The Biggest Club You Never Saw

Newark Flowserve  3  Radford  1

East Midlands Counties League Cup – Semi Final

Rainworth Miners Welfare are arguably one of the biggest non-league clubs that the East Midlands never saw!

As a wholly amateur club, playing in the Nottinghamshire Alliance League, they made history in 1982 by reaching the FA Vase Final at Wembley, only to lose to Forest Green Rovers.

The Wrens were the first and only Miners Welfare club to reach a national final at Wembley, but the 3-0 defeat, this after beating Barton Rovers in the semi-final, the home leg attracting over 5,000 spectators to Kirklington Road, didn’t take the shine off what was the crowning moment for a football club that were dominating local football.

Between 1977 and 1983 the club won the league championship six successive times, but not only that, they achieved both League Cup and County Cup success. In terms of status, they sat way below the Northern Premier League, which at the time was the second tier non-league competition, while the Midland Counties League and then the Northern Counties East League were also a step above them.

I remember not too long ago talking to a Rainworth stalwart, a man who certainly knows his football, and he told me that the side that he saw reach Wembley and win titles, would have been top four in the Midland League, and in all fairness, were good enough to hold their own in the Northern Premier League, they were that good!

It’s all hypothetical of course, but if like me, you keep old programmes, it’s interesting to scan through and look at some of the players, many of whom had not been long out of the professional game, like Paul Comerford and Clint Guy, who were paying ‘subs’ by all accounts!

On top of that, the crowds were flocking to Kirklington Road, I went once in the early years and that was in 1984 to see an FA Vase victory over Lincoln United, and it was packed, several hundred lined the pitch side and up the grass bank. But therein lay the problem, Kirkilington Road was a pitch with a rope around it, while the dressing rooms were the pavilion that was a fair old walk to the pitch.

Facilities wise it was as basic as they came, but, given the success and the support, why did they not develop and rise? Well, I get the feeling it all came down to politics. The Secretary of the club was Alan Wright, who himself was also the Chairman of the Notts Alliance, and the view was that while he pulled the strings, the league and the club would never part. Alan Wright did so much for the club, and indeed for the league, but……

Ultimately a decision had to be made, as more and more clubs left to join the Central Midlands League and the ultimately move into the Northern Counties East League, Rainworth were getting left further behind, so a decision was made to make the switch to the CMFL and with it embark on a programme of ground improvements.

They moved to pastures new in 2003, and by 2007 they’d risen through the leagues and were sat in the bottom tier of the NCEL (Step 6).  By 2009 they were in the top flight of the NCEL, and despite finishing runners up to Bridlington Town a year later, they won promotion to the Northern Premier League following the East coast clubs decision to decline promotion.

So, after so many seasons as a massive fish in a relatively small pond, they took a leap of faith and within seven years had reached a level which was perhaps unimaginable at the time the decision was taken.

The dream continued until 2015 when the club resigned from the league for financial reasons, and then at the end of the 2017-18 season they took the decision to drop from the Premier Division of the NCEL into the East Midlands Counties League for similar reasons.

I’m no expert, but the club survives, on a tight budget, with excellent facilities and a decent level of support. The NPL was a step too far, maybe twenty years too late in fact, but all the same, the club survives, when many clubs in the County have had histories that would all make decent soap operas! No names of course…….

So, why bang on about Rainworth Miners Welfare when I’ve been to match a game between Newark Flowserve and Radford? Simple, it was the chosen venue of the East Midlands Counties League Cup semi-final, so because it was such a well known venue locally, it is worth telling the story of the club.

But, we had a game, featuring a street wise and very hard to beat Radford side, playing the team that everyone seems to want to beat at the moment from Newark, and the reason everyone seems to want to beat them is the rumours that abound about the kind of money they are paying to players.

I won’t comment on how big the wage bill is, or comment on whether it’s a good or bad thing, suffice to say, it’s entirely up to the club and its custodians what they do, and is no business of anyone else. 

Furthermore, the team currently sitting above them in the league is alleged to pay out no money at all, so from the point of view of an advantage, just how big is it? I’ll let those more qualified decide that, but from my own point of view, they’ve developed the ground, built a great team, engaged with the town and got the locals behind them, so money is a good thing, as long as it’s sustainable?

A decent crowd had pitched up, 140 it appears but it looked a lot more, maybe some passes flying around? Anyway, a large proportion had come from Newark and they were certainly enjoying themselves and the refreshments on offer.

They got a shock though as Radford took the lead in the first half through Ryan Smith who netted on the half hour mark. It was a deserved goal and by the half time interval Radford were in my opinion the better side.

It all changed in the second period as Flowserve came out with a real intent, and it came as no surprise when Jamie Lloyd netted the equaliser in the 52^nd minute.

The traffic was now pretty much one way and it was the experienced Bradley Wells who gave the side from Newark the lead three minutes later, only for another experienced campaigner in the shape of Blair Anderson to net a cracking third goal to make the game safe and earn Flowserve a passage to the final.

Rainworth, as hosts, perhaps looked on somewhat enviously at Flowserve, a side who plied their trade in the Notts Senior League only last season, and wondered what they have to do to simply compete with them?

But in reality, they can’t, but what they have got is a history that trumps the vast majority of clubs in the East Midlands hands down, and no one can take that away from them.