The life and soul of it. That maybe sums up Craig Marsh, a man willing to have a wrestle with Mick Norbury while fitting PVC windows.
Rob Ward loved Marsh’s presence in the changing room after a game. Dave Watts might not say the same considering the shock he got one morning in a Sheffield Hotel room.
Marsh is best known for his very successful spells with Ossett Albion and Sheffield FC. He is the player who started off as a striker before moving into midfield until he was pushed into defence during his Sheffield days. That’s where he started carving out a niche as a defender who always won the ball in the tackle.
A passionate player, he liked a red card (the sending-offs may stretch into double figures), and he even fittingly ended his career with one.
But aside from the fine money, Marsh has given a lot back to the game. In the final years of his playing days, he was Danny Frost’s main mentor and his desire to give something back has continued as he’s now a leading girls football coach in Barnsley through his and former Sheffield FC comrade Chris White’s very successful Skillz Academy for Girls organisation.
This is Craig Marsh’s Non League Journey
“I went to school with Jon Parkin and my claim to fame is that I turned the chance to be an usher at his wedding.
“On the football front, I started at Scunthorpe United on a three-year YTS contract and I ended up going to Emley with Ronnie Glavin and Jimmy Martin. That was only because in the third year of my contract it stipulated that I had to go to Dearne Valley College and Emley had a link with them. It was around the time Emley had a very good side with Simeon Bambrook and Mark ‘Willy’ Wilson, people like that. I remember pre-season there, but I didn’t get the opportunities there and I was playing in the reserves and it didn’t go well so I ended up at Frickley Athletic.
“It was when Steve Richards came in after Stewart Barraclough had walked. In total, across my career I think I had three stints at Frickley. But I remember vividly the Barrow game (at the end of the 2000/01 season) and sitting on the bench knowing what we had to win to stay up. It was an emotional and intense day.
“I was a boy and they had men in their side so I was very much on the fringes. I was still at college and the rest of the lads were going to work and then getting changed to come to training. I had come from a situation where I was living in Scunthorpe with a digs lady and all I did was get up and go to College or training.
“One thing that sticks out is something Nigel Adkins said and I’ve always said this to people I’ve played with. He was the physio at the time and I did my ankle ligaments several times and I spent a lot of time with him. He said to me ‘I’ll tell you what’s wrong with you lads, you don’t know you’re born. What you lads need is three or four years playing Non League Football and going to work nine until five in a factory. Then you’ll understand how good you have got it at a football club.’ As a young lad you don’t realise until after and you think ‘yeah he was right’. It makes you appreciate being at a Football League club.
“Phil Sharpe took over at Frickley in the summer of 2001 and we were training during pre-season on a Saturday and I was a striker at that point. Phil was playing and this ball was clipped to him and I jumped up to head it and he absolutely smashed me with an elbow. I looked at him and he said ‘you need to man up young ‘un because you’re going to get more than that’. Me being me, I thought ‘I’ll show you’. Next time the ball went up, I absolutely nailed him ten times worse than what he had done to me. He went barmy and I said ‘you have to look after yourself mate’. It didn’t go down well and the relationship wasn’t positive afterwards.”
Ossett Albion
“Moving to Ossett Albion under Eric Gilchrist and Tony Passmore was an important move. Eric was a great manager who knew his stuff and I have a lot of time and respect for him. He could get the best out of us. I implement what I have learned from people over years in how I coach and how my dressing room is. The one at Ossett Albion was a family, there was no cliques. We looked after each other. We might not have been the best team in the world, but 110% was given every single week in training and in games.
“I had always been a striker, but I went to Ossett and I ended up playing in midfield. We played a 3-5-2 and the forwards we had were Darren Bland, Rob Ward, Danny Toronczak and Mick Norbury. You look back and there is no way I was going to establish myself upfront with players with the qualities and credibility that they had. So I was in the middle front three with Adam Fretwell and Gary Duffty and it just worked. Frets was the ball player and his vision and understanding of the game was unbelievable. Gary had a great pace and an engine. I was box-to-box, breaking play up, getting stuck in. We had a good defence. Andy Carney in nets, the Dodd brothers and Sean Hazelden.”
Mick Norbury
“Mick is a great friend of mine still. He was my best man at my wedding and I have a lot of time for him. He’s an absolute legend. How he played the game changed my perception of it. He was fierce, he was aggressive and he didn’t take any nonsense. I got more aggressive and over the years I started to stick up for myself so I took what I learnt off him with me throughout my career. That’s maybe why I got a few red cards.
“I rang him the other week and I said ‘just checking you’re alright mate because of Covid’. He said ‘what you on about’? I said ‘well, you have to look after your old aged pensioners’. He told me where to go!
“But seriously, he did look after me. He used to do PVC windows and after leaving College, I worked with him and someone called Glenn. Me and Mick used to wrestle on customers’ gardens because I said I could take him and he said I couldn’t. We once went to a posh end of Leeds and we were converting a patio door and we got there really early. It must have been 6am. This cul-de-sac was quiet and me and him were wrestling outside this big house and people were opening their curtains to see what was going on! It didn’t go down well.
“I remember coming back with Norbs in the car from an Ossett game once and we had a fight in the car. We were punching each other and you’d never get away with it now.”
Dave Watts
“Dave Watts was a police officer and he must be high up now, I haven’t spoken to him in years. We went to Sheffield on a night out and about six of us stopped over. I was rooming with Gary Duffty and Dave Watts was rooming with someone else. The following morning me and Gary Duffty had to get back as we were playing Sunday morning football. We got up early and we went to see if the other lads were up? Watty also had to get back, but he wasn’t up. His hotel room door was ajar though! So I went in and took his bag of clothes. So he had to drive home with just his under-crackers on. He went absolutely barmy over it, but it was hilarious. He was fuming and he said ‘I had to go to work and I was late and I had no gear’.”
Champions in Second Season (2003/04)
“The first season we finished in the top half and then we won the league on the last day of the following season.
“That season we played Newcastle Town in the FA Cup third qualifying round and it was a long trip to get there. I ended up scoring and I remember it because Mick Norbury set me up. I made a run from midfield and he made a run down the channel for the first time ever and crossed the ball and I scored with a header. I gave him some stick for running the channel!
“That took us back to a replay at Dimple Wells and it was an unbelievable game. It was a slog, it was tough, it was physical and it finished 4-4. I think I got two goals. It went to penalties and we won 3-0. So we obviously got into the fourth qualifying round and we got beat by Stalybridge.
“Eastwood were the favourites to go up and we won the league over them on goals scored. Sean Hazelden scored two goals in the last game of the season against Borrowash to get us over the line. It is a brilliant memory.”
Leaving Ossett
“We had got promoted and I was looking forward to my first real opportunity to play in the Northern Premier League. We had the players to do well as well.
“We drove to Selby Town for a pre-season friendly and it was absolutely glorious. I played 60 minutes, but I had to go because I had travelled with Mick Norbury and Mick needed to shoot off. He’d arranged it all with Eric. I either scored two or a hat-trick from midfield. On the way back Mick said ‘get in there babi, I’m glad you’ve done that and I’m going to tell you this because I look after you and I want you to do well. Eric moving forward has said he doesn’t see you keeping a regular place in the team. He’s looking at another lad’. A few days before Dave McCarthy from Sheffield FC had rung and asked me to go, but I’d said no because I was looking forward to playing in the NPL. Later that weekend I contacted Dave to see if the offer was still there and I signed for Sheffield FC.
“A couple of years later I bumped into Eric at one of our games at Sheff Club and he said ‘look I made a mistake’. I just said ‘it is football, you’ve got a lot of experience and I have a lot of time for you and you do what’s best for the team, sometimes you get it right and sometimes you get it wrong’. I still hold him in high regard for giving me a platform to move on from. It worked alright for me as that period at Sheffield was a good period for me because I established myself as a key player in the NCEL”
Sheffield FC
“Dave McCarthy and Lee Walshaw were in charge and they were fantastic for me. I’m still in contact with both of them and they were great managers. They had the same ethos within the club like Eric had at Ossett. There were no cliques. It was all about family. We had some real laughs. One of my best friends is Chris White. We do a lot of stuff together, we have a coaching business and we have built our own grassroots girls football club and I first met him at Sheffield FC.
“In my first season, we beat Harrogate Railway 2-1 in the League Cup Final. That final was actually played at Ossett Albion and I’m sure Tom Jones had equalised after smashing the ball home from Rob Ward’s cross. We then broke away and I was driving through the midfield and I got brought down on the edge of the penalty area. The referee blew his whistle and I put my hand on the ball to stop it dead and Chris White had made a run on my left-side so I slipped him in and he smashed it in to win it for us.
“The following week we played Worksop in the Sheffield Senior Cup final at Hillsborough. We were underdogs. In the Worksop team they were some massive players like Brian Callaghan, James Dudgeon, Gaz Townsend, Mark Wilson. We beat them 1-0. In the last minute, Gaz Holmes broke away and it went out to Chris White and he crossed it. It bounced out to our left-back Ben Cressey who smashed it into top the corner from 25 yards. We just erupted as a team.
“The following season we won the Senior Cup again to win it back-to-back. We were the favourites for that one. We played Parkgate who had players like Karl Colley and Matt Outram. One of the toughest players I have played against is Brian Cusworth and he was playing for Parkgate. The other toughest player was Mick Godber who was a physical man-mountain. But it was a really tough game and Parkgate really pushed us back. It got to the last minute and it was 1-1 and Rob Ward scored late-on to win it.
“I was there three seasons and we got promoted during my final full season. We also went 16 games unbeaten during that season. The funny thing about going unbeaten is that I had a superstition that if we won I always wore the same pant slips for the following game. They didn’t get washed either. So you can imagine that after 16 games that they were in a bit of a state. So that was a running joke. Lads used to get wound up because I also used to throw them at them as well.
“Rob Ward deserves a mention. He was an amazing player and he knew where the back of the net was. He did a lot at Ossett and then came to Sheff Club and scored for fun. If I didn’t bring this up, the lads would be onto me. It started at Ossett and we used to have a communal shower and when Wardy wasn’t watching, we’d p*** down his leg. He used to go mad and still to this day he still goes on about it. He used to shout ‘you dirty gets’. It is that kind of banter that you miss when you stop playing and the camaraderie, along with the trips. Rob rang me the other week and he said it would be nice to get the lads back together.”
Tom Jones
“The best centre-half I played with was Tom Jones. I started off as a striker and then I went to Ossett and went into midfield. One week at Sheff Club, Dave McCarthy said to me, ‘Marshy, can you do me a job at centre-half for a couple of games as one of the lads is injured’. I did a job and they felt I had done a better job than expected so I stayed there.
“Me and Tom were a great pairing and a sending off that sticks out is when we played Arnold Town once. Gav Smith who is now the manager of Sheff Club went in for this challenge with their left winger which was a bit wild. The lad has got up and confronted him. I ran over as it turned into a brawl. I was dealing with this lad who then went to punch me. Tom Jones had run over and smashed him. There were three red cards and Gav Smith who started it all off with a bad challenge, he walked away and didn’t even get booked.
“We played Stocksbridge in the Sheffield Senior Cup and as underdogs we beat them. I went up for a header and Tom Jones accidentally smacked me in the face. My head was split open up. Despite this we had a great understanding and we had some laughs over the years. He even put a fitness session for our girls the other week. He is one person who I have a lot of time and respect for him. He was great in the air, he was great leader and his composure and how comfortable he was on the ball was class.”
Leaving Sheffield for Goole
“Because of the red card involving Gav Smith, the suspension had carried over into the next season. During pre-season, Dave McCarthy brought Karl Colley in. Dave said he was going to go to a back three, me, Tom Jones and Karl Colley. As the season started that didn’t happen so I started think about my options. I spoke to my good friend Mick and he said ‘why don’t you come to Goole’. I wasn’t keen at first and after a few weeks I decided to leave Sheffield to play football. I do regret walking away because that was the season Sheffield played Inter Milan at Bramall Lane as part of their 150th Anniversary celebrations. So I walked away from playing them and meeting Pele. It wasn’t just the Inter game I walked from, I also regret leaving the fans and the board because they really looked after you.
“Those Sheffield days are the ones I really talk about with the lads. I still go and play in Legends games for them. The last one was against a German team who brought loads of fans over. In the book celebrating 150 years of the world’s oldest football club, I’m mentioned in that as well. So it is nice to know you have your name in a publication.
“In that Sheffield team there was Lee Gregory who couldn’t even get in the team and ended up leaving. As well great lads like Ryan O’Carroll, Richard Carrington, Caine Cheetham, Asa Ingall, James Teverdale, Vill Powell, Gaz Winters, Miles Thorpe, Chris Hilton. Dean Sidebottom was there. We call him Boris because he looks like Boris Becker. He says he doesn’t, but he does.
“I always remember Willy coming and despite all his experience Dave McCarthy said ‘you’re going to be my fourth choice’. Willy always reminds me! He’s a legend of the Non League game.”
The Original Tracksuit Collector
“When I was at Ossett, I had a bit of friction with Ian McLean and Nigel Danby when they were at Harrogate Railway. McLean had pulled my shirt above my head and uppercut me. So I said I’d see him at the end. Mick Norbury was on my shoulder and Nige was on McLean’s shoulder and it was kind of guns at dawn. Obviously Norbs and Nigel ended up working together at Goole.
“So coming to Goole from Sheffield, Norbs and Danby had the same temperament and personality on the touchline as they did when they played. If you didn’t pull your weight you did get a dressing down. But I only played for them two or three times and I got sent off after three minutes in one of them for a headbutt.
“After Goole I started to jump about a bit and I had numerous clubs like Hallam. That was because of my Ossett Albion days as Darren Bland was Hallam’s manager. The team he had down on the paper was unbelievable. You had Ryan O’Carroll, Richard Carrington, myself, Karl Colley, James Teverdale, Rob Ward. On paper, that team should have walked the league that season. But it is not about what you have done. It is about the clique and the changing room and it just wasn’t there.
“I spent time with Frickley, Emley, Thackley, maybe some others, I’m not entirely sure of the full list. I ended up going to Salford after Danny Toronczak got me there. I hadn’t signed yet for them so I went to watch, but we played Ossett Albion at Dimple Wells and it is the game Joe Thornton and Shane Kelsey have talked about when was a massive fight in the dressing rooms.
“Playing for Salford was an experience. The changing rooms were terrible and you had to drive over there from Barnsley. You look at it now and you go ‘wow’. Because we have been in lockdown, I cleared my garage out and I found a bottle of champagne from when I was man of the match at Salford. It could 12-years-old!
“Danny then took me to New Mills. He rang me and said ‘do you fancy New Mills’? I said ‘where is it’? He said ‘it is near Glossop’. I had to Google it and I said ‘Danny, it is right trek’. He said ‘look Marshy, it is a decent whack, they’re offering three figures’. At the time I had started seeing my wife and we had a kid so I gave it a go. I drove over and it took 40 minutes. The pitch was class and the people were nice. Their manager was Tony Hancock and I sat down with him and I already had it in my mind that I wouldn’t accept less than £100 a week. He said ‘I’d like you to sign and we can offer you £120’. I replied straightaway ‘that’s fine’. I thought afterwards that I was a bit naive and that I should have asked for more. It was good playing there and I particular remember Bandy (Peter Band) who was a great lad.
“Matt Smith was there as well and he’s gone onto do well. He looks like Dolph Lundgen when he played He Man and he was massive, but soft. He was at University and a wonderful lad and I did say to him ‘look at the size of you Matty, I’m a centre-half and I look at who I look who I’m playing against and I didn’t want to play against people like Mick Godber, Andy Hayward and Brian Cusworth because they make your afternoons horrible. Get your elbows out and be more aggressive. Bring that to your game and you will go on and do well’. He’s made a career out of football which is amazing.
“New Mills started petering out and I remember playing AFC Fylde and being left on the bench. We lost 2-0 and the manager ended up walking after it. At that point I thought ‘I’ve travelled all the way to Blackpool and got 15 minutes, it is time to move on’.
“Norbs and Ian Shirt were managing Worsbrough Bridge and Norbs rang me. It was local to home so it made sense and it was a good laugh.
“We played at Barton Town Old Boys and one of their coaches was gobbing at me. Shirty said to him ‘you need to leave him alone because you’re making a rod for your own back’. I said ‘I’ll see you at the end of the game’. He shouted something back and Shirty said ‘you’re on your own pal, I’m not stopping him’. At the end I went to see him and when he went to shake my hand, I grabbed hold of him and said ‘now say it to my face’. As this bloke went white, Shirty said ‘I told thi, you’re messing with the wrong kid as he’s an idiot at times.
“Mick once sacked his goalkeeper at half-time at Eccleshill. We were 2-0 down and the lad had a go back at him so Mick said he was going in goal for the second half and told the lad to give his tracksuit back there and then. I don’t know what the lad wore on his way home as Mick got his tracksuit back! Mick only conceded once in the second half too!
“Norbs left to go to Harrogate Railway (2010) so (Chris Hilton) Hilts took over and I knew him well anyway as me, Hilts, Miles Thorpe and Chris White used to travel together during the Sheffield Club days. We used to go in Milo’s car which was like something out of Whacky Races. I think it was an old Mercedes, which was an awful brown colour. He got some right hammer. We’d say ‘it is like a hearse this, are you going to start being an undertaker’. If Miles had been anymore laid back, he would have been horizontal, but he’s another great player and name from Non League football.
“My career was coming to an end and it was at a time when Hilts was looking at younger lads and I was still wanting to play. He was sort of trying to get me to take a player/coach role, but at the time Craig Elliott was at Glasshoughton and because I wasn’t playing he asked me to go there. I ended up leaving Worsbrough and I’ve not really spoken to Hilts since. I’ve said hello once or twice.
“I can’t really remember my career after leaving Worsbrough and going to Glasshoughton. I know ended up playing local league for Queens through Gary Duffty and Mick Norbury.
“I had some good times playing Sunday Football. Westville were a decent side who won everything and we won the league over them one season. One forward who I would mention is Troy Bennett. I never played Non League with, but played Sunday League with at Wombwell Main. What a player. He was class.
“Another player who I would mention is Danny Frost, I call him Barnsley’s hero, best striker in town. I played with him and against him a few times and he knows where the net is. I certainly had a few clubs in the later years of my career and I like to think I taught him all he knows about tracksuit collecting.
“I finished my career on a red card and I laugh about it because it was a rather fitting way to bow out. It was against Westville and it was the first game of the season. Five minutes in and a lad went through and I brought him down. I got a straight red and that was my last act in a competitive league. I packed in and eventually found the love of coaching.”
Skillz Academy
“I had moved away from football and a few years ago my daughter Colby said to my wife ‘mum, I want some football boots’. My wife Angela told me and I said ‘Angela, she doesn’t play football, I’m not buying football boots’. So my wife said ‘we need to find her a team. She ended up playing for Barnsley Ladies under 9s and that season she did really well and got players’ player of the year. I didn’t pick that up in my career. The following season they didn’t have a manager as some of the girls needed to move age groups. I got asked because of my background in football and I said I would if I could get someone to do it with me. I asked Chris White because he’s a Level Three coach and has his own business Sports Elevation. Whitey said yes and we had an amazing first season as we finished unbeaten and won the league and cup.
“We didn’t like the way Barnsley Ladies was going so we left with our team and we had people saying ‘can you coach our daughter’? and ‘I wish you’d do this’. So myself and Whitey set up Skillz Academy for Girls. We put coaching on and they go back to their grassroots team. We get about 40 girls every week from different clubs from around the area.
“It has always been about giving something back from my football days and passing on the things people like Eric Gilchrist, Dave McCarthy, Lee Walshaw, Terry Simon, Colin Shepherd, Frank Jennings taught me.
“Just from my daughter wanting a pair of football boots, I’m now four years into coaching and we have girls coming from Halifax, Scunthorpe, Holmfirth, Sheffield, Wakefield to play in our club. We have gone from having 12 girls signed on for us to 34 girls and three teams under the SAFG United banner. We have put three coaches through their Level One badge. We want to be a beacon for girls football and to raise that profile of the girls football and be a force for good in the community.
“I didn’t think I would get my buzz back for football, but I absolutely love coaching and managing.”
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.