In what will transpire to be a remarkably prescient decision, I opted not to follow Forest to Stoke today. I have no fond memories of football in Stoke. On the train home from a match at Everton once in the middle eighties, some slack-jawed yokel in a half-Stoke/half Celtic ski-hat punched me in the head, pretty feebly truth be told. Other than that, nothing. For me, Stoke is for fantastic Northern Soul all-nighters and the characters and chancers on that scene, but that’s not for here.
Instead, I headed North, overt the border into Yorkshire, for the Preliminary Round of the FA Cup. Or the Emirates FA Cup, if we’re going to be picky. Carlton were at Maltby Main, only a 45 minute drive from home, admission a snip at a fiver and a new town in the Eye-Spy Book of Towns to tick off.
Muglet Lane is the first road you reach, approaching Maltby from the A1 side. The floodlights are easy to spot and , frankly, there’s not much else around by way of distraction. I pulled up at the boarded-up fire damaged Miners Welfare overlooking the ground. The lamp-posts had warning signs attached about the perils of nitrous oxide canisters, which presumably are a hazard. A quick circumnavigation suggested a town having difficult times. In fact, a town that has been having difficult times for quite a while. What looked like it may well have once been a thriving shopping street looked decayed and largely closed. The steel grey, threatening skies didn’t help.
Ten minutes spend Googling and the back-story for Maltby is clear. Whatever metric you look at – and I looked at lots – it’s struggling: Top (worst) 10% locality nationally for deprivation, poorer than 96.5% of all SOAs, the Super Output Areas these things are measured in; life expectancy for men up to 15 years lower than other areas, even locally; for children, a 31% likelihood of a life with no meaningful work.
And, of course, what has gone here is the colliery, Maltby Main, the very raisin d’etre for the town, founded in 1907 and producing coal from 1912. By the ‘30s, Maltby was producing a million tonnes a year and the original small village population had swollen to over 7,000. Working conditions were tough and dangerous: Maltby was famously hot, typically over 40 degrees; an explosion in 1923 claimed 27 lives, of which only one body was recovered, now buried in the local graveyard as The Unknown Miner.
Present day Maltby might be worth a long, hard look at for Sir Keir Starmer. In the ‘70s the (constantly) Labour MP for the constituency could confidently bank on over 70% of the vote. Last time around, that had fallen to 32% and the Rother Valley returned a Conservative MP for the first time. The ‘metropolitan elites’ have no idea. They almost certainly couldn’t really even get their heads around Nottingham and this is another world again. If I were a voter here, I’d be wondering just where years of Labour loyalty had got me and my community. I’d be puzzled to the point of anger at the concept of white-privilege, not feeling very privileged in any way shape or form. As far as Brexit went, I think I’d have been struggling to see just what Europe had done for me and mine. All in all, I might well have fancied ‘sticking it to the man’, regardless of what that brought about. None of that would make me racist, fascist, stupid or in any other way unlikeable. Just despondent and desperate for things to change.
Head reeling from the thoughts outlined above, which act as a wake up call for a comfortable middle-class lefty like myself, I head to the ground, past the field where the pit ponies used to graze.
In March 1913, the Earl of Scarborough, as a result of demand from miners for organised sporting activity, granted a lease for a recreation ground. Football was always the sport of choice and the football club was founded in 1916.
Much of this was explained to me by club-historian and Honorary President, Peter Kenny, to whom I’d been introduced by the energetic and welcoming Chairman Wilf Race, by some distance incumbent of the best name I’ve come across in a long time. Both men have long connections with the club, as players and management. Peter’s Dad, a Scot who, like hundreds of others came to the area to work in the colliery, had been a prominent player mid-century.
Over a cup of tea in the clubhouse, Peter filled me in on the history, presenting me with a copy of his fascinating and comprehensive history of the club, The Main Men. A real love letter to coalfield football. The sign above the gate had proclaimed ‘The Small Club With The Big Heart’. No idle boast that. Not only was the cuppa free but Peter would take nothing for his book either.
We discussed the importance of keeping the memory of the colliery and the name of the town alive. Not only here, but across the coalfield, clubs have clung proudly onto the mining reference in their names.
Peter explained how the freehold recreation ground had passed to the National Coal Board and, on privatisation of Maltby Main, to a charity, CISWO (Coal Industry Social and Welfare Organisation). CISWO, he explained, would not permit a bar on the site, thus depriving the club of a decent income source. Money has always been tight and the club has folded several times but always returned for the ashes. A chance to earn a bit more brass today was probably going to be missed due to a turnstile failure at Millmoor where Rotherham were taking on local rivals Wednesday in a one o’clock kick off. It had been hoped that a decent number might fit in both matches, but the delay there scuppered that.
A tenuous personal connection here. Peter showed me the team sheet from 1951-2 on which a certain FS Trueman, Fiery Fred himself, is playing centre-forward for Maltby Main. Fred, from nearby Stainton ,was genuinely good friends with my Mum and Dad, to the point they attended his daughter’s wedding to Raquel Welch’s son. Now, there’s glamour for you! Many a time as a student, I’d come home and open the front door to be overwhelmed by a fog of Fred’s billowing pipe smoke. We’d argue about politics – he was a diehard Conservative of the old one-nation type – and I’d ask him about the glory days, not of the cricket but of The Indoor League, the truly exotic ITV mix of darts, pool, bar billiards, table football, skittles and arm-wrestling. Fred hosted this cavalcade of pub—game fun from 72 to 75, usually in a rustic cardigan, never without his pipe on the go and always signing off with “Ah’ll si thee.”
Next, I was introduced to local legend and club stalwart Jim Liversidge, Chair of the Juniors, who outlined the importance of youth football in an area with so little else to do for the youngsters. After 30 or more years of service, Jim was about to retire but a ‘new Jim’ had been found.
Shortly before kick off, the travelling support arrived, via Wetherspoons, and there were some familiar, friendly faces from Tuesday night amongst the dozen or so CTFC followers.
The match itself was a cracker. Underdogs Maltby Main aggressively took the game to their higher league opponents and were unlucky not to lead at half time, having hit the woodwork three times and with Carlton’s keeper a clear MOTM. Carlton’s one chance was a penalty, dragged weakly left by normally reliable powerhouse forward Aaron Opoku.
Carlton started the second half much more brightly and soon went ahead with a deftly taken flick. After that, an end to end, highly entertaining match followed. Heavy rain sent me scuttling from behind the goal to the covered stands, where I could fully appreciate the ear-ache the linesman was getting from all parties. Notably, a trio of extraordinarily well-oiled young Wednesday-ties arrived, adding some, err, ‘colour’ the the ambience. Asked by Peter to mind their language, quip of the day came back, with no malice, “Fookin’ ell, I’ll have no fookin’ words left to use!” Ultimately, I suspect rapidly kicking in hangovers did the job and relative quiet prevailed. No problem.The lads took it and showed due respect.
Late on, as the Miners pressed, chances opened up for Carlton, but went begging. Gloom prevailed and the floodlights flickered into life. With about ten minutes left on the clock, a fabulous cut-in and strike from the edge of the box brought Maltby a well-deserved draw. Maybe still less than they deserved.
The magic of The Cup. No extra-time or penalties, so straight to a replay at Carlton on Tuesday. I shall be there to cheer on the Millers, but I’d not be unhappy to see a win for the Miners either. I’ll look forward to re-acquainting myself with Wilf and Peter and I’ll be handing over £30 to sponsor a player’s away kit for the season. Clubs like this need to survive. They need supporting. In a week in in which Chelsea have chucked around 97 million on a player they once sold for a third of that and Man City continue to sniff around Harry Kane for over a hundred million the inequality in football is stark. W6, S66. Chelsea, Maltby Main. Abramovic, Wilf Race. It’s no less stark in the real world. But football is important, or at least as Jurgen Klopp has sagely (and repeatedly) put it “the most important of the least important things.”
Prescience? Absolutely. This was a heart-warming afternoon out on a day when Forest managed one ballooned shot at goal, ironically cheered by 2,600 travelling supporters, who chanted a previous manager’s name and that we’re “going down with the Derby.” Calls for CH to go dominate Twitter, worth some reference to “Billy Davies III … Unfinished Business”. The only glimmer of humour coming from RJP – “It’s fine. Calm down. I’ve fixed it.” Above an image of the league table turned upside down.
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