Look closely at the AFC Fylde kit when the National League side take on Wigan Athletic in the FA Cup on Friday night, and you will find the extent of the club’s ambition is worn on their sleeve. A 15-year plan was put in place when new owners became involved in what was then Kirkham and Wesham in 2007, one that envisaged Football League status being achieved by 2022. Five promotions later, Fylde stand on the threshold of their dream. The next promotion will make it come true, and just to make sure no one loses sight of the objective, 2022 is woven into the players’ shirts.
This is precisely the sort of structured planning and growth that persuaded the former Tranmere Rovers captain Dave Challinor to leave Colwyn Bay to throw in his lot with Fylde six years ago. It seemed a backward step for a young manager at the time – Fylde were two divisions lower – but everything sketched out at his interview has since come to pass, including the gleaming new stadium the club moved into last season.
“Colwyn Bay had been great but success there amounted to staying in the same division all the time,” Challinor explains. “I’ve always wanted to be a Football League manager, and I knew that to move upwards I was going to have to test myself. Coming here gave me an opportunity to progress and put me in the shop window a little bit. I’ve been managing for seven years now and I’m still learning but I believe I’m better at the job for seeking out new challenges to overcome and different sorts of pressures to handle. I hope so anyway, because we’ve got five years to get out of this division, according to what it says on our sleeves.”
Challinor has overseen three promotions in his time in Lancashire, and the seasons in between have taken the club to play-offs. “We’ve had six really good years,” he says. “Everything has gone as well as we all hoped at the start.” Fylde are mid-table, still adjusting to playing at a higher level, and a couple of games behind most of their rivals because of their Cup run. “I think, this season, we can let the romance kick in,” Challinor says. “To even dream of reaching the third round is enormous for this club. Promotion was the be-all and end-all last year. We didn’t give up on the cups but at the back of your mind you were always thinking about the next league game or worrying about picking up injuries.
“We are not on such a great run this season, we can enjoy the Cup and hopefully use it as a springboard. That said, we are facing the toughest draw we could have been given. Wigan are top of League One at the moment and I thoroughly expect them to win that division and get back into the Championship. Cooky [Paul Cook] is doing a great job.”
The two managers know each other from time spent at Prenton Park in the 90s when Tranmere were knocking on the door of the Premier League and regularly causing cup upsets. Challinor captained them at Wembley in the 2000 League Cup final against Leicester and picks a couple of quarter-finals as his favourite FA Cup memories. “We played Newcastle at home and Liverpool at home,” the 42-year-old recalls. “I’m a Liverpool fan, so that was great for me. We had a really good team back then though; I can remember lots of great games. We once beat West Ham in a cup match when they had Frank Lampard and Rio Ferdinand in their side.”
Now, in stark contrast, Tranmere find themselves providing the Boxing Day opposition for Fylde in the National League, something Challinor understandably finds himself conflicted about. “I’m proud that our club have reached that far but sad to see Tranmere out of the Football League,” he says. “I think they are going to find it hard to get back in too, because if you don’t do it in the first couple of seasons it becomes a lot tougher when the parachute money runs out. They might be in reduced circumstances but they are still a big scalp at this level.
“Our ground will only have a capacity of 6,000 even when it is finished but Prenton Park can hold 16,000. They might not get those crowds any more but the players in this league rise to a situation like that. Opponents won’t be daunted, they’ll love playing there, and that’s what is going to make life hard for Tranmere. Speaking for myself though, I still live in that area and Tranmere are still my team. I went to the play-off final last season as a fan, because I’d like to see them back where they belong. I would have loved them to win but when they lost I knew I would be going back to Prenton Park as a manager. That will mean a lot – you could say I’ve been looking forward to it since the fixtures came out. It will be really enjoyable going back, especially at Christmas.”
While indulging in Prenton Park memories it would be remiss not to bring up Challinor’s particular area of expertise. One especially effective part of Tranmere’s armoury two decades ago was the long throw, at which the present Fylde manager was chief exponent, indeed a record breaker over a formally measured distance in his time. Does he still sling them in from the touchline in training sessions, just for old time’s sake?
“Not really,” he says. “I suppose I could throw the ball further than most of our team, though that’s not saying a lot. It’s weird because all the time I was playing I never had any problems with my back or my shoulders, but since I stopped I’ve had to have operations and injections, and I can only imagine that’s a result of taking thousands of throw-ins. It was never a feat of massive strength, it was just a technique that came naturally, in the same way that some people find they can throw a javelin a lot further than others. I could do it when I was at school. It was particularly effective at junior level in fact, because on smaller pitches you could get it right under the crossbar, you couldn’t be offside, and goals would be scored.
“We got a lot of success from it at Tranmere, though I think it ended up detracting from the ability we had in our team. People became obsessed with the one aspect. Suddenly we were long-throw specialists, even though we had some really good players. I still look out for long throws – it’s a test of any defence and something even the best teams can find difficult to deal with, but I don’t do it any more. Doctor’s orders.”
Comments (…)
Sign in or create your Guardian account to join the discussion