MOURINHO v MARINE AFC: ALL AT SEA?

 

Marine AFC will be in the news for a while, following yesterday's wonderful FA Cup Third Round draw, which has given the Merseyside club a plumb home tie against Mourinho's Spurs. The Marine ground at Rossett Park, Crosby, should hold around 3,200 fans. Tickets will be expensive. Quite rightly they have chosen to play at home.

The Marine football club took its name from a hotel on the Mersey seafront at Waterloo (north of Liverpool), Its crest contains the motto "Vis Unita Fortior" which means "United Strength Is Stronger", a motto also held by Stoke City FC, Crosby, the Derby Police Force, The Royal College of Veterinary, The Midland Bank and The Retail Fruit Trade Association. 

The club members started with rugby in 1884 but realised their folly in 1894, when the young men from a local college and some local businesses started playing round ball football. The club moved to their present ground, Rossett Park, in 1903 and became a member of the Liverpool City FA and Lancashire County FA. 

Marine AFC  has been to the FA Trophy semi-final twice and were runners-up in the FA Amateur Cup in 1931-2, losing to Dulwich Hamlet 1-7 at Upton Park in front of 22,000. In 1992-3 the club reached the FA Cup 3rd Rd losing to Crewe A 1-3. 

Manager Roly Howard was in charge of the club from 1972 till 2004/5,  heading up 1,975 matches which put him in the Guiness Book of Records, as the longest serving manager with one club in the world. He helped the Mariners win 30 trophies. 

Also reported in the "Non-League Paper", Marine AFC was voted the Football Foundation Club of the year in 2009 and 2010.  

Now in their 125th year, the club once played in the historic, north-western "I. Zingari" League which suggested that the league was for "wandering" clubs, the Zingari being wandering gypsies. Marine have "wandered" successfully through the various county and regional leagues, promoting now to the Northern Premier League Div 1 North-west, where they are presently 9th in the table. They will celebrate their historic success with a new crest, new kit, a new club tie, an historic book and a labelled beer.

They were subject of the 6 part Granada series "Marine Lives" in 2001 and Jason McAteer, between 1990-2, began his professional career, eventually notching up 420 first class games was a variety of clubs and 52 caps for Eire.