Result: Newton-le-Willows 3-1 Atherton Laburnum Rovers u23 (Cheshire League 2)

Venue: Newton Sports Club (Saturday 18th February 2023; 2pm)

Att: 25 (approx.)

For this weekend I was, for once, pretty sure where I was to be headed from a fair way out. You see, I’d finally decided to get down to TNS and their Park Hall ground, which had always eluded me for one reason or another. However, come Saturday morning, those best laid plans would again fall by the wayside, as the trains began to slowly fall apart and so I was again left with my day’s venue up in the air.

So it was back to the drawing board and after toying with a few options around the country, as well as over the border into Wales, I eventually reckoned that I’d cut my losses where I was at and stick somewhat close to home. As a result, one game did stand out to me – that being Blackbrook near St. Helen’s, to whom I’ve pretty much promised I’ll make the effort to get down to at some point soon. However, the times were going to leave everything a little tight on that front and so I eventually chose to leave them for another time and a bit more of it too!

As such, I decided to head for the area of Newton-le-Willows and gave myself a dual chance of a new ground, with both Newton-le-Willows and Vulcan playing in and around the town. However, having missed out on Newton during my unintentional visit to the cricket club at the same venue at the very start of pre-season, I thought it was high-time to right that wrong and get it ‘ticked’ once and for all. And so I found myself making my way to the Newton Sports Club once again…just this time I was pretty safe in the knowledge that a game was going to be on when I arrived…famous last words, I know!

I arrived into the modern surroundings of Newton-le-Willows station at a little after midday and hastily made my way back up to the town’s main road, upon which pretty much all of the amenities around the area can be found. I was re-tracing my steps from my first somewhat fruitless visit here and so began with a visit to the first pub on the route up – this being a hotel/bar by the name of the Kirkfield. It’s pretty decent in here, albeit a tad on the small side (at least in what I know is certainly the bar area) and the pint of Asahi (£5.40) was good too.

Moving on, my next plan was to pop into the bottle shop and see what the situation was in there and if you could grab a drink within. Well, the answer was yes and no. You could certainly buy them, but nowhere was available to consume. Not to worry though and I bought a few German lagers (£10.40 for three) to have at a later date before popping across the road to the Pied Bull, a large, historic pub which sits slightly back from the more modern constructions which now surround it. Inside, I found it to be pretty empty, although I assume this was because the racegoers had already headed off to nearby Haydock and I’d missed the rush.

I opted for a pint of Moretti (£5) and settled in for a time, whilst toying with the idea of popping into the foody-bar place across the road again. This goes by the name of the Riddling Rack and given that I found the place friendly and just overall good quality last time I visited for a pint of Estrella (£5.50), I decided it’d be rude not to repeat the trick…and I found it to be just as good again. Nice welcome from the girls working here and the pint was absolutely en pointe too. Quality.

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Newton-le-Willows in a market town within the Metropolitan Borough of St. Helen’s, Merseyside. It lies at the eastern edge of the borough and to the south of Wigan and north of Warrington, with the town first beginning to be mentioned as a township in the 12th century, usually under the name Newton-in-Makersfield. Historically, though, the town has been known by both affix names, as to differentiate it from other towns that have the same name – Newton.

The name Newton itself does simply mean ‘new town’, with Makerfield being from the ancient Brittonic words ‘mager’ (wall) and ‘field’. The town can be traced back to the times of the Domesday Book as ‘Neweton’, whilst the spelling of Makerfield has changed over the year too, from Makeresfield in 1205 and 1351, Makefield in 1206, Makerefield in 1213 and Makerfield since 1242 (aside that odd return mentioned above). The town formed the part of the historic county of Lancashire from the early times of the county, initially being a fee of Makerfield, before being made a parliamentary borough, which it remained as from 1558-1882.

From 1882-1894, Newton fell under the control of court leet and improvement conditioners, which oversaw the developing industrial town’s move into being an urban district under the name of Newton-in-Makerfield. This name was changed in 1939 to the current one: Newton-le-Willows. In 1974, the Urban District Council of Newton-le-Willows merged with the neighbouring local authorities to create the St. Helen’s Metropolitan Borough Council in the newly-formed ceremonial county of Merseyside.

Before the time of the Norman Conquest, Newton was the head of a hundred – taking in five ‘hides’ including itself. The lord of the manor was Edward the Confessor himself until his death in 1066, upon which the battle for the crown began. The hundred was subsequently combined with the Warrington and Derby hundreds to form the West Derby Hundred. Later on into the annuls of history, the fields between Newton and Winwick were the site of one of the final battles of the Second English Civil War, seeing the Royalist and Parliamentarian forces face-off against each other once more.

Newton-le-Willows, one of the first ‘railway town’s was built around this transportation of coal and is currently home to two railway stations, having once had no less than five. One holds the name of the town, whilst the other is known as Earlestown and is notable for being a rare example of a triangular station. The stations opened in 1830, with Earlestown located at an important junction which saw the original Liverpool and Manchester line join with the 1837 line, the latter of which ran southwards to Birmingham.

Back in t’day, there was three other local stations, one of which was Parkside, which was the scene of the first recorded railway fatality in which William Huskisson MP, a financier of the railway, somehow (perhaps due to illness/cognitive issues) contrived to get himself run over by by Robert Stephenson’s pioneering Rocket locomotive. You pass the memorial to this en route from Manchester. Newton is passed through by the Sankey Canal and is crossed over, upon the Sankey Viaduct, by the first passenger railway in the world. Apparently, the old platform 2 waiting room is thought to be one of the oldest remaining railway buildings.

The town is split into two wards, N-l-W and Earlestown, and is located just off the East Lancashire Road, M6 and M62 motorways, aiding in Newton becoming a large commuter town. The town once also had its own racecourse, before this closed in 1898 to be replaced by Haydock Park. The Old Newton Cup is the world’s oldest continually competed for trophy, with a history dating back over 200 years.

Notable people from Newton-le-Willows include the likes of actress Lynda La Plante, Noble Prize winning scientist Rodney Porter, fellow scientist and a man instrumental in the development of radar (via cavity magnetron) John Randall, Norman Harvey VC, Crystal Palace defender Martin Kelly, actual Big Cook, Steve Marsh (“BE CAREFUL, BEN!!!”), and singer Rick Astley. It was also the long-time home of the late Oscar-winning writer and actor Colin Welland, who won the award for writing the script for the film Chariots of Fire.

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From the Riddling Rack, it was just up the way to the top of the road and my first new pub call in Newton-le-Willows (it was only one of two I didn’t get to the previous time), this being the ground-neighbouring Oak Tree. This is another pub which seems to be of a slightly older time and I again found it to be a nice, welcoming place to pay a visit to. The staff were friendly as I entered and I was served swiftly with another pint of Moretti (£5.40), which kept me busy for the next 20 minutes or so, before I had to pop just down the road and back upon myself to the ground. Possible future thought – put in a gate at the back of the car park for access to the ground so all can have five minutes longer!! Just kidding…or am I?!

I arrived back at the familiar pavilion building and passed just along the right-hand side of it, following the road around to the car park and the three pitches which sit out beyond it. Two of these are used by the rugby sides here (along with the rather worryingly named room ‘The Torture Chamber’) with the football pitch alongside one of these. There’s not a whole lot of note about the ground, in truth, with it being your standard Step 7/feeder ground. It’s fully railed off and has a dugout on either side, although there is yet to be any hard standing put in place. There’s a bit of a raised mound at the near end you enter from, which affords a slightly raised view of the action, should you so wish to have such a sight. That’s the ground in short and this is the story behind Newton-le-Willows’ football club…

History Lesson:

Newton-le-Willows Football Club was founded around 20 years ago and played out of the Warrington & District League originally, from at least 2005, when they were competing in the league’s Division 2. Success seemed to elude Newton-le-Willows during their time here, (details are hard to come by on the whole, though, so I may be wrong)but the club had progressed into the Division 1 by the time the 2014-’15 season had come around, although they were flitting between Divisions 2 and 1 around this time.

Having finished 8th in Division 2 in 2015, the club were still moved into Division One, where they would finish 10th and second-bottom the year after and were relegated. The club then bottom of Division 2 the season following that, with 2017 seeing them only record an 8th placed finish in Division 3. Further re-organisation ahead of the 2017-’18 season obviously began a turning of fortunes for the club and by the end of the truncated 2020-21 season, they found themselves back in the First Division. Newton-le-Willows moved up to the Cheshire League ahead of the 2021-’22 campaign, with the club joining the ranks of their League 2. Their debut year saw them finish up in a solid 7th place out of 12 competing sides.

However, Newton-le-Willows did have earlier sides who represented the town. The original Newton-le-Willows FC was founded sometime around 1894 and played in local football at a ground behind the Pied Bull pub, prior to joining The Combination in 1900. They played in The Combination for the next three years, prior to moving into the Lancashire Combination as founder members of their newly-created Division 2. Here, they would spend five seasons, largely struggling at the wrong end of the table, prior to folding after finishing bottom of the Second Division in 1908.

The next club to carry the town’s name was Newton Football Club. Joining the Mid-Cheshire League in 1973, Newton were later moved into the league’s Division 1 after the league split into two divisions in 1975 and entered the FA Vase for the first time in 1977-’78, defeating both North Withington and Old Blackburnians, before losing out to the catchily-named Leeds & Carnegie Polytechnic in Round 3. Despite entering the competition on another four occasions, Newton would not win another Vase match.

In 1979, the club was renamed as H B & H Newton but reverted to their original name after three seasons. It was upon this 1982 name change that the club became founding members of the North West Counties League, being placed in the league’s Third Division, where they remained until the division was disbanded and all clubs moved into Division 2 in 1987. The club had looked fairly strong in Division 3, finishing a best of 3d in 1985, but things soon worsened. After Newton had finished bottom of the league in both 1989 and 1990, the club departed the league and dropped into the Warrington & District League, where they spent their last few years of action before eventually folding.

The game got underway with Newton having the better of the early sparring, creating a couple of half-chances which didn’t cause the visiting ‘keeper much issue. However, he was beaten not too long after these when, after #11’s initial shot had been palmed wide for a corner, the resultant set-piece was turned in on the line to give the home side a deserved lead.

Their situation only improved when #10 fired in from the edge of the area to double the hosts’ advantage, before Atherton finally began to create some notable chances towards the end of the half. First, #9 took advantage of a kind ricochet, only to fire wastefully wide of the mark, before getting his radar back on track and firing home just before the break to halve the deficit. Half-time; 2-1.

After a brief pop back into the pavilion during the break, I’d somehow missed the players having returned to the pitch and so missed the first couple of minutes of play after the match’s resumption. As it was, I hadn’t missed much. Atherton’s #11 had a chance to draw his side level, but could only shoot wide of the upright, before Newton responded with another dangerous corner – this one seeing #8’s effort deflected narrowly wide.

But they would grab a third to restore their two-goal lead when #17 judged a loose ball’s bounce to beat the ‘keeper to it and duly head it into the net. This largely knocked the stuffing out of the Atherton side, who’d grown into the game much more by that point, and the latter part of the contest largely saw them return to being the somewhat toothless threat going forward, as they were early in the piece.

As for Newton, they went close to adding a fourth when #12 nicked the ball off of Atherton’s #5 before unleashing a cracking drive which crashed off the crossbar and over. So unfortunate. As time wore on, Atherton did almost set up a grandstand finish, but #4’s close range effort was well kept out by the home stopper, before his opposite number matched him in denying #12’s initial effort in fine fashion, with the rebound being offside – a bit of fortune he had earned. But it was all too little for his side in this game, as the points stayed in Newton-le-Willows. Full-time; 3-1.

As the final whistle blew, I quickly made my exit and headed off in the opposite direction from the ‘town centre’, as it were, and to the Old Crow. It was far more busy in here upon my arrival than it had been on the last occasion I was here – indeed, it was pretty packed out. Having said that, it was still comfortable and I settled in for a good while over a pint of Moretti (£4.20) to watch the second halves of the games around the country via the medium of Soccer Saturday, whilst also catching a bit of BigJetTV on my phone – given it was the anniversary of that mad day when everyone became enamoured by planes and especially their flight crews!

It seemed as though taking a fair while over it may have cost me dearly, as I started to feel a bit ‘meh’, although not as bad as the couple near me who continually had to get one of their young dogs to reign in its excitement over seeing another canine just across the room. Imagine if humans did this every time they saw another? Mayhem. Anyway, I decided to battle on and made my way back to the main street and the other place I didn’t manage to get to last time:- a micropub by the name of The Firkin.

There was more canine action in here too, as I made the acquaintance of a small one in here, whilst I supped at a pint of cider which was named Ascension Pilot (£4.20). Hey, I had to keep that aviation link going somehow! From here, it was off to my final stop at the Stocks Tavern, which is located just across the road from the Kirkfields and thus a short walk from the station. However, I didn’t expect to find the place absolutely rammed as I entered, although I was served pretty quickly. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to really see what they had on offer and so opted for a Carlsberg (£4.20, I think!) as it was only one of the things I could easily pick out. It was that or Carling, so give me a bit of leeway, please!!

Anyway, this was okay but didn’t really sit well with me really as I didn’t really want Carlsberg at this point. However, I did get to see Liverpool do Manchester United a big favour in aiding our League Cup final attempts in getting Nick Pope to do something a little bit more weird than goalkeepers usually get up to and recieving his marching orders. Anyway, come half-time and having only standing room only in the Stocks and with the place rather uncomfortably warm, I decided I’d head off a bit earlier than planned and thus get a quicker trip homewards. As my stomach decied to begin to play up properly now, it was a good choice! Bloody occasional reflux issues.

Anyway, aside from this mini set-back, the journey home went very smoothly and the slight delay on the train’s arrival into Newton-le-Willows meant I had no wait now upon my arrival back in Manchester, which was a welcome occurrence. Thus ended what had been a decent day out and one which I was finally happy to get off the list of ‘near-misses’! I again enjoyed my tour of Newton-le-Willows’ drinking holes and I found the game itself to be watchable. The ground isn’t much to write home about, of course, but it is fine for what it is and, as part of the wider sports club, definitely fits in nicely.

No issues with transport either, in the end, so I was pleased in that regard as it looked like things were only getting worse if I’d have opted to travel a little further afield and so I could pat myself on the back for a good day’s work…anyway, I just hope to have no such issues blighting my alcohol enjoyment next weekend as I look to again stay somewhere loc…oh (K)nuts, it’s a late change of scenery once more. I’d love it if a plan came together…

RATINGS:

Game: 6

Ground: 5

Food: N/A (although I assume there was some on in the pavilion again?)

Programme: N/A

Value For Money: 7