Brave moves ensure careful Rainworth reach their Centenary season

But chairman Les Lee admits they might not have reached that milestone had they not taken some brave decisions to twice ask for voluntary relegation in the past.

As big, professional clubs and ambitious non-league clubs throw money at success and end up in a mess or out of business, the Wrens have stepped down from the Northern Premier League and the Northern Counties East League at their own request but can now look forward to a centenary season in the autumn.

“They were the right decisions,” said Les.

“We didn't really have a choice over the resignations as we couldn't afford to be at that level at that time. It was just common sense.

“When you go up to the higher leagues it's all about finance with the better players.”

Rainworth dropped out of the NPL into the NCEL in 2015 and then again voluntarily dropped into the East Midlands Counties in 2018, though are now back in the NCEL with ambitions.

“I really enjoyed it in the NPL – it was proper semi-professional football,” said Les.

“And the East Midlands Counties was a much better league for us with more local games.

“We had a lot less travelling and we were within 40 miles of anywhere. “We had two seasons in that, though they were broken due to Covid.”

Rainworth were a legendary club in the much more local Notts Alliance, winning it 10 times, including a record six in succession between 1977 and 1983, as well as reaching the FA Vase final at Wembley.

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Club stalwart 'Mr Rainworth MW' Alan Wright was then Alliance chairman and had no intention of leaving that league.

Roy Timms, who is currently on the turnstiles after years of different roles at the club, recalled: “Alan always said 'I'd sooner be a big fish in a little pond than a little fish in a big pond' when clubs started to leave the Notts Alliance into the Central Midlands.

“Alan did everything during his time at the club and, through his business helped us a lot. He even played in goal for us in the 50s but didn't speak about it much - there was one game when they lost 21-0 in the FA Cup!

“He stuck with the club and did everything from groundsman to chairman.

“He brought in Tony Porter, who was the first manager in the Notts Alliance. No clubs had managers at that level in those days.”

Roy added: “Alan sadly died in 2002, after which the club decided to follow many of the other top Alliance clubs into the Central Midlands Premier Division – a move Alan would never have countenanced.

“With Sandy Pate, the legendary former Stags right back, as manager, we won immediate promotion to what was then the Supreme Division, but it all turned sour following the tragic sudden death of the coach Mark Hallas, and we were only reprieved from a drop back into the Premier because another club had failed to meet the deadline for floodlighting.

“Sandy left, Rudy Funk was brought in as manager, and three promotions in five years saw us into the Northern Premier League.

“By the time we were in the NPL, we went away to clubs we had heard of but never seen and their set-ups were fantastic compared to what we'd got. And they were so friendly with us too.”

Derek Blow succeeded Brian Reece as chairman when the club were upwardly mobile in the Northern Counties East League, helping the Wrens' rise to become the first, and still the only, Miners’ Welfare club playing at Step 4 of the National Leagues System.

But he was unable to attract management committee support for his ambitious future proposals and stepped down, citing a lack of ambition at the club.

The decision to drop out of the Northern Premier was initially put off in 2013 when Mark Hawkins stepped in as chairman.

“We had to ring the league up and tell them we weren't resigning as we'd already put our resignation in,” said Les.

“As Mark had been a director of Mansfield Town, they started to play a lot of reserve games here. Mansfield supported us well for three or four years.”

However, Hawkins quit after a year, to be replaced by Alan Wright’s son Kim, and another 12 months on the club did resign and start their descent.

Back in the NCEL currently, Rainworth are not having the best of campaigns.

“At the minute we're down in the bottom six – I don't think we'll go down but we need to steady ourselves,” said Les.

“And, whatever league you're in, you've still got to be trying to get up into the next league.

“We want to stay in the non-league, we don't want to drop down to the Central Midlands.

“If we got back up to the NPL we know it's all about finance, but we do have the facilities here for that standard. Some teams can't get promoted as they don't have these facilities.

Gordon Foster, former Chad journalist and recently retired Wrens press officer/tannoy announcer, recalls: “We were going towards the play-offs for the Evo-Stik Premier when Kev Gee was manager, and Kim said if we finish in a promotion position we can't refuse to go up. We have to go for it. But he knew that continuing in the NPL was unsustainable.

“It broke my heart when we came out of that league. But there wasn't really any choice.

“We then came out of the step five Northern Counties Premier and stepped down into the step six East Midlands Counties, but a restructure of the National Leagues System saw the disappearance of that league and we were placed in NCEL Division One – theoretically the same level but in practice a much tougher division.

“Our current management (Craig Weston is manager) are ambitious and want to get us back into the NCEL Premier Division again. But we are looking over our shoulders at the moment as three go down.”

He added: “We were getting over 150 every match pre-Wembley in the Notts Alliance.

“We'd gone into the Central Midlands after Alan had died. Sandy Pate was manager at the time.

“Mark Hallas was his coach and was the best in the CML. But he died suddenly and after that we just plummeted down the Supreme Division table.

“Brian Reece was the chairman when we moved from Central Midlands to NCEL. Then he left over a disagreement and manager Rudy Funk brought Derek Blow in then and we went into the NPL.

“Although we struggled it was just great to be rubbing shoulders with the likes of Kings Lynn, Stafford Rangers, Northwich Victoria and other big non-league names.”