The yearning to play a good standard of football is a mania within the North East of England. No man who plays football is so stubborn, so conceited, so arrogant or so accomplished that he is not constantly striving to improve his game. He may not admit this to others; he may pretend that mediocrity is enough for him. This man is telling a white lie and he knows it. He wants desperately to play at the highest standard possible.
Cramlington Juniors Football Club attempts to provide the opportunities relevant to this criteria. It has been sports privilege to bring the fundamental vision of the founder members of Cramlington Juniors Football Club to the forefront of our story.
In the beginning 1973 Father Cass, a local Catholic Priest trying to maintain strong links with the community was busy going about his usual work of providing organised activities within the locality. Tommy Orrick and Bob Leask – the current President of the club, had a vision to form a local Junior Football Club and here was an opportunity to commence. Discussions took place with Father Cass and his pupils and the term (crawl before you walk) was never more appropriate. Hard work, good organisation, an abundance of humour, coupled with Tommy’s tremendous experience within the game (former Wembley Amateur Cup Winner) provided the youngsters with a sense of belonging. About this time the Club appointed its first Chairman Eddie Conway. Eddie was to serve the club well until he left in 1982. The Club was theirs and hence there was only one direction to travel – forward.
Following friendly matches, using various facilities, discussions took place with the relevant authorities and the Club managed to attain a base to operate from – Ann Welfare Park – still to this day the home of Cramlington Juniors Football Club. Team managers were appointed, for an ever increasing number of teams now operating through the Northumberland Football Association and competing within the Northumberland Association of Boys Clubs - Junior Football Competitions – the Club was now about to reach for the stars. Numerous contacts and associations were formed within the local football scene, hence the arrival of Jimmy Snowdon, an influential and charismatic man who was to eventually proceed with imaginative plans to expand and develop the Club into what it is today.
Assisted by Ken Sinton and several colleagues the Club was now about to enter an exciting phase with Jimmy Snowdon becoming Chairman in 1982, and after steady progress, David Laws as Secretary formed an almost telepathic understanding with the Chairman to provide a platform for the Club to achieve major targets for the 1980`s.
Following excursions abroad, forming superb relations with clubs in Holland and Switzerland, participating in international tournaments in the Isle of Wight, and in Ayr, for the Scotland Cup, were great experiences. Indeed, success at these tournaments became a feature of the Club and recognition within the game became apparent.
Progress now became the operative word and following strenuous fundraising activity 1988 was to become a remembered year with the opening of a clubhouse, where players, families, sponsors and guests were to form a superb atmosphere and prove the social side of sport to be as strong as ever.
The temporary clubhouse was only the beginning and following discussions with parents of the players, a panel of representatives was established to attempt to turn the facilities into a modern, upmarket permanent facility which would provide the community for a major foreseeable time. This dream became a reality when the new Clubhouse, which was Lottery funded, opened on November 14th 1996. The Club will be eternally grateful to Kevin Riley and Dave Shaw who were the key players in this venture.
Our gratitude goes out to many others, too numerous to mention for their unstinting work. We are also very grateful to Alan Shearer, Graham Fenton and Tommy Widdrington, all old boys, for agreeing to give up their time to officiate in the opening of our new Club house, which has become the target of many clubs, Junior and Senior alike, to emulate.
Increased participation with the advent of a Northumberland Football Association licensed mini-soccer centre, proposed under 8s & under 9s 5–a- side league, coaching school (9s) – all to be controlled by the Clubs own fully qualified coaching staff is now being promoted to introduce the technique, discipline, attitude, character and companionship which, as always, is most important to a Club of the reputation of Cramlington Juniors.
Approximately 350 boys and girls representing teams aged 7 to 19 years of age are the future of Cramlington Juniors Football Club. The boys and girls come from all areas of Northumberland now that the 5 mile radius rule has been abolished. The duty of officials, management committee and volunteers at the club is to work towards their future – hopefully we may succeed in establishing careers in the professional game for some of the boys - the club has a fine reputation on this topic – England internationals Alan Shearer and Andy Sinton are both ex Cramlington Juniors players. We also know that boys who do not proceed to Football Careers will have gained benefit from the established procedures of a major Junior Club – experience they can transform into whatever career they adopt.
About 2001/02 it was agreed that we would go to a corporate colour strip across all age groups, instead of teams wearing different colours. It was agreed we would go a Red and White hoped shirt, white shorts and white socks. This proved to be very successful as you can now tell from a distance that it is a Cramlington Juniors team you are watching, without asking anyone .
In 2002 the Club embarked on another new venture – girl’s football. We now operate girls’ teams at under 10s, 11.12s, 13 14s, 15, 16s and the Women’s team. In the same year the Club became the first in Northumberland to achieve the F.A. Charter of excellence, a magnificent achievement, when you consider we already had about 95% of the criteria required, as working policies within our club.
About this time we did not have a computer at our disposal in the clubhouse .The management committee were approached for permission to change the toilets and showers in No4 changing room into an office come storage area for the Kegs and gas bottles which were being stored in the corridors. Permission was granted and a PC obtained through BT.
In 2004 the old changing rooms were refurbished, at some cost, with help from Blyth Valley council. This meant we now had 6 changing rooms of a high standard for the youngsters and officials to change in. We also purchased some mobile goals to replace the static goals on both of our pitches and the pitch at Kramel school in an attempt to protect our pitches from being overplayed, in particular the goal mouths.
In 2006/07 we embarked on a number of projects to develop both the ground and the facilities.
It was becoming apparent that we had a big problem with dog fouling on the pitches .Before every game parents had to go around both pitches to pick up the offending material with shovels. Not a nice job to have to do. As we have a duty of care towards the youngsters in our charge it was agreed to ring fence No 1 pitch, which already had a barrier fence around it, with reinforced PVC mesh, which would prevent dogs gaining access. We are very grateful to Blyth Valley Council for their assistance in this project .This proved to be a huge success. So much so that we decided to mirror image what we had on No1 pitch onto No2 pitch. Thanks to Northumberland County Council this became a reality.
At the same time we became concerned that too much equipment was being stored in the old changing rooms, which was against Health & Safety rules. Our commercial committee was given the task of obtaining funding to extend the rear of these changing rooms to provide storage for this equipment. This they duly did and now all of our equipment is stored in this extension, with the kind assistance of The Banks Community Fund.
We had a problem with cars parking on the road outside of the club house, which meant that the players were having to walk between parked cars to get to their respective pitch, whilst cars were coming in and out of Ann Welfare, an accident waiting to happen. It was agreed with the council, and at our own cost, to paint no parking lines on the roadway, provide disabled parking bays and a zebra crossing for people to cross to the pitches in safety.
The vision of the founder members, and all those who have played their part no matter how big or small, must not be overlooked and the exciting challenge and development must proceed to take Cramlington Juniors Football Club into the next Millennium.
Sadly Father Cass passed away on Monday October 24th 2005. He will be missed by many but will be remembered by us as an outstanding person.