If you study the names of the teams currently within the two divisions of the NCEL, the terms, “Main”, “Collieries” or “Miners Welfare” appear and gave a massive clue as to the origination of the formation of a number of the clubs and specifically their mining roots. There are a number of exceptions of course and one of these is Leeds Carnegie FC, which is essentially the Leeds Metropolitan University first team. As a result their history is different to many of their league counterparts and I’m grateful to the Leeds Met, Leeds Carnegie FC websites and Wikepedia for information regarding the clubs background.

The team was originally called Leeds & Carnegie College F.C. and was founded in 1970. Their first nine years were spent in the Yorkshire Football League structure and in their first season Carnegie won the Division Three title. Success came their way again when in 1972-73 the club became Division Two Champions. The seventies also saw Carnegie have their best run in the FA Vase during the 1976-77 season, when they reached the Fourth Round before going out to Newcastle Blue Star 1-0.

In 1980, Carnegie left the Yorkshire League in favour of the Northern Universities League (NUL) . This period also saw a name change with the team known  as Leeds Polytechnic. The Poly had a 14 year stint in the NUL and was a period of great success. The Premier Division title was captured on nine occasions (1980/81, 1981/82, 1982/83, 1988/89, 1991/92, 1994/95, 2000/01, 2002/03 and 2003/04) as well as the NUL League Cup in 1999/2000 2002/03. In 1992 Leeds Polytechnic became  Leeds Metropolitan University and as a result the football club name was changed to Leeds Met Carnegie.

In 2004 Carnegie left the NUL for the West Yorkshire League, (part of the English football pyramid – the Premier Division is at Level 11) and were crowned champions of the Premier Division in 2005-06. The club was denied promotion as they didn’t have a ground up to the required standards. However, Carnegie were able to step up to the NCEL Division One in 2006-07 when they agreed to play at the home of Farsley at Throstle Nest.

As 2011 dawned Carnegie found themselves holding a mid-table position but were hit with the news in January that manager Graham Potter intended to leave to take over Osterund FK in Sweden. The club wasted no time in appointing Mark Macrow as his replacement with James Earl as his assistant.

The fixture against fellow mid-table side Glasshoughton Welfare in early February gave me the chance to see if team had been affected by the change in manager. So far on my Non League travels this season I’ve been impressed by the set-up at the various grounds and clubs I have visited. However this Saturday was a little disappointing. The reason for this? Well, it comes down to issues around the programme and lack of match day announcer. In the case of the programme, I expect to see brief pen-pictures of the opposition rather than those of the home squad. Unfortunately those provided for the Carnegie team were in my opinion not appropriate for this level of football and did not portray a professional bearing, given that there were loaded with comments which maybe fine in the dressing-room, but which meant little to the paying public. Also, the programme contained the respective squads and not team line-ups. Now this is fine, as long as there is an announcement of the team line-ups so that the crowd know who is playing. Unfortunately on Saturday, this didn’t happen and it did take away some of the enjoyment of watching, in that I was unable to identify who was who.

Of the game itself, Carnegie throughout tried to keep the ball on the ground, but were ultimately undone by being reduced to 10 men in the first-half. In a game of few chances, Carnegie looked like they might be able to get a point from the game when with 15 minutes to go the score was still level at 0-0. However, the deadlock was broken on 78 minutes when Damion Liddle latched onto a through ball to seal the win for the visitors. On balance I thought Glasshoughton just about shaded it, although Carnegie put in a brave display.

 Leeds Carnegie reported the match as follows:

10 Men Carnegie Just Fall Short

Despite a spirited performance for a character filled 10 men, Carnegie were just short of holding Glasshoughton to a draw – and could have won it!

Leeds Carnegie were put under pressure early by Glasshoughton whose physical approach saw defender Scott McGrory have to leave Throstle Nest with a suspected broken ankle in just the second minute.

 This lead to a physical, scrappy game with Carnegie being error bound which opened up two early chances for Glasshoughton – but failed to trouble stand in keeper Jordan Clarke.

Mid-way through the half however came the turning point. Following a silly booking for throwing the ball away, Matt Freeman lunged into an unnecessary challenge which gave referee Nigel Haycock no choice but to show the second yellow.

As the half wore on, Carnegie with their 10 men settled into their usual game and had chances through McGrory and Hawthorn but failed to really carve any openings of note.

On reflection of the first half, Carnegie would have been happy to go in at 0-0. The second half, however saw the home side come out in an alternative formation that proved to work as they began to put together some fantastic flowing moves, working the ball across the pitch picking gaps through the Glasshoughton team.

One of Carnegie’s best moves came from a Glasshoughton attack where the visitors forward missed what looked to be an easy chance , Carnegie coolly played the ball out of defence through the midfield and out to the left flank where Mycoe played the ball back inside. The ball was then worked over to the opposite side of the pitch through the Carnegie midfielders with a sequence of short but effective passes eventually finding Greig McGrory who, with an excellent first touch managed to control the ball into his path before seeing it flash across the goal mouth. An excellent strike from the clubs top scorer.

Jordan Clarke, put in a fantastic display in the sticks on his first team debut but was unable to prevent a clever low finish from the Glashoughton striker. The ball was played through the Leeds Carnegie defence, with Clark advancing out of his goal, the away sides striker tucked the ball underneath him.

Just moments later, against the run of play – Carnegie almost went two down but a clever chip could only find the top of the goal. Despite a couple of chances falling to the visitors, the home side continued to dominate the half despite being a man down. Rossiter looked very confident at the back putting in some superb challenges.

 FINAL SCORE:

Leeds Carnegie       0 (0) – (0) 1    Glasshoughton Welfare

                                                            [Damion Liddle 78 minutes]

 Attendance: 69

The official website of Leeds Carnegie FC can be found by clicking the following: http://www.pitchero.com/clubs/leedscarnegie/