And so to Anfield, no not that Anfield, but Anfield Sports & Community Centre and another new club to the North West Counties this season, Lower Breck FC. The visitors this Bank Holiday Monday afternoon are Nelson FC.
Lower Breck Boys FC was founded in summer
2010 by the Moore family based in the Tuebrook area of Liverpool as a youth
team. For the 2012/13 season ‘The Breck’ joined forces with the respected
Famous Grapes FC, becoming an open age team and member of the Liverpool County
Premier League Second Division. The side won the 2nd Division title
in its first season and then changed name to Lower Breck FC. Promotion to the
Premier Division was achieved the following season.
After a cup double in 2016/17, last term saw
Breck achieve the quadruple – winning the Liverpool County Premier League, LCFA
Challenge Cup, George Mahon Cup and I-Zingari Cup. The side was unbeaten
throughout the entire campaign with a run stretching back to October 2016, and
their application to join the North West Counties Football League Division One
North was successful.
Nelson FC was founded in 1881, joining the
Lancashire League in 1889 and becoming champions in 1896. The club folded
during the 1898/99 season and was expelled by the Lancashire FA. Having
rejoined the League in 1900, the club again closed down in 1916 with bailiffs
called in.
Having reformed in 1918 and entered the
Central League, the Admirals became founder members of the Football League
Division 3 North in 1921. Promotion to Division 2 followed in 1923, and the
side embarked on a Spanish preseason tour which saw them beat Real Madrid 4-2 !
Sadly the club was relegated after only one
season, and against a backdrop of struggling form, falling attendances and
growing debt (even a fund raising carnival lost £20 !) the team finished bottom
of the League in 1931. They failed to win re-election and were replaced by
Chester City. Having dropped into the Lancashire Combination the Admirals
folded once more in August 1936 due to crippling debts.
Hastily reformed as Nelson Town the new club
entered the local Nelson & Colne League in which they played up to the
start of World War II. After a further reformation in 1946 and rejoining the
Lancashire Combination, the Admirals were crowned champions in 1950 and again
in 1952, the latter under the stewardship of Joe Fagan, who went on to manage
Liverpool.
In 1971 the football club moved from its
Seedhill base, home since 1905 and which also hosted the Nelson Admirals
speedway team, to Victoria Park. Seedhill became a stock car racing venue, but
was all but demolished when the M65 was built.
Nelson FC became a founder member of the
North West Counties Football League in 1982 but was evicted in 1988 due to
ground grading requirement failures. A four year sojourn in the West Lancashire
League ended with readmittance to the NWCFL as Victoria Park, or Little Wembley
as the locals christened it, was upgraded.
The Admirals resigned from the league in 2010
but after a 12 month 'sabbatical' returned and were promoted to the Premier
Division in 2014. Only Cammell Laird finished below Nelson in 2017, prompting a
return to Division One. Last season the Admirals fared even worse only avoiding
rock bottom on goal difference, and not being relegated due to the restructure
of the non league game in the summer.
So under a
brooding sky and a murmuration of starlings over the retail park, it's past the
old stocks outside the Orange Tree and the colourful Denzell Gardens to the
M56. Then the M6 over Thelwall, standing traffic on the opposite carriageway
including a Moscow State Circus lorry.
On to the
M62, monster warehouses and a single wind turbine spinning furiously away,
Griffin Wood and The Dream sculpture. Off at The Rocket with the motorway
ending at Junction 4 - strangely not at Junction 1 as you would expect…..
Into Old
Swan, with Cask Liverpool Micropub and then Tuebrook with outlets including Mei
Mei Fish & Chips, Beauty Box Aesthetics and Udderley Delicious. I'm on
Rocky Lane by now, a pitted and potholed road that lives down to its name.
Right on to
Lower Breck Road and the Anfield Sports & Community Centre set in the
middle of Edinburgh Park, barely a mile from Anfield and Goodison Park. Plenty
of parking and plenty of fields too with dog walkers wearing gloves and winter
coats......
Outside is
the Cruyff Court, a mini AstroTurf pitch, and a sign bearing 'The 14 Rules of
Johan Cruyff'. Inside is a reception desk where I pay my £3, wander through the
cafe and into the ground. Only two sides are open, the popular side with hard
standing and a small covered all seater stand set back in the corner, oddly
stretching from the goal line to the penalty area - and clearly not the best
viewing point !!
There is
also a limited standing area behind the goal where right at its extremity you
can make out Anfield, towering above the houses in this residential area. On
the far side the two dugouts are 60 metres apart, which at least prevents
handbags between the two sets of coaching staff. Beyond that fields, a dog
walker staying for the entire duration of the game to retrieve balls kicked out
of the ground, which essentially is a caged AstroTurf pitch.
Breck, with
their motto 'Nulli Secundus' (Second to None) are in red and white stripes and
black shorts (think Sheffield United). The Admirals are in change green with
black trim. My neighbour is wearing shorts and.....an electronic tag. Be
afraid, be very afraid - I move.....as do others !!
Within 8
minutes Breck take the lead. Mick Douglas’s shot is blocked by a combination of
two defenders and goalkeeper, but the ball runs loose to Peter Donnelly and he
scores easily into the open goal.
Mason Nevitt has a header cleared off the line by Admirals' captain Ash
Brierley but after that it's all Nelson. Sam Dickinson's volley is plucked from
the air, James Wolfenden heads straight at the keeper and Martin Trickett
glances wide.
Breck come
into again just before the break and Nevitt wastes two glorious chances,
blazing wildly over with one, the other clawed away by the visitors' stopper,
Marcel Wusiewicz.
The second
half is a war of attrition, the players battling each other (4 yellow cards)
and the pitch. Breck create the better chances – Jamie Henders shoots narrowly
wide, then forces a good save from Wusiewicz with Louis Austin firing over from
the rebound. Callum Hill shaves the post with his measured effort.
Nelson have
plenty of ball and pressure but their shooting is (h)armless and befitting of a
man with only one eye. Their best chance falls to Wolfenden, who six yards out
and facing an empty goal manages to get the ball tangled under his feet and the
eventual scuffed shot is blocked.
Breck
survive four minutes of added time to take the game 1-0 and continue their
encouraging start to life at a higher level, with a crowd of 102 exactly
matching that at Steeton on Saturday.
