Introducing the new member Clubs: MSB Woolton
Thu 10th July 2025 | MSB Woolton | By Jay Cooper
Now that the FA’s league allocations for the non-league system ahead of 2025/26 have been announced, it’s time for us to welcome a few new faces to the North West Counties Football League.
MSB Woolton have spent a large majority of their existence as an entity focused on football coaching and development, as opposed to competing for status in the extended English Football Pyramid.
Based at the Simpsons Football Ground in Liverpool, the club’s most recent foray into the semi-professional game goes back almost a century. In the 1930’s they operated under the name Woolton Boys’ Club and briefly played the competitive game, but in the decades since have firmly planted their flag into the local community as a grassroots club, with teams available for all ages.
It would get to the 2000’s before the brand of MSB Woolton would be born. Up until that time, the FA registry had them down as Woolton Youth Centre FC, and the teams that all operated under that umbrella were loosely affiliated with one another – there would be no formal committee created, or constitution ratified until as recently as 2005.
The size of the club had risen drastically in the preceding years, thanks in part to a casual drop-in football session being created to run alongside the existing youth club. This snowballed into the creation of several new teams of varying age ranges all being formed at a similar time, and eventually, formal measures were taken to control the club’s expansion.
In 2010, the club was awarded Charter Standard Community Club status by the FA. As summarised perfectly during an in-depth article by The Grassroots Post about MSB Woolton: “Community Club status is the pinnacle of the club development pathway and is awarded to clubs that have a high quality, multi-team set up with excellent social, training and playing opportunities for all.
“As such, Community Club status is one of the truest measures of success for the FA Football Development strategy and is considered by the FA to be the ultimate goal for clubs at grassroots level.”
At the end of that article, published in 2022, then-academy manager Colin Windrow said of the club’s ambitions that: “Our focus is now heavily on community, with initiatives with local businesses throughout the region getting involved with the club moving us on to the next step.
“Hopefully our adults (will be) playing in the North West Counties and one day competing with Everton or Liverpool in the FA Cup. We have the youth side right; our focus is now on advancing the adult side.”
Well, here we are in 2025, and those ambitions have not only been realised, but Colin is heavily involved with the side that have now reached the NWCFL.
Speaking to Colin shortly after the announcement that MSB Woolton would be playing NWCFL football in 2025/26, he spoke all about his role at the club. “I am fortunate to work full time for MSB Woolton.
“My duties are widely spread across the day-to-day running of the club. From overseeing our schools’ programmes; to the endless meetings that keep our club ticking over with up-to-date FA courses; to just generally being on hand to help our team achieve the best off the field, as well as on it.
“I have always believed that if you get the youth system right, everything else will fall into place. By us getting into the NWCFL, we have achieved such a privileged position in such a fantastic league – it’s the Holy Grail for us.”
MSB Woolton’s first team reaching Step Six of the non-league pyramid is a fantastic achievement that is testament not only to staff members like Colin, who give their full-time commitment to the club, but also to the scores of volunteers who make up the “main workforce” of the club in the manager’s eyes.
“We are lucky to have two football coaches as full-time employees and a part-time accounts manager who look after the day-to-day running of MSB Woolton. But we thrive on community within the club. Under the guidance of our chairman David Woods, we changed our youth policy in the early 2000’s not only to invite the best players around, but any child that wished to play football.
“Opening our doors like we have has not only put Woolton at the heart of the community, but it has seen our club grow to house over 3,000 players, and over 440 volunteers. I’m told having around 238 teams makes us one of the biggest clubs in Europe in that way.
“We couldn’t be more grateful to the countless volunteers who help with the countless number of teams under the Woolton banner.”
This promotion is one that the club have prepared for, too, given that it’s their third bite at the cherry in half a decade. To hear Colin say it, “our men’s adult team have been trying to achieve promotion for over five years. It’s been really difficult.
“We won our league and then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, which like every other club, scuppered our chances of promotion. But our coaches Mike and Andy, and the rest of our staff, including our reserve team coach Phil, all made the lads believe we could go again and try to gain promotion.
“Back in 2023/24 we won the league again, only to fall short because of our lack of knowledge about getting our ground grading correct. This could have rocked any other club, but it didn’t rock us. The fight and determination from the lads that play for the shirt week in week out is humbling, both to me and the committee of MSB Woolton.
“To finally gain promotion to such a prestigious league is in someways a journey that feels it’s taken a lifetime to achieve, but now is the right time, and this is the next step in our journey.”
The club’s past is almost as interesting as their future is now exciting. After initially being drafted to the First Division South, MSB have since come to an agreement with the NWCFL to internally swap divisions with Cheadle Heath Nomads.
Nomads were initially meant to laterally move to the North from the South, but an agreement between the clubs involved and the league to allow the two sides to switch places to both teams’ benefit – MSB to the North, and Nomads back to the South – was ratified at this year’s NWCFL AGM.
Speaking on the teams that MSB will be facing this season, Colin said: “We want to enjoy every single moment in the league, and if the one thing we get out of this season is that other teams now know what MSB Woolton are about, on and off the field, then we’ve hit our goals.
“We are going to compete with everybody, and most importantly, we will learn from those established teams that have been in the non-league system for a while. We are looking forward to playing every team we come up against – we really can’t wait!”
Learning from their experiences in the upcoming campaign is what Colin considers to be the club’s main goal in the NWCFL. It has been the bedrock of what has made the MSB Woolton brand so successful in what they do, for as long as they have been involved in the community.
“Like I said previously, we have got our youth system completely right, by allowing every child into MSB Woolton. We have listened and learned over the years, and I think by listening and learning from the best of the adult leagues, we will become stronger for future campaigns.
“Of course, a dream for us would be to gain another promotion, and we know we can avoid the dreaded drop. But we have to be ready from the get-go to do that.
“I hope MSB Woolton can be an asset to The North West Counties League. We’re really looking forward to the opportunity to compete with some of the best in the local area.”
Given how much of a crucial asset MSB Woolton are to their local community, and to the development of the beautiful game within their sphere of influence, there would be little reason to doubt they can become just as much of an asset to the NWCFL.
We welcome MSB Woolton, and we wish them all the best for the upcoming campaign!
Introducing the new member Clubs: MSB Woolton
Thu 10th July 2025 | MSB Woolton
By Jay Cooper
Now that the FA’s league allocations for the non-league system ahead of 2025/26 have been announced, it’s time for us to welcome a few new faces to the North West Counties Football League.
MSB Woolton have spent a large majority of their existence as an entity focused on football coaching and development, as opposed to competing for status in the extended English Football Pyramid.
Based at the Simpsons Football Ground in Liverpool, the club’s most recent foray into the semi-professional game goes back almost a century. In the 1930’s they operated under the name Woolton Boys’ Club and briefly played the competitive game, but in the decades since have firmly planted their flag into the local community as a grassroots club, with teams available for all ages.
It would get to the 2000’s before the brand of MSB Woolton would be born. Up until that time, the FA registry had them down as Woolton Youth Centre FC, and the teams that all operated under that umbrella were loosely affiliated with one another – there would be no formal committee created, or constitution ratified until as recently as 2005.
The size of the club had risen drastically in the preceding years, thanks in part to a casual drop-in football session being created to run alongside the existing youth club. This snowballed into the creation of several new teams of varying age ranges all being formed at a similar time, and eventually, formal measures were taken to control the club’s expansion.
In 2010, the club was awarded Charter Standard Community Club status by the FA. As summarised perfectly during an in-depth article by The Grassroots Post about MSB Woolton: “Community Club status is the pinnacle of the club development pathway and is awarded to clubs that have a high quality, multi-team set up with excellent social, training and playing opportunities for all.
“As such, Community Club status is one of the truest measures of success for the FA Football Development strategy and is considered by the FA to be the ultimate goal for clubs at grassroots level.”
At the end of that article, published in 2022, then-academy manager Colin Windrow said of the club’s ambitions that: “Our focus is now heavily on community, with initiatives with local businesses throughout the region getting involved with the club moving us on to the next step.
“Hopefully our adults (will be) playing in the North West Counties and one day competing with Everton or Liverpool in the FA Cup. We have the youth side right; our focus is now on advancing the adult side.”
Well, here we are in 2025, and those ambitions have not only been realised, but Colin is heavily involved with the side that have now reached the NWCFL.
Speaking to Colin shortly after the announcement that MSB Woolton would be playing NWCFL football in 2025/26, he spoke all about his role at the club. “I am fortunate to work full time for MSB Woolton.
“My duties are widely spread across the day-to-day running of the club. From overseeing our schools’ programmes; to the endless meetings that keep our club ticking over with up-to-date FA courses; to just generally being on hand to help our team achieve the best off the field, as well as on it.
“I have always believed that if you get the youth system right, everything else will fall into place. By us getting into the NWCFL, we have achieved such a privileged position in such a fantastic league – it’s the Holy Grail for us.”
MSB Woolton’s first team reaching Step Six of the non-league pyramid is a fantastic achievement that is testament not only to staff members like Colin, who give their full-time commitment to the club, but also to the scores of volunteers who make up the “main workforce” of the club in the manager’s eyes.
“We are lucky to have two football coaches as full-time employees and a part-time accounts manager who look after the day-to-day running of MSB Woolton. But we thrive on community within the club. Under the guidance of our chairman David Woods, we changed our youth policy in the early 2000’s not only to invite the best players around, but any child that wished to play football.
“Opening our doors like we have has not only put Woolton at the heart of the community, but it has seen our club grow to house over 3,000 players, and over 440 volunteers. I’m told having around 238 teams makes us one of the biggest clubs in Europe in that way.
“We couldn’t be more grateful to the countless volunteers who help with the countless number of teams under the Woolton banner.”
This promotion is one that the club have prepared for, too, given that it’s their third bite at the cherry in half a decade. To hear Colin say it, “our men’s adult team have been trying to achieve promotion for over five years. It’s been really difficult.
“We won our league and then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, which like every other club, scuppered our chances of promotion. But our coaches Mike and Andy, and the rest of our staff, including our reserve team coach Phil, all made the lads believe we could go again and try to gain promotion.
“Back in 2023/24 we won the league again, only to fall short because of our lack of knowledge about getting our ground grading correct. This could have rocked any other club, but it didn’t rock us. The fight and determination from the lads that play for the shirt week in week out is humbling, both to me and the committee of MSB Woolton.
“To finally gain promotion to such a prestigious league is in someways a journey that feels it’s taken a lifetime to achieve, but now is the right time, and this is the next step in our journey.”
The club’s past is almost as interesting as their future is now exciting. After initially being drafted to the First Division South, MSB have since come to an agreement with the NWCFL to internally swap divisions with Cheadle Heath Nomads.
Nomads were initially meant to laterally move to the North from the South, but an agreement between the clubs involved and the league to allow the two sides to switch places to both teams’ benefit – MSB to the North, and Nomads back to the South – was ratified at this year’s NWCFL AGM.
Speaking on the teams that MSB will be facing this season, Colin said: “We want to enjoy every single moment in the league, and if the one thing we get out of this season is that other teams now know what MSB Woolton are about, on and off the field, then we’ve hit our goals.
“We are going to compete with everybody, and most importantly, we will learn from those established teams that have been in the non-league system for a while. We are looking forward to playing every team we come up against – we really can’t wait!”
Learning from their experiences in the upcoming campaign is what Colin considers to be the club’s main goal in the NWCFL. It has been the bedrock of what has made the MSB Woolton brand so successful in what they do, for as long as they have been involved in the community.
“Like I said previously, we have got our youth system completely right, by allowing every child into MSB Woolton. We have listened and learned over the years, and I think by listening and learning from the best of the adult leagues, we will become stronger for future campaigns.
“Of course, a dream for us would be to gain another promotion, and we know we can avoid the dreaded drop. But we have to be ready from the get-go to do that.
“I hope MSB Woolton can be an asset to The North West Counties League. We’re really looking forward to the opportunity to compete with some of the best in the local area.”
Given how much of a crucial asset MSB Woolton are to their local community, and to the development of the beautiful game within their sphere of influence, there would be little reason to doubt they can become just as much of an asset to the NWCFL.
We welcome MSB Woolton, and we wish them all the best for the upcoming campaign!
