Saturday 29th July 2025 ko 11:30

United Counties League Premier Division North

GRESLEY ROVERS 1 (Moore 57)

SHERWOOD COLLIERY 5 (Westcarr 13p 27p 41 60 Pearce 89)

Att 597 at the Moat Ground

Entry £8

Programme £2.50

Teamsheet 50p

I didn’t want to check Futbology, I knew it had been the best part of twenty years since I’d visited the Moat Ground. I’d actually visited after I’d given then Oxford United defender Scott Guyett a lift after he’d missed the team coach.

He also played for Gresley Rovers who are based in Church Gresley, near Swadlincote He pointed out that when Gresley won the Southern League in 1998 they were turned down for the Conference due to ground grading and were forbidden from using the Baseball Ground even through Derby County had moved out. The club that were promoted due to Gresley’s misfortune? Cheltenham Town.

That represented the height of Gresley’s time so far. With promotion denied Guyett signed for Southport and after playing in League 2 for Oxford United played for the likes of Yeovil and AFC Bournemouth before becoming Fitness Coach at Crystal Palace.

Sadly that interation went bankrupt in 2009, the club we saw here started life as Gresley FC, starting 2009-10 in the East Midlands Counties League. The silver ling to all of this is that Gresley’s home since 1907 is still in use, and remarkably unchanged since their heyday. It is, by anyone’s standards a classic non-league ground and I have forgotten just how good it is. In fact the only disappointment was that Elvis had left the building. For those who didn’t know Elvis Gresley was the club mascot and was nothing but a hound dog and wore blue suede shoes.

Gresley’s excellent programme didn’t sugar-coat the fact that they struggled to stay at Step 5 last season. Perhaps then the last club they wanted to face on the opening day was well resourced Sherwood Colliery. They featured Craig Westcarr who has the likes of Nottingham Forest, Walsall, and Notts County on his CV. He tore Gresley’s defence to shreds and quite honestly he could have easily collected his knap hand.

I felt for friendly Gresley who have an endearing sense of self, but found my thoughts heading to our next game- which to coin a phrase was likely to be “Something completely different.”