St Andrews aim to honour ‘Eadesy’ with national win

St Andrews Netherton Boing are on track for an invincible season in the West Midlands Christian League and face off for the National Christian Cup at Burton Albion on Monday.

St Andrews face Surrey outfit St Mary’s West Croydon at the Pirelli Stadium and Eades, who was the mascot ‘Albi’ at The Hawthorns for 10 years as well as a beloved father and grassroots referee, is never far from the minds of players and staff.

Manager Dave Challoner has been Albion’s ‘Baggie Bird’ mascot for 25 years and was best mates with Eades. The club gathered momentum following the latter’s passing on Boxing Day 2017 and, in recent seasons, have swept up titles and trophies.

Challoner, 39, says: “Because of how well we’ve done we play Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday for the rest of the season to finish.

“Mathematically we need four points to win the league. We’ve got the national final on Monday and our Christian league cup next Saturday.

“Nobody from our league’s got to this final, nobody has won our league cup three times in a row and nobody has won our league four times in a row. We could smash every record going.

“It could technically be a quadruple for us as our Completion Cup final last year was moved to the start of this season, so one’s in the bag!

“We’ve got good lads, Gez Mulholland, who played at the Albion academy, Chris Hunter from Tipton Town, he’s like Benjamin Button, the Roy Hodgson of the league.

“There are lads that have played the local levels, Stourbridge and Lye. We’d won cups before but we went unbeaten in the league the first time we won it, then the following year won it again comfortably. We’ve won it three times and don’t lose many games, we score a lot of goals. We have struggled for a goalkeeper this year though.

“We try to do it properly. Football isn’t cheap, we had to put our subs up a quid to six quid. Lads appreciate how we try to take it seriously and do things properly.”

St Andrews made the national final the hard way – via two away wins in Manchester, success in Newcastle and a semi-final penalty shootout victory over Bridge Chapel in Liverpool to set up the showpiece in Burton.

They face Young Boyz next Saturday at AFC Wulfrunians’ Castlecroft Stadium (1.30pm) in the league cup final.

The squad mostly consists of Albion fans though some, including leading scorers Shawn Devonport and Ellis Reilly, follow Wolves and Birmingham respectively.

The club’s origins are Boing FC, the old Albion supporters’ side which formed in the early 1990s and played in the Internet Association Football League. It got on board with the Netherton-based church, where Challoner got married, in 2012, and the side evolved, but retained its Albion heritage. They have played in the Christian league for seven years.

St Andrews still play in Baggies’ colours and ‘Boing FC’ still features on the logo, as do the words “In memory of Richard Eades”.

Eades was one of Boing’s former managers, as was Challinor and Matt Wright, one of the current coaches.

“I was going to knock it all on the head before Eadesy died, I’d lost touch and love with it a little bit,” the club’s manager adds.

“At Eadesy’s wake at The Hawthorns we had a table, the funeral was massive, it was a bit of a football table.

“I looked round and I had a lad, Ben Marsden, he hadn’t kicked a ball for years but said he’d come and play on Saturday.

“I wasn’t sure we’d play, but he came back. We lost but it was a bit of a turning point. We probably shouldn’t have played with the massive shock, but after the wake four or five others wanted to come back and play.

“Everyone wanted to come back and play for Eadesy, that’s when it all changed.

“We lost Hadley Stadium, where we played. Not long after there was Covid. But since 2020 no-one’s won the league other than us.

“We moved to Barnford Park (in Oldbury). The crazy thing was within three months we had 10 lads all have kids with their missus, I joked there was something in the water! We were always a proper family club anyway.

“We did a Q&A with Brunty and raised loads and bought the lads an Albion shirt as well as their kids with the name on the back, it cost us an arm and a leg!”

Challoner, who was born in Bearwood but lives in Netherton, continues: “I put a photo of Eadesy on the back of the door when we played in Liverpool in the semi-final. I said to the lads ‘why do you play football? Why are you here?’

“I shut the door and apparently you could hear a pin drop, everyone clicked to our motivation to play, and 20 minutes later Eadesy’s missus came to watch. I didn’t know she was coming, but I knew then we wouldn’t lose.

“She’s coming to the final, with their kids. They are football mad now.

“We are St Andrews Netherton but the reason we are still going is for Eadesy.”