In 1971 Ralph Felton and John Norris started to coach a group of boys from Hawes Down School and were allowed to use the area behind the outside pitch at Corkscrew Hill. We quickly received an invitation from the Club to play friendly matches on the pitches and became the original West Wickham Juniors. The club entered an under 11 team in the Shirley and District league and had great pride in wearing the club’s colours of blue and black striped shirts. Another Junior team was added in 1973. Both sides played on Sundays for the next seven years and eventually amalgamated into West Wickham Sunday Team playing senior football.

Of the original Junior team Nigel Felton and Steven Norris, were the first to play First Team football for West Wickham when both were 17 years old. Nigel went on to fame and fortune playing County cricket and Steven played for the first team for the next eighteen years or so. Another player who joined the first Junior team after a couple of years was Neil Linter and he later became a driving force at the club. Others who made the transition from Juniors to Seniors included Nigel Coupland, Kevin Clarke, Martin Norris and Mick Robertson. Martin and Mick together with Steven and Neil became stalwarts of the First team that won the SAL title nine times in eleven years.

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The above is the important information that should be included in any history but, for the record, in the late seventies Ross Allen put together a strong side which won the AFA Cup in 1978 (may have the year wrong). Ross sadly died before the start of the next season and John Norris was invited to manage the First team with Ian Freeman as his assistant. Another Freeman, Eric, was entrusted with making the players fit. John remained in charge for the next several very successful years before becoming Manager of the SAL team.

For the record other stalwarts of the glory years, who did not come through the Juniors, were John Burkin, Chic Childs, Graham Coates, Clive Drew, Alex Guild, Harry Hanifan, Paul Hanifan, Alan Mignot, Graham Open, Chris Palmer, Geoff Parsons, Gary Tanner and Paul Turner.

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I am convinced that had computers been widely used during the eighties and nineties a more complete record of the achievements, together with photographs, would have been made.

However I feel sure that the foregoing should be included in the history of WWFC.

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