History – Kiveton Park Football Club

Club History

Located in the very southern edges of Yorkshire, halfway between Sheffield and Worksop, the former mining village of Kiveton Park is an unlikely contender when it comes to listing the hotbeds of world football. But the football club that represents the area has an impressive history almost as old as the village, and indeed the sport itself.

Formed a few years after the opening of the local colliery in the 1860s, Kiveton Park FC has produced league champions, cup winners, internationals, and, in the words of renowned sports journalist Patrick Barclay – “…at least one great man, widely considered the father of football as we have come to know it.” (see ‘Past Players‘) Not bad for a small village of 6,000 people…

Kiveton Park before 1864 was a tiny agricultural settlement consisting of no more than a few farmhouses and its workers. Within a few short years of the colliery being sunk, the village had grown almost to the size it is today, with 95% of its population employed at the pit.

At the same time, the sport of football in Sheffield was growing at about the same speed. It wouldn’t be long before it took a hold with the miners at Kiveton.

Kiveton Park Colliery offices

1878-01-05 - Anston United - Sheffield Independent (8 Jan)

Match report from the first game played in the village, 1878

Sheffield FA admission - Sheffield Independentt

Kiveton Park FC being admitted to the Sheffield FA, 1883

The first mention of football in the village came in 1877, when, on 18^th November, a Kiveton side met a rival team from Anston to play out a goalless draw. Over the coming years the team continued to play the odd friendly match, but it wasn’t until 1881 that Kiveton Park FC was formally created. Two years later, the club joined the Sheffield FA and entered the Sheffield Minor Cup.

In their first year in the competition, Park created quite a stir when they reached the semi-final and held the Heeley club, once great rivals of the Wednesday, to a draw at Bramall Lane. Although they were beaten in the replay, the club had put down a marker. They were quickly moved up in class to the Challenge Cup, the 4^th oldest cup competition in the world.

The first meeting with Worksop Town took place in soon after, with the villagers dishing out a 6-3 win. A great rivalry was to ensue, with numerous battles entering local folklore in the coming years. The two meetings in 1893 became most infamous, with Kiveton players mobbed after a game at Worksop. At the return match in Kiveton a few weeks later, the locals got their own back, pelting the visitors with rotten eggs, coaldust and even a kettle, which struck a Worksopian in the face!

Park’s first foray into league football came in 1892, when they joined the Sheffield & District League. Their first game of the season threw up a contest with Chesterfield FC, also playing their first ever league match, and the game was a belter, ending in a 4-4 draw. Chesterfield went on to take the title that year, but the season also brought a first trophy for Kiveton, beating Sheepbridge in the final of the Minor Cup.

In 1893 the Minor Cup changed from a knock-out cup to a league, and Park moved from the Sheffield & District League to become founder members of the new competition. They also joined the newly formed Hatchard League, and became the first ever winners of the latter by beating Elsecar in a replayed play-off final at Ecclesall Road in late April 1893 – managing the feat again two years later when beating Owlerton Swifts to the title.

In those early days the club played its matches on any field it could procure, eventually settling on Wales Cricket Ground as a ‘permanent’ home, playing there well into the 20^th century before moving on to pastures new. If you stand on the M1 motorway bridge and look southbound you are looking at the former site of the cricket ground, which was literally dug out and removed to make way for the cutting that now thunders through Wales.

The Wales cricket ground before it was excavated to make way for the M1 motorway in 1960

The great Herbert Chapman, who cut his teeth playing for Kiveton Park FC in the 1890s

The Portland Charity Cup winning team of 1914

At the back end of the 20^th century the club fell into financial difficulties following a two year spell in the Sheffield Alliance, and had to miss out the 1898/99 season, but they were back a year later and again reached the final of the Hatchard League, this time feeling the bitter taste of defeat after losing the play-off final.

For the first time they also entered the Portland Charity League, the chief competition run in the Worksop area, and they would win the the trophy in 1902 and 1903, before making it a hat-trick in 1904 by winning the Portland Charity Cup, the league having changed to a knockout competition. Although Hatchard League honours deserted the club throughout the 1900s and 1910s (the club played sporadically throughout World War I), the Portland and Aston Charity Cups were won with regularity.

In the summer of 1920, the club committee took the decision to enter the FA Cup for the first time, and after dispatching Anston United in the Extra Preliminary Round, old rivals Worksop Town lie in wait next. The Great Central Railway company laid on extra trains to take the hundreds of Kivetonians to the game, and it took a late goal by the Midland League outfit to shatter their hopes of further progression in the old competition – Worksop eventually losing out to Bristol Rovers in the last round of qualifying.

By now the club was based on Hard Lane, with Sheffield Wednesday opening the new dressing rooms and pavilion by playing a friendly match. Initially, only the pitch nearest Hard Lane was used – it wasn’t until the 1960s that the first team moved to the pitch it uses today.

The club’s best run in the FA Cup came in 1922. After beating Ardsley Athletic, Maltby Main and Treeton Reading Room in the early qualifiers, Park came up against another Midland League side, Rotherham Town, in the 3^rd Qualifying Round. Again hundreds of Parkites made the journey to cheer on their team and again the team lost to the only goal of the game – Rotherham lost out to Halifax Town in the next round, and two years later merged with their rivals Rotherham County to form Rotherham United.

That season saw the sad demise of the old Hatchard League, with Park spending their remaining pre-WWII years in Sheffield league competitions such as the Minor League (which they won in 1924), the Amateur League, and the Association League, which was considered the strongest in the area and would merge with a revived Hatchard League in the 1980s to form the present day County Senior League.

Kiveton also spent a few pre-WWII seasons in the Holbrook & District League, which was based around the Killamarsh and Beighton area, with Kiveton winning both the league and league cup in 1937.

After the outbreak of the Second World War, football in the country understandably took a back seat, with many non-league clubs laying dormant, or even going out of existence altogether. For Kiveton, it was fortunately only the latter, with the club returning to league action as early as 1942, when they entered the Worksop & District League.

When hostilities ended, the club re-entered the Association League, and after finishing inside the top six for the first time, they were invited to take part in the Sheffield Invitation League, a short lived end of season competition. Park came through the group stage and beat Sheffield United reserves in the semi-final at Hard Lane, but were beaten 3-5 in a thrilling final against Thurnscoe at Worksop. Kiveton also reached the semi-final of the Sheffield Senior Cup for the first time to end a memorable campaign.

Bert Morley, formerly of Kiveton Park FC, who played for England in 1914

Sheffield Minor League winning team of 1924

Advert for a game between Worksop Town and Kiveton Park in 1946

In 1949, a year after entering the FA Amateur Cup for the first time, the club joined the prestigous Yorkshire League competition. Unfortunately, the step up in class was too much for the players, and two disastrous campaigns followed where a Saturday afternoon defeat was almost customary. In the summer of 1951 the committee decided to withdraw from the competition and return to local football.

Throughout the 1950s the club, by now sometimes referred to as Kiveton Park United, plied their trade back in the Worksop & District League without much success coming their way. A 1959 run to the semi-finals of the Sheffield Junior Cup was as good it got throughout the decade, but the 1959/60 season finally brought about an upturn in the club’s fortunes, when they switched to play in the East Derbyshire League.

They spent three very successful seasons in the competition, winning numerous honours, and in 1962 the team lifted no fewer than SIX trophies. The last cup win, on 5^th May 1962, saw a club record crowd of 2,500 cram into Hard Lane to witness Kiveton beat Sunnyside in the final of the Whitlam Memorial Cup. Confident that they could fare better than last time, the club re-applied for membership of the Yorkshire League, and in the summer of 1963 they got their wish.

Park initially played in Division Two, but after promotion in 1966 they were back in the big time. These were the glory years for the club, and in 1968 Kiveton led the league table for much of the season before fading away to finish a disappointing, yet respectable, fifth. Sadly, that was as near as the club would ever get to lifting the Yorkshire League title.

The 70s was an up and down decade, with Kiveton flitting between Divisions 1 and 2 – relegation in 1970, promotion in 1972, relegation in 1974, promotion (and the Division Two title) in 1978, relegation in 1979 and promotion again in 1980 – Park certainly earned the title of the Yorkshire League’s yo-yo club!

On top of the league drama, cup competitions also brought much excitement to the village. In 1972 the prestigious Sheffield Senior Cup was won by the club for the first time – 89 years after first entering the competition. Stocksbridge and Sheffield FC were dispatched en route to the final, where Park beat Frecheville 3-0 to bring home the honours.

Kiveton winning their sixth trophy of the 1961-62 season before a record crowd

During the late 1960s Kiveton were a force to be reckoned with in Yorkshire League football

The 1972 Sheffield & Hallamshire FA Senior Cup winning team

Sheffield would get their revenge three years later when knocking Kiveton out of their first foray into the FA Vase, a successor to the old FA Amateur Cup. In 1980 Park came within three wins of a Wembley final in the competition. Kiveton had beaten Barton Town, Prescot BI, North Ferriby and Louth United, but found West Yorkshire side Thackley too much for them in the 4^th round – the victors being knocked out by eventual winners Whickham in the next round.

In 1982 the Yorkshire League merged with the Midland League to form the Northern Counties East League (NCEL), with Kiveton being placed in Division 2 South of the new competition. Park spent nine years in the NCEL, winning promotion in 1986 to Division 1, where they subsequently spent five years in mid-table obscurity. Exploits in cup competitions did bring some excitement – a 4-1 away win over old rivals Worksop Town in a 1989 Senior Cup tie and a run to the semi-finals of the League Cup in 1990 among the highlights.

In 1991 the club took the decision to resign from the NCEL and join the Central Midlands League (CML) – a competition that had been formed five years earlier in the wake of the Miners’ Strike which had created rivalries between Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire/Derbyshire based clubs that had turned nasty.

The village was feeling the effect of the downturn in the coal industry, and the football club was no different. Although they won promotion to the CML Supreme Division in 1992 and finished third in the top flight a year later, the writing was on the wall in terms of the clubs finances. The support of the local miners welfare had dried up, and vandals ruined what little was left of the infrastructure at the club.

In 1996, two years after the closure of the colliery, the sad decision to withdraw from competition was taken, and it seemed football in the village had come to a close.

The importance of the game to the local residents however, would prove able to overcome all obstacles put in its way.

In 1999 the team was re-established and re-admitted to the CML once again. Promotion back to the Supreme Division came in 2003, and two years later Park lifted their first trophy in over 30 years when beating Athersley Recreation on penalty kicks in the final of the newly formed Sheffield Association Cup. Days later, they received the hammer blow that they had been relegated to the Premier Division, despite finishing in mid-table, because of Hard Lane’s lack of floodlights. Again, the response to the bad news came in the form of a trophy win – the Association Cup being retained in somewhat more comfortable circumstances, Sheffield Lane Top beaten 5-0 at Belle Vue, Doncaster.

The club stayed in the CML until 2013, when they decided to move to the County Senior League (CSL), a South Yorkshire-centric successor to the old Hatchard and Association Leagues, and a former mainstay of the reserve team. The CSL’s top flight, the Premier Division, was at level 11 of the English football league pyramid – the same as the CML division Park had been competing in for years – and so it seemed logical to transfer to a more local league to cut down on travel costs.

The 2016-17 season saw Kiveton promoted to Division One of the CSL, but it also brought some sadness, as the club left their home of over a century at Hard Lane. The decision was made to move to the 13-acre playing fields of Wales High School.

Dark days at the end of the 1995-96 season

The 2006 Sheffield & Hallamshire FA Association Cup winning team

One of the first games at Kiveton’s new Wales High School home, 2017