How Stoneclough landed former Blackburn and Norwich winger

The Fox Park club have, cunningly, kept their marquee signing of the year under wraps but it has now emerged that former Norwich, Blackburn and Wolves winger Ben Marshall has been in the ranks for the Division One promotion hopefuls.

Stoneclough’s players and coaches finally put the news out with a tongue-in-cheek announcement on social media on a stop-off on their return from Saturday’s match at Millom, a fixture they won 1-0 to keep their promotion bid on track.

And while club officials admit they were somewhat taken aback by the publicity it has generated, they are delighted to have a player with years of experience in the Championship in the squad, not least because of his character, free from airs and graces but bursting with enthusiasm for life a world away from English football’s second tier.

“It’s gone mad all of a sudden,” said club secretary Peter Conroy. “This has caused a real buzz, but he’s actually been with us since October, he is a local lad, from Swinton way, and he was mates with a few of the lads and just wanted to come down just to get fit.

“We had to contact Norwich City (Marshall’s former club) to get him released, which you never think you’ll have to do in amateur football, and we’ve had Sky Sports on wanting to cover the story too.

“It is worth it though, he’s an unbelievable lad, he’s enjoyed his time with us so far, and he’s hardly missed a game for us. It’s great having him around.

“It’s so refreshing to see him, he’s a ‘human being’, not closeted away at all. He’s fitted in brilliantly, and obviously he’ll be free to leave whenever he wants or needs to for the sake of his career.

“We had to jump through a few hoops but he’s such a great lad to have around the place.”

There is no doubt Marshall – a target for Bolton Wanderers earlier this season – and his team are going great guns in Division One this season, as they are the nearest challengers to Lostock St Gerards, who have established a six-point gap and have two games in hand on Stoneclough.

And Conroy is confident they can collect enough points over their remaining eight games to ensure it is they who join the runaway leaders in the West Lancashire League’s top flight next season.

“This division really is competitive,” he told The Bolton News. “Lostock will run away with it, and I would have put money on Horwich St Mary’s Victoria or Millom going up with them, with maybe ourselves and Wyre Villa up there too.

“Horwich have fallen out of contention recently and we had a very important win on Saturday. It was one we knew we couldn’t afford to lose and everyone, to a man, did their job.

“Millom had beaten us twice already in the cup and in the league game at our place, and there was nothing in the game at the weekend, it could have gone either way. They were the better team in the first half and we were on top in the second, and about 20 minutes from the end we got the penalty to win it.

“Mark Truffas was out on the left and cut inside, like he used to do for Colls, and as he was going across the area he was taken out by their goalkeeper. He took the penalty himself, it wasn’t a great penalty, he got a bit lucky with it because the keeper got a hand to it, but it went in, that’s what counts.”

The win means Stoneclough have themselves established a 10-point gap to third-placed Wyre Villa and the team, jointly led by Rob Rostron and Dean Walmsley are on course to earn a place at the top table for next season.

“We would be massively disappointed if we don’t make it into the Premier Division this season,” added Conroy.

“We know we should have done better than we managed last year but this season we’ve had a few hiccups but we’re in a really good position. We had a bad result at Wyre Villa last week but everyone responded this week and moved on from it, I felt we were really as one on Saturday, that’s what got us through.

“We want to be competing with the Turtons, the Tempests and the CMBs next season and with eight games left we’re on course to do that.”