Toolstation NCEL Division One
Ian Walker wants to reward the Nostell Miners Welfare volunteers who are working like trojans during difficult times.
Like most clubs, Nostell are finding it hard running a home match-day because of a limited volunteer base and the strict Covid-19 safe rules and Walker wants his players to run through brick walls for the club’s workers.
“I see the hard work that (chairman) Kevin (Allsop) puts in and until you get involved at this level you don’t see the work that people like Kevin, Julie (Allsop) and all the helpers are doing,” Walker told Non League Yorkshire.
“The effort they put in is incredible and the minimum we can do is match that effort and if we do that, that will be always good enough for this club.
“My aspirations for the season are I just want to get through the season. We’re just so enjoying getting back to playing football with all this Covid that we’ve had and all the problems. This is our break from it all.
“This is where the lads can get together and really enjoy it.”
Former Robin Hood manager Walker replaced joint managers Jason Dodsworth and Simon Houghton following the expunging of last season.
The decision was made that the first team would be primarily made up of the club’s under 19s and 21s sides which Walker had managed for the last three years. He has also recruited some top players from the West Yorkshire League and the new-look team have made a positive start.
Nostell won in the FA Vase at Rossington Main before losing their opening two league fixtures. However, they have responded with back-to-back wins ahead of another trip to Rossington Main tonight.
Walker has some real talent in his team and he speaks of his players in high acclaim.
“So far we have competed if you look at the results, even when going over to the likes of Bury and Yorkshire Amateur in our very first game,” he said.
“We were concerned, I won’t lie to you, we didn’t know (how we’d do). It was a massive decision for Kevin to run with this group who had done so well at under 21s.
“Rather than young (side), I don’t think young is the right word. It is inexperienced at this level. Loads of them have played West Yorkshire League and loads of them have been at the club for four years now, but if you took out Jamie Allsop, Lee Kelsey, that’s probably it of who have got more than ten NCEL starts.
“At the moment there is a lot of financial constraints in football and I think these lads want to play for the club. There is nobody in there asking about money.
“The thing with them lads is that they haven’t just come together, they have been together for three seasons. We have ten players in there who played in the under 19s team and won the under 19s cup.
“The difficulty I’ve got and it is a quite comical one, people are going to come in my players.
“When they go ‘what are they getting paid’? Well they’re getting paid next to nothing or a bit of a win bonus. People will say ‘let’s get them’.
“The thing is that they have all made a commitment to each other that they ain’t going nowhere. We have already had clubs come in for players.
“Because the lads have been with us a while they trust us and we don’t lie to them. A lot of things go on away from the football club that we’re helping lads out with.
“They are really committed group and after Saturday’s game 18 of them will have been out together. They’re all mates and they all want to play for Nostell which is massive.”
If you have enjoyed reading Non League Yorkshire over the past few months, please 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. There is a video at the bottom of the page showing our work.
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. As we slowly return to ‘action’, 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.
We have enjoyed great success over the past three years. Several of our players have represented Mencap GB in Geneva, including Billy Hobson from Selby and Greg Smith, whose story is quite inspiring.
Like most organisations, we have been affected financially by the Coronavirus and because of the cancelled Lucille Rollinson Memorial Tournament, we are down on projected income for the year and we have incurred losses in the last few months.
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. Several of our players are suffering from effects of the lockdown and we are determined to be in the strongest position possible to provide services for them.
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.