Non-League and Academy football writer

Dan Reading is West Essex FC’s first team general manager, and he is someone who has given great service to the club, during his many years there, so far. West Essex FC are a club who haven risen up through the leagues/steps of non-League football, and whose first team are currently playing in the Essex Senior League (step 5). The club’s men’s first team have been on a fascinating footballing journey, one in which saw them play in the Middlesex County Football League. And, Dan Reading has been with West Essex throughout their journey in grassroots and non-League football. I recently interviewed Dan, about some of his time/memories of being involved with the club, so far.

Could you talk me through a bit about your background in football, prior to joining West Essex?

Dan: So for me there wasn’t anything before West Essex. I played cricket for West Essex as a youngster, before there was even a football club, and this was in 1982. I also had a keen interest in football as well, but I was a much better cricketer. In terms of football, we had a group from the cricket sides, who also played football, and some of whom also played at a good standard. We were 16/17 years old at the time, and we thought that we might as well start a football side from there, which was how West Essex FC started. So I’ve been at West Essex from the very start, and I actually played in their first game. John Spinks was the man who really had this idea, and he was the club secretary. 

After setting up a couple of teams, including a reserve team, we would enter a team into the Ilford & District League (in 1989), which was what is now the Essex Alliance Football League. So I’ve been a part of the football club at West Essex ever since that first season.

Could you talk me through a bit about the history of West Essex FC?

Dan: We were formed in 1989, and the football club was initially an extension of our social lives, basically. As I said, a lot of us all played cricket together, and we just enjoyed each other’s company. So from 1989 onwards, we did about four seasons in the Ilford & District League, with three sides entered into that league. But about four years in, we moved our first team into the Essex Business Houses League. And that went pretty well for about a decade, and we had a reasonable amount of success in that league, especially during our early years in the league. Fast forward to 2007/08, and we were struggling a little bit to keep things going. But then in 2008/09 we won the Essex Business Houses League, and after getting some more players into the club, we also managed to put our reserve side back together, and they are a side who will always be well remembered from that league.

In 2009/10 we entered the Middlesex County Football League. That was extraordinary, because that culminated in us actually winning that Division One (East & Central), in 2010/11. So we were promoted as champions to the Premier Division of the Middlesex League (step 7) for the start of the 2011/22 season.

How did West Essex come about joining the Middlesex County Football League?

Dan: In 2007/2008, we as a club were very close to quitting. As things weren’t great across the club, with us facing a number of challenges across the administration and playing side of things. The following year, we were lucky enough to win the Essex Business Houses Division One, and in doing so we got promoted to the top division of that league. We had a very youthful side, and we came up against some very experienced and physical sides in that division during the previous season, but anyway, we wanted to get out of there, and preferably get promoted rather than going sideways. Any chance of doing that in the Essex Olympian League was pretty much nonexistent, but we needed to get out of our respective league/division, because another season in there would have probably meant that we would have folded.

After noticing that there was a step 7 competition in Middlesex with less divisions, we thought that we could make our journey up the pyramid a bit quicker. So hence we applied to join the Middlesex League, and once we actually won the First Division (East & Central) in our first season, all of sudden we’d be playing step 7 football, and all of the challenges that come with that. There’s a team called FC Baresi, who had already played in the Middlesex League, and after talking to their chairman, Amjad, he said that it was a well run league, and he said that it would be good for us.

Could you talk me through some of West Essex’s great journey, in the Middlesex League?

Dan: Winning the Premier Division title of the Middlesex League, in 2015/16, that was just incredible. We won the league by two points, to the second placed side, LPOSSA, and just for context they actually finished that season with a goal difference of +73. So that title win was built on some pretty solid defensive foundations, to say the least. I would definitely reference our Alec Smith Premier Division Cup final win, during our time in the Middlesex League. We won that in 2013/14, and we played Interwood in the final, with Danny Bailey still playing for them at that time. I’m not sure how many efforts on goal we had in that final, but I can’t remember one. But we got a very late penalty in that game, which Martin Gritton would score from. I don’t think that anyone in the league would’ve played at a higher level than Martin did. He was a very well known centre-forward in the lower leagues, scoring a lot of goals for Torquay United, and Grimsby, and Chesterfield.

I first met Martin when he was 34, and he was considering retiring from playing football at that stage. However, after joining us, I would say that he got around 25 goals from about the same number of appearances when we won the Premier Division, and he was without doubt one of the main reasons why we won the title in 2015/16. He was a powerful centre-forward and finisher, who was just such a good player. His penalty to win the Alec Smith Premier Division Cup final against Interwood, was a lovely memory. Fast forward to the 2015/16 season, it was then that we all said as a club that we were going to go for promotion for that season. Any step 7 side nowadays will know that you’ve got to make a decision as to whether you want to go for promotion, because you need to be playing in a stadium. And that is a lot less straight forward than it sounds.

Before our title winning season, I actually made a quite extraordinary number of phone calls, to clubs all over the Borough, about ground-sharing. We were going to have to wait for two or three years to possibly ground-share at Wadham Lodge, our local ground. And it was a situation where we couldn’t just wait, as we now had the funding from sponsors, and we needed to secure a ground-share for the start of that season. As luck would have it I managed to get in contact with the chairman of Barking, Rob O’Brien, and we got chatting. After agreeing an amount with Barking, we then had to win the Middlesex Premier Division for the 2015/16 season, after having invested that money into the ground-share. But, going on to win the league that season, was really quite extraordinary, with us winning promotion to step 5 for the following season (Essex Senior League).

During our final season in the Middlesex League, I figured that we played at Osterley Sports Club on six different occasions (against various clubs), and that couldn’t have been much further away than where we are based. There’s actually some great footage on the internet, of West Essex playing Kilburn, at Osterley Sports Club on a Thursday night. They actually started the game with about nine players, and I thought that it was only going to be a matter of time before we scored a goal. Miraculously they (Kilburn) took the lead, and their manager, who is a larger than life character, turned up with some Brentford Academy kits, and all of sudden they now had 11 players on the pitch. And a couple of their players were very good, and we actually came very close to losing that game, but in the end we did manage to turn it around. That was one of my absolute favourite memories of us being involved in the Middlesex League.

For their quality, in your opinion who was the most difficult team that West Essex faced during their Middlesex League days?

Dan: That’s a good question. Interwood were definitely our kind of nemesis, from a results perspective. We also struggled to get any sort of result against them, and in fact I’m pretty sure that our cup-final win against them, was the only time that we actually beat them. The side that we had the most memorable battles with, were FC Romania. They are particularly worthy of mention, as both us and FC Romania came up at pretty much the same time, because we both sort of moved sideways into the Middlesex League, from Essex. They actually got promoted a bit quicker than us, from the Middlesex League. And FC Romania were always a very tough side to play against. 

It would be impossible to go through this discussion without mentioning LPOSSA, who really did have some team. As a team they were so good, and they were also very tough. They had a player playing for them at the time called Marcus Gibbs-Greenidge, who when close to his best, was absolutely unplayable. Strangely we often used to get the better of LPOSSA, on a good number of occasions. Being a local side, Sporting Hackney was always a good and lively Derby match. 

Could you talk me through some of West Essex’s subsequent journey and promotion from the Middlesex League?

Dan: The 2016/17 season was our first journey into Essex Senior League football. And with that came the opportunity to play in the FA Vase, that very prestigious competition. So that was quite a unique thing for the club, and in our first season in the Essex Senior League, we finished in quite a respectable position in the league table. I would say that during our first couple of years being in the Essex Senior League, we had to start to get to grips with coming up against sides who had things like playing budgets, and also playing against some very well established sides, who had been relegated from the Isthmian League. So that was a really steep learning curve for us. There’s also a significant amount more football that you play as a team, after winning promotion from step 7.

In 2020, West Essex established the junior and senior sections of the club, combined. That really covered every level of football, providing a real pathway at the club. Currently we have 24 different junior teams at West Essex, and we’ve got an Under 18s side playing in the Southern Counties Youth Floodlit League, as well as a reserve team who are playing in the Essex Alliance Football League. So community is right at the very heart of what we do as a club, and hopefully some players will progress through the ranks from the youth sides, and eventually into the first team, in the future. If you determine success over what a club has done over 20 years, then we’ve been phenomenally successful. But, for the last six/seven seasons, we’ve probably found our level, in some respects.

We as a club, and in our footballing DNA, have a certain way of playing our football, which we will continue to do so. On occasions that will cause us some problems in games, because of the way in which we play. We want to play attractive football, but also make sure that we get results, but that is harder to do.

What have you made of the current 2024/25 season for West Essex? 

Dan: It was probably a 9/10 season up until the end of October, but since then it’s probably been a 4/10 season. We had a great start to the season, but it was tough in the league, with us playing some of the best sides in the league early on in the season. That is always going to be a test, but we went on to do really well in the FA Vase, beating Southend Manor, Shefford Town & Campton, and Brimsdown, before becoming unstuck against White Ensign, in the second round proper, and in doing so equalling our best ever run in the competition. We only lost on penalties, in the Essex Senior Cup, to Chelmsford City, who are a step 2 outfit, which is something that we were thrilled with, being able to compete so well against them in that game. But, since then, things have started to unravel a bit, particularly in the league. However, we still have most of the second half of the season to play. And so there is every chance we can really turn things around, but at this stage of the season you’ve really got to start looking at next season. There is still a long way to go for this season, though.

Probably the biggest challenge for a club like us, is that if you’re not doing that well, and you’re mid-table or below, then your best players are going to get picked up by other clubs.