County host Spennymoor on Saturday in a 3pm kick-off and, ahead of this Vanarama National League North tie, County Tweet-meister (as quoted on the BBC Tweet of the Week more than once) Gareth Evans has put together five factoids on our opponents for you.
1. So, our first reverse-fixture of the season already – and a demon to exorcise!
Correct, on both counts. We kicked off our campaign by visiting newly-promoted Spennymoor, and our single-goal defeat there now leaves the ‘Moors’ as the sole remaining club in this year’s National League North that we have never previously beaten in a competitive match.
In addition, current Hatters Jimmy Ball, Michael Clarke and Scott Duxbury will doubtless be doubly keen to get one over on the team from County Durham! They were all part of Jim Gannon’s North-wich Victoria side that went down 2-0 in the Evo-Stik Division One North Play-off Final at Spen-nymoor just over a year and a half ago.
2. The one NLN side never before to have visited Edgeley Park, too, I am guessing?
Spot on! But not entirely surprising, given that Spennymoor Town only this year turned 12,
having been formed as a 10th-tier Northern League Division Two club in 2005, and stayed at that lev-el until 2006/07 – the season prior to that in which we (look away now, fellow Hatters) won the play-offs to get ourselves back into League One – before rising four steps within the last decade.
3. Not to be confused with the now-defunct Spennymoor United, then?
Well, possibly… and understandably! The ‘new’ Spennymoor is technically a successor club to Even-wood Town, from a small village just over 10 miles away, rather than to the ‘old’ Spennymoor that folded before the end of 2004/05 – both of whom had been Northern League forces to be reckoned with in their day, winning the title eight times between them during the dozen years
between 1967 and 1979. But, by way of added complexity, our visitors this Saturday play at
United’s old Brewery Field ground, as well as in the black and white stripes of the original club bear-ing the town’s name. (They also encountered two early refusals by the Football Association to change the newly-founded club’s suffix from ‘Town’ to ‘United’.)
This hybrid arrangement was worked out in the course of a meeting between United supporters and Evenwood representatives at Spennymoor’s Penny Gill pub! But it seems to have stood the test of time rather well so far – with the new club having made great strides up the Non-League Pyramid, including the two Evo-Stik tiers through successive play-offs, and achieved one of eight
Final-wins by Northern League outfits during the last nine years in lifting the FA Vase (for 2013).
4. Have any players turned out for both the Moors and the Hatters?
A handful, if we are allowed to count Spennymoor United. Over 90 years ago, outside-left Tommy Scurr, who was born in the County Durham town, left his local club in 1925 to start a three-year stint in the Football League at EP. In later years, Newcastle-born Ralph Wright (County defend-er/midfielder, 1971/72) began and ended his career with Spennymoor. And both striker Bob Colville (1987-89) and midfielder Michael Oliver (1994-96), who hailed from Middlesbrough, turned out at Brewery Field after their spells at Edgeley Park.
5. ‘Ennymoor for ‘ennymoor? Arf.
Oh, very comedic! But, well, actually…
While we have former Spennymoor players on our minds, comedian Frank Skinner’s Dad, John Col-lins, deserves a mention – having played for United before World War Two, and been in the team for a 1937 Third Round FA Cup-tie at West Bromwich Albion. WBA were, of course, to
become the club of choice for a young Frank – and Spennymoor had a part to play not only in that, but also in his very existence! John, while drowning his sorrows at a local pub in the
aftermath of United’s 7-1 thrashing at The Hawthorns, had met local girl Doris, who he later wed – and Frank was born to them (as Christopher Graham Collins) in the West Midlands town some 20 years later. Football, eh? The essence of life itself!
