Liversedge F.C.

Infobox Football club | clubname = Liversedge


fullname = Liversedge Football Club
nickname = "Sedge"
founded = 1910
ground = Clayborn,
Cleckheaton, West Yorkshire
capacity = 2200 (250 seated)
chairman = flagicon|England Alan Durrans |
mgrtitle = Head Coach
manager = flagicon|England Steve Newton
league = NCEL Premier Division
season = 2007–08
position = NCEL Premier Division, 4th
pattern_la1=|pattern_b1=
leftarm1=00FFFF|body1=00FFFF|rightarm1=00FFFF|shorts1=0000FF|socks1=00FFFF

pattern_la2=|pattern_b2=|pattern_ra2=
leftarm2=FF0000|body2=FF0000|rightarm2=FF0000|shorts2=FF0000|socks2=FF0000

Liversedge F.C. are a football club based near Cleckheaton, England, on the border with Hightown in Liversedge and members of the Northern Counties East Football League Premier Division for the 2007-08 season.

They were established in 1910 and joined the Yorkshire Football League Division Three in 1972. In 1982, they were founding members of the Northern Counties East Football League.

Liversedge play their home games at Clayborn, which features a clubhouse to the top West corner of the ground, covered seating at the North, and small covered terracing stand to the West behind the goal. Prior to the 2004/2005 season the ground had a large slope from the North to the South. The pitch was dug up in closed season of 2005, and the surface was rebuilt from scratch to make a new, flat field. Liversedge had to play their first few games away for the 2005/2006 season while the turf bedded in.

Recent History

The 2005/06 season was very successful for Liversedge as they won the League Cup for the first time in their history and they finished runners-up in the league on 80 points, however the runaway winners for the season were Buxton who finished on 95 points.

Liversedge missed out on promotion to the Unibond league however as they didn’t have sufficient facilities for that level of football particularly because they did not have separate changing rooms for female referees.

In the 2006/07 season manager Eugene Lacy left the club and many of the players followed, several to Garforth Town where he was made a scout.Gerry Quinn was appointed as his replacement and many of the Academy youngsters were brought into the first team and understandably results were mixed.They eventually finished the season in 12th place on 49 points.

In June 2007 newly-installed Liversedge Chairman Mark Brier accepted Quinn's resignation as the club was unable to provide the expenses budget for the players he'd targeted to bring in and he was replaced by Steve Newton who was the Reserve Team Manager at Bradford Park Avenue.

2007/08 was quite a successful season for Sedge as they won the NCEL Presidents Cup by beating Armthorpe Welfare over two legs, and also finished a creditable fourth in the league.

Mark Brier resigned as Chairman at the end of the season to take the managerial vacancy at nearby Brighouse Town who are making the step up to the Northern Counties East League Division One in 2008/9 from the West Riding County Amateur League.Long-serving committee member Alan Durrans has been appointed as his successor.

2008/09 could prove to be a challenging season with arguably the club's most consistent defender and Supporters' Player Of The Year, Matthew Sparkes moving to Wakefield FC, and also their top goalscorer from the previous season, midfielder Nicky Boshell moving to Harrogate Railway, both teams in the Unibond Division One North which is one tier higher than Liversedge in the football pyramid.

With the re-establishment of a reserve team for this season, in addition to the under-19 team, it will be hoped that other players will progress and go on to fill the gap left by those departures.

The under-19s play in the Northern U19 Alliance League West Division and the reserves play in the West Riding County Amateur League Division 2.

Liversedge Stats for the 2007/2008 season

* Liversedge failed to score in 7 of the 38 league matches
* Finished with 11 clean sheets
* Conceded an average of just 1.08 goals per game
* Scored an average of 1.92 goals per match.
* Highest attendance of the season was 140, with a low of just 68, though their average of 92 was the 4th highest in the league.

Liversedge Facts

* Liversedge Football Club was founded in 1910 following the demise of the old Liversedge Rugby Club which had been a member of the Northern Union which, in turn, was the forerunner to the rugby league. It was one of a number of clubs which switched codes around that time.
* In the 2004/5 season Liversedge reached the 4th qualifying round of the FA Cup and took Coalville Town to a replay and so were jointly in the draw for the first round proper of the Cup, the stage where the Football League clubs join. Coalville won the replay 2-0 to face Wycombe Wanderers.
* Watford's defender Leigh Bromby played at Liversedge until 1999 when he moved to Sheffield Wednesday. He signed for Watford from Sheffield United in January 2008 for an initial fee of £600,000 that could rise to £850,000.
* The West Stand is known as the Sedge Kop.

Honours

*NCEL - President's Cup 2007/08
*NCEL - League Cup 2005/06
*Reserve Team Cup - 2002/03
*West Riding County Challenge Cup - 1948/49 1951/52 1969/70
*West Riding County Cup - 1989/90
*West Riding County - Amateur Lge 1923/24 1925/26 1926/27 1964/65 1965/66 1968/69.

League History

Spen Valley; West Riding County Amateur 1922-72; Yorkshire 1972-82; NCEL 1982

Images From Clayborn

External links

* [http://www.liversedgefc.co.uk/ Official Website]
* [http://www.ncel.org.uk/ Northern Counties East League]
* [http://www.wrc.leaguemanager.biz/Default.asp?content=http://www.wrc.leaguemanager.biz/ West Riding County Amateur Football League]
* [http://football.mitoo.co.uk/FixtResMonth.cfm?TblName=Matches&DivisionID=4075&LeagueCode=NU19A2008&MonthNo=9/ Northern Under-19 Alliance West Division]
* [http://www.spenboroughguardian.co.uk/ Spenborough Guardian]
* [http://www.englandman.co.uk/ EnglandMan]
* [http://apps.facebook.com/sportsuperfan/teams/news/20426/ Facebook Sedge Members]