2 weeks Ago
Watch more of our videos on ShotsTV.com and on Freeview 262 or Freely 565 The Wem and District Sunday League – which included teams from the Oswestry, Wem and Whitchurch areas – folded just over 10 years ago. The league began life in 1972, the brainchild of Wem footballer Derek Hutchinson.
The first winners were a Gobowen team - an Orthopaedic Hospital side which featured future England cricketer Andy Lloyd. A number of clubs in the league went on to win Shropshire county competitions. In its heyday in the early 1990s, the league was made of three divisions, each with 12 member clubs.
But by 2014 it was down to a handful, and it proved impossible to carry on. Why the demise of Sunday football in North Shropshire? The strict interpretation of new international clearance rules for players who also played Saturday football in Wales, or who lived on the “wrong side” of the national border, was the final death knell. This was combined with “the cost, commitment and a lack of the type of volunteers who used to keep clubs going,” said the league secretary at the time, Roger Candlin.
Now a group of former players and officials want to remember and share the good times, and are inviting anyone who had any involvement with the league to a get-together. It’ll be held at the Institute at St Martins near Oswestry on the afternoon of Sunday, 1 June with a buffet (there’ll be a small charge to cover the cost) and a charity raffle. One of the people behind it, Howard Martin, who used to play for and then manage village side Trefonen FC, said: “I’m sure there are so many who will remember the joy of Sunday morning football, the banter, the rivalries, the friendships going back over many years.
“We’d like to recreate that, just for one day.” Another of the organisers, Russ Ellis, added: “We’d like to get in touch with as many clubs as possible who played in the league over its whole history, and we’d encourage anyone interested in coming or who can point us towards people involved with clubs all those years ago to contact me as soon as possible - it would be fantastic to have as many clubs, team officials and referees as possible represented at the reunion.” You can contact Russ Ellis at: russis@btinternet.
com ..
