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St Mary's Cricket Club
Net practice at St Joseph's School gymnasium 1.00pm every Sunday. Come along and help make St Mary's Cricket team a force to be reckoned with again. Come along even if you only want to find out if you can play cricket. You will be made welcome.
Horwich St Mary's Football Club Comes of Age.
I first encountered St Mary's FC when I was looking for schoolboy football about 20 years ago. My eldest son was mad keen on footie and St Mary's were recruiting players to make up their under 11's team. And that was the beginning of a long and happy involvement in junior football for me and all three of my sons.
Fr Murphy, then parish priest at St Mary's, had persuaded Denis Heald along with other parents to start up a boys football team back in 1978. The intention was to give a game of football to any boy that came along, irrespective of ability. And that's still the way the club works. The idea was successful and by the time Tom then Leslie Allon joined the club in the mid 1980's there were already several teams. But since this dynamic husband / wife duo came to the club things have really taken off. The club now fields 38 teams, mainly boys but there are several girls teams. The age groups are from under 6 year olds up to under 18's with teams at every age.
But this article isn't about the whole club, just one team. It's about a boys team that started life at the under 7 level and has, for the first time in St Mary's history, continued through all the age groups into open age football. Darren Lowe had managed the boy's team for many years but resigned after his under 16's completed their season. Rather than let the team fold Tony Harris and I took over managing, we both had sons playing at this age. We saw the boys through under 17's then under 18's seasons but we had serious doubts about continuing beyond. Our players wouldn't be able to cope with the strength and experience of older players. And the job of managing is quite demanding. But we decided to give it a go. And I'm so glad we did.
We needed to bring in older players to replace players who had gone to university, started work, or just drifted away. The older lads would add a bit of steel, and would certainly be much more experienced. Dave Preston (who manages one of St Mary's younger teams) helped us greatly in recruiting new players and in running training sessions for the team.
Open age football! This was a step into the unknown. Would we be thrashed every week? Would the boys be intimidated or kicked off the park? Our first game was against Athletico Ince (yes that's right!). We had to play the game on their pitch because ours hadn't been marked out. What a way to begin the campaign. But we won 4-2. And we won the next three games, which included a cup game against Halsall who we had to play in the league the following week.
Next week came. Everyone was cocky. We'd just beaten Halsall by three goals to one. So this was going to be easy. Today would make it five straight wins......well, you can guess the outcome. We lost 1-0. And I think, in looking back, that defeat brought us back to earth. We would have to work hard to keep winning. Past performance didn't win the next game.
The players were coming together really well. The more games they played the better they recognised the abilities of their team mates. This togetherness, team bonding, was further helped (if not waistlines) by a visit to St Mary's Parish Club after each game where sandwiches or pasties were provided. Thanks Phil.
As the season went on the team continued to win the majority of the games they played, but a very wet autumn and winter meant lots of waterlogged pitch cancellations. Which in turn meant a very heavy fixture pile up when the light nights came. The team were doing really well, only one team had lost less games than us, Golborne Rangers. They were clearly our main rivals. At the beginning of March we still had to play them twice, once in a cup game and once in the league.
The cup game was first and our lads played really well. We won 2-0 which really shook the opposition. Perhaps they felt unbeatable. So when the league game came both teams were really up for it. Everyone competed really well but with the scores at 2-2 with minutes to go we scored again. What a crucial win. And that defeat seemed to knock the stuffing out of Golborne. St Mary's went on to win the league by 13 points!
But that wasn't all. We reached the cup final where we played against Bryn Park, another leading team. The match was played under floodlights (another first) at Ashton Athletics ground. It was another really well contested fight where neither team gave an inch. St Mary's won 4-0 and played perhaps their best football of the season. Bryn battled right to the end, never giving in, and their contribution helped make this an outstanding game.
So this record breaking team, coming from the youngest age straight through into open age football thus creating a first at St Mary's, a team that nearly folded then feared being thrashed every game, finished up "doing the double". The team have earned a lot of respect as the season progressed: from the League, where there were no controversies, no sending off's, minimal bookings, no disciplinary issues: and from the other teams we played, because the lads played sporting football, they played it well, and they "did the double".
But best of all for me was to see the older players bringing the younger lads, the under 18's graduates, into the arena of senior football where they no longer play schoolboy football, but play like a team. A winning team. Playing for one another. Playing for the team.
WELL DONE LADS.
Paul Abbott
Afterthought: If your child wants to play football for a local club, call Leslie Allon on 01942 816619, she will direct you to the right person.
