A Club on the Up

A Club on the Up

Back in 2007, Staveley Miners Welfare Football Club faced extinction, their football club committee had resigned en masse due to retirement and just pure time issues. The club itself is actually still owned by the Miners Welfare committee and they were not actively seeking new buyers, but when Terry Damms, a Sheffield born businessman with an 85% shareholder in a Nottinghamshire based company called Baris Fabrications, heard on the non league grapevine that Staveley were in trouble, he made the call to the committee to see if he could help. As a result, we see a Staveley side that are top of the Northern Counties East Division One, a reserve side that usually finish in the top two of their division and the U19’s who win awards on a regular basis. They have won the Wilkinson Sword Shield twice, in 2008 and 2009. The U19’s have won the League Cup, the reserves have finished the season runners up twice as well. 

Let’s go back to when Terry Damms took over, the bold but not brash chairman stated in a club mission statement, “To bring Northern League Football and North Midland Under 19 Divison One football to Staveley by promoting and developing local youth footballers from the Chesterfield and Sheffield surrounding areas”. The Under 19’s are in the Division One of their set up, Damms is pretty adamant that he has failed though, “I’ve failed by a year, I’ve got a 50% pass rate, but if I can see how many honours we’ve won in that period then I wouldn’t change that, if we can win the league and win a cup competition this season, it will be a fantastic achievement by a great set of people”.  

Damms' states that he wants the local community involved as much as possible, “it’s been hard to get people here to be honest, Staveley needs a knee jerk reaction and as part of the community we aim to do that, we have provided over £10,000 to local charities and we have also provided high visibility jackets to local schools. We’re going to have an Under 9’s and Under 11’s tournament at the end of the season to attract local youngsters to the club. I’ve got big plans for this club and to make a local football club from the local community. If we could get 50 to 100more supporters then we could get crowds of 200 here. The prime example in local non league terms is Alfreton Town, they were a Northern Counties East Divison side and look at where they are now. We only charge £4 for adults and £2 for children to come and see an exciting young side that we have here at Staveley, it’s hard but with the excellent volunteers we have behind the scenes here, we’re hoping to succeed.”

It’s tough to imagine how you can succeed, but with the progress that Staveley have made with a young side, you need to focus on how that has happened. Manager Billy Fox explains, “We have a lot of ex-academy players from professional clubs, they know how to behave and they know how to prepare. We have a 72 hour drinking ban installed at the club and it’s as professional as it can be at non league level. We play a passing game and it’s good to do with young players, because they want to play football.  Myself and Terry have set goals and targets for them, and we act as professional players with regards to fitness and train twice a week. Terry has backed me 100%, the players get paid but not as much as they would like, we need more people to come and watch because we have a great football team and a great club. Ideally we’d like people to watch Staveley one week and Chesterfield the next, we need the support to come through the door. Terry and Staveley have done great things for the club and the community”.

Terry Damms uses the term ethos of the club as being young and developing and you can clearly see around the ground that the term is developing. Minor improvement works are happening, the car park and lighting were put prior to the FA Vase match against Rye United in January. The club have major works in the pipeline with further stands to be built. “We want the club to have the best facilities in non league,” and that is the ambition that Damms and Staveley have. 

The core of the club is the excellent facilities that it has, the future of the club is the developing and current set of players that they have. The average age in the side is 22 and the oldest player is 31, the mainstay of the club is the Under 19’s and the professionalism of the players is apparent. Billy Fox knows he has a good football team and he knows how to get a better football team. Terry Damms knows how to develop a strong football club and he will make all the effort to make it strong in the community as well, all in all it’s a good partnership. 

Staveley, keen to increase attendences, recently had a campaign where if you bought admission you received £1 discount in the club lounge. It may not be something to many supporters of bigger clubs, but that day the attendance was over 100. With attendances forecast to drop in the near future in the Premier League, the spin offs for the Football League and non league inparticular could be huge. 

Note: This article first appeared in The Chesterfield Post website (www.chesterfieldpost.co.uk) & the Chesterfield FC Matchday programme on Friday 18^th March 2011.