The Alliance

Clipstone   4   Borrowash Victoria   0

East Midlands Counties League

As regular blog readers will be all too aware, many roads have lead to Nottinghamshire this season as the expansion of the Senior League has opened up countless new ground opportunities.

But let’s not forget, in the Seventies and the Eighties, the Nottinghamshire Alliance League, which was the predecessor of the Nottinghamshire Senior League, was once a thriving and indeed highly competitive league in it’s own right.

We all know the story behind Rainworth Miners Welfare and their trip to Wembley in the 1982 FA Vase Final.  But of course not only that, they were a very successful and well supported team when it came to the league itself, and of course in the County Cup where they put many higher ranked teams to the sword over the years.

You then had Hucknall Town, once known as Hucknall Colliery Welfare, who went on to reach the Conference North and of course an FA Trophy Final at Villa Park. While a current and ongoing success story at this moment in time is Basford United who are challenging to get into Step 2, having been in the NSL as recently as ten years ago.

But, going back to the heady days of the Seventies and Eighties, other familiar names included Players, Keyworth United, Boots Athletic, Meadows Albion, Worthington Simpson (who became Newark Flowserve) and of course, Clipstone Miners Welfare.

Clippo’s halcyon days came in the early Seventies when they won the Senior Division crown three seasons on the bounce, this before Hucknall and Rainworth went on to dominate in a Rangers / Celtic style and between them won eight in a row!

That said, by the early Nineties, they went on to win the league again twice in a row, before deciding to jump ship to the Pyramid and join the Central Midlands League. They won the Premier Division title twice in the three years before getting elevated to the Supreme Division, where they remained for fifteen seasons.

A fourth placed finish in 2012 saw them promoted to Step 6 and the Northern Counties East League, and then in 2013 they dropped the Miners Welfare suffix and became plain and simple Clipstone FC.

The championship was won in 2015 and with it promotion to Step 5 and the Premier Division, but an awful season in 2017-18 when they drew two and lost forty games, conceding 172 goal with it, saw them relegated, this time to the East Midlands Counties League.

The first season back at Step 6 didn’t go especially well either, they finished eighteenth out of twenty, conceding over 100 goals, while last season they looked to be on their way back, amassing more points by lockdown than they had in the entire previous season.

Clipstone is another of those football clubs, that while they’ve been around at a good level for such a long time, and they aren’t too far away, I’ve been on very infrequent occasions. I don’t know why that should be either, because the Lido Ground is absolutely renowned for it’s ability to drain so on a wet day it is virtually guaranteed to be ‘game on’!

I first went back in 2003, a pre-season game against Sutton Town which the visitors won 4-2, and then it was another ten years, almost to the day, to watch Belper Town also win a friendly, this time 5-1.

The one and only competitive game I’ve seen at Clipstone was in October 2015 when they drew 2-2 with Handsworth Parramore, a game that became infamous because former Clippo Manager Brett Marshall (who was by now Manager at Staveley Miners Welfare) was refused admission to the ground! This lead to animosity between the two clubs and quite an interesting game between the two later that season at Staveley, which I also went to!

So, for the geographically challenged, where is Clipstone and how do you get to it?

Well, put simply it’s a village to the East of Mansfield, on the edges of Sherwood Pines Forest Park, and to get to it from my part of the UK you go up the A38 and then go round the edges of Mansfield on the A617. You then follow what is effectively a ring road round the East edge and come to the crossroads where Forest Town Miners Welfare is (AFC Mansfield) before doing a right and taking the road straight in. It’s a doddle, and as the ground is on the main road, I think even Mrs H would be able to find it!

The village itself has a population of around 5,000 and is a former mining community. The iconic headstocks from the pit era are still in place and can be seen on the right hand side as you head out of the village to the adjacent village of Kings Clipstone. They are apparently Grade Two listed structures, so they appear to remain safe for the time being at least.

The ground itself is a very tidy venue and one which the club should be very proud of.

The large car park sits behind the goal, with a small sided floodlit pitch adjacent to it. Once inside the ground a small area of cover with a row of seats sits to the right of the West goal, while to the left of where you enter behind the goal is the clubhouse and changing rooms.

The North side of the ground is covered for two third of the length, partly terracing and partly seats. The opposite side is hard standing while behind the East goal it’s out of bounds for spectators.

The pitch was in superb condition, as you would expect, while one of the impressive things about Clipstone over recent seasons has been their brilliant use of social media, and of course a superb match programme which is the best I’ve seen anywhere this season by a mile.

What about the game though?

Well before kick off the hosts had eleven points from their eight games and held a mid table berth, whereas the visitors from Derbyshire had a win and two draw from their seven games, which to be fair is a sign of improvement as the Vics have been whipping boys in recent seasons.

It was a relatively comfortable evening for Clippo in front of a crowd of just over 100. Charlie Dawes produced two neat finishes in the first half to give the hosts a deserved lead, while Jack and Lewis Warwick both netted in the second period. Vics put in the plenty of effort but little was created in the way of clear chances.

You sense Clippo, under the leadership of Dave Hoole, are perhaps on the way back, and with four promotion spots available from the East Midlands Counties League this season, is a return to Step 5 a possibility? Obviously it will be tough though with some big spenders around, and indeed big names like Hucknall, Eastwood, Sherwood, Ollerton, Clifton, Rainworth and Belper United.

Looking at some of those names, it’s starting to appear a bit like the old Notts Alliance all over again!