Crook Town - The Sir Tom Cowie Millfield

Crook Town AFC
The Sir Tom Cowie Millfield
West Road
Crook
County Durham
DL15 9PW

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Ground: 120
Date: Saturday 2nd October 2021
Crook Town 2-1 Penrith
Northern League Division 1
Attendance: 258 (official)

Crook Town - History

Crook Town were founded in 1889 as a merger of local clubs Crook and Crook Excelsior. The club only played friendlies for the first five years of its existence before being taken over by Crook Cricket Club and joining the Bishop Auckland & District League. After finishing as runners-up of this league in 1896, the club joined the Northern League and were placed in Division 1 when a second division was added in the 1897/98 season. The club finished bottom of Division 1 in its first season and were set to take part in relegation play-offs, but were reprieved due to an outbreak of smallpox in the Middlesbrough area. In 1913, the club went on the first of three tours to Spain (the subsequent tours were in 1921 and 1922) and played against Barcelona, securing a famous 4-2 victory.

The club remained in the Northern League until the outbreak of World War 1, winning the title for the first time in the 1914/15 season. After World War 1, the club were one of three to finish joint-top of the Northern League in the 1919/20 season and competed in a three-way play-off to determine the title winners: each team won and lost one match, with South Bank declared as champions on goals scored. The club continued to finish towards the top of the league for the next few years, finishing as runners-up in the 1924/25 season before winning the title again in the 1926/27 season. However, midway through the following season the club were expelled from the league after an investigation into illegal payments to amateur players saw them suspended by the Durham FA.

The club returned to the league for the 1929/30 season, but twelve months later they decided to turn professional and join the North Eastern League as Crook FC. After finishing bottom in their sixth season in this league, the club were suffering serious financial difficulties and opted to revert to amateur status and rejoin the Northern League as Crook Town. This did little to improve the club's fortunes though and they continued to struggle on the pitch until World War 2 brought football to a halt again.

After the war ended, Crook Town's place in the Northern League was taken by a new club called Crook Colliery Welfare, formed in 1943 as a merger of Hole-in-the-Wall Colliery and Peases West Welfare. The new club finished as Northern League runners-up in the 1946/47 season before changing name to Crook Town in 1949. The club have remained in the Northern League ever since, winning the title in the 1952/53, 1958/59 and 1962/63 seasons prior to the league splitting into two divisions again in 1982. In 1976, the club became the first English club side to tour India and played six matches, including a 1-0 defeat to the Indian national team in front of a crowd of 100,000.

After the Northern League was split into two divisions again in 1982, the club remained in Division 1 until finishing bottom in the 1988/89 season to be relegated to Division 2. It took six seasons for the club to earn promotion back to Division 1, but they only spent six seasons back at that level before being relegated back to Division 2 at the end of the 2000/01 season. This time, the club remained in Division 2 until they won the title in the 2012/13 season to return to Division 1. However, they only lasted two seasons before being relegated back to Division 2, where they remained until this summer when their results over the two seasons curtailed by the covid-19 pandemic saw them promoted back to Division 1.

The club have an illustrious history in FA competitions. For instance, they have reached the 1st Round of the FA Cup on fourteen occasions, though the most recent of these was in the 1976/77 season when they beat Eppleton Colliery Welfare, Penrith, South Bank, Bishop Auckland and Netherfield before losing to Nuneaton Borough. The club's best FA Cup run saw them reach the 3rd Round in the 1931/32 season, beating Football League side Stockport County in the 1st Round, then beating the original Aldershot Town in a 2nd Round replay before losing to 1st Division Leicester City in a tie played at Filbert Street.

The club are also five-times winners of the FA Amateur Cup, winning the competition in 1901, 1954, 1959, 1962 and 1964. In the FA Trophy, the club's best run saw them reach the 3rd Round in the 1976/77 season, beating Durham City, Bridlington Trinity, Whitby Town, West Auckland Town and Witton Albion before losing to Slough Town in a replay. As for the FA Vase, the club reached the Quarter Finals in the 2005/06 season, beating Ryton, Spennymoor Town, Winsford United, Billingham Town, Ford Sports Daventry, St Blazey and Arnold Town before losing to Bury Town.

My Visit

Since mid-August, I'd been planning to head somewhere much further afield than normal as a way to celebrate both my birthday and football's proper return after two seasons at non-league level were curtailed by the covid-19 pandemic. The initial plan had been to do this on the 18th of September and to head somewhere like North Ferriby, before I then became more ambitious in scope and was looking around the Manchester area at options like Daisy Hill.

However, that plan was eventually put on hold by the FA Cup 2nd Qualifying Round draw, as I'd planned to head into London for a match. Though that didn't happen in the end, I still ended up going somewhere cheaper on the train so my plans to go further afield were still on hold. At that point, I'd been looking at going further afield two weeks from now on the 16th of October, but by the time I visited Barrow Town two weeks ago I had learned that I'd been unable to get a lift somewhere this weekend as I had hoped (prior to that, I had been looking at getting a lift to Holwell Sports).

While looking at other options on both the 2nd and 16th to try and figure out what I wanted to do, I happened to notice this fixture and started to see whether it would be feasible or not as I had wanted to visit Crook Town's fantastic ground for ages. After consulting the National Rail Journey Planner and AndyE's excellent "Getting To Football" PDF from the Non-League Matters forum (an absolute godsend if, like me, your primary means of getting to matches is public transport), I decided that it seemed like it would be possible and added it to the schedule.

Once that was done, I began the research process by looking into the bus timetable for Crook before starting to look for other options in the area in case the weather made them necessary. After doing that and then consulting the bus timetables for each of my potential options, I ended up with a shortlist of seven options on grass and one on a 3/4G pitch as a last resort: this, Esh Winning, Horden Community Welfare, Spennymoor Town (at that point, conditional on them progressing in the FA Cup and being drawn at home), Durham City (at Willington), Seaham Red Star, Newton Aycliffe and Boro Rangers (on the 3G at New Ferens Park, former home of Durham City). All of these options were chosen based on them being in Arriva's County Durham ticket zone, as I planned to buy my bus ticket in advance at this point.

About a week or so after confirming this shortlist, it was announced that Durham City's next few matches were postponed due to their ongoing difficulties, meaning that I had little choice but to remove them from the shortlist. On the flipside, Spennymoor Town's place on the shortlist was finalised fairly quickly as they progressed in the FA Cup and were given a home draw against fellow National League North side Southport. With all that confirmed, I finally ordered my train tickets to Durham on Thursday last week, paying just over £40 for it rather than the £49 I'd been expecting (and that was with buying a PlusBus add-on for Peterborough, in case I had to get the bus back home from the station afterwards). 

I then starting writing out club histories for every club on my shortlist from last Sunday, writing out one or two per day so I'd have them all prepared in time for the weekend. I was particularly keen to do this as it started to rain on Monday and continued doing so for most of the week, so I wanted to have it all prepared so I was ready regardless of where I went. I also added Birtley Town to the shortlist on Thursday after seeing that they were also at home, and quickly wrote up their history on Friday evening. On top of all that, I had also prepared a document detailing my plans for the day and the times I needed to catch buses to and from all my potential options. In doing so, I pencilled in a visit to The Water House for lunch before I'd catch my bus to wherever I would end up going.

When I woke up yesterday morning, the first thing I did after getting breakfast was head onto Twitter to see if there was any news of potential pitch inspections or postponements from any of my options. Fortunately, all the clubs seemed confident there would be no issues and so I was fairly confident I'd be able to head to first-choice Crook Town after all. With that being the case, after making sure I had everything I needed for the journey and overall day, we left the house at 9:50am so I could be dropped off at the station just after 10am, giving me plenty of time to collect my tickets and get onto my train to Durham.

The train left the station at 10:22am and I spent most of the journey up to Durham reading on my Kindle, while also occasionally checking Twitter to see if there were any issues to take note of. Just over two hours later, the train arrived in Durham, albeit ten minutes later than it had been intended to. I then wasted a few more minutes trying to figure out how to follow the route Google Maps laid out to The Water House, eventually realising that I'd just completely failed to notice the underpass beneath the railway I needed to take to get into the city centre.

All in all, this meant I made it into the Wetherspoon pub at around 12:40pm, giving me around fifteen fewer minutes to eat than I had planned for. Regardless, I took a seat and ordered a chicken tikka masala on the app, which promptly arrived ten minutes later. By the time I finished this off (with two poppadoms and a garlic naan, it was very filling), it was around 1:15pm and I impulsively decided to order a desert as well, planning to get the 1:50pm bus into Crook.

Eventually, I made my way out of The Water House at around 1:40pm and stood by the bus stop waiting for the X46 bus to arrive so I could make my way to Crook. For whatever reason, the 1:50pm bus never arrived and as the 1:57pm bus to Esh Winning rolled in I seriously debated heading there instead, as the 2:10pm bus to Crook would only get me there fifteen minutes before kick-off. In light of the rain I decided to wait in the hope that the next bus to Crook would turn up, as the fifteen-minute walk between bus stop and ground for Esh Winning wasn't overly appealing in the rain. However, I did decide that I would head to Esh Winning instead if the next bus there turned up before a bus to Crook.

Fortunately, the 2:10pm bus to Crook did arrive on time, but it was delayed in departing by close to ten minutes due to a strange, possibly drunken man slowing people down getting onto the bus. Eventually, the bus departed at close to 2:20pm and started to make its way to Crook. Unfortunately, the aforementioned man was very loud throughout the journey and started accusing some random person of being a sex offender or something. Thankfully, he got off in Willington and the rest of the journey was nice and quiet.

The bus arrived in Crook's market place with less than ten minutes to spare before kick-off, and from there it was a brisk five-minute walk to the ground to get there just in time. Initially, I stood in the large covered terrace closest to the entrance as I updated social media and put on my hat, scarf and gloves (it was seriously cold), before moving around ten minutes into the match due to my view being obscured by other fans. I first stood behind the near goal before deciding that I may as well do my circuit of photos at this point rather than holding off to half-time as planned. In this case, the circuit took me to behind the far goal, before I looped back around in front of the terrace to get to the main stand.

After finishing my circuit of photos twenty-five or so minutes into the match, I ordered a chip butty and cup of tea from the "Only Foods and Sauces" tea bar next to the stand, moving up into the stand to find a seat once I had received them. In truth, this was probably unnecessary after my earlier lunch at The Water House, but I very much wanted to warm myself up at least a little. I remained in my seat for the rest of the match, only moving at half-time to put my rubbish in the bin in front of the stand.

Neither side was in the best of form going into this match, but I had high hopes of seeing a good contest having heard much about the strength of the Northern League compared to other Step 5 leagues. That said, I was expecting the wet and windy conditions to have an impact on proceedings, as is so often the case.

The first half of this match was a bit scrappy as both teams tried to adapt to the wet and windy conditions and then largely cancelled each other out. As a result, much of the first half was quiet, with occasional chances coming for each side throughout. However, the half came to an entertaining conclusion when Crook somehow failed to score in the 42nd minute: a shot deflected past the keeper and into the post, before bouncing back into the box and eventually deflecting wide for a corner. 

After heading the corner clear, Penrith broke away on the counter and Max Brown was set through on goal. Crook goalkeeper Aaron Skelton did well to save the initial shot, but it bounced back into M. Brown and then into the net. Another counter-attack in first-half stoppage time almost saw Penrith double their lead, Luke Hunter receiving the ball unmarked on the edge of the box and having his shot blocked by a defender and deflected wide for a corner.

The second half was very similar to the first in terms of how it progressed, but as we entered the final twenty minutes and both teams started making changes, Crook started to up the pressure in search of an equaliser. This pressure paid off in the 77th minute when Crook earned a free kick from 30 yards out: Tom Gavin stepped up to take and perfectly curled into the top corner (I doubt I'll see a better free-kick than that this season). Nine minutes later, Crook had the ball in the net for a second time, but the unmarked player who tapped in a wayward shot from the edge of the box was clearly in an offside position.

At the start of stoppage time, Penrith almost nicked the win with another quick counter-attacking move, but Skelton made himself big to comfortably save Connor Shields' shot. In the end, though, it was Crook who nicked the three points in the 94th minute: David Webb received the ball on his left foot on the edge of the box, turned onto his right foot and shot low past Penrith keeper Luke Miller to score.

In the end, this was a fairly scrappy contest throughout with little to separate the two sides. However, each half had some late drama to make things interesting and Tom Gavin's free-kick was a truly excellent, probably one of the best goals I'll see this season. In my eyes, a draw would have probably been a fair result and Penrith will feel hard-done by to have lost it so late on, but in fairness Crook really pushed for that winner in the final ten minutes and were always likely to make that pressure pay off.

Besides the match, this was a thoroughly enjoyable visit to my new northernmost ground, as well as probably one of my favourite grounds I have ever visited. I just wish I'd been able to get to the ground earlier so I could have appreciated it more and so I could have said hello to some of the people involved with the club.

After the match finished, it was a short walk back to the bus stop and I got onto the 5:05pm bus back to Durham just as it arrived at the bus stop. On the way back, someone else who had been at the match started a conversation with me about the match and the local football scene and this was an enjoyable way to pass the time. The bus arrived back in Durham half an hour later and it was a short walk back to the train station from the bus stop. With an hour to wait in the station for my train back to Peterborough, I started to flick through social media while I waited.

My train left Durham at 6:43pm and I started to read on my Kindle again to pass the time, while also putting my phone on charge to make sure the battery would last until I got home. On the way, I got a text confirming that I would have to get the bus back home from the station rather than being picked up, so I was hoping the train wouldn't suffer any incremental delays on the way (as seems to be happening a lot this season in my experience) as I only had ten minutes between my train arriving back in Peterborough and my bus leaving, with an hour wait until the next one if I missed it.

Fortunately, my train actually arrived a couple minutes early and so I had plenty of time to get my bus back. This left a few minutes late, but arrived at Serpentine Green at around 9:15pm and I was back in the house five minutes later to complete a long and eventful day. Overall, I was out of the house for around eleven-and-a-half hours, but it was a very enjoyable day and I definitely want to do it again, except maybe make a full weekend out of it if I can. Early days yet, but I might try for Easter weekend or, failing that, some other weekend in April. Of course, all depends on my own circumstances at that point in time.

I've currently got three more groundhops planned for October: on the 16th, I plan to ask for a lift somewhere; on the 23rd, I'll be heading to Histon for my second Yaxley away match of the season; on the 30th, if Yaxley don't progress in the FA Trophy, I hope to head to Gorleston before they move out of their Emerald Park ground for good. One thing's for sure, after this my options have expanded as I am now much more comfortable using buses to get around unfamiliar places than I was before.

The Ground

The Sir Tom Cowie Millfield is an excellent traditional non-league ground that every groundhopper should pay a visit to. The two areas of cover are on the near side and both are impressive structures. As you enter the ground, the first thing you see is the large covered terrace on the near side. This structure has a slighted slanted roof and provides standing cover for around 700 people across nine steps. Next to this is the impressive old main stand with a floodlight pylon piercing the roof. This provides covered seating for around 400 people, though views are hindered by support pillars and the aforementioned floodlight pylon. The tea bar is positioned between these two covered areas.

Behind the near goal is a large area of uncovered terracing with a few crush barriers dotted around the nine steps of terracing. The rest of the ground is open hard standing, though there are grass banks on the far side and behind the near goal. There is also a very small area of uncovered terracing on the far side, though the cones atop the first step denote that it is out-of-bounds currently. There are also a couple of steps of terracing in front of the main stand.

The ground is currently listed with an official capacity of 1,500, but they once fitted an astonishing 17,500 people in for an FA Amateur Cup tie against Walton & Hersham in 1952.

Photos