Glory Days & Sleepless Nights

The basic idea of forming a junior football club stemmed from humble beginnings with a group of eight year olds meeting at Garswood Recreation ground during the long summer months of 1981. As winter approached the intention was to keep the boys together and organise one or two weekend friendly football games to keep them occupied during those months.

Those ‘one or two friendly games’ in reality became a total of thirty four games, the majority of which, due to lack of facilities within the area, were played away from home with a significant number ending in defeat. Never the less this didn’t deter the boys, their parents or their supporters and a meeting was called at The Stag Hotel where the idea of forming a junior football was put to those parents. From that meeting Seneley & Garswood Juniors Football Club was born.

The first ‘home’ pitch played on was behind the play area situated on Liverpool Road, Pewfall. The goal posts were painted and pitch marked out by volunteers using string, creosote (now banned) and two-inch paint brushes.

The first trophy won by the Club was The Cleartone Challenge Trophy, sponsored by Cleartone Hi Fi & Video, Bolton. Played for over two ‘legs’ at the end of the 1981/82 season between St. Helens based Springfield (now disbanded) this will be remembered by players and supporters alike for many years. Drawing 4-4 in the first leg at Pewfall, Garswood travelled to face the might of Springfield the following week on their own turf. 4-2 down with minutes to go their true fighting spirit shone through and incredibly they fought back to 4-4 at full time to take the game to extra time, eventually winning the game, and the Cup 6-4.

The following season, 1982/83, we affiliated to Liverpool County Football Association. This in itself became another obstacle as we originally applied under the name of Garswood Juniors F.C.; this was refused on the grounds that we may well be mistaken for Garswood United F.C. who were already affiliated members of this association. It was, and still is, most important to us that we retain the name of our community. The way of solving the problem was simply to put something in front of the word ‘Garswood’. The old name of the area is Seneley Green so we opted for the name ‘Seneley’ hence the name Seneley & Garswood Juniors F.C.