Linotype Cheadle Heath Nomads FC

(cont)
The late 80's saw Nomads integrate with The Royal Oak (previously The Midland) from the Stockport Saturday League. Alec Tress came as manager and the club gained some valuable players such as Dave Kerr, Stuart Whitehead / Owen, Wayne Barnshaw and Mark Butcher, who all went on to represent the L & C Representative team After a short period of interim and improvised management the Club appointed Dave Gibbons as manager. Dave had been a player with Manchester City and was still a good player in his early 30s. (Dave was part of the Gibbons family, one of three footballing sons, which included John and George. John played for Nomads until moving to Leeds, Dave led Nomads, as Player Manager to the First Division championship in season 1987/88 and George stayed on as Secretary after Micky Chadderton, and subsequently became a Trustee of the club.) Recruiting players such as George McBeth (ex M/C City) helped Dave's success as Manager and winning the title in 1988 was the first time Nomads had won the major prize in the L & C since the halcyon days of the early fifties (ref. P. 7) It was also a platform for the future and Nomads continued to challenge for honours but it was not until 1993/94 with Ian Coll as manager that Nomads regained the league title. (The club's main striker at the time was Andy Lowrie who played in the final of the Reserve Division Cup of the Mid Cheshire League as an emergency goalkeeper. We won 3-1. He still makes the odd appearance with the Vets) The championship win coincided with the loss of cricket at the club and presented Nomads with the opportunity to join the Mid Cheshire League. The move upwards presented a challenge re. admin, travel and expense. There was another challenge of leaving the known and comfortable Lancashire and Cheshire League, with which the club had been proudly associated for 73 years for the Mid Cheshire League with harsher realities and some practical problems. Nomads ran three teams in the L & C and all three would have to leave. What would happen to the 2nd. and 3rd. Teams? In the end Nomads decided to take up the challenge of Mid Cheshire League football. The Third team was disbanded and the second Team joined the East Cheshire League and at the same time the loss of cricket meant that the club could expand its junior football. The club was entering a new phase in its history. It had become a Football Club. d) Cheadle Heath Sports Club, Cheadle Heath Nomads, Linotype /Cheadle Heath Nomads. Organisation 1994 - 2002, Organisation 2002 - 2006 Following on from the "Sectional" structure of Football/Cricket/Social, Cheadle Heath Sports Club continued with a Management Committee and three sections - Senior Football, Junior Football and Social. Whilst the Junior Section was small, it worked reasonably well but the Management Committee lost control as the Junior section grew. In 2002 it was decided that the Trustees should take over the management of the Sports Club as a whole and that the two sections be rolled up into one football club - Cheadle Heath Nomads F.C. A single committee was formed under the chairmanship of Trustee George Gibbons. Following the amalgamation with Linotype in 2004, the structure remains the same - only the title is different. e) Cheadle Heath Nomads 1994- 2004 (Senior Football) Ian Coll continued to manage the first team after the elevation to the Mid Cheshire League and Nomads won the Second Division Cup and League double in its first season. The Reserve team - forced out of the L & C , won the East Cheshire League title, but after a season in the Stockport League, it folded. Encouraged by this success, Ian moved to improve the structure and the squad by the appointment of Jackie McDonald as Manager and himself as Director of Football but the financial support he was seeking form outside the club was not forthcoming. Ian resigned and it was the start of a difficult time for the club until the appointment as manager of Pete Blundell. A former manager of Cheadle Town, Pete brought in players of the calibre of Ian (Soggie) Sowden, Paul Stringer, Phil Wardle, Darren McHugh, Warren Fitchett etc. and also acquired the services of George Oghani (ex Bolton, Burnley etc). We were a formidable outfit and should have won the title in 2001 but faded in the run in to finish third. Thereafter we went into decline and would have been relegated at the end of season 2003/04 but for the merger with Linotype. The good news during this time was the acceptance in 1999 of a Reserve team in the Mid Cheshire Reserve Division. f) Linotype 1919 -2003 Linotype was formed in 1919 - the same year as Cheadle Heath Nomads. Linotype was a works' team from the printing press manufacturers of the same name. Initially they played at Lawrence Road in Broadheath, in the middle of the Linotype Company workers' housing estate. There is not too much data available at this time about Linotype between the wars but we do know in their early days, the club had played in the North Cheshire League. There is also a reference in the Lancashire and Cheshire League handbook to a "Linotype and Co. App" winning the Division 3 (now Division 2) championship in season 1934-35. Cheadle Heath Nomads won the Division 2 (now Division 1) championship in season 1936-37, which would suggest the two clubs met in season 1935-36 and maybe in 1936-37 too! We would appreciate more data about Linotype between the wars. On reforming in 1949, Linotype joined the Mid-Cheshire League, then in its second season, and was a member as such until the merger with Cheadle Heath Nomads. Linotype emerged as one of the most successful clubs in the history of the Mid-Cheshire League, being champions on four occasions (1959/60, 1968/69, 1990/91 and 1993/94) and runners - up five times (1962/63, 1972/73, 1980/81, 1989/90, 1996/97). In addition the club reached twelve Challenge Cup finals although only winning the trophy three times (1982/83, 1983/84 and 1987/88) The Reserves also enjoyed some success. They joined the Mid- Cheshire League newly formed Division II in 1975 and in season 1977/78 defeated Hanley Town to win the Division II Challenge Cup, but lost in the final to Leek Town Reserves in 1987/88. They were also runners - up in the Division II championship in 1982/83 and again in 1989/90. When the league disbanded the lower division in 1983, Linotype Reserves went into the Central Cheshire League, where they won the League and Cup "double" in 1983/84 and the league again, in 1986/87. However when the Mid-Cheshire League re-formed Division II in 1987/88, Linotype Reserves rejoined and became the only team to have played in the lower division in every year of its existence. One of the strengths of Linotype was its family connections with sons following their fathers etc. into the Linotype fold. Down to the late 1960's the club received financial assistance from the Linotype firm, but from about 1970 this was withdrawn, as the company works at Broadheath were wound down. Linotype were able to continue because they were always able to draw on the services of men such as Wilf Hodgkiss, Jack Bather, A. Brown, E.B. Davies, B. Hennis and more latterly Brian McGuinness as members of the Management Committee. Since their formation in 1919, Linotype has won 42 major trophies, including the Cheshire Amateur Cup on three occasions (1960/61, 1969/70, and 1985/86). They were runners -up in the Cheshire Cup in season 1979/80. In 1985, the Lawrence Road ground was required for a housing development and the club moved to the British Airways Club in Timperley before merging with Cheadle Heath Nomads in time for season 2004/05 g) Linotype / Cheadle Heath Nomads 2004 to date The merger with Linotype was a win, win, win situation; i) Nomads gained greater playing strength, and a proven Manager in Dave Norman and retained its place in the top Division. ii) Linotype had somewhere to play. iii) Most importantly, we gained two of the game' s best administrators in Brian McGuinness and Jim Calderbank. The club had been thin on the ground off the field with Roy Welsh and George Gibbons doing most of the work. Quality off the field doubled overnight. The playing side took a little time to settle down and we have consistently finished mid table since the merger. Alan Pannett has taken over as manager and with Andrew Pattison running the Reserve team, in season 2005/06 we won the Stockport Senior Cup, The Reserve Division League and Cup double and came Runners-up in the Altrincham Cup. The prospects look good with a few of the lads nurtured in the Junior ranks beginning to show at senior level. It would not take much to push us to the top of both Divisions. The future's bright, the future is claret and blue! h) Cheadle Heath Nomads Juniors 1994-2004 The junior section started to emerge just before the cricket left with a small proportion of the outfield being used for an Under 9s team, run by Steve Smith and featuring his daughter, Leanne. The loss of cricket allowed the juniors to grow by one age group per year - adding a team at Under 9s each time as the Under 9s became the under 10s, the Under 10s became the Under 11s etc.. By the turn of the century there was a full complement of teams from Under 9 to Under 16. A highlight of this period was the appearance of a Nomads team in a Cup Final at Old Trafford prior to the Germany v. Italy game in the 1996 European Championships. The whole German squad watched the match. There were many successes at the different age groups and of course some great social occasions. Administratively the juniors had been largely left to their own devices, but as the section grew, the administrative difficulties multiplied. Reporting was slow and inadequate and there was increasing difficulty in integrating accounts, especially from a timing point of view. For a club registered for VAT this was proving very difficult. As a result the Trustees felt there was no option but to take over the administration of the juniors and started to integrate its finances with those of the club. The Trustees also decided to integrate the two sections (Senior and Junior) into one football club, with meetings chaired by a Trustee. Since the start of this, George Gibbons chaired the committee of Cheadle Heath Nomads F.C., reporting to the Trustees as a whole and the acquisition of firstly Dave Jenkins and then Peter Harley stabilised the financial reporting. i) Linotype/Cheadle Heath Nomads Juniors 2004 to date The merger with Linotype (essentially at the senior level) made little difference to the juniors although the administrative skills of Brian McGuinness can only have helped. The club has added an Under 8's training group and an Under 17's team. The Under 17s has proved a real difference so far as lads seem able, in many cases, to make the leap from the Under 17s to senior football - at least at the Reserve Team level, whereas the leap from Under 16s to seniors seemed to prove a difficult one. There have been more "converts" from Under 17s to seniors in the last two seasons than there were in the previous five (ref. page 11) The above represents a reasonably thorough if somewhat truncated history of Cheadle Heath Sports Club, Cheadle Heath Nomads F.C., Linotype F.C, Linotype / Cheadle Heath Nomads F.C. and the development of junior football. It will continue. Should you have a contribution to this history, please contact Roy Welsh, George Gibbons, Les Jackson or Brian McGuinness.