Curzon Ashton (pre season friendly)

What an achievement 2012/13 was. A seemingly impossible task taken on and conquered with consummate aplomb. Abbey’s first team didn’t do too badly either.

While Barry Walker’s young steeds were smashing in goal after goal and enhancing their growing reputation by the week, something of equal personal importance was happening within my family. After years of feuding we finally found a bit of footballing peace. Allow me to explain.

Like many Manchester families mine awkwardly straddles the city’s football divide. While I’ve been going to Old Trafford for as long as I can remember, my brother-in-law and nephews are regulars at City. As a result our wives, sisters, mothers and aunties are all too used to looking on, eyes rolled, as football-related arguments and tedious one-upmanship dominate our relationship.
 

Two years ago however we decided to call a truce for the good of the family. It was agreed that we desperately needed to watch football together. With our respective teams playing an increasing amount of Sunday and Monday night games, non league suddenly became our best and most affordable way of achieving this.
 

Having moved to North Reddish some two years earlier, I was acutely aware of the small but tidy football ground that appeared about a mile north from our house on Google Maps. My wife who’d been schooled in Gorton drove me down one day for a closer look. I was impressed with the set up and what looked to be a superb playing surface. 

Furthermore, when I discovered the team’s colours were red and black and that there was no exclusive bias to either Manchester giant I soon realised there was potential here. I ran the idea of Abbey by the youngsters. The eldest was keen and in October 2011 on an international weekend we decided to test the water with an away game at Northwich Villa. In a crowd of 32, we weren’t disappointed. A blistering away performance and SIX well worked goals left us buzzing and looking down the fixture list for our next possible game.
 

Clinging to the exposed railings in the howling January rain at the Abbey Stad was a world away from the cantilever splendor we were used to in the Premiership but some how it didn’t matter. As Jon Hardy ran his marker ragged and Martin Pilkington capitalised on Liam Murray’s beautifully teed up passes, the bond between red uncle and blue nephew was solidifying by the second.
 

It was only a matter of time before my younger nephew joined us and when he did it was with some serious gusto. “I can’t wait for Abbey to score,” he said on his debut at Didsbury away at the start of last season, “...just to shut that keeper up.” He had a point. Didsbury’s keeper was exceptionally mouthy.
 

While the chance to visit beautifully ramshackle away grounds proved enough to satisfy my football geek within, the nephews developed a ridiculously in depth knowledge of the Abbey players’ characteristics and can now recall the tiniest, most forgettable incidents from previous matches at the drop of a hat.
 

Attending at least one game a month, our 2012/13 memories include seeing a caravan on top of the main stand roof and a comprehensive away win at Rochdale Town; the 0-0 on Atherton’s bobbly pitch played out in a makeshift green kit; the lights going out against Formby; the demolition of Holker and the Cumbrians’ teenage keeper asking us how long was left – at 65 mins; beating Didsbury in the March snow; Derek the groundsman and his relentless barracking of the linesmen and, last but not least, Killer’s phenomenal goal haul backed up by a flair cast whose desire to play football the right way saw them reap one of the ultimate rewards.
 

While families in some corners of this vast and varied world think nothing of paying thousands for therapy, we’ve found ours for a fraction of the cost on a windy bit of land in Gorton. And we love it. Enjoy the season.