieces. We were 4-0 down after 20 minutes and we got it back to 4-2 with ten minutes to half-time. Unfortunately on the stroke of half-time Andy Holden got involved with someone off-the-ball and got sent off. Any chance we had was now gone. In the second half Matty Kershaw got sent off as well and we were down to nine men and lost 5-2 in the end.
“In all the time I have been involved in football, the County Cup final has only been held at Elland Road twice. To be sat in a dugout where so many famous managers have stood in a stadium is so steeped in history, it is something as a kid you’d never think you’d be involved in. It was fantastic and one of my best experiences, but also one of our most disappointing.”
Roy’s Unwanted Three Points
“We were playing Tyersal at Summerhill Lane and the referee hadn’t turned up. We wanted to play and it was like ‘who’s going to ref’? There was a fellas called Kev Travers who turned up to watch. His lad Nicky was playing for us and he could ref. He didn’t want to at first, but he said ‘if someone can get me a kit I’ll do it’. I said ‘give me five minutes, I’ll nip home’. As soon as I get in my car I rang Phillip Rhodes at the ground to say I’d sorted it. No sooner as I drove out of Summerhill Lane I got pulled over by the police. The police officer said ‘come and sit in here’. He was saying ‘you do know you were on your phone’? I explained that I was ringing the league and that I needed to rush home for a kit because we had a game. He wasn’t interested and he said ‘it isn’t really a good enough excuse is it’. When I got back to Summerhill Lane everyone was like ‘where the hell have you been’? We eventually kicked off and we lost the game and the big joke was that I still got three points.”
Our House
“The Beeston away game in the Challenge Cup one year sticks out because Andy King had done a team-talk before a home game once where he’d ‘right lads this is our house, no-one comes to our house and gets something’. On the back of that Madness ‘Our House’ became our theme tune. The lads would have it blasting out before a game. Beeston had given us so much stick before the game about what they were going to do and we beat them 2-1. I remember all the lads bouncing to the song and banging on the Beeston walls singing ‘our house, in the middle of Beeston’. That was a fantastic day.”
Memorable Moments
“When Rob Horton was my assistant when we won the league we had a rule on the minibus that if you lose we have no booze. We lost the first away game and Rob refused to stop off at the off licence. He went ‘I’ve told you, if you lose, there’s no booze’. He drove all the way home without stopping and you know what, we didn’t lose another away game for the whole of that season.
“That year as well it was the first year where they brought three subs in and Andy King’s brother Patrick came up to me and said ‘I know I’m not going to play much but I’ll come every week to be third sub’. That was because the craic was so good. We won at Littletown to go top and he hadn’t even got on and he was dancing on top of the minibus. That team I would say had the best characters I’ve had. Me and Rob after we had dropped the lads were still crying with laughter every single away game. There were characters who came home completely naked because someone would shout ‘naked bus’ and they’d strip off. What some people thought when we were driving down the M62 with a busload of naked players I’ll never know.
“I’d joke with Lee Reilly and say ‘I can still do a job’. We played FC Sporting in the Keighley Cup and we were short. It was a game we were going to win and I came off the bench for the last ten minutes and as the ball came to the far post I headed it over the ‘keeper’s head and it hit the inside of the post and Lee Reilly tapped it in. I was absolutely gutted. In the first year Graham Holmes was with us I came off the bench in the Keighley Cup and you could see that no-one wanted to be brought off for the gaffer. We were five or six-nil up. Within the first few minutes of coming on we got a corner and the ‘keeper fumbled it and I scored with my first touch. Instead of celebrating with me, everyone had run off.
“We played Kirkburton towards the end of the season one year and Lee Reilly was injured. We got to the ground and he was struggling and he said ‘it is not right, I’m going to give it a rest today’. Then he sees Kirkburton come out to warm-up and they are short because Howard Cartledge is stripped and ready to play. Howard ambled onto the pitch and Lee Reilly turned to me and said ‘I’ll play today’. I think he did score three as well.”
Dressing room rants
“All the lads who play for me will tell you I’m quite mild-mannered but when I lose it I lose it. We were playing Salts and at half-time I was going mad. Stevie Pearson started saying ‘the tactics are wrong’ and this and that. So I literally picked up the tactics board and threw it at him. He then started taking his boots off. Then I thought ‘oh we have a stand-off here because he’s my best centre-half and I can’t afford for him to come off, but I can’t afford to back down either’. I turned it round to him and said ‘that’s typical, it is easier to give up than carry on’. He said ‘I thought you were bringing me off’. I was like ‘get your boots back on and get back out there’.
“Some of the lads will laugh under their breath when you’re giving them a rollicking and there was one where Sam Rooke was playing for me. He was a fantastic player for me, but he had a nightmare at Campion so I took him off at half-time and he threw his boots across the changing room. I said ‘throw your boots, after that first half performance, I’d be throwing your boots in the f***ing bin’. Adam Smith said ‘I know you were going off on one, but I couldn’t stop laughing when you said that to him’.”
Characters
“There’s been some funny incidents over the years and funny characters. The likes of Jamie Longley and Graham Holmes, some of the antics they used to get up to in the dressing room was always very funny. There’s not as many characters now and some of the initiation ceremonies we used to do no longer go on. I’ve always found that your characters like Jamie Longley are easier to manage because you always know how they feel. The quiet lads are harder to manage because you don’t know what they are thinking?
“We played in the Keighley Cup Final and Longers has always been a moaner. I said to him that he would have to play on the left-hand-side of midfield. He said ‘you’re joking, I’m not playing there’. I said ‘fair enough, one of the lads who are bench is going to play on the left side of midfield and you’re on the bench’. He said ‘fair enough Roy, I’ll play on the left-side of midfield’.
“We had an end of season party and we were playing out of the Star Pub at the time and Jamie stripped off and was totally naked. He shunted up the lamppost at the top of Steeton, rang across the road and ran into the Goat pub stark naked and ran around the pool table and came back in.
“Aaron Hollindrake is one of the funnier lads we’ve had. There was a game where we had two subs and it was myself who was 39 or 40 and Andy Lamb who is a couple of years older. I named the team and said ‘and the two geriatrics on the bench’. As we’re going out, Aaron said to me ‘why don’t you and Lamby go on the bench’? I said ‘we are’. He said ‘you didn’t say your name’. So I said ‘yeah we’re the two geriatrics’ and he said ‘I don’t know what geriatrics means’.
“Because I’m a shoe-buyer Aaron thinks I know everything about shoes. He once got this new pair boots and he said ‘I’ve got these new boots Roy what do you think’? I said that they looked alright. So he goes ‘do you think they fit me? I said ‘how do I know’? He said ‘well you’re into shoes, do you think they fit me’? He was stonewall serious.”
Committee
“When I first took over as manager I was quite intimidated by the club president at the time Dave Baxter because he was straight and stern. I didn’t know how to take him. Everything you asked for it was like asking the earth. I was like ‘we need some new training balls’. He’d say ‘what do you need training balls for lad, in my day we needed one ball’?
“The biggest character is the club’s groundsman Albert Bates. It is the standing joke that if it was on raining on the Tuesday we weren’t playing on the Saturday at Summerhill Lane. Albert’s hobby is not football, Albert’s hobby is looking after that pitch. There’s been many a committee meeting when it comes to any other business and I’d say ‘yes we’ve had a letter from the Chelsea Flower Show as we have won best garden of the year award because no-one is allowed to play on the pitch’. I remember a game which was 50/50 and Albert says ‘it is not fit today, you’ll knacker it’. In the County Amateur you could call it off yourself. I said ‘Albert we have a good side today and I’ve got a free pair of shoe samples just your size in the boot of my car, do you want them’? He said ‘aye, let’s give it a go today, I think it will be alright’. So we got the game on because I gave Albert a pair of free shoes.
“In the first few years as manager we didn’t have a kit-man and we’ve got one now in Bryn Morgan who I’ve got a good story about. In the old days the manager would throw a bag down and it would be a free-for-all for the kit. I used to go down early on a Saturday and I’d hang the kit out so it looked good for when the lads walked into the changing room. Bryn volunteered to do the kit and I remember him once ringing me in the morning and saying ‘it is all sorted for Roy, the kit is there for the Kirkburton game’. So we got to Kirkburton and I opened the kitbag and he’d only given us the under 16s kit!
“A bit of an unsung hero for us is Mick Ferguson who keeps himself out of the limelight. He’s been a good friend for years and he was best man at my wedding and godfather to my son. He’s been with the club since he was 17 and he’s 55 now. He’s been treasurer for over 30 years and he comes over from Huddersfield where he lives now. What an achievement.
“Pete Jeffrey has come in as chairman in the last couple of years and without Pete we could not have moved to Marley. He has been instrumental, especially with the work on the stand and the structural work.
“Phil Briggs joined our club to be secretary of a County Amateur team and within six months of him taking the job on from Albert, we told him we wanted to go for promotion to the North West Counties. Instead of going to league committee meetings at Campion on a Wednesday night, Phil has found himself going to meetings in Blackpool. That wasn’t in the original job description. Phil had been brilliant and we are never on the fine lists. He’s so on top with the paperwork.
“We have guys like Chris Jones who has taken on the press officer role and has created a media team. At one-time I was the media team because I was doing all the social media and the match reports myself. Josh Chapman and Jordan Weatherall do a great job. They’ve helped take the club to the next level.
“Adam Smith as assistant manager, for the last six years bar last season has been with every step of the way. Not only has he has been a fantastic assistant manager, he’s been a great friend.”
Bradford City Friendly and Peter Jackson
“I’ve always had the view if you don’t ask you don’t get. I sent Archie Christie at Bradford City an email to ask if he could bring a development team to Steeton for a friendly. I didn’t hear anything back. Silsden played Bradford City that year and Peter Jackson was the manager of City that year and after the game I went up to him. He went to the same school as me but I wouldn’t say I knew Jacko. When I used to watch Bradford City we’d wait for autographs and we’d say ‘Jacko you used to go to our school’ and he’d ask if his teachers were still teaching. This was when I was 13 or 14.
“I went up to him at Silsden and said I was manager of Steeton and told him about my email to Archie. He said ‘right leave it with me’ and a few days later we had a game with a development team. Wayne Allison was the manager and I remember Jonathan McLaughlin played in goal. They’d just signed Michael Bryan on loan from Watford and I said to Wayne Allison ‘what’s he like’. He said ‘we’ll have a look at him tonight’. I was thinking I’m sure Watford wouldn’t be too happy if they knew Michael Bryant was playing at Summerhill Lane against Steeton, a team in the County Amateur League.
“I was a bit starstruck because I was in one dugout and Peter Jackson was in the other. He’s one of my heroes. After the game a fan asked Jacko to sign his programme as I was talking away to him. Jacko then said ‘you can’t ask one manager to sign it, you’ve got to ask the other manager to sign it’. I said to this kid ‘you don’t want my autograph’. He was like ‘I do’. Since that day Peter Jackson has always kept in touch with me and is always at the end of the phone.”
Managerial Adversaries
“The obvious ones are Ash and Gav Connor at Golcar. I’ve had some tremendous battles with them when they were at Marsden and at Golcar. We have been bogey side for them and we always seem to score late goals against them. When we were them at Avro before the lockdown we were in the bar afterwards and I said to them that it was like the old days in the County Amateur league and they said ‘yeah it is. You always bloody beat us’.
“Howard Cartledge is another big character and I’ve some great battles with him and he’s a good friend. Spanner (Richard Spychalski) is another from when he was at Bay Athletic. James Bicknell is another good lad and I speak to him every other week.
“There hasn’t been any manager who I would say I haven’t go on with. I’ve had my spats with one or two. I remember playing Ovenden and their manager celebrating a last minute by running in front of our dugout, but there’s not really been any rows. In Non League football there is mutual respect because everyone is doing it for the right reasons because they are passionate about football.”
Player Availability
“Right until the later days in the County Amateur days there’d times when we didn’t until right near kick off whether we had a full team. There was a game when I was 46 when I came on for the last half-hour because someone hadn’t turned up and I had to go on the bench. We went to Bay Athletic once and the goalkeeper didn’t turn up so one of the lads had to go in goal. Some of the lads in the early days would turn up worse for wear. Over the years I’ve heard it all. I’ve had lads say ‘I can’t play because I’m shopping with my girlfriend’.
“We had a funny one last year with someone because I think we were playing Holker away and he had been out. He text me at 7.30am and he said ‘I’ll be honest with you Roy, just got in now, not going to be able to play’. I thought ‘fair play, at least he’s told me’. He text me again the week after and he said ‘looks like Christmas has really got the better of me this year, another heavy session, not available’. At the time you’re fuming, but looking back you think ‘oh my god’.
“The easier thing now is players can text. Before you had to ring the manager on his home phone and explain why I wasn’t training.”
Move into Non League Football (2018)
“I never set out with a grand plan that I wanted Steeton to be a Non League team. My initial plan was to be the top team below Silsden in the Keighley area. We went out and did that. I was looking at the way football was going and at the County Amateur League. Silsden had progressed, Brighouse Town had progressed, Hemsworth had progressed, Campion had progressed and it was something we had spoken about internally.
“We spoke to the NCEL initially, probably two years before we applied to the North West Counties. Basically they said Summerhill Lane was too small, ‘you’ve no chance’. It was on the back burner because it was more exploratory, what would we need to do? We were a little naive as to what was involved.
“Then the North West Counties announced they were looking to start another league and they were looking for 16 new clubs. We had a look and we knew we had to go for it. We would have never had a better opportunity. Naively we heard that ground grading was going to be relaxed. We knew our ground was too small, but if they were going to relax the rules we may have a chance. John Deal and Geoff Wilkinson from the North West Counties came down and had a look and straightaway they said it was too small.
“We had pre-empted that as we had arranged a meeting with Keighley Cougars about a potential ground-share. It was clear that the board at the time wanted a football club to come down because they wanted a 3G pitch. I then arranged for them to send an email to say they were happy for us to ground-share with them.
“So when we had the meeting with Geoff Wilkinson and John Deal we told them about Cougar Park, but they said you can’t move ground to gain a promotion. Adam Smith, as sharp as a razor, turned round and said ‘it is not a promotion, it is a reconfiguration of the leagues, it is different’. John Deal rang the FA on our behalf and he rang me on the Monday and said ‘I’ve spoken to the FA and they would be happy with you to use Cougar Park’.”
Keighley Cup
“We won the Keighley Cup three times in my tenure and lost three finals as well. The last one was the year before we went into the North West Counties and we beat Silsden Whitestar (2018). That was memorable. We didn’t win the league, but we won the Premier Division cup by beating Campion at Brighouse. I knew it was going to be our last year in the Keighley Cup and it looks like it was going to be one of those nights as we were 1-0 down. Graham Holmes then came off the bench and scored. He then got the winner in extra-time and I was so pleased for Graham because his granddad Jack Holmes was president of the Keighley FA for many years.”
North West Counties Football (2018-)
“I remember our first game in the North West Counties as clear as yesterday. It was Holker Old Boys away. Pre-season was difficult because we thought players would come to us. We did attract a few new players. We got Aaron Hollindrake back, Callum Meade joined us from Golcar and we signed Alfie Stevens-Neale, a young goalkeeper from Bradford (Park Avenue). Essentially it was a lot of the team we had come up from the County Amateur League with. That included a few from our successful under 18s team as well, including my own son.
“We went to Holker and we thought it was going to be a tough game because it was a trek and it wasn’t the best of pre-season’s. We had a couple of injuries and I was struggling to fill the bench. We were nervous for the first 20 minutes, but against the run of play we scored and the team were like ‘hold on we have scored here, we can compete at this level’. Holker equalised with an absolute worldie. But in the second half Andy Briggs put us 2-1 ahead and we never looked back.
“We played Avro on the Tuesday night and they were really fancied. One of our guys went over to watch them and he said ‘Roy, these are one of the best sides I’ve seen. They are superb. You’re going to have to try and keep it tight’. I looked at Avro in the warm-up and they were men. We had a side with an average age of 22. It was a tough night and it was the most one-sided game of football I’ve seen. We didn’t even have a shot at goal. Toby Jeffrey shot and it was going wide and it hit their player on the shoulder and went in. Unbelievably we won 1-0. If he had lost 10-1, we couldn’t have complained. Avro threw everything at us.
“For the first time in my tenure we played one upfront at Avro and as a management team it was a test. In the County Amateur League we went out to win every game. Alright you’d lose the odd game, but we always played two up-top and always tried to be attacking. Now it was a different ball game and we had to try and make ourselves tactically harder to beat.
“We then lost at Garstang and in the first home game we beat Blackpool 1-0. Suddenly we were up there because we had nine points from 12. Of course in the early games, it was a lot about momentum and we were playing adrenaline. We got injuries and the heavier ground kicked in and our younger and more skilful players struggled because we were coming up against teams who were more direct and more physical. We got bullied and struggled. But in our first season we stayed up and that’s all we wanted to do and we did that comfortably.
“We also beat Thackley in the County Cup and after that game I thought I’d always looked at Thackley as been a proper Bradford Non League Football club who have been around forever. We’d beaten them in a competitive fixture and I thought it put us on the map and that we would be taken a bit more seriously.
“In the next season (2019/20) nothing went right for us. Cougars had been taken over by new owners and there was uncertainty as to whether they wanted us there. I was even worried about whether they would let us play there at the start of the (2019/20) season. I was thinking ‘we have had one season in Non League and this may be it, the dream may be over before it has even started’. We didn’t start the season well. (Assistant) Adam Smith was busy with his business so he left. I brought Chris Reape in and he’s a great coach and it is not easy when you are fire-fighting. I think we used 50-odd players last season which is a far too high turnover – there was a new player for every game. If it wasn’t for bad luck, we would have had no luck.”
Marley Stadium
“We got off to a bad start in the league and then we got told in October (2019) that the contract with Keighley Cougars was ending. We were like ‘hell. it is October, the ground grading is in March, where on earth are we going to find a ground to play Non League Football that ticks all the boxes’?
“We spoke to the Council and Marley was the obvious solution and they worked with us. There were so many meetings and hours that went into it and bear in mind the management and coaching staff were involved in these meetings. Were we fully focussed on the football side? No we weren’t and it translated onto the pitch.
“Like you say it has been covered and Marley is a new chapter for us and we can look forward to a stress free time where can concentrate on football matters.”
Future
“How long do I see myself doing the job? I’m 51 now and I’ve done it since I was 36 or 37. Never in a million years when I took the job did I think I would still be doing it in my fifties. Not for one moment. In fact after my first season I thought I would get sacked. One of the proudest things is that I’m by far the longest serving manager in Steeton’s history and the club has been going over 100 years. I live in Steeton so I’m proud to manage the village I live in. There’ll be a time when I’ll hand over the baton. I still love getting the boots on and being on the training ground with the players and I love being in the changing room. Once I stop enjoying it, that’ll be the time to hand it over. I never see myself going to another club. I have so much affinity for the club and I’m so proud of where we have taken it, I think I would find it hard to leave. Once the time comes to hand it over, I’d like to think I’d be involved behind the scenes helping the club to progress off-the-field.
“Where can Steeton go? Steeton can go wherever it wants. The aim for me is to keep progressing. Playing at Marley in the middle of Keighley, hopefully we can start to progress within the Non League pyramid. We have a good reputation and we took three lads from Burnley last year so a Premier League team wouldn’t lend us players if they didn’t think they would be looked after in the right manner. The club can go where it wants, but we need financial backing like any club. We’re a typical Yorkshire club, we look after our money and I don’t think it is a wrong thing in the current climate. The clubs who have been prudent will survive. I’ve tried to try and make the club sustainable.
“When we made the move to Cougar Park and the North West Counties was it universally wanted by the committee members? No it wasn’t, some of the committee members wanted to stay as a Step 7 club. They didn’t want to move away from Summerhill Lane. As I said to some of them, we moved to Summerhill Lane in the summer of ’69, before that we played at the Oaks so we had to move grounds to progress. I said ‘this is another chapter in Steeton’s history where we have to move to progress because if we don’t continue to progress the club will die’.
“When I hand the baton to someone else, I can honestly say the club will be in a far better position from where it was when I took over. If I finished as Steeton manager tomorrow I’d look back and think that I’ve achieved something that I didn’t think possible and that’s taking Steeton from the bottom of the County Amateur First Division and turning them into a semi-professional club.”
If you have enjoyed reading Non League Yorkshire over the past few months, please 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. There is a video at the bottom of the page showing our work.
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. When we properly return to ‘action’, 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.
We have enjoyed great success over the past three years. Several of our players have represented Mencap GB in Geneva, including Billy Hobson from Selby and Greg Smith, whose story is quite inspiring.
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.