Then & Now

Newark Flowserve  3  Selston  2

Midland Football League – Premier Division

It would be January 2008 and I was stood at the side of a partially railed football pitch set in the middle of a housing estate in Nottingham. A shell of what looked to be an old and derelict clubhouse stood adjacent, while the game itself was held up for a couple of minutes while a bloke inadvertently walked his dog across the pitch while the match was in progress.

If someone had said to me that in just over ten years time, that ground, and that club, would be challenging for promotion to the second tier of non-league football, I would have laughed them all the way back to the tram stop.

But, Basford United were that club, and just look at what they are all about now? A super ground, 3G pitch, success on the field, and an owner in the shape of Chris Munroe who has steered the ship superbly over the past decade.

Moving towards the top side of Robin Hood County is another club, a club who I saw back in December 2004, plying their trade in the Central Midlands League. After a few modest seasons the club went into abeyance, before returning in the 2013-14 season in the bottom tier of the Nottinghamshire Senior League.

Successive promotions saw them gain promotion to Step 6 and the East Midlands Counties League, which they finished runners-up of last season, gaining promotion to the top flight of the Midland Football League. They currently sit top, on goal difference.

The two clubs stories are not dissimilar, in fact you can draw many parallels, but very much like that time when I first went to Basford, on that day when I was stood at pitch side at Flowserve in 2004, I never thought for a minute I’d see them battling for promotion to Step 4, certainly not after they disappeared from senior football for a period.

Stretching back to the War, right through to the Nineties, a club called Worthington Simpson were a feature of the NSL, a works team from Newark playing on the Lowfields ground that sat in the grounds of the factory. In 1998, following a re-brand / takeover of the company, they became known as IDP Newark. That lasted for three seasons until another change, and this time the Flowserve name became the clubs suffix. By 2004 they found themselves in the CMFL.

Known as ‘Simmos’, and now ‘The Highwaymen’ life started to change when businessman Gary Clarke took over as Chairman. It would be wrong to speculate upon his level of investment, but the ground has improved to keep pace with the progress of a team that attracts players who could play at a higher level of football.

To be fair though, the good folk of Newark have certainly got behind the club, with crowds regularly over 200 for league games, and with numerous clubs battling at the top of the table this season, they’ll all be returning to watch what promises to be the tightest battle for a promotion place in some time.

Since that day in 2004 (it was against Pinxton and they won 1-0), I’ve never been back. Well, that’s a lie, I went last season for a game against Rainworth Miners Welfare that the referee called off at 7pm because the pitch was, I quote, “A bit slippy and dangerous as a result”.

I have made a point of trying to venture up this season, purely because I wanted to see just how much progress they had made. The game against Selston was an interesting one for a number of reasons. Firstly, the two clubs battled for the EMCL title last season, with Selston eventually coming out on top. The game at Flowserve towards the end of the season attracted over 600 spectators through the gate.

This season the contrast couldn’t be more stark, Selston, who largely due to their ‘corinthian’ approach are struggling at the foot of the table with just one win all campaign. The two met at Selston in the Nottinghamshire Senior Cup recently, I was at the game, and after half an hour Flowserve were 5-0 up! The game was then abandoned just after the hour mark due to fog. Selston subsequently withdrew from the competition.

Parking in the large car park outside the ground, a short walk up the drive takes you to one of those modern turnstile contraptions, and just inside is the clubhouse and dressing rooms that sit behind the goal. To the right of the said goal is a seated stand that has been plonked in since my last visit, while moving anticlockwise to the side where the dugouts are located is an area of cover. What I like about the cover is the fact that the fascia has been designed in a classical style and looks like something from the Fifties or Sixties.

It’s a two sided ground, both the area behind the top goal and the side opposite the dugouts are out of bounds for spectators. How far they can go with this arrangement I’m not sure, they will certainly be allowed to go up with it, but whether they can stay up is down to the grading police of course.

I expected a comfortable home win, but I was wrong, it was far from that.

Zak Goodson gave the hosts a fifteenth minute lead, but within a couple of minutes Rory Davis had equalised with a cross that eluded the Flowserve goalkeeper and appeared to find the net via the far post.

Ben Moore then put Selston 2-1 with a deflected free kick in the second half, and for a period the well organised and disciplined visitors kept the hosts at bay.

However, the experienced and dangerous Ben Hutchinson scored twice in as many minutes as the game moved into the final quarter to swing the momentum back the way of Newark, and from that point they weren’t likely to lose their grip on the points.

On balance, it was a touch harsh on Selston, especially given the gulf in league placings, but if they continue to perform as they did, they will secure more points before the end of the season.

Flowserve, lost top spot on goal difference to Heather Athletic, but with Coventry United and Sporting Khalsa also both winning, you would be a brave man to call it this season.

Whether it’s this season, or next, Flowserve are on the way up, and emulating a club like Basford United is not beyond the realms. However, what you can say with both clubs, is all those years ago, you never saw it coming!