ERFC Programme Saturday 8th Sept 2023

EYNESBURY ROVERS FC SEASON 2023 / 2024

Saturday 9th September 2023

The Sports Ground Development UCL Cup

Newark & Sherwood United KO 3:00pm

WELCOME TO EYNESBURY ROVERS FC

Saturday 9th September 2023

TEAM SQUAD

Assistants

NEXT GAME : Saturday 16th September 2023 - Daventry Town v ERFC

Referee – Scott Hanna

– Stewart Horn / Paul Black

League Table as at 8th September 2023

FIRST TEAM MATCH REPORT

Tuesday 5th September 2023

UCL Premier Division South EYNESBURY ROVERS 1 WELLINGBOROUGH TOWN 1

Eynesbury Rovers followed up their first win of the season with a hard fought 1-1 draw against much tougher opposition in Wellingborough Town. The visitors had played six, won four, drawn one and lost one ahead of this league fixture and they started the better side. However, wayward finishing cost them dearly.

After Kian Coles shot wide from 18 yards for Rovers the visitors squandered a good chance when Jorrin John shot wide with just the goalkeeper to beat. Coles’ skills saw him wriggle away from four defenders before setting up Jamaine Ivy but he could not get a clean strike on the ball and was easily saved by Ashley Bodycote. Just a minute later Reece Lewis came to Rovers rescue as he made the first of many top saves as he denied Nehemiah Richard-Noel.

Eynesbury took the lead in the 26th minute with a sweeping end to end move. Ryan Inskip brought the ball out of his own penalty area before finding Ivy. The striker slotted the ball to Owen Dixon on the left and he fired an unstoppable shot past Bodycote.

Unfortunately Wellingborough equalised just two minutes later when Richard-Noel was through with just the goalkeeper to beat and he slotted the ball home. Reece Lewis kept the scores level going into the break after he pushed away a Lloyd Buckby strike from inside the penalty area.

In the second half the visitors created the better of the chances but were let down by either wayward finishing or denied by the goalkeeping of Rovers shot-stopper. Lewis made saves from Tom Iaciafano and Richard-Noel to preserve Rovers’ point whilst Eynesbury’s best chances were a Rhys Thorpe shot, which went straight at Bodycote, and a far post header by Billy Roberts that missed the target.

All in all it was a satisfactory point that lifted Eynesbury up to 16th in the league table.

Next up they turn their attention to Cup matters when they host Newark & Sherwood United in the UCL KO Cup Preliminary Round on Saturday 9th September, kick off 3.00pm.

Today’s Visitors

Founded in 1901 as AJ Simpson and Co., the football club began life in the Newark Ironmongers’ League. No records survive from those early days, but it is known that in 1935 the club, now renamed Worthington Simpson, entered the Nottingham Spartan League.

After winning back-to-back titles, Simmo’s or the Works (as the club became known locally) joined the Notts Alliance League in 1949, going on to win that title in the momentous football years of 1953 and 1966.

The Notts Alliance Cup brought the club’s greatest success up to that point, first in 1970 beating Notts Combined Police two-nil in a replay at Notts County’s Meadow Lane ground and then the trophy returning to Newark in 1972 after an epic five-three extra time victory, the team coming back from three goals down to restore parity in the fourth minute of injury time with George Best look alike Donny Hage jinking through the Thoresby defence to send the five coach loads of supporters delirious. The trophy returned to Newark again 1981, 1989 and finally 1999 when a single Gary Breden proved the difference.

Name changes followed in the late ‘90s, first to IDP and then to Newark Flowserve, and in 2004 the club’s name was entered into the first level of the FA’s national pyramid by joining the Central Midlands League Premier Division. Following a short break, the first team re-formed in 2013 and finished a creditable third in Notts Senior League (NSL) Division Two, securing promotion to the First Division. Another successful campaign followed a year later when the team finished runners-up and clinched their place in the NSL Premier Division, taking the club back to step seven football.

The Highwaymen – named after the town’s historic links with the ‘noble’ art – won the NSL Premier division and league cup double in magnificent style, finishing a remarkable 25 points clear of runners-up Awsworth Villa.

Season 2018/19 saw the club playing step six football in the East Midlands Counties Football League (EMCFL) where they achieved a second place and promotion to the Midland Football League Premier Division. For the second year running the club also picked up the league cup, this time the EMCFL League Cup!

Sadly the 2019/20 season was ended abruptly because of the global CVOID-19 pandemic, however, the club finished in 4th place in the league, were still in the MFL League Cup and were in the semi-finals of the Nottinghamshire FA’s Senior Cup. To add to this, club had been accepted into The FA Vase for the first time in its history – a debut which saw them bow out in the last 32 of the competition at Preston based Longridge Town. Notwithstanding the promotions achieved in the previous three seasons, it is generally accepted that this was certainly on par with anything else achieved by the club in its long history.

1st September 2020 was memorable for two firsts with 250 spectators and the TV cameras seeing a four-nil victory under the new floodlights in a debut F.A. Cup match against Deeping Rangers. After beating Maltby Main “the highwaymen” travelled to step three side Rushden & Diamonds and raced into a three-goal lead inside twenty minutes before recording a five goal victory and the performance of the round award.

In May 2020 after requests from The FA over sponsorship issues relating to any future promotion the club dropped the Flowserve and became Newark FC.

Lowfields played host to county cricket with the likes of Gary Sobers, Richard Hadlee and Derek Randell all hitting the ball out of the ground while the bowls greens hosted some of the best players in the county. Before the eighties rebuild the pavilion was a wooden structure with two gigantic baths, one for each team, taking the whole of the second half the fill.

With the factory closed it was inevitable the club’s famous old ground with its all history would be lost and the club found itself ground sharing at Basford United for a traumatic 21/22 season.

With new investment, a change of name and a management team lead by ex-Lincoln City star Nathan Arnold, 22/23 looks promising. Newark & Sherwood United have moved back to the Newark area at Collingham’s upgraded Station Road ground until new state of the art facilities is built in the town.

Great names from the past include George Lambert who served as secretary for over fifty years and Gerry Fell who once scored sixty-six goals in one Notts Alliance season before going on to play for Leicester and Brighton. Never forgotten centre- forwards include George Bower, Gerry Booth, Mark Gore and latterly Elliot King who ended his time playing for Newark on ninety-nine goals.

At the other end of the pitch Dennis Judson was the custodian in the glory years while the younger generation will remember seventeen-year-old Garry Attwood making his debut and becoming Newark’s all-time number one keeper, the older guys will pick “Judo”. Having been lucky enough to see both in action I will find a fence to sit on. For over eighty years the club played in an all-white strip making this their tradition kit, after spells in purple, yellow and latterly orange its Nottinghamshire green for this season’s home kit.

As the club embarks on a new exciting era take time out to remember there is one hundred and twenty- one years of tradition to follow.