Playing Squad 2019/20.

As of Tuesday, 16th July the following players are confirmed as registered with Witton Albion Football Club for the 2019/20 season. Any players not listed are not confirmed but maybe considering offers put to them. The list will be updated as and when new details are announced.

From Last season’s squad confirmed are:
JAMES FOLEY
ROB HOPLEY
WILL JONES
CESAIRE LINGOUBA
DANNY McKENNA
TOM OWENS
BILLY SMART
JOSH WARDLE

New Signings:
LIAM GOULDING
JAMES MURRAY
JAMES SHORT

The only confirmed departures are GREG HALL & MATTY DEVINE to Nantwich Town, NICK RYAN to Runcorn Linnets, OSEBI ABADAKI to Hednesford Town.

Good to see in the media that Josh Wardle has signed up that’s great news just need a full back and partner for Josh now ! UTA

Haven’t seen that anywhere.

Back page of the Northwich guardian !

Haven’t bought a Guardian in quite a while and they don’t always show the back page online. It’s great news though keeping the basis of the squad together.

As of Friday, 13th March, 2020 the following players are confirmed as registered with Witton Albion Football Club for the 2019/20 season. The list will be updated as and when new details are announced.

From Last season’s squad confirmed are:

WILL BOOTH
JAMES FOLEY
ROB HOPLEY
WILL JONES
CESAIRE LINGOUBA
DANNY McKENNA
RYAN NEILD
CHRIS NOONE
TOM OWENS
BILLY SMART
JOSH WARDLE

New Signings
ISAAC BALDWIN - On loan until the end of the season from Farsley Celtic.
CAMERON BROOKFIELD
JACK BYRNE - Dual Registration with AFC Fylde.
TYRONE DUFFUS
JAMES HOOPER - Dual Registration with Altrincham.
TRAVIS JOHNSON - On loan until the end of the season from Crewe Alexandra.
CHRIS RENSHAW
LEO ROBERTS - Dual Registration with AFC fylde.
NICK RYAN
KYLE SAMBOR
JAMES SHORT
STEFAN SORENSEN

The confirmed departures so far are GREG HALL & MATTY DEVINE to Nantwich Town, OSEBI ABADAKI to Hednesford Town, ANTHONY GARDNER to Vauxhall Motors, JAMES MURRAY (Released), LUKE WALL to Altrincham, CONNOR HEATH returned to Crewe Alexandra, TOM EDWARDS & WILL GATWARD to Barnton, LIAM GOULDING (Emigrated), ADAM ANSON to Southport but loaned back to Witton Albion- now returned to Southport, MJ MONAGHAN to Prescot Cables, DANNY MITCHLEY returned to Radcliffe.

With yet another player Josh Wardle, committing to Witton for next season on reduced pay surely the stay away Witton fans MUST show a similar committment to the team they support by actually attending games next season.UTA

Good point Albion forever, the players /management team are doing their bit for the club by taking substantial cuts in wages. It’s now up to the stay away fans who claim to care about the club, to put their principles aside & back the club by attending games & financially backing the club.

If they don’t, then they risk putting the clubs future in jeopardy. I just don’t get it at all, we all have issues with this player that chairman or that other fan but please just support your club and help to rebuild the club with all you can UTA

Squad now minus a goalkeeper after Hall reneges on his deal and joins Nantwich We don’t need greedy players UTA

In some ways I can’t comment here as I haven’t been to Witton in a good while, partly due to living in a different part of the country but my interest and enthusiasm for the club has diminished over the last couple of years. I think to be honest I am sick of hearing ‘we have no money how can we expect to do anything’ well nor have 70% of the clubs at this level but they don’t bleat on about constantly. The question keeps getting asked ‘where have all the fans gone?’ we should be looking closer to home to answer this. People want to be entertained when parting with their hard earned cash on a Saturday but more importantly they want to feel the club is going somewhere, both of which I feel are lacking at the moment. How can we expect 400-500 people turn up to watch us battling relegation next season, with no hope of any improvement. I am in no way surprised that someone like Greg Hall has left the club, given the choice of a relegation battle for less money or the chance of promotion with an ambitious club, for more money I know what I would chose.
‘But at least we live within our means’ seems to be other response which always comes back, well at the moment it’s a death by a 1000 cuts. We reduce the budget, the team gets worse, less people come to watch, we reduce the budget again and so on. We are never going to get out of this cycle unless we do something more radical than putting some posters up around Northwich, eventually we are going to have to come to conclusion, we need to borrow and invest in the team if we want success!
On a more general infrastructure point we are too far out of the town for the casual football fan to come and watch us, Wincham Park has also become a millstone around our necks with all the maintenance costs associated with it and in my view we should think about moving to a much smaller stadium, closer to the town that we can share with someone like Northwich Rugby Club and then significantly invest in the playing budget.

I don’t decry the work that is being done at the club by some very loyal, dedicated and passionate people but I feel that if we don’t have some long term, dynamic vision for the club we will be in the North West counties in 5 years’ time, saying ‘how can we expect to compete at this level with our budget’. I am one of a number of supporters who have drifted away from Witton over the last few years and I can’t see myself getting excited and wanting to make the 200 mile journey to come and watch next season. I do hope I am wrong but I fear that we are heading for a slow, deathly decline of this once great club.