As Daisy Hill begin another new season in the North West Counties Football League, there is one change behind the scenes at the club that marks the end of an era.
Bob Naylor has stepped down as club Secretary after an unbroken spell of 60 years in the position, and with his 87th birthday approaching, he says the time is right for others to take over the wide range of responsibilities and tasks that he has carried out since the early 1960s.
“It’s been part of my life for so long, I’ve been doing all the different jobs just as a natural routine”, said Bob.
“But lately, because of my age, I'm not as physically fit as I was. So that's why I've had to say I've had my time, and somebody else can take over now”.
Bob first got involved at Daisy Hill in the summer of 1961, when he joined the committee with his friend Geoff Hughes, who for many years worked alongside him as club Treasurer until his death a few years ago.
“In those days the club played on the same pitch we have now, but operated from the Blue Lion Pub just up the road. The pub has gone now, but it was in the building across the road from where Bargain Booze convenience store is situated.
“Geoff was friendly with a lad from Daisy Hill and he used to watch games down here. The club played in the Bolton Combination in those days, and Geoff and myself decided to go to the club AGM in the summer of 1962.
“Billy Thorpe, who was on the committee, proposed us both to join the committee on the night. After a year, I became assistant secretary and did that for three years, and then when the Secretary Dick Platt said he was standing down, I took over and that’s how it's been ever since”.
Much has changed in the footballing world since the 1960s, and Bob recalls that one of his first duties on the committee was to be involved in selecting the team for their games in the Bolton Combination.
“The club committee would meet every Tuesday night in the Blue Lion and would pick the team for Saturday. Then it was the Secretary’s job to send out ‘selected to play cards’ to the players every week. Once the cards had gone out, I used to have lads ringing me up saying ‘why have I not been picked?’.
“I've always said the difference between now and those days is that back then, all you needed was a biro and a book of stamps. Just think how much it will cost you today to do the same thing, even for second class stamps”.
During Bob’s time at the club, the ground has been developed from being an open playing field to the enclosed stadium with clubhouse that exists today, and he has been involved every step of the way in building up the facilities over the years.
“I've got photographs of matches down here when it was just a rail down each side of the pitch. When I first came, there were no dressing rooms, and players used to change in the stable behind the Blue Lion.
“Then we decided we would get our own dressing rooms, and around 1968-69, we got a scout hut from a place in Astley, and turned it into a dressing room with a small bar”.
In 1978 the club stepped up to the Lancashire Combination, and as the team travelled to play at new grounds, Bob and his fellow committee men realised that a further upgrade would be required at Daisy Hill to keep pace with other clubs in the league, and a trip to an away game prompted a solution.
“It would have been about 1979 or 1980 we went to Padiham for the first time, and we saw their dressing rooms and club house were all in a cabin”, Bob recalled.
“The chairman told me that they got this cabin from a place near Preston, Stanley Grange at Samlesbury Bottoms.
"It used to be a police cadet training camp for Lancashire Police before they moved, and it was being used at that time by an organisation who provided facilities for people with disabilities, and they were moving out.
“The camp had quite a number of these huts, and Padiham had got one and turned it into a facility, with a little bar, and dressing rooms.
“So we went over to Samlesbury and had a look. A number of these cabin buildings had already been dismantled and after looking at them, and knowing what Padiham had done, we felt that wasn’t big enough for us, we wanted something bigger.
“We decided to buy two huts, both 60 x 20 feet and the existing club house building is those two cabins put together end to end, a total of 120 feet long by 20 feet wide.
“We dismantled both cabins, and carted them all the way over from Samlesbury down here over a number of Sundays, and then the committee and players put the buildings up that are still here now”.
With so much time spent on activities involved in the running of the club, it’s clear that Bob, like many others involved in grass roots football, has needed a supportive wife in all the years he has been at Daisy Hill. He admits that he has been fortunate in that regard, as his wife Jean comes from a sporting family.
“Having an understanding wife is massive really. I don’t come from a sporting background, not on my side. I've no brother or sister, and my dad didn't play, apart from maybe the odd game of football.
“But on Jean’s side they were a cricketing family. My brother-in-law played, and my father-in-law was secretary at Westhoughton Cricket Club for 17 years. So Jean has always been involved with sport through her family, and she has been a big help, whether it's cricket or football.
“She's not the only one, there must be many wives who do this. If a shirt got ripped she'd mend it, or if you had a match and couldn’t get the kit to the laundry because of a bank holiday or something like that, she'd wash it.
“People don't see those sort of things, and of course, it still goes on today”.
Daisy Hill were founder members of the North West Counties League in 1982, and have played continuously in the league since then.
With the FA continually driving up standards that have to be met to compete at non-league level, including the installation floodlights and designated hard standing areas in grounds, Bob says the biggest difference these days compared to when he got involved at Daisy Hill is the improvement in ground facilities.
“I’m not sure you are necessarily playing better football than we played in the local leagues, but you're always on better facilities than we used to play on.
“When I think back about it, there were grounds that might have had a decent pitch, but the surrounds were nothing special.
“Everything's better from that point of view. You’re playing on far, far better facilities all round, and it’s just generally more professional these days too, having coaches with qualifications, things like that”.
In recent months, Daisy Hill has enjoyed unprecedented publicity since social media content creator Aaron Hunt joined as Chairman back in February, and Bob believes that the new interest offers great scope for securing the club's future.
“The increase in attendances like we’ve experienced since Aaron came into the club is really good, and I think the recent publicity has helped attract more people to come and see us now.
“We don’t know how long it will go on for us, but I’d like to see the club consolidating, and this is probably the best chance we've ever had, with the help of Aaron.
“We’re getting a bit more money in now, but it’s got to be managed correctly, and I'm hoping with the people we have on board, we can do that and build for the future”.
For now though, although Bob is stepping back from the considerable day-to-day involvement he has had in the club for so long, he will take on the role of club President, and will still be turning up to support the team, and offer assistance to new Secretary Conor Jackson and the rest of the committee when he can.
“I'll still be around to potter about and do the odd job, but any of the major physical jobs, I don't think I can manage them anymore.
“But the club has been too much a part of my life just to turn my back on it completely. I couldn't do that”.
With thanks to Daisy Hill FC for providing us with this article and photo.
