by Chris Harris
Although it was the first Tuesday in weeks without a midweek fixture, there was no sense of quiet at the club.
Millwall finalised the purchase of Junior Bent, last minute interest from Charlton Athletic, meant the fee rising to £175,000. Greg followed the developments with a mixture of satisfaction and disbelief. Six weeks into the season, including pre-season, Denham Phoenix FC was generating levels of transfer movement rarely seen at that level of the non league pyramid.
Yes, infrastructure spending remained heavy, but in his mind that was investment rather than cost. The payments involving Junior and Millwall represented the largest transfer fee the division and tier 9 of the non league pyramid had ever seen. Word travelled quickly. The club’s name was now circulating well beyond its usual circles.
With attention came requests for interviews. Greg quickly asked Dean and Ed Stevens to represent the board, with Ed taking the lead. Both were comfortable in front of microphones and notebooks. Greg preferred distance. He operated instinctively. If pressed to explain how any of it had happened, he would have struggled.
“I don’t know,” would have been the honest answer. He earned a lot of money, I mean what else could he say?
By the end of the week, another landmark followed. South East Construction agreed a £75,000 shirt sponsorship deal, the largest the regional game had seen. The previous sponsor, Martin and The Red Lion, had effectively underwritten the kits in return for branding. Martin stepped aside amicably, confident that his involvement with the new bar and expanded hospitality at the ground would compensate handsomely.
Within days, the club’s financial position had shifted dramatically.
Greg had seen huge turnover before in his own business, this was nothing like it, but it was far more satisfying.
Saturday loomed large. The new striker was set to feature. With attendance capped at 1,200 and Three Bridges expected to travel well, the mood was building. There would be no formal unveiling of Glenn Nelson; his contract arrangement did not allow it. But locally, the message had spread.
Meanwhile, the women’s team continued to take shape.
Twenty women arrived for the inaugural training session. Catherine and Beth Riley, the gym teacher from Priory School, exchanged a glance that mixed relief with surprise. They had worked hard to persuade people to attend, although at least half a dozen had been drawn by the club’s recent prominence, so thank the lord for that.
It was modest, improvised and at times slightly chaotic session. Cones were borrowed, bibs mismatched, and nobody was entirely sure how it would unfold.
But there was energy.
At the beginning, a nearly embarrassing silence, pierced by feint mutterings, encircled the group as Catherine and Beth faffed around with paperwork and a dire state of indecision. In the nick of time Piotr soon stood before them in loose tracksuit bottoms and an ageing training shirt, already darkened with sweat. The group sat awkwardly on the grass.
He clapped his hands.
“Right. Follow me.”
They jogged twice around the pitch. For some, once might have sufficed, but no one complained. Piotr set up three simple drills to test control, accuracy and application, much to the amazement of everyone, nobody, especially Cath and Beth expecting anything other than a pioneering fumbled half hour
It did not take long to identify levels. Five players were immediately competitive. Another five showed promise. The remainder lacked technique but not effort. When Piotr introduced a dribbling pattern borrowed from the men’s first team, there was laughter as cones were clipped and balls misdirected.
In the clubhouse Ed, Dean, Greg and Big Mal watched intently, not the women, but the only man, Piotr who had clearly turned a shambles into a well organisied training session of one and a half hours, one in which the women did not walk to the changing rooms looking hacked off, but smiling and chatting with relish.
After the players showered and changed, in the clubhouse, Catherine addressed them. Piotr remained quietly in the background.
“If we’re going to be ready by next season,” she said, “we need consistency, but this can’t just be something you dip in and out of.”
She softened.
“It should be enjoyable. It should build friendships. But it has to mean something.” She and Beth administered a pep talk to gel long term interest and whether anyone present knew of any other interested possible participants, sensible recruitment.
The response was warm. Another session was agreed. Pavel offered optional fitness work on Monday. Several accepted immediately.
Later that week, Catherine asked Greg to meet her at the coffee shop. She wanted to know if he would consider Piotr becoming an official coach of the women and as Piotr had earlier eagerly agreed he’d love to do, help set up and run the under 18’s. Both were teams were booked into train on the following Thursday evening with Piotr doing two hours fitness training on a Monday night.
With so much at the club moving so fast there had been no real agreement who would take charge of the teams, Catherine, Beth, Dean and Ed had all agreed to help out, but nothing concrete had been arranged, so for Catherine it made sense, for now, as he was so keen and competent, to make Piotr a de facto leader of the two fledgling teams.
Greg agreed Piotr had been excellent, but he was carrying personal pressures. He did not want to stretch him too far, but if wanted to do it on a trial basis, for his benefit, and there were no league fixtures until the next season, why not?
Greg kept circling back to the same uncomfortable truth. The club was expanding at a rate of knots, nobody could possibly have envisaged. Piotr would be a sticking plaster for two new teams he wasn’t disinterested in but were not a priority. Denham Phoenix FC needed a proper secretary.
Lucy Lotwell had been carrying more than her share for months. She had taken on financial administration, entered teams into their respective leagues, handled player registrations for the under eighteen squad and the new women’s team, and managed affiliations, safeguarding documentation and reporting requirements. She had navigated deadlines and governing body systems with quiet competence. But the workload had outgrown her capacity, and Greg felt a pang of guilt that she was having to do far more than she had signed up for, albeit he was sending business her way. Three infrastructure projects were now underway, each generating invoices, compliance paperwork, contracts and correspondence. Most of it sat in uneven stacks on the edge of Big Mal’s tiny office desk at the back of the clubhouse.
Mal ensured paperwork was received. That was the extent of his role. He neither knew what to do with it nor was he expected to. Catherine had already explained to Greg the sheer volume involved in league applications, insurance documentation, safeguarding updates and routine reporting. Lucy had absorbed it all, but the strain and goodwill was beginning to show.
Everything would come to a head on Saturday.
Capacity was capped at twelve hundred. Ed and Dean had been giving interviews to several South East media outlets. The coverage was not entirely comfortable. A former Premier League striker playing in tier nine football was an easy story to frame. Glenn Nelson’s return to the game was being presented as both redemption and decline. It was human interest, but it was also spectacle.
British football culture has an appetite for both. There is fascination with the fall as much as the rise, and an instinct to rally behind the underdog while watching for signs of collapse. Glenn embodied that tension. The result was a growing sense that Denham Phoenix FC could be facing a much larger crowd than usual for the visit of Haywards Heath.
Most other clubs higher in non league had already moved to ticket only systems, supported by proper online platforms and capacity management. Denham had none of that. There was no automated ticketing, no real time capacity control and no formal front of house structure. After all average attendance were 150-200. Clearly at Denham, already with by far and away the highest average attendance in Tier 9, a more professional updated system was needed. It was another reason Greg knew a secretary should already have been in place.
The club’s location offered some reassurance. Unlike many non league grounds wedged into residential streets, Denham Phoenix sat on a substantial rural plot. The approach road was narrow but rarely congested, and there was generous on site parking. Lewes station was within walking distance, around half an hour on foot. On paper, the setting seemed manageable.
Saturday dawned overcast. As Big Mal observed, that was no bad thing. A hot afternoon might have intensified an already lively and beery atmosphere. A grey sky might keep things contained.
By two o’clock, when ordinarily only a handful of regulars would be inside, the ground was already a third full. The club had made it clear on social media that it would be the first twelve hundred through the gate and then no more. The message worked in one sense. People arrived earlier than usual.
By half past two the stadium, well ground really, was nearly full.
Inside the ground, things were steady. Catherine oversaw catering with her usual efficiency. Queues at the bar and refreshment stalls remained manageable. Labourers working on the stand and around the pitch had been drafted in as stewards, wearing their fluorescent jackets on. It was basic but effective.
The difficulty lay outside.
By quarter to three cars were backed up along both sides of the narrow road. Drivers edged forward in hope of a space in a car park that was almost full. Stewards waved vehicles away with firm authority. More supporters were arriving on foot from Lewes, gathering uncertainly near the gates.
With the gates closed three or four hundred people were now outside. Many had ignored the early arrival advice, having spent the afternoon in Lewes pubs. A number were half drunk. They spilled onto the road and around the car park entrance, unsure whether to wait, argue or push their luck. It was not violent, but it was volatile. Alcohol, disappointment and narrow country lanes made an uncomfortable combination.
By three o’clock three squad cars had arrived, followed by a police minibus. Big Mal had phoned them, sensing the mood shifting. As the match kicked off, tension hovered beyond the perimeter fence. All directors except Catherine were outside speaking to supporters, explaining the capacity limit and trying to calm frustration.
Quick thinking prevented escalation. An outdoor bar was set up to give those stranded something to do. More significantly, Greg began ringing taxi firms in Lewes and Uckfield, offering double rates to ferry people back into town. It was expensive, but necessary.
Gradually the pressure eased. Groups waited in the car park as taxis arrived one by one. Taxi drivers realised the opportunity and made repeated trips. By half time, the last of the stranded supporters had gone.
The club had taken a financial hit. There were questions about planning. The police, while clear that improvements were needed, acknowledged the situation had been contained very well and if a proper ticketing system was installed they would turn a blind eye. What could have become confrontation on a narrow road ended instead as an expensive lesson in growth and capacity.
The day had been draining. The clubhouse closed early at six, everybody dog tired. Catherine lied and said the beer had run out. A mercy lie. Greg stood at the door thanking volunteers as they left, his gratitude genuine but insufficient in his own mind. He knew the chaos stemmed in part from his failure to put proper structures in place sooner. Growth had been exhilarating, but screwing up and being irresponsible was not.
On the pitch, matters had offered little comfort. Haywards Heath won one nil from a penalty that looked soft at best. Glenn Nelson lasted seventy minutes. He appeared unfit and frustrated. When substituted, he directed words at Ed, the very friend who had helped bring him in. It did not sit well.
By nine o’clock Greg was home. There was no appetite, or cause, for celebration. He sent a series of WhatsApp messages to the directors, apologising and promising changes. Each told him it would be fine. Their limp reassurance it was okay only deepened his sense that more should have been done.
At ten there was a knock at the door.
Catherine Brown stood outside, slightly flushed from the Red Lion but composed. The way things were going, he feared the most valuable person at the club was to tender her resignation, worked to the bone all day. They sat in the kitchen with tea and spoke calmly about the day. The progress of the club. The mistakes and how to improve. It was cordial but very friendly.
When she left she hugged him, briefly and without fuss. She said she did not want him sitting alone with it all.
The day had been chaotic and bruising. In the quiet of his kitchen, Greg felt no triumph and little relief. But there was clarity. The club needed structure. And this time, he intended to put it in place. The fact that Catherine Brown had been sitting in the pub, turning over in her mind whether to see him, and yes, part of her thinking it would be a mercy mission, deciding to the affirmative, didn’t that count for something? Another night laying in bed weighing up his chances with Catherine, he hadn’t had one of those for a while as he cuddled his Catherine Brown pillow and dreamt of better organised days and maybe a future with Cahterine Brown, he drifted into sleep.
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Welcome to Denham nr Lewes 