Farsley Celtic 1908 - 2010: Thank you for the memories - part one

March 10th 2010, the day that Farsley Celtic were finally disbanded after over one hundred years existance. It was also the same day that Chester City were wound up after 126 years. Recent years has seen the demise of several clubs such as Telford, Halifax and Scarborough, something is clearly wrong and needs to change. It is possible that Farsley might have been rescued from oblivion if the Administrators hadn't been so unreasonable charging ridiculously large fees. But the reason why Farsley have headed towards oblivion essentially stem from the spending money that was essentially predicated on a housing development that never happened, thanks mainly to the Leeds City Council planning committee, but also the credit crunch and subsequent slow down in the property industry.

I first got taken to watch Farsley Celtic by my father in the early-mid 1990s, mainly because it was far too expensive and poor value for money to go watch Leeds United, how times haven't changed. I remember very little about watching football in those days at Throstle Nest, it was more about going to the tea hut around the back of the stand and getting cones of greasy chips, bags of penny sweets and cans of pop. The shed behind the goal offered shelter from the windy conditions (it is always windy at Throstle Nest) and it had some wooden seats that were covered in dust, and terracing that was dust. When I got a bit older at Throstle Nest, I used to take great interest in the club shop, a portakabin full of about 10% merchandise and 90% programmes, where I occasionally bought bundles of programmes for a quid or so. When my friends and I were once at the Nest, we bought our form teacher a York City programme for his leaving present, as he was a long suffering fan of the Minster Men.

Going to Throstle Nest, watching such luminaries as Robbie Whellans, Calvin Allen, Steve Learoyd and Ian Blackstone became a part of life on cold mid-late '90s Saturday afternoons. Buying 10p mixes, early '90s football league programmes and watching Unibond First Division football, followed by three hours of warming up at home in front of the Brookside omnibus, Gladiators and Noel's House Party kind of sums up mid-1990s Saturdays for me.

I grew up in Horsforth and went to school in Menston and remember trying to whip up a bit of Farsley v Guiseley fervour, when the clubs played each other in the FA Cup Qualifying rounds (I think!). At the time, Guiseley had been in a division higher than Farsley for quite a few years, indeed Guiseley were very close to getting into the Conference in the early 90s, whilst Farsley languised in the bottom half of the Unibond First Division for many seasons in the 90s. The Farsley - Guiseley fervour worked to some extent as we went to a game and had fun in the way that boisterous 14 year olds do. No one else really came back for some more though.

Other games that excited people from school to go to were friendlies against our professional neighbours. One particular game that stands out is a visit of Bradford City, probably a year or two before they got promoted to the Premier League, with the Bantam's brazilian cult hero Edinho scoring and celebrating exuberantly. I remember a later visit of Bradford where Ashley Ward missed a penalty for them. Leeds visited a few times, probably around the time of their meteoric rise and fall, as did a Celtic XI (i.e. the Scottish Celtic).

One particular memory of watching the Celtic didn't involve any football at all. Myself and a couple of friends travelled to Morecambe on a wet autumn day for an FA Cup qualifying round (it may have been the final qualifying round, I can't remember) only for the game to be called off. Still, it was a great day out for as, as young 'uns, to have a day away from home and to travel on the player's coach.

At around the turn of the millennium, I remember a couple of occasions from the clubhouse at Throstle Nest. One of these was an end of season presentation evening, where Martin Haresign's trousers split. I also saw in the new millennium in the Throstle Nest club, as a fifteen year old.