ASHTON UNITED HISTORY DATABASE
Project 1878
ABOUT PROJECT 1878
Witton Albion v Ashton United in 2014
Frustrated by a lack of available historic data on Ashton United's past for my programme articles, I made the foolhardy decision to research the club's history - foolhardy because I had no idea just how big and all-consuming a task it would turn out to be researching a club founded in 1878!
As a result I have been on a long, interesting and often frustrating, journey - aided and abetted by the wonderful staff at Tameside's Local Studies & Archives Centre (part of Ashton Library) and many other individuals throughout both non-league and the professional game.
The result is unfolding here on this website (and I hold my hands up to being no design expert), however I know it will never be finished as there will be errors (all my own work) to correct, new information coming to light and the club continues to play and, as you'd expect, sign players new too.
HOW TO READ A PLAYER'S ENTRY
Underneath each player's name is a summary of what is known about him (any and all additional information sincerely welcomed) in the following format;
Date and place of birth (where known) or an estimate if a player's age is referenced without an exact date of birth being given; date of death also shown where known / applicable.
Playing career refers to known activity within football - many players have not yet been traceable to date, apart from time spent at Hurst Cross. Playing time outside the UK is shown in brackets - e.g. Melbourne Knights (Australia).
Players that have enjoyed a professional career are, as you might expect, much easier to research; some statistics exclude cup games but, wherever known, the total number of appearances and goals at a club are shown after the dates he was at that club, as follows (75-76; 18-2). Further involvement in the game is marked with the appropriate title e.g. Manager. For a considerable period (stretching from the 1970s to the early 1990s) the Sports Editors of the Ashton Reporter didn't always consider publishing the teams in full alongside match reports - as a result, there are still substantial gaps in the statistics of players from that era.
The player's debut and last game are shown indicating what competition the game was played in; abandoned games are only included in the statistics if the result stood - games played to the full and later expunged because a team left the league also have to be considered, as have seasons that were started but not completed (e.g. 1939-40 and 1919-20). Players featuring in more than one spell have all debut dates and their last game shown - the length of time spent at Hurst Cross can be seen in the playing career section of their profile.
The player summary is, by necessity, brief - in some cases little more than a surname is known, but every identified player has at least a line describing some aspect of their time at the club.
A note on Sponsorship
Sponsors play an important role in maintaining the game at all levels - however, when this data started being compiled I had no idea what (if any) format it would ever be displayed in, so the names of sponsors supporting parent competitions was never collated. For the record, Ashton were in the North West Counties League during the period when it was sponsored by Bass, from 1986 until 1995; when Ashton joined the Northern Premier League in 1992 it was sponsored by HFS Loans, that agreement lasted until the end of the following season, when Henkel (UniBond) took over from 1994 to 2010; Bostik (Evo-Stik) sponsored the competition from 2010 until 2019 and Bet Victor for just the shortened 2019-20 season, being replaced by PitchingIn when football resumed in September 2020. Ashton's first season in the National League (Conference North) in 2004-05 was under the sponsorship of Nationwide Building Society, with the second spell under Vanarama. The various cup competitions Ashton compete in have also been sponsored - these need to be researched in-depth before they can be included in later updates.
Credits
I am indebted to the various club secretaries, directors and fellow supporters of Ashton United FC that have been able to
give me first-hand accounts of many players whom I never saw play, and to those former players and managers with whom
I have spoken personally throughout my research - also to the likes of Kevin Wickham, Ken Lee and Steve Lee for their
contributions of statistical information in match-day programmes past ... and countless others, just some of whom I name below.
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I want to acknowledge every single person that runs a website dedicated to a non-league club, a band of volunteers working to promote their team / club - for purely geographic reasons, there are some that have been more valuable resources and I must specifically thank John 'Wiz' Cawthorne (Mossley), Geoff Knights (Macclesfield) and Terry Rowley (Altrincham), all of whom have been more than generous with sharing their knowledge and content; the website resources supporting Hyde United, Stalybridge Celtic, FC United of Manchester, Nantwich Town, Witton Albion, Wigan Athletic / Wigan Borough, Southport, Stockport County, Accrington Stanley, Halifax Town and Bangor City have all proved valuable too ... go look at them all sometime. The geographical proximity of Ashton to Oldham made Garth Dykes' 'Who's Who of Oldham Athletic' essential reading also.
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I also owe a debt to every match reporter and photographer that has laid down their words or images for posterity in The Ashton (now Tameside) Reporter newspaper - especially two of their former Sports Editors, David 'DCN' Jones, and Mike 'Pav' Pavasovic.
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I must also mention the resources that transcend a single club - firstly those of the leagues that Ashton have played in, then collections of data such as Michael Joyce's 'Football League Players' Records 1888-1939' and Barry Hugman's 'Football League Players' Records' - and then a host of resources that are so often my 'go to' options, such as the Football Historians' Research Group (via Facebook), Richard Rundle's amazing Football Club History Database website; http://fchd.info/, Rec Sports Soccer Statistics Foundation http://www.rsssf.com/ and the fabulous nonleaguematters.co.uk/
Finally I'd like to dedicate the site to every former Ashton player, volunteer and committee man - plus three people no longer with us, Neil Brown - curator of www.neilbrown.newcastlefans.com - which, despite the name, is a fabulous resource for transfers from Football League clubs but also covers moves in and out of non-league, the aforementioned John Cawthorne of Mossleyweb, and finally to the daddy of them all - my primary inspiration behind all this work ... the late Tony Kempster.
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Thank you all, no matter how small your contribution and whether you are named or not.
Images
I have tried, wherever possible, to use my own images - which I am used to seeing reproduced without my prior consent. Terry Rowley, Geoff Knights and John Cawthorne have been most generous in allowing me to copy content from their websites, for which I am very grateful. Wherever using other people's work, I have always sought to obtain permission prior to using their images - although I recognise that some people don't always own all that they're sharing! If you have any issues with an image used on this site that you believe may be copyright protected, please contact me (project1878@aol.com) and I will credit as appropriate, or take down, if necessary. Thanks.
Photographically speaking it would be remiss of me not to mention my photographic mentors Mike 'Mossley Smiffy' Smith, John Porter and Eddie Leech, plus fellow contributors at Ashton United - Dave Johnston, Juel Miah-Subhan, Peter Whalley, Nick Johnson, and Luke Smith - whose work appears (otherwise uncredited) alongside my own.