Wombats Doing It Right

Wombwell Town  2  Worsbrough Bridge Athletic Development  1

Sheffield County Senior League – Division Two

I think the newly formed Wombwell Town Football Club have missed a real opportunity.

On the 9^th of August they set up a Twitter poll to try and find a nickname for the club, and the options were, the Wellers, the Colliers, the Wombles and the Wombats!

In the end it appears Wellers was the elected name with 33% of the vote, but in second place on 25% was Wombats. Now, don’t get me wrong, Wellers is ok, but Wombats, just think of the opportunities that would present from a marketing and commercial perspective? My God, they’re endless, social media would have gone into a frenzy, even the mighty Streatham Rovers would have had competition, and they aren’t even real!

Yes, if they’d been called the Wombats, it would have been a potential game changer, but the public have spoken and it is what it is….

However, if, in my opinion, that is something that they perhaps didn’t get quite right, then it’s the only thing that would fall into that category, because absolutely everything else they appear to have done so far has been spot in, unquestionably.

Fully Refurbished

From the moment they formed, they became very active on social media, via both the primary platforms of Twitter and Facebook. This was incredibly informative, from both the ground development that was taking place, the players they had signed, and the fixtures they’d got lined up. I actually made contact with the club via social media and they quickly responded to me whereby we ended up having an online conversation with proved very helpful.

It became abundantly clear that this was a progressive football club, and the fact they’d secured the facilities that the old Wombwell Town (previously Sporting Association) used on Station Road, which was equipped with a covered terrace, a clubhouse and floodlights, then it’s safe to say they meant business.

But what about the history?

Wombwell Sporting Association first appeared in the Yorkshire League in the early Sixties,  going up and down through the divisions over the years before the league became the Northern Counties East League. They stayed in the NCEL until 1988, where they had continually struggled, but then joined the Central Midlands League, whereby in 1990 they changed their name to Wombwell Town.

The Crowd Gathers

The new incarnation lasted three seasons, which again were very much a struggle, leading to a drop into the Sheffield County Senior League in 1993. They started in the First Division but within three seasons they’d gained promotion to the Premier Division. They remained there in 2000 when they left the league and seemingly disappeared as a club.

The ground on Station Road became somewhat derelict, and with the newly formed club taking over the site thanks to support from the trustees, they did a simply awesome job in terms of getting it ready for the season. It’s clearly a work in progress, but the terraces have been tidied, much of the scrub has been cleared while a refurbishment programme looks to be taking place in the clubhouse. It is also important to point out that they haven't been alone in terms of getting the ground ship-shape, junior outfit AFC Yorkshire, and Sunday club Woodville have also been heavily involved, particularly in terms of the clubhouse. 

In their eagerly awaited opening game of the season on the first day of September, they recorded a very late win at fellow newcomers United Worksop, but the first home game was conveniently going to be under the Station Road floodlights against neighbours Worbrough Bridge Athletic Development.

Panoramic

Again, the publicity machine went to work, and it’s safe to say that no one who follows the club on social media would be left in any doubt about the game taking place! Myself and Steve arrived just over an hour before kick off and the car park, which was being carefully co-ordinated by a club official, was already filling up.

We received a warm welcome and  despite arriving prior to the official bar opening time, pintage was made readily available to us, good work chaps! The admission was free and four page programmes were also given out for free, and what was interesting in the programme was that the club publicised the fact they would be issuing on paper and online for every game, and advertising opportunities were available. They have already got a decent number of local businesses sponsoring them so clearly from a commercial perspective they are on the ball.

It became clear that a good sized crowd was going to be in place to watch the game, and in the end it was estimated at around 150 which is fantastic for the level of football. The ground looked tidy, the clubhouse is a work in progress but it does the job absolutely fine, while the pitch was in decent condition following the groundsman banning them playing on it during pre-season!

The game was pretty tight in the early exchanges, but it was the visitors who took a first half lead through Adam Crouch following the host’s inability to deal with a corner kick. Ryan Smith squeezed the ball home from a tight angle minutes later to equalise, and from that point onwards it was Wombwell who had the lions share of the play.

Clubhouse

The game looked to be heading for a draw, until the 88^th minute when Luke Norbury, who if he isn’t the son of Mick Norbury, the current Belper Town assistant manager and former prolific striker in non-league football, then he looks very much like him, found the net from ten yards with a low drive.

Two wins out of two for Karl Rose’s side, and his appointment alone speaks volumes for the clubs ambition. The future looks very rosy indeed for them and given the way they’ve gone about their launch and the way they appear to be doing things, I’ve got no doubt about them achieving their ambitions of Northern Counties East League football.

Should still have been called the Wombats though…….