Solomon Browne

Mousehole  1  Millbrook  2

Western Football League – Premier Division

The Solomon Browne left her station just outside of the Cornish village of Mousehole on the evening of 19^th December 1981, after receiving the call to aid the stricken vessel, Union Star. She was never to return.

The Penlee Lifeboat Disaster saw sixteen lives lost, eight of whom were local volunteer lifeboatmen. Winds of 100 mph and 60 feet waves proved too much for the boat and it’s immensely brave crew, at just after 8pm on that fateful evening, radio contact was lost, the boats lights went out, and over the coming days wreckage was found washed up on the shore.

The village of Mousehole remembers, each year on the anniversary the Christmas lights are turned off at 8pm for an hour as a mark of remembrance, while on the site of the former Penlee boathouse, a memorial garden has been created.

A new lifeboat station was built in nearby Newlyn which allowed for a larger and faster boat to be moored, but it still called the Penlee Lifeboat Station.

The village of Mousehole (pronounced ‘Mowzel’) sits to the West of Penzance, and is home to only a few hundred residents. The beautiful harbour sees fishing boats moored, while around the edges are a small selection of pubs, shops and restaurants. It’s a delightful place, and one that is visited regularly by tourists and holidaymakers, indeed we paid a visit on our Summer holiday last year.

What we didn’t do last year though was visit Mousehole AFC, we were going to, but our plans were scuppered on the previous Saturday when FA Cup results didn’t go the right way and as a result the home game we had lined up was called off.

So what’s the story behind Mousehole AFC then, the most Westerly club in the Non-League System, and, a club that has designs on climbing the pyramid and becoming the number one club in Cornwall?

The club known as the Seagulls were formed in 1922 (yes 100 years old this year) and in 1960 joined the Cornwall Combination, where they remained until 2007 when a runners-up spot saw them promoted to the newly formed South West Peninsula League. In 2015-16 they won Division One West with an incredible record of winning 30 of their 32 games, scoring 131 goals in the process.

They remained in the Western Division when it got elevated to Step 6 through restructuring, and then they found themselves promoted to the Western League for the first time at the start of the 2021-22 season thanks to the points per game method adopted by the FA at the time. Last season they finished third and only just missed out on promotion to the Southern League.

There was controversy though at the end of last season, a game against Keynsham Town was never played as the Bath based side refused to travel to West Cornwall for a midweek game, after the original game on a Saturday had been postponed. This is one of the issues that the FA are currently tackling.

For any Cornwall based teams (bearing in mind Mousehole is on the very West point of the County) wanting promotion to Step 5, they have historically had to join the Western League which involves journey’s to places as far away as Bristol. We could be talking up to four hours each way on a bus to do that. Along with Mousehole, fellow West Cornwall clubs Helston Athletic and Falmouth Town have taken the plunge in recent seasons, but the footprint remains too large geographically so the FA’s plan is to create an extra Step 5 league that covers Cornwall and West Devon(ish). It won’t keep everyone happy I’m sure, but it will help. Beyond Step 5, which is only surely a matter of time for Mousehole, is another story. We can recall the noise when Truro City were climbing the pyramid and the concerns about travelling (not from Truro btw – the opponents!), well Mousehole is an hour further on than Truro, so clubs will have to simply get on with it, and, I might add, you don’t hear Mousehole complaining about their own travelling.

Digression aside, how come they are on such an upward trajectory? Well since 2017 the club has had a sponsorship arrangement with a company called the Endorsed Group, and part of that initiative is to create an academy for aspiring footballers in the County to progress. So financially they are in a good place, but the plan is to be sustainable with it.

Trungle Parc sits outside of Mousehole in a village called Paul. Paul is even smaller than Mousehole, but the ground is well signed as you enter, and after working your way up a narrow track you arrive at a large car park, and only then do you realise that by coastal standards, you are pretty high up!

The first impressions of the football club are very positive. The ground is very tidy, the clubhouse is excellent and the socials are very good, in fact they have their own documentary on You Tube called ‘Way Out West’ which journals the events of last season, and that I have to say is very professionally made and well worth a watch. Plenty of club officials were busy working at the ground, and you got the distinct feeling that this was not only a club on the up, but a club being well run at the same time.

The clubhouse sits to the side of a small seated stand and the adjacent dressing rooms, while the other area of cover at the ground is at the car park end, where the poignantly named Solomon Browne Stand sits, complete with a plaque remembering those who lost their lives in 1981.

A crowd of just under 200 were treated to a superb game of football against Plymouth based Millbrook (a side who were promoted at the same time as Mousehole). The hosts started brightly but it was the visitors who took the lead in the tenth minute when Tylor Love-Holmes scored with a well directed header. Mousehole regained the initiative in the game and pushed forward, playing a combination of excellent quick passing with tempo, and well measured diagonal balls to wide areas, but credit to Millbrook who had a game plan, were well coached, and they stuck to it resolutely.

More pressure at the start of the second half did eventually tell when Millbrook were unable to clear their lines, allowing Jack Calver to drill home powerfully from 20 yards. You could have been forgiven at that point for thinking the hosts would go on to cut loose and win the game, but Millbrook had other ideas.

Valiant defending kept the home side at bay, but then with less than ten minutes remaining Mousehole’s Paulo Sousa was forced into an error and gave the ball away to Sean Thomson who went through on goal and neatly chipped Ollie Chenoweth. More Mousehole pressure came as they searched for a second equaliser, but huge credit to Millbrook who put in so much effort, as they said after the game, not many sides will go to Trungle Parc and get three points this season.

Considering we’d had a heatwave for the previous four days, the game was played out in drizzly rain that turned quite sharp at times, with a mist forming in the distance out towards the harbour. It was quite an evocative scene, and as we made our way down the tight lanes and down the hill towards Newlyn, you couldn’t help but think about those men that were lost in 1981 when the Solomon Browne never came home, and the community that every Christmas, remembers.