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. 

At the same time, the club changed its name to Rossington Main FC. In the early 1970s 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 competing in Division One. Three consecutive seventh-place finishes established the side in their new environment.

Following this, midtable or just below was the norm. In December 2006, Richard Sennett resigned as manager with his side bottom of the table. He was replaced by former Nottingham Forest player Ian Dring who struggled to help a turnaround in form before he departed a year after his arrival.

Ian Wilson, and then Mel Culshaw at spells in charge at 'Rosso' in the 2010-11 season before the arrival of Steve Lodge just into the new year. Future Saint Kitts and Nevis international Zeph Thomas played during this period before the side finished seventh in 2011-12.

Steve Brennan was appointed as manager in December 2013, remaining in the post until July 2015 when he was replaced by Lee Holmes. Lee Danysz was next in the hot seat before being succeeded by Duncan Milligan in June 2018. His reign was short-lived, leading to the arrival of Ryan Hindley.

Ben Hunter who progressed through the youth teams at Main and played in the first team was given the manager's job in May 2019. He took his side to the playoffs in 2021-22 after two abandoned seasons, where they lost their semifinal tie away to North Ferriby.

However, Rossington were not to be denied in 2022-23 as they reached the playoffs where they defeated Wakefield and then Horbury Town to win promotion to the Premier Division of the NCEL. Incredibly, their run continued with a third successive playoff appearance in 2023-24. On this occasion, they lost their semifinal on penalties to Garforth Town.

Rossington Main will play in the North Eastern Counties League Premier Division in the 2024-25 season.

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, the former small mining town about seven miles away. The journey took us past the ruins of Doncaster Rovers' 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 club clubhouse. We entered the very basic Station Hotel and thought we'd walked into 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 have 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 being made up of open flat standing and a small shelter with a few steps. 

Opposite was a small seated stand on the halfway 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 stare with menace and generally make themselves look stupid. They kindly scratched some of the visiting fan's cars. Boro won the game 5-1. Rosso had a foul-mouthed yobbish manager. He offered to sort out one of our fans while the number 10 tried all his tricks in front of probably the biggest crowd he'd ever 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 unbelievably he let go of a thunderbolt to score the home side's consolation.  They also put in an entry for the "own goal of the decade" competition. 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. I always looked out for the floodlights when going past on the train as the memories came flooding back.

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!