Wormley Rovers FC vs. Colney Heath FC

Welcome to our opponents

The “Magpies” were founded in 1907 and played their early football in the Hatfield District League and, after the 1st World War, joined the Mid Herts League, where the 3rd  team played until recently. Earlier records indicate the winning of a Harcourt Cup but in is believed that this was Junior football some 18 month earlier, 1905-6.

Earlier matches were played on two grounds in Coursers Road (the Meadow and the Warren).

Success was a long time coming – 1935-36, and was disrupted by the 2nd World War.  The golden era of football came from 1946 through to 1960 when the club won the Mid Herts Benevolent Shield twice, the Bingham Cox Cup, Division 1 and Premier Division titles.

In 1952 the switch was made from Fuzzen Field to the Recreation Ground and into the Herts County League. Division Two was won at the first attempt and success continued with two Playing Fields Cups, the Aubrey Cup twice, Division 1 and Premier titles.  This culminated over the Easter weekend in 1960 with the Herts Intermediate Cup and Aubrey Cup double.  The Reserve side also completed a double in 1958 winning both Cup and League.

In 1965-66, 1968-69 and 1975-76 saw relegations and a slip down to Division 3. Promotions in 1979-80, 1983-84 and 1985-86 saw a return to the Premier Division after a 20 year gap only to be relegated back immediately.

Odd trophies were picked up in the 60’s 70’s and 80’s but these were pretty barren years on the field.

In August 1988 while modernising the building, the club burnt down.  Without a clubhouse, the Magpies, playing from a Portacabin, regained entry to the Premier Division winning the Division 1 title.

A new clubhouse was built in 1989 and an extension added in 1993, along with post and rails. Floodlights were erected in February 2000.

South Midlands football eluded the club with 3rd, 3rd, 4th, 4th finishes from 1994 – 1998, when second place would have been enough.  Centenary Trophies back to back and another Aubrey Cup were won but the Herts County title only came in 1999/2000.  The club’s ambition was to gain Premier Division status and with it FA Cup entry. Finishes of 5^th 3^rd 5^th 6^th and 5^th were not enough in the initial seasons, despite numerous semi-final appearances and consecutive Charity Cup successes in season .(2001/2 and 2002/3) The South Midland Reserve Challenge trophy was collected in 2004/5.The First Division title eventually came in 2005/6. With this came the Premier Division and the FA Cup. We had 15 happy seasons and steadily improving picking up the Premier Division Cup in 2010/11 with a 2-0 win against Leverstock Green. Our FA Vase run of 2013/14 saw us to a 3^rd round replay which we followed up by being thrown out of the competition in 2014/15 which was a troubled season with many managerial changes. Our last few seasons have continued with changes for the better with Ryan ‘Tomo’ Thompson installing a togetherness across the club and an FA Cup run that may take some beating in future years and the little reward of second and third Charity Shield wins in 2017-18 and 2018-19. Our aim of promotion was achieved by a FA restructure with the appropriate fencing and turnstiles for step 4. We only stayed one year being relegated back to the SSML .With the support of local authorities and sponsors we hope to continue to make the small village proud for many years to come.

As with all clubs, the Heath – or the Magpies – as they are more commonly known now, had its own breed of characters throughout the years.  The pre war sides, would have been drawn from entirely local players. Sides would have featured an Allen, a Franklin, or a Littlechild. In recent times a Whitehead or an Eames. The most well known club man of yesteryear was the manager around the War Years who later went on to hold positions in The County League and Herts FA whom he served for many loyal years.  This was Jesse Saywell.
In the olden days it was eleven players and the manager, where a Committee picked the side. Assisting off the field were Messrs Pickett, Archer, Kiff and Costain. C S Kiff ‘Charlie’ later became Secretary of the club and the Mid Herts League producing the League Centenary brochure in 1993. Players of this time included Roy Turner who went on to Barnet and Jimmy Whiting and Dickie Last who went on to St Albans, then both top amateur sides in the Country. Last and Whiting both returned in the 70’s.  They helped to win the trophies of the 50’s.

Many players of the sixties were drawn away to the emerging London Colney and latterly Selby but had their roots and early times for the Magpies of this period. The foes of these years were North Mymms, Redbourn, Markyate and of course London Colney.

During the emergence of Sunday ‘factory’ football of the sixties the club slipped down the reconstituted County League. Con Patient had a few years at the helm where he had an up and coming star in Ian ‘Grumpy’ Whitehead. Grumpy went on to captain both St Albans and Stevenage and later returned to manage for a year in the early 90’s.

Geoff Blundell along with Jim Eames dragged the sides along after this with the assistance for a short period (6 games) of Ronnie Dukes. He was the famous City manager at the time of the Torquay United FA Cup tie. Torquay complained that they had no soap, so Ronnie took a case along for the replay.

Malcolm Waller a centre forward under Geoff Blundell had a spell leading the side of mainly Hatfield boys during the 80’s. Geoff did provide us with the ‘legend’ who served us well before departing to play for and later manage Hertford. ‘Lege is of course Dave Whitehead. Dave scored over 200 goals for Hertford before moving to Potters Bar and then back home, where he continued to score goals until breaking a leg in 2002.. Tony Draper then had a spell before the most successful side of the late 80’s was managed by Ian Yule, who plucked stars from all over the place. He was a successful Sunday League manager but still ended getting the sack after failing to produce the goods with his aging all-stars in the Premier Division of the County League.

Laird Budge (Spurs kit man) and Dave Lawrence ex City and Bishops Stortford skipper in their Trophy days had a spell before the club turned to ex Watford Coventry and Irish International, Pat Morrissey. Pat’s first job was to save the club from relegation. He kept the side up on a goal difference of one goal on the last day of the season back in 1993, at then Champions Sandridge, after being 15 points adrift at Xmas after taking over from Frank Patrick.   Pat was unable to fulfil the promotion dream but did bring Cup success with Centenary Trophies and a Charity Cup. ‘Grumpy’ had a year then Pat returned from Hemel leaving us with ‘Shag’ Jeggo. Pat is sadly no longer with us. Darren, to give (Shag) his correct name did not really possess stars, other than Welsh International Malcolm Allen and a talented group of Stevenage Trainees, but kept us there or thereabouts in a plan to get us further up the ladder, both on and off the field. He introduced the club to ‘Sven’ O’Vell and since then between them the Aubrey Cup and the Championship, along with successful youth teams have provided us with what you have today. Geoff, like Pat gave us Cup successes and got us very close to the position we felt we ought to be in but handed the reins to Craig ‘Jonno’ Johnstone to pursue the grail.

Craig almost single handedly fulfilled this dream in 2005/6 after an amazing unbeaten run of 18 league games (including 14 straight wins at the start of the season) that carried us to our first Senior South Midlands title. The title winning season saw us score 106 league goals conceding only 27, with 26 wins, 3 draws and 3 defeats.

Going into our second Centenary having come a long, long way. The FA Vase was a regular feature; we had improved our league position to a best ever 3^rd in 2013/14. We also won the Premier Cup in.2011. The managerial pair of ex-Magpie players, Scott Lacey (102 club goals) and Wesley Awad called it a day and we hoped to continue the pattern with Kevin Cooper and Glenn Draper. However despite their best efforts and an indifferent start we had to turn to the experienced local ex-pro Gary Phillips. In the past he had donned the gloves for Barnet before managing at Aylesbury, Hemel Hempstead and Grays before taking time out to refresh himself at the Rec. After a few months the ‘professional lure’ of a coaching position at League 2 Stevenage proved too much for him (and latterly Crystal Palace) and so we found ourselves with a Parry / Beels combo. Glen played over 250 games for Cheshunt before a caretaker spell gave him the whiff of a managers office and Mark was a former number one at Broxbourne Borough who actually won a Challenge Trophy success at Colney Heath over London Colney in 2010.

This didn’t last long for personal reasons!

Wes returned with Matt Chalkley a year later to give our best finish and another first. A Herts Charity Shield with a 2-1 win at Letchworth against St Margaretsbury.

The 2014/5 season was a bit of a nightmare. Great expectations ended with 4 managers and expulsion from the FAVase (and subsequently the following two FA Cup entries) but a creditable runners up spot in the Premier Cup where we lost on penalties to Berkhamsted. The search for managers led us to a loss of an entire team twice in a season and the ones who did remain loyal went at the start of the following season. A new management team headed by Steve Rolfe with a new team then struggled to come to terms with the rigours of step 5 football. We saw the experience of Micky Nathan added and we stayed up on the last day of the season ironically at Broxbourne. 20^th was our lowest table position. So onward and upward we were back in the Vase  for 2016-17.

Micky was retained as manager with support from Mark Royal and Pete Waller and like previous generations wanted to make his mark but at the end of November 2016 he was relieved of his duties after a series of heavy defeats and replaced by Ryan ‘Tomo’ Thompson with assistance from Tony ‘Kavs’ Kavanagh.

This change saw us stay up in 18^th place and the hope of continuing forward.  A 10th place finish followed and was climaxed by a return to the FA Cup and a best ever FA Cup performance going out in a 2^nd Qualifying Round Replay at Burgess Hill Town after wins against Tring Athletic, Shortwood United and Cockfosters. The seasons highlight was the addition of our second Charity Shield with a win over Welwyn Garden City at Hemel Hempstead by 2-0. With the fruit of the under 18’s being pushed forward and the re-establishing of the Reserves in the County League Premier Division it is believed we can go on to a brighter future as we forward. .In 2018-19 a finish coming 6^th and an unbeaten 11 match run culminating with the retention of the Herts Charity Shield with a 1-0 win over Berkhamsted.  We took that run forward to see where it led.

That run was indeed taken forward with an undefeated run of seven league wins at the start of the 2019-20 season and it continued in an amazing undefeated run of home games which stretched to over a year. Games in hand over Tring Athletic were caught up and with continuing success in both the Premier Division Cup and the Herts Charity Shield we looked forward to the possible of a treble. The Leagues top scorer Jon Clements along with the League’s meanest defence were a possible 11 games from history. A Semi Final against Leighton Town (with the winners playing either Leverstock Green or Newport Pagnell Town) in the Premier Cup was up for grabs and we were already waiting for London Colney to play Ware Town in the Herts Charity Shield Final. We did become only the second side ever to reach three consecutive finals. Cheshunt did back in the mid 1950’s, but only won one out of three. That brings us back to the Spartan South Midland League Premier Division. Team of the month twice, top discipline side three times and top overall, top of the league for four months with a 6 point league and a game in hand and the world is hit by the worst pandemic for over 100 years. As at the time of writing, over 4 million people had died worldwide from Covid 19 Coronavirus, (nearly 130,000) from the UK including the SSML secretary, Mike Appleby. What is clear is that people and health is more important than football but I can only write with the respect of the history of Colney Heath Football Club.

The decision to null and void the seasons 2019-20 and 2020-21 and at a very late stage use points per game (ppg) over the two seasons and a restructure at all levels of the non league pyramid enabled us to be promoted to Step 4.

The Southern League Central Division One in 2021-22. Proved a step to soon. Relegated back to the Spartan League but it was closer than it appears. We were also bundled out of the FA Trophy.so its back to the Vase.

Ryan Thompson packed up a month too late maybe not quite giving Ant Burns enough time to turn it around.

A poor start to 2022-23 saw Ant replaced by George Georgiou.

This however, despite staying up on the last game of the season was not what we had been promised. For Season 2023-24 we turned to Matt Day (a former Under 23 manager under Tommo) along with assistance from Sandridge’ Tommy Burns. There first effort was very good a creditable 7^th just a few points outside the play-offs . The ladies had a good season gaining promotion to their highest level winning the league and cup double.

With the accumulation of London Colney Colts into our Youth set up everything is set for a flourishing season all round. Fingers crossed.

We are now well out mask time and it is still hoped that when the Saywell’s, Kiff’s, ‘silver fox’ Morrissey, Shag Jeggo and the numerous Littlechild’s look down on us they approve of what they started and what continues today.  After all, it’s still only a game!