Football from the Morgue

With the kind of gallows humour typical of non-league fans, they call it the Morgue.

Officially, North Shields’ home ground in Ralph Gardner Park is the Daren Persson Stadium. Since Daren Persson is a local undertaker and club sponsor, the jokes write themselves. Visiting teams might find themselves buried, hopes of victory turned to ashes. The atmosphere tends to the raucous side of reverent, the weekly ritual brash and beery.

Today it was FA Vase duty. In earlier rounds, among non-league dogs and Ally the Gator, Wembley was a distant dream, the arch a hazy vision. Now, in the last 16, things are coming into sharper focus. Win today, and you’re just two games away from the hallowed turf, a mere 180 minutes from potentially fulfilling a lifelong ambition. As a result, there was a big game feel around the place as Shropshire-based Whitchurch Alport came to Tyneside: alongside the essential beer and chips, there were limited-edition North Shields FC cup cakes on sale, courtesy of match ball sponsor Jones Bakehouse.

The crowd was bigger than usual too, despite the clash with Newcastle United’s home game in the Premier League. North Shields is staunchly black-and-white territory, typified by the Magpie Chippie a few streets from the football ground. Tapping into local prejudices, the visiting fans raised a chant of “I’d rather be a Mackem than a Mag”. No arguments here.

Those Whitchurch fans were hoping to see their team reach new heights in the Vase. Back in 2022, they got to this stage and fell to eventual winner Newport Pagnell. Shields, meanwhile, have done the full Wembley experience twice. The Robins, unusually, won the FA Amateur Cup (1969) and then added FA Vase success in 2015 with an extra time success against Glossop North End. At this level, history matters; North End fans will proudly tell you that, back before the First World War, their Derbyshire town was the smallest ever to produce a First Division football team.

History also contributed to hometown confidence ahead of this game, and that faith was reinforced when an eighth-minute penalty saw Lewis Suddick open the scoring. The Alport fans, some inexplicably wearing traffic cone hats decorated with the club crest, affected indifference. “We always win away,” they sang to the tune of the Lion Sleeps Tonight (a win away, a win away). The morgue turned out not to be so funereal after all.

Their team, currently sixth in the Midland League Premier Division despite something of a fixture backlog, was also unwilling to roll over and die. Quickly sussing out that long balls give a diminutive forward line little chance against some hefty Shields defenders, midfield livewire Craig Pritchard kept the ball on the floor. He was at the heart of most of what was good about Alport’s play as pressure built on the home goal. Yet, strangely, he had little involvement in either goal. First, Callum Knowles headed home a cross from Harry Bower. Then, as half-time approached, Bower scored a fantastic long-range effort to give Whitchurch the lead.

The home ultras, on their self-styled Curva Nord (Shields) were less than impressed, particularly when Bower went haring off to celebrate in front of them. And their frustrations didn’t ease in the second half. Alport defended with a calmness that belied the youth that manager Adam Shillcock invoked at every opportunity before and after the game. And it was Shields’ hopes of another Wembley mission that were laid to rest as a chilly evening set in at the morgue.

Game details

Feb. 1, 2025. The Daren Persson Stadium, North Shields

FA Vase round 5

North Shields 1 (Suddick, pen) Whitchurch Alport 2 (Knowles, Bower)

Att: 585