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.

Bradford City v Morecambe

The last time I watched a football match at Valley Parade, City were in the Premiership. A friend of mine had a season ticket and when he was unable to attend I went to three games, the opener of the season, a draw with Sheffield Wednesday and towards the end of the season I saw Southampton take the points away and also an extraordinary 4-4 draw with Derby County. Looking at those, I guess my friend was picking and choosing his games, as those teams aren't exactly the leading lights of English Football.

In 1999/2000 City finished 17th and lived to fight another season in the Premiership, thanks to a last day of the season victory against Liverpool, which if my memory served me correct also sent Bradford's bitter rivals Leeds into the Champions League places. The Homes of Football website has some good pictures from that particular day. City staying in the Premiership for another season with Geoffrey Richmond bankrupting them by making signings such as Benito Carbone in an attempt to stay there and Leeds making the Champions League and Peter Ridsdale 'living the dream' meant that fateful day in 2000, then a great day for football in West Yorkshire, helped contribute to the downfall of both clubs. In that season, Morecambe finished third in the Conference, some four divisions, or 77 league places, beneath City.

Ten places seperated the teams for their last games of 2008. Coming into the game, Morecambe were undefeated in 3 and City hadn't won in five, so the league placings don't exactly tell you anything. Morecambe were outsiders to win the game, but may have been worth a bet. City were 1-0 ahead at half time and I would say that the visitors matched them in the first half, a lot of Morecambe's chances came from capitalising on Bradford passing the ball in their own half, a tactic which didn't really work.

Morecambe continued to dominate a lot of the game, with some promising build-up play, but these were rendered fruitless by the City defence. The Bantams, attacking the Kop in the second half, scored about ten minutes in when Boulding raced in and passed a couple of watching Morecambe defenders to drive a shot beyond Roche in the Morecambe goal. City's third was a 25-yarder from Law (which I would like to see again) and the fourth was a Barry Conlon penalty, smashed into the bottom right, following a Morecambe handball. The scoreline flattered City, but no goals conceded in 270 minutes by the Bantams says it all.

Although I haven't watched football there for eight years, I regularly watched Bradford Bulls there during the 2001 and 2002 seasons whilst Odsal was being redeveloped, or should I say painted. It was good to be back in the Kop (Carlsberg Stand) again, but I forgot how drab it was, The concourse was what I imagine a prison would be like. The view from the top of the Kop is great, you can see the whole of south and central Bradford, which is a great backdrop for the rest of the Stadium, especially when darkness falls. The stand towers above the surrounding terraced housing and it used to tower over the rest of the ground when the Sunwin Stand didn't have its second tier added on, to run down two-thirds of the pitch.

The atmosphere was a bit flatter than I remembered City was were they in the Premiership, the ground was half-full today rather than sold-out as it was in the Premiership days, the Bradford End (TL Dallas Stand) now plays host to some singing home fans under its low roof, which probably took some of the noisy element out of the Kop. A crowd of 13,000 is very credible for this division though, especially against a team with only a small away following, City's attendances are boosted by relatively cheap season tickets, to take advantage of a stadium with a capacity designed for a time when Bradford were tearing up the Premiership.

The photos aren't that great, as I was so high up. I was far too high to get a picture of one of the finest mascots in the league, the City Gent aka Lenny. A portly man in a bowler hat, a city kit and a briefcase full of sweets.

Here we go: