Title glory - North Western Trains League Division One Champions, 1998-99
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The word ‘Champions’ and Workington AFC were very rarely paired together so finishing at the top of the pile, after our one and only season in the North West Counties Football League, was special then, remains so now and always will be regarded as a notable achievement.
To say that Workington’s title success was dramatic is one of the great understatements. Winning our final fourteen games, the last of which against Reds’ only title rivals, Mossley, on the final day of the season was quite remarkable and it remains a mystery if the script writer was ever honoured for such a wonderful story.
At the end of February, after a loss (0-2) at Kidsgrove, we languished in 5th position, eighteen points behind leaders Mossley albeit with four games in hand. There certainly wasn’t any talk of titles or promotion on the terraces.
We began March with a less than convincing home win over Ramsbottom United at Borough Park and, little did we know then, that was the start of an amazing sequence of results which culminated in championship glory.
Back-to-back victories against Atherton LR and a 2-0 success over Maine Road was far more comfortable than the scoreline suggested, but four wins during March still didn’t stir the excitement.
April was hectic with eight games scheduled – three at home, five away. By the 20th of the month, and following a 4-0 home success against Rossendale United, we had climbed to a seasonal high of 3rd position and, all of a sudden, we became contenders. Our eleventh consecutive victory (at Glossop North End) lifted us to 2nd, so only Mossley ahead of us.
The penultimate game of the season, on Saturday 1st May, was at home to St. Helens Town and thanks to goals from Grant Holt (2), Darren Wilson and Mathew Henney we emerged 4-2 winners before a 1,356 attendance – the best Borough Park gate for a league game since the Football League days!
That meant, forty-eight hours later, Borough Park would host the North West Counties League First Division title decider on the last day of the season:
Workington (87 points) v. Mossley (88 points).
Only a win would suffice.
Mossley hadn’t played for ten days (Reds had played three times in that period) and started the brighter of the two teams. It was tense and neither side created too much in the first half or the early stages of the second.
Then, cometh the hour, cometh the man. Workington born, Stuart Williamson, headed home the opening goal in front of a packed Town End and Grant Holt bundled home a second seven minutes later.
But as you all know only too well, Workington never do ‘straightforward’! Mossley reduced the areas from their number 10, Chris Willcock (I wonder what happened to him?), with ten minutes to go.
We survived, just, and our tenth league double of the season, against the long-time leaders, secured our first major title.
The crowd had been limited to 2,500 but Mossley had returned a big chunk of their allocation and the attendance was announced as 2,281 – most of whom remained for the players’ well deserved ‘lap of honour’.
It was our fifteenth home win in the league that season and that after opening the campaign back in August with a 2-1 defeat by Newcastle Town.
Yes, Monday 3 May, 1999 will certainly be filed in the archives as one of the great Borough Park afternoons!
