Rossington Main

Rossington Main FC are based in the former mining town just to the south of Doncaster in South Yorkshire. The club were formed as Rossington Colliery FC in 1919, offering the opportunity of the colliery workers the chance of organised football.

After a spell in a donkey field behind the pit, they moved to Oxford Street in 1921. When mines became nationalised in 1948, the club changed their name to Rossington Miners Welfare. In 1983 they moved from the Yorkshire League to become founder members of the Central Midlands League and changing their name to Rossington Main FC.

From the early 1970's another local club Rossington FC had appeared on the scene, originally as Station FC, progressing up the leagues up to the Central Midlands League. After lengthy negotiations the clubs merged in 1988. In 1991 Main joined the Northern Counties East League. The team just missed out on promotion at the end of the 2011-12 season after an impressive campaign.

Rossington Main will compete in the North Eastern Counties League Division One for season 2012-13.


My Visit

Rossington Main 1 Scarborough Athletic 5 (Saturday 11th November 2007) Northern Counties East League (att: 224)

 

All season one of my mates and regular travelling companions, Butch, had a nagging feeling that one day we would come across some hostility as fans of Scarborough Athletic. We, as fans were trying desperately to embrace the other clubs in the Northern Counties East League Division 1 and most other clubs had reciprocated. We were outnumbering home supporters by about seven to one and one or two thought of us as "big time Charlies" as a former Football league club.

I travelled up on the train to Doncaster where Butch was waiting in The Railway pub for me. We then went to the bus interchange to find our transport to Rossington, which is a former small mining town about seven miles away. The journey took us past the ruins of Doncaster Rover's old Belle Vue ground and then through some very dodgy looking estates on entering Rossington. A friendly local helped us to get out at the right stop and we thought that the looks may be deceiving. We decided to have a beer in a pub before going into the working men's club that doubled up as the football clubs clubhouse. We entered the very basic Station Hotel and thought we'd walked onto the cast of "Shameless". I then got a call from Boro director, James Hunter telling me to avoid the WMC as they'd felt uneasy and the coach of supporters would be joining us. I rang Fred to warn him of the WMC but he sounded unconcerned as he was already in there at the bar. I thought no more about it until the pub doors flung open as Fred and Irish Mark came in. Apparently they were watching the Sunderland v Newcastle game on TV and when one team scored, all hell broke loose as the drinkers had bets on the game. Bottles and punches were being thrown while the poor barman stood there helpless.

We walked down to Oxford Road and the welcome was superb. The gate staff and caterers could not of been more helpful. We even got Bovril in proper mugs. The ground was not too bad at all. A path and grass were all that was behind both goals. There was a smallish Main Stand with the dressing rooms built into the back with the rest of the side been made up of open flat standing and a small shelter with a few steps. Opposite was a small seated stand on the half way line. Occupying this area were the local youngsters who'd obviously watched Green Street or Football Factory of late. They were very vocal which was good to hear, but they then decided they'd look for some reaction from the travelling Seadogs. Fortunately they didn't take the bait so the youths were left to staring with menace and generally making themselves look stupid. They kindly scratched some of the visiting fans cars.

Boro won the game 5-1. Rosso had a foul mouthed yobbish manager who offered to sort out one of our fans while the no.10 tried all his tricks in front of probably the biggest crowd he'd played in front of. The harder he tried, the worse he got much to the hilarity of the Boro fans who kept cheering his every touch. Then unbelievable he let go of a thunderbolt to score the home sides consolation. They also put in an entry for own goal of the decade. The centre back rolled the ball back to the keeper who swung his leg to clear, only to miss it completely and see it roll into the net. You just don't see that kind of thing on Match of the Day, more's the pity. Only the 224 in attendance got to see it.

We decided to forgo the after match "hospitality" in the WMC to grab a much appreciated lift back to Doncaster station from Andy Crossland, a joint founder member of the Seadog Trust, who are the owners of Scarborough Athletic. We went to the excellent Leopard music pub for some top real ale with music to match.

I know I'm a nostalgia fan but I can do without experiences like Rossington too often.

As a footnote, the return match a couple of weeks later saw the mouthy manager don his boots and get sent off while encouraging the Rossington posse who were on tour for the day to get stuck into the home fans. The said Rosso fans were either arrested, ejected or left the game as Boro once again hammered their side. The manager was sacked a few games later because of his general manner!