Programme Review: 2021/22 Garforth Town
Fixture: Toolstation Northern Counties East League (NCEL) Premier Division Division
Date: Saturday 06 November 2021
Teams: Garforth Town v Athersley Recreation
Venue: Bannister Prentice Stadium
Result: Garforth Town 4 (3) – (0) 0 Athersley Recreation
Programme cost: £1.50
Pages: 28
As the season enters the last couple of months of 2021, and with clubs moving towards having completed nearly half of their league fixtures, the tables definitely start to take shape. Take for instance the NCEL Premier Division, where ahead of this fixture Garforth Town sat in third spot, with 28 points from their fifteen games and visitors Athersley Recreation bottom of the table with just 8 points from their sixteen games. On paper a classic, ‘top v bottom’ clash which went with the form book as ‘The Miners’ raced into a two-goal lead within the opening ten minutes. When Garforth got their third after twenty-five minutes with the wind at their backs, it was game over and a heavy beating looked on the cards for ‘The Penguins’. However, thanks to the exploits of the visitors ‘keeper and some missed opportunities, Garforth were only able to add a fourth goal in the second-half to keep up their promotion challenge. All in all a professional job which provided the 216 crowd, who had braved the awful wind and rain of this autumnal Saturday with some decent entertainment.
Garforth’s programme remains fairly much unchanged since the 2019/20 season with an in-house produced edition, which whilst it is colour, it is not on glossy paper. The cover is dominated by ‘The Miners’ club badge, with the club sponsor and league logo and league sponsor’s logo also added, along with the standard match details – date, competition and visitors. Inside, page 2 is given over to the Club Sponsor, Bannister Prentice, who not only have the Stadium naming rights, but are the shirt sponsor as well. This is followed by details of the Club Honours and a ‘Who’s Who’ of Club Officials and Management. The ‘welcome’ to the game is on page 4 and comes from the Chairman and features a nice touch (and one that is always included in the programme) in acknowledging the match officials, with the following: “respect to today’s referee…and his assistant’s…we can’t do this without you guys. Remember no ref no game!”. The notes also detail that Town ‘keeper Toby Wells was due to make his 100th appearance for the club, and before kick-off the Garforth No:1 was presented with a memento to make the occasion.
Page 5 is given over to league sponsor Toolstation, with a double page spread following giving a brief history of ‘The Miners’, useful to any neutral or visiting fans. Pages 8 and 9 feature Garforth’s own fundraising and match sponsorship opportunities, with another two-page spread given over to more of Town’s sponsors. Pages 12 and 13 provide more focused matchday information, with features on ‘Haven’t we met before’ and ‘Previous Results’, always handy to jog memories of previous clashes between the teams. There follows five pages given over to pens-pics of the Garforth playing squad and management team, and then three pages given over to Club sponsors.
Pages 22 and 23 are about the opponents, Athersley Recreation, however, rather than any pen-pics, it details the social projects that the Club is undertaking within that part of Barnsley. And whilst that is to be commended, it would have been good to read about the visitors squad. The NCEL Premier Division table follows on page 24 with another page of Club Sponsors on page 25 followed by page 26 with the fixtures and results, a must in any programme. Strangely the inside cover (page 27) is blank, which either could have been a mistake, or down to a lack of contact. The programme is completed with the back page listed both squads, the details of the match officials and the respective club badges.
This is an example of where in order to keep work to a minimum, which could be down to resources or cost, as much content as possible remains unchanged from fixture to fixture. That is not a criticism, but a reality that makes sense for many clubs at this level. As mentioned earlier, on the day the addition of the visitors pen-pics would have been a good to have included and the blank page was a strange one, but overall it provided fans attending with some content to mull over pre-match.
Website: Garforth Town AFC (pitchero.com)