Another visit to the Richard Marsh Archive brought up the programme of events for the 2001-2002 season - the first of our back to back championships. It is fortunate that both chairman Bob Lloyd and manager Bob Askey provided their own detailed summaries of the season from which some highlights will be drawn.

Manager Bob's notes covered details of his pre-season signings (Tony Dale, Tim Buckley, Russell Dematteo, Steve Hassall, Louie Whiting, Richard Jones and Ray Notice). Craig Holland and Darren Alexander had kept their options open but decided to stay. The notes gave a month by month outline of how things progressed. August started with a home win against Abbey Hulton in which Darren Alexander hit four in a 5-2 win. A defeat to Milton United was followed by four wins and a draw. September brought four wins and two draws to build on our good start to the season. October was disappointing as we exited both the Staffs FA Vase and the Walsall Senior Cup. One of Bob's managerial highlights was a 7-0 thumping of title contenders, Stallington, at the beginning of November with skipper Martin Devaney netting four. We hit a 'blip' in December, being knocked out of the League Cup by Hanford and then back to back defeats by Brocton and Newcastle Town. Only two games played in January, which brought a win and a defeat. In February, again only two games were played, both at home, and resulted in defeats to Redgate Clayton and a draw with Wolstanton United. Clearly concerned, Bob felt 'he had to do something to stop the rot'. Some team changes and strong words had the effect he wanted. March brought four wins on the bounce before a home defeat to Audley (3-2) after being 2-0 up at half time. The highlight of the month was a 1-0 away win at Hanford with a last minute goal from Devaney and a last second clearance from under the bar by Tim Buckley. April brought four wins with no goals conceded and the title was now within reach. And so to May, where we travelled to Adderley Green on Bank Holiday Monday needing a win to be champions. Bob said in his notes: "We performed heroically and a last minute goal by Craig Holland direct from a corner does the trick. Six games without conceding a goal has been the key to our success on the difficult hard pitches towards the end of the season".

Bob has since pointed out that Louie Whiting was brilliant in goal that day, having motivated him by saying he had to keep a clean sheet to beat the league record (totally made up as it turned out!)

The team against Adderley Green that day was:

Whiting, Bailey, Jones, Kinnersley, Buckley, Notice, Holland, Schwarz, Alexander, Devaney, Hollins.
Subs: Stark, Challinor, Askey M.

We won the title seven points clear of second placed Audley with 24 wins, 6 draws and 6 defeats, scoring 89 and conceding 35 over a 36 game season. Martin Devaney led the way with 33 goals in all competitions, ably assisted by Craig Holland (14), Simon Schwarz (13), Tony Dale (11) and Darren Alexander (10). It was interesting to see the comings and goings of players over the season and, by December, we had played no less than six different keepers for a variety of reasons. In fact, striker Alexander played in goal three times in November.

Chairman Bob's notes indicated that both he and Bill Grinham would be standing down from club duties and the team had provided the perfect retirement present (as you all will know, they both returned and Bill is currently a committee member and still putting in many hours of work at the club). Bob outlined the work which had been done to improve the clubhouse and getting planning permission for both floodlights and a stand. As he said: "On a very large high, the penultimate game of the season against Adderley Green made all the season's efforts both on and off the pitch all very well worth while".

This season proved to be the start of our path to the North West Counties League, with the following season bringing further success (covered previously).

Picture shows the team with the trophy, presented after the final game of the season.