Yorkshire
Ammers AFC
Ground: Fleet Lane, Woodlesford
Capacity: 1,000
Club Founded: 1918
League: Yorkshire Amateur League Supreme Division (current level)
Yorkshire Amateur played at Elland Road in Leeds, before moving across the city, where their history and community spirit endured, before amending their name and looking to reset for a brighter future.
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All Images on this page are of Bracken Edge
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Early History
The club was founded in Leeds
by a man called Kolin Robertson. They moved into Elland Road after Leeds City FC was dissolved. Amateur sold it to the newly formed Leeds United
for £250 in 1920 after deciding that the venue did not suit their needs. Their intention was to play against pro teams in the north of England.
Ammers
became founder members of the Yorkshire League in 1920, sharing grounds with
several clubs for a couple of years, including Harrogate Town, before moving to Bracken Edge off Harehills Lane. In 1931-32, holders Wycombe Wanderers and then Wimbledon were defeated in the FA Amateur Cup at Bracken Edge, watched by a crowd of 3,569.
Halcyon Days
Dreams of reaching the final were dashed by Marine, who won the semifinal tie 2-1 at Filbert
Street in Leicester. In the same season, the side reached the first round of the
FA Cup. The team of the day was so strong that England
amateur international George Hudson could not break into it.
To round off
an incredible season, Amateur ended as Yorkshire League runners-up. Another first-round appearance in the FA Cup followed before the club went into a period of decline. Relegations and promotions were a feature, as the team found itself in Division Two of the league by the end of the 70's.
Future West
Bromwich Albion goalkeeper Stuart Naylor started his career in the late ‘70s at Bracken Edge, as did Gary Strodder, who went on to enjoy a fine Football League career.
The club became a founder member of Division Two North of the Northern Counties East League (NCEL) in
1982-83.
The NCEL
format was tinkered with a couple of times in its early years, with the Ammers
playing in its lower tiers. It was
around this time that Andy Watson, who would amass 352 Football League appearances, came
through the ranks. The club constructed a new seated stand, hard standing, and an all-weather pitch at Bracken Edge, as well as new floodlights.
Amateur played
in the second-tier Division One of the NCEL after further restructuring from the start of the 2005-06 campaign. Off the
pitch, further improvements were made to Bracken Edge while the committee was
strengthened as the club built its profile once more.
Phil Harding and Lincoln Richards, father of Premier League star Micah, were given the joint manager role in June 2013 before Richards became chairman a year later. The Ammers won promotion to the Premier Division in 2017-18.
Ammers were top of the NCEL as the 2020-21 season
was curtailed. They were rewarded with a place in Division One East of the
Northern Premier League for the following season. After one season, they were relegated because Bracken Edge didn't meet league requirements, rather than for playing performances.
New owners took over, stating they intended to hand the club back to the community. The side was relegated to Division One of the NCEL a few months later. The 2024-25 season saw another relegation. Renamed Yorkshire Ammers, didn't compete in the following campaign.
Bracken Edge was put up for sale, with home games played at Fleet Lane, Woodlesford, as a tenant of the WRCFA. Plans were announced to eventually move to Chapeltown YDC, and redevelop the site using cash from the sale of Bracken Edge and turn it into Chapeltown Sports Village.
Ammers merged with Stanley United to take up their place in the Supreme Division of the Yorkshire Amateur League.
My visit
Yorkshire Amateur 1 Scarborough Athletic 6
Northern Counties East League Division One - Saturday 8th November 2008
👨👨👧👧 220
I missed out on Scarborough Athletic's first couple of visits in the league and cup, so when Fred rang me and said he was having his stag do on the day of the NCEL visit in November 2008, I made sure I booked the day off work.
I got to Leeds later than the rest of the lads. Some were already well "in beer" as they'd watched the Rugby League World Cup semi-final earlier. We had a good tour of some excellent purveyors of real ale before I got a taxi with Butch to the ground to spend a bit of time in the clubhouse with the rest of the sizeable away following.
It was certainly very friendly, but not the tidiest of clubrooms I'd ever used. The lads who went the previous season said it was warmer outside than in the club, and it had been tidied up quite a lot since last time. The mind boggled. What they lacked in salubrious surroundings, they made up for in hospitality and service. The catering was nice and cheap.
Bracken Edge didn't seem like a bad place to watch football. It had a small strip of flat standing on three sides of the pitch with banking behind the goals towards the corner flags on the stand side. On the far side of the pitch stood an all-weather floodlit five-a-side court.
The side where you enter has all the facilities, namely the clubhouse and dressing rooms, then a bit further up a long stand with a mixture of seats and terracing, which formed excellent acoustics for the travelling Seadogs. Boro won the match 6-1. The Ammers had equalised but then were reduced to ten men almost immediately.
One of their players was deemed to have handled on the line, which I considered to be a harsh ruling that ruined the game as a spectacle thereafter. The Ammers had knocked Boro out of the Wilkinson Sword Trophy in a shock a few weeks earlier. It was easy to see how they had a talented and spirited young side. Ryan Blott was the star of the show for Boro as he rattled in five goals.
Bunner also put in a cabaret performance by rugby tackling a Boro fan, who'd been a bit of an embarrassment, down one of the banks and giving Radio York reporter, and York fan who took delight in our struggles, Barry Parker the third degree. The moments were gladly caught on YouTube for posterity. Watch them here and here.
We celebrated with another beer before getting a taxi back into the city to sample more imperious Tetleys, including one or two in The Templar Hotel, one of my favourite pubs in the world. With Butch and Batley flagging, I went to catch up with the stag party, who were in a trendy bar near the station.
Unbelievably, a group of lads from Scarborough, whom I used to play against, came in as they'd been celebrating one of their birthdays. My train journey home was a nightmare because of engineering work. I had to go to York and then Retford, where a replacement bus transported me to Grantham before another train took me to King's Cross.
Not that I remembered too much apart from having to get up to change modes, for some reason! It had been a very long but enjoyable day out, but I was not upset to get home.
