Chris Dolby is a football trailblazer on several fronts. He is recognised as the English Football League’s first professional footballer. Having served as a player and manager of Sheffield FC, the world’s first football club, he is currently the director of their foundation. As part of his remit, he’s taking the the club all the world and overseeing the delivery of the online BSC Applied Football Studies courses, another first for the UK.
In his interview with Non League Yorkshire, Dolby reminisces about his path from Rotherham United to Chris Wilder and the God Squad at Alfreton Town to now globe-trotting for Sheffield FC. He also tells some humorous stories from the past 17 years, including the time Pele was desperate to meet him, plus the night when he saved Sheffield manager Gavin Smith’s life in India.
This is Chris Dolby’s Football Journey:
“I started as an apprentice at Rotherham United in the early 1990s and I was fortunate enough to get offered a pro contract. I actually made my debut in the first team in my last year as an apprentice. I spent two years as an apprentice and three years as a pro at Rotherham, playing under Phil Henson and then Archie Gemmill. When Archie came in I was in the last year of my contract. I wasn’t really involved and I went from there to Bradford City on a free.”
Archie Gemmill, the Fashion Guru
“I remember playing Manchester United and playing against Ryan Giggs, Gary Neville, Keith Gillespie, David Beckham at Old Trafford. I had been growing my hair, the curtains as they were then and had a bit of a perm going on. It was quite long, ear length and quite thick. Archie Gemmill had just come in as manager. I remember playing in the first half and Paul Scholes had properly kicked me up in the air. As I got up I brushed my fingers through my hair because I couldn’t see. We went in at half-time and Archie Gemmill slams the door shut and comes for me. He’s screaming and red in the face and he said to me in his Scottish accent ‘if you walk into my football club tomorrow with hair like that, you’re sacked’. I played the second half well and we won the game.
“But all I can think about on the bus is ‘how can I get my haircut’? I had to get to the ground for 10.30am so I had 90 minutes. I hardly slept a wink. The following morning I can remember getting into Rotherham Town Centre and going to the barbers before they had even opened. I waited outside and when I went in I just said ‘look, just give me a number four mate’. The barber took my full locks off! I walked into the ground, Archie Gemmill just looked at me, smiled and said ‘that looks better son’. As young players there was the fear factor. If the manager tells you to get your flowing locks cut, you get it done straightaway.”
Becoming the Football League’s First Asian Professional Footballer
“It was for Rotherham and I think it was against Brentford and I remember being on the bench and getting into the dressing room. The first half there was nothing happening and in the second half I was told me to get warmed-up. I remember coming on and having a great chance with 20 minutes left. Looking back I should have scored. I had cut inside and gone on a great run.
“There was publicity and it was important at the time in terms of me breaking through personally. But If I’m being honest, there wasn’t a massive big deal made of it until I went to Bradford City. The media just blew up over me being Asian and a professional footballer in the Football League. Because Rotherham didn’t have a massive Asian community, the spotlight didn’t hit home until I moved to Bradford. It was like ‘wow’ everyday at training. I remember the media being told to stop coming to the training ground because it got that crazy.
“There’s a saying if I had my time again and had the maturity I have now as a 45-year-old I would have done things a lot differently. I don’t think I utilised what I had at the time to benefit me or other people. I think I could have inspired a lot more people knowing what I know now. But at the time I was 22-year-old footballer and all you are thinking of is playing football. I remember being in the Face magazine, a big magazine down in London. They did a big feature on me and I was in loads of magazines. It got to the stage where the club said I had to concentrate on my football and rightly so.
“When I played, less Asian players were playing in academies and less Asian players were playing Non League Football. I feel the battle is still about getting an Indian or Pakistani player playing regularly in the Premier League. That would be amazing and we are still waiting for that. When we look at Non League football and academies we do see Asian footballers involved in the game which is amazing.”
Bradford City
“Lennie Lawrence was the manager with Chris Kamara as his assistant. I did a year at Bradford and it was a bad year for me. I lost my dad who I was living with at the time and things got on top of me. It didn’t really work out at Bradford for me. I also had two major groin operations during the season as well. Pre-season went well, but the season was a bit of a write-off.
“I enjoyed my time there, but I never got going because of the injuries. In my car school there was Wayne Jacobs, Andy Kiwomya, myself and Carl Shutt. It wasn’t funny for me at the time, but I remember a funny story involving my mobile phone which I had got through sponsorship, along with a car. I went into the dressing room and Des Hamilton asked me if he could use my mobile phone because he needed to call a pal. me being naive, I gave him the phone and he goes into toilet. He must have been sat on the loo for 45 minutes. I thought ‘that’s a long time’, but didn’t think anything of it. Next week I tried to use my phone and it doesn’t work. I called into the shop to say it wasn’t working. The guy showed me the itemised bill and said ‘that’s why it isn’t working’. I don’t know who Des had been calling, but he ran a right bill up so they cut me off!”
Non League with Dave Lloyd’s Denaby United
“I think I was 23 and I went back to Rotherham and they offered me a job coaching believe it or not. But if I took the job, I had to play for a Northern Counties East League team which was Denaby United. I thought ‘this is a fall from grace, I’m playing Northern Counties after just coming out of a club which has just won the Division Two play-off final’. It was difficult. But the guy who owned Denaby United was a very successful businessman and he said ‘if you come and play for me, I’m going to fund your role at Rotherham United coaching with the centre of excellence full-time’. It was a job in football being presented to me after getting released from Bradford. I looked at my options and I had the chance to go to Leyton Orient, but I was thinking ‘I’ve lost my dad and I’m sort of on my own’. I had lost my mum at 11-years-old so losing your dad at 22 was bad. I thought I wanted to stay up north so I took the job at Rotherham and played at Denaby.
“Unknown to me at the time, they had some great players like Mel Sterland, Imre Varadi, Stewart Evans who was part of Wimbledon’s crazy gang and had played at Rotherham United, Gary Lineham, Mark Highfield. What a great side we had. Dave Lloyd who was then my manager at Alfreton was my manager at Denaby. He was a Scottish lad who had come down and that’s the first time I saw his madness in the dressing room. He was a great character. When they talk about teapots and things smashed against walls, it was him. He’d go berserk and I remember being sat there and it all kicking off. Teapots thrown, tea all over the place. Stewart Evans jumping up because someone has wet his suit through. It was mayhem and I’m thinking ‘welcome to Non League Football’. But I loved him and I still do to this day. He got the best out of me.
“We won the league (NCEL Premier Division), but we couldn’t go up as the ground wasn’t good enough. So I briefly went to Alfreton Town then. It was one of those times when everything was going well personally and I was playing well.”
Various Clubs
“Mel Sterland who was working alongside me at Rotherham as a coach, he got the manager’s job at Stalybridge in the Conference. I did a season there and it was a tough time. I was playing on the left. Lee Trundle was playing upfront. We had a decent front-line, but we were always struggling down at the bottom and we got relegated and that was that.
“I moved onto Hyde under Mark McKenzie. Again there were some great players upfront like Lutel James, Simon Yeo, Prince Moncrieffe, plus Peter Band, Don Page, an ex Rotherham United colleague of mine. We had a really good team and we were quite successful and we were always there or theres about. I did a season or two there and after spent time with Stocksbridge and Bradford (Park Avenue).”
Chris Wilder’s Alfreton Town (2001/02)
“I would say my best time in football was at Alfreton Town where we went from the Northern Counties East League right up to the Conference North over a few seasons. I loved playing in the Conference as it was a decent level, but playing for Alfreton was my best time in Non League football. Hardly a season went by when we didn’t win anything.
“Me and Chris Wilder signed as players at the same time. He was an ex-colleague from Rotherham so we go back far. When I broke in as a young player at Rotherham, Chris was a senior player. I knew his antics and what sort of character he was! After games at Rotherham you had to go and socialise, put it that way. What he brought was an amazing camaraderie, even at NCEL level. But he had a ruthless streak where he’d make the right decisions at the right time with changing personnel. But he’d be ruthless for the benefit of the club.
“Chris then got the manager’s job and we went on this crazy winning run and we won four trophies in a short space of time. We won the league (NCEL Premier), the League Cup, the President’s Cup and the Derbyshire Senior Cup. I’ve got all the medals in the loft.
“We had the God Squad upfront. Talk about Micky Goddard and Mick Godber, two prolific goal-scorers at that level. As soon as we won the league, although we didn’t know Chris was leaving to go to Halifax, Chris went about his business and started bringing in players like Peter Duffield. Fair play to Dave Lloyd. He was Chris Wilder’s assistant and he took the job on and Lloydy was responsible for us going right up to the Conference North.
“The club was transformed. Wayne Bradley was a fantastic chairman. From the get-go of walking into the building, he had one thing on his mind and was success for the team. He was prepared to invest in the team and in the ground. We just went from strength to strength and they are now a successful Conference North club.”
Life-Changing Move to Sheffield FC
“After leaving Alfreton I spent a season down at Belper with Ernie Moss, but I didn’t click with it. I was 31 at the time and Sheffield came in for me. I knew about Sheffield FC, but I didn’t know what I know about the history and the heritage and what it stands for. When I went in, I just loved it. We were in the NCEL, but we had a really strong team with Gav Smith, Gary Townsend, Paul Smith the ex-Sheffield Wednesday full-back, Tom Jones the centre-back, Craig Marsh, Vill Powell the striker. We had some good players and we got promotion and we won the Sheffield Senior Cup.
“Dave McCarthy was the manager who brought me to Sheffield FC so I always appreciate that fact. Dave was a different character to my other managers. He was very reserved and very caring. Dave was actively looking to try and develop the football club off-the-pitch when I was a player so I tried to help him with the vision. I’d give him advice based on what we were doing in professional football and some of the stuff he tried to replicate at Sheffield.”
Pele meets Chris from Rotherham (2007)
“My second season was when we played Inter Milan at Bramall Lane as part of the club’s 150th anniversary celebrations. I was in the line waiting to meet Pele who is the God of football. He’s coming down the line and there’s 20,000 fans at the ground. The place is buzzing. Marco Materazzi and Mario Balotelli are playing. At the time I still had my youthful looks and Pele had given me a kind of nod from distance to say I want to meet him. So he comes down and you could tell he was thrilled to meet me. So in broken English, he asks me where I’m from? He had been sizing me up for a while so he must have thought I was Portuguese or something. I have to say there was euphoria in my mind over the fact he stopped to speak to me. I was starstruck and all I could muster was ‘em, em, Rotherham’ in my Yorkshire twang. Pele looked totally confused and you could see his cogs working thinking ‘Rotherham, where’s that, that’s not a country’? He was a little baffled and he couldn’t get away quick enough.”
Stint as Sheffield FC manager
“I got offered the player/manager job after my second season and I enjoyed my two-and-half years managing the club. We got to the play-offs and we just didn’t have enough to get over the line. I stepped down because my role behind the scenes got bigger. I just didn’t have the time to manage the team as well. I did just more than two years as manager and I take my hat off to some great managers. Lennie Lawrence was a great guy, Chris Kamara was challenging in different ways, but I learnt a lot from him, Archie Gemmill and John McGovern had both won European Cups for Nottingham Forest, Chris Wilder was amazing and I learnt a lot and I still speak to him now. But the commitment that is required by Non League managers to get a team out on the pitch on a Saturday, I don’t think people really understand what it takes to be a successful Non League manager. You are just eating and sleeping football whilst having a family life and a full-time job. Fans need to take their hats off to managers because they really do give up time.”
Director of Sheffield FC
“I owe (Sheffield FC chairman) Richard Tims a lot. He first gave me the job as manager so I have to thank him for that. Then he really did open the door to say ‘come and join the club and bring your expertise to take the club on a journey’. I’ve been at the club 15 years and full-time for five years. That gives you real insight into how we have been working together. Myself and Richard have travelled the world. We have certainly been pioneers in regards to how we have utilised our football club and the brand of our football club to integrate and work with other people across the world.
“After stepping down as manager, I became a shareholder by buying 10% of the club. I then took over the Foundation and the director of football role. I had done a number of roles with Rotherham United. I worked with the first team under Ronnie Moore and John Breckin during pre-season training so I was getting some great experience. The business side of it also interested me. I was working full-time at Rotherham working on the development side of it with players, but also the foundation of all it and how the club can commercially make money off the back of having the right programmes in place. When I started to develop that at Rotherham, Barnsley Football Club came and offered me a role doing the same. I got a great insight into the inner workings of a football club and being heavily involved with it.
“So when it came to Sheffield, I thought this is a great project for me to bring to Sheffield what I had learned from working in football, not only as a player, coach, but the commercial and business side as well. So that’s where all the education programmes and link to international markets in education and football development come in.”
The night Dolby saved Gavin Smith’s life after the chairman tried to poison him
“We’re in India on a tour and Gav’s my roommate and we’ve played a few games so we have moved around one province to another. We ended up in a place called Guwahati
“Gav was the assistant manager at the time. We’ve having a few beers in the hotel with the chairman Richard. A few beers leads into a few more beers and then we think we may as well order a bit of food to be brought into the bar area.
“I’ve had a few drinks so my vision isn’t great. Unbeknown to myself and Richard, Gav has an allergy to fish. So the chairman says ‘I’ve ordered some food for you lads, Indian nibble food’.
“Gav says ‘look, chairman, I have an allergy to fish, there is nothing with fish in here is there’? The chairman says ‘nah, nah, it is all chicken’. We start eating away and I start looking at Gav and his lips have doubled in size. I’m thinking ‘am I p***** or has his lips doubled in size’? Gav says ‘Dolbs, I can’t talk, my lips have swollen up’.
“There’s a big panic on and I’ve watched Casualty nearly every week for years and this is where your experience of watching Charlie and co comes into use. The chairman was obviously worried, he thinks he’s off to jail as he’s facing a manslaughter charge!
“I was cool as a cucumber throughout the panic. I was directing the whole rescue mission and I single-handily carried Gav out of the hotel, reassuring him all the time.
“We had to get into this taxi that has took us down windy roads in the middle of nowhere to a shack which was a Hospital. We went in and I had to pay a fortune in Rupees to get him treated, they bent him over and put a huge needle in his bottom and within seconds he’d gone back to normal. It was like a comedy sketch. When we have food now, Gav knows I’ve got his back.”
Present Day and The Future
“I’m the director of football, as well as head of the foundation and Gavin Smith is the first team manager. I’m a big believer in developing young players so I have scholarships where we do football for 16-18-year-olds and around 70 or 80 players doing them. We’re going to have pathways into a new reserve team that we are putting in the Central Midlands League for next season.
“I think my main achievement is putting Sheffield FC on the map on a global scale. We have now developed some overseas partnerships through football and education. I have a partnership with Qatar running up to the World Cup so Sheffield FC are a partner with the supreme committee organising the 2022 World Cup and Generation Amazing who are the legacy part of World 2022. So we are part of their legacy by running projects in partnership with them. To be able to take little old Sheffield FC to the global World Cup stage in a partnership, I think it is a great achievement.
“I’ve travelled the world with Sheffield FC. I took a team to India and we toured India for two-and-half weeks. I’ve been to Qatar three times. I’ve been to China building football and education programmes and partnerships.
“We also have the online Applied Football Studies degree which is a first for the UK. My first job at Rotherham as a coach were very important first steps and that’s why my passion and ambition to give young players and others in the football industry the chance to develop and up-skill themselves and see football truly as the business it is. A massive percentage of players don’t make it professionally, but there are loads of job opportunities in football. That’s from sports science to media, business side. This is why I set up a partnership with a company called Five Global and Leeds United College.
“We’re developing some amazing programmes that will give young players the opportunity to study and become knowledgeable on the business of football. As one door shuts as a player as you don’t make the grade, what’s stopping you playing at a good level of Non League football and getting a job in the sport you love that is football.”
If you have enjoyed this interview and the Non League Journey interview series, please watch the video at the bottom of the page and consider making a donation to the not-for-profit organisation NLY Community Sport which provides sport for children and adults with disabilities and learning difficulties. CLICK HERE to visit the JustGiving page.
NLY Community Sport, run by James Grayson and Connor Rollinson, has always had combatting social isolation at the top of our objectives when running our Disability Football teams so when the green light to return is given, our work will play an important role in reintroducing our players, who have disabilities and learning difficulties, back into society.
We have six teams, a mixture of Junior and Adult teams – Nostell MW DFC, Pontefract Pirates, Selby Disability Football Club and the South Yorkshire Superheroes (Barnsley) – across Yorkshire.
Like most organisations, we have been affected financially by the Coronavirus and we have incurred losses which we cannot recover. We have not been hit as badly as other organisations, but we do need raise £2000 to put us back at the level we were at in mid-March and enable us to make a difference once again to our players’ lives in the future, without having financial worries. As each day goes on, a substantial number of our players become further isolated so we need to be ‘ready for action’ when restrictions are lifted.
Any amount raised above £2000 will be put towards new projects (when the world returns to normal) designed to further benefit people with disabilities and learning difficulties. You can learn more about the organisation HERE and on our Facebook page.
Watch the video below to see highlights from our three years as an organisation. The video was produced for our players at the end of March to remind them of good memories from the last three years.