Club History

Bleak Hill Rovers Junior Football Club was formed in the summer of 1977 initially, to take part in a 5-a-side tournament organised by the police service and played at Ruskin Drive in St. Helens. All the lads involved enjoyed the day out so much, that it was decided to look into forming a team to play regular league football on a weekly basis.

Geoff Homer was the original guiding light behind the formation of the team and began all the initial work of attending meetings, looking for kit sponsorship and gathering together a few supportive parents, in an effort to get a team up and running.

Thankfully, Geoff found the help he was looking for and was assisted by Rod Middlehurst, Mike Gaffney and several other supportive parents. Among these were David Swain, Neil Fowles and Alan Gaskell, all of whom were prepared to referee matches and transport players to and from games. Local businessman and Councillor, Stan Magowan kindly agreed to sponsor a team and purchase the necessary kit, which was obtained from a kit supplier in Warrington by Alan Gaskell. The original kit was black and white vertical striped shirts, with black shorts and socks. The goalkeeper's jerseys were red and green.

With all the necessary support and kit in place, the first ever league team to represent Bleak Hill Rovers was entered into the under 11's section of the St. Helens Junior 11-a-side League for the 1977-78 season. It wasn't too long before these Bleak Hill Rovers were making sporting headlines in the local press. Many of this original team will now have kids themselves, indeed they may have second generation Bleak Hill Rovers of their own!

For the first two years, the original team played all its home matches on Bleak Hill Primary School field in Eccleston. The team however, still had to get changed in cars and doorways before matches. Recognising the good work of the parents running the new team, Windle Parish Council donated £50 to the club and arranged with the school for the caretaker to let the team inside a corridor to change.

With two younger teams now sharing the school field, the original team had to move across Bleak Hill Road to the Club's present home on Ecclesfield, where there was considerably more space, but still no changing facilities, so the team was once again, forced to change in cars. At the beginning of the 1980s, Geoff Homer, now secretary of the newly-formed Windle Sports Committee, and Les Bott (chairman), presented a report to the Council requesting that a sports pavilion be built on Ecclesfield for the benefit of Bleak Hill Rovers and the Eccleston Village community as a whole. Once again, Windle Parish Councillor Stan Magowan came to assist and asked St. Helens Council to build a hall for the villagers.

By December of 1982 the local press was able to report that £60,000 worth of grants had been netted by St. Helens Council from the Football Trust to be spent on improvements to the area's football pitches. These improvements included the building of a new Pavilion/Changing Room Facility at Watery Lane (Ecclesfield Recreation Ground) in Eccleston.

Sadly, Geoff Homer and Stan Magowan have since both passed away. Geoff's contribution to local junior football has been duly recognised by the Rainhill League, that each year since 1985, has awarded the "Geoff Homer Gold Cup" to the Club considered to be the most sporting. One only has to walk onto Ecclesfield on a Saturday morning however, to see that the effort and support of people in establishing the Club in its early years, people like Geoff and Stan, has been very much worthwhile.