Chesterfield dream of more Cup glory under Cook and ‘King of North Sea’

The FA Cup’s former ability to convert market-town footballers into figures recognised nationally was shown by a recent social media time capsule. There emerged a short clip from a 1997 edition from the BBC guffaw-fest They Think It’s All Over featuring a blindfolded Rory McGrath and Gary Lineker feeling the bumps of a full-kit Sean Dyche and fellow members of the Chesterfield team that had reached that season’s semi-finals. The players, and their manager, John Duncan, standing shyly at the back, were greeted with warm applause.

The tale of that Chesterfield team is well told. Kevin Davies, their teenage striker, scored a hat-trick against his future club Bolton in the fourth round. A classic Old Trafford 3-3 semi-final with Middlesbrough will be forever recalled for Dyche taking a penalty exactly as you might expect and the scandal of Jonathan Howard’s shot, clearly crossing the Boro line after coming off the crossbar for what would have been an unassailable 3-1 lead, being ruled out. The referee, David Elleray, entered eternal notoriety.

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What followed defeat in the replay is less mainstream material. Chesterfield, the Derbyshire club on the fringes of the Peak District and South Yorkshire conurbation, have suffered the ups and downs – mostly downs – of many provincial clubs. Historic Saltergate, home from 1871, has been a Barratt housing development for 12 years and its replacement, the 10,504-capacity SMH Group Stadium, has lately become a fortress. The Spireites lead the National League unbeaten at home, though their FA Cup third-round assignment is a trip to the Championship’s Watford. Their manager, Paul Cook, has promised to “attack the occasion”, just as his team have all season. New Year’s Day brought a typical two-goal comeback to beat Solihull 3-2.

“We genuinely believe we can go into deep water with any team in the division and we will be all right,” said Cook afterwards. The charismatic Merseysider, formerly of Portsmouth, Wigan and Ipswich, is in his second Chesterfield spell. He has brought a similar, enervating effect as from 2012 to 2015, when his team topped League Two, falling short only in the League One playoffs the following season. Without him, amid considerable boardroom turmoil, the club exited the Football League in the summer of 2018, ending 97 years of membership.

The formation of the Chesterfield FC Community Trust in 2020 prevented further plunges, the revival aided by local businessmen the Kirk brothers, Phil and Ashley, putting an initial £1m into the club. They continue to provide funding.

If last season’s National League had Wrexham’s Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney battling it out with Notts County’s Danish sports betting tycoons, Alexander and Christoffer Reedtz, then this season has Phil Kirk, whose oil industry career led to the Financial Times, in 2019, labelling him “the new King of the North Sea”. It is hoped a 5-1 FA Cup third-round defeat at Chelsea in 2022 and losing last season’s National League playoff final to County are bumps in the road to the club’s return to the EFL and journey upwards. This season’s FA Cup run has included victories over League One opposition in Leyton Orient and Portsmouth to reach the third round.

Danny Webb is Cook’s assistant, and as son of David Webb, whose bundling header decided the FA Cup Final replay of 1970 for Chelsea, the competition is in the blood. A southerner by birth and breeding, he speaks of the excitement that league and Cup have brought to the adopted home he speaks of with warmth. “I’ve never seen a place with so many pubs and parks; if you like a walk and a beer, this is the place to be,” he says.

“It’s a unique place. My dad says this when he speaks to the fans in the stand. It’s a one-club town, and you don’t see the kids in Manchester United or Liverpool shirts, it’s Chesterfield shirts or bobble hats in the wintertime. There’s a real pride in the town.”

Cook’s connections brought in three players of Championship experience in Tom Naylor, Michael Jacobs and Will Grigg, the formerly “on-fire” striker scoring 13 National League goals of Chesterfield’s hefty 61 in 25 matches. Cook and Webb have shared repeated admiration for the professionalism of such players while stepping down divisions into non-league. “It’s so important the people you sign are good as well as how good they are as players,” says Webb. “They have added their great attitudes to that we already had at the club.”

At Watford, there will be about 3,600 Spireites and the club could have sold 5,000 of the £10 tickets their hosts have cut the entry price to. For Watford, in the Championship playoff hunt, fielding a rotated team is the expectation. Cook and Webb hope to be at full strength but play down hopes of what would register as a giant-killing. “We’re not being silly,” says Webb. “They’ve got Premier League players on Premier League wages. If they come to the party and play well it could be a long afternoon.”

Promotion remains the key priority but Saturday serves as an echo of that 1997 team, from whom Davies is still an occasional visitor to his former club. That group got together in 2022 for a 25-year-anniversary, able to say their farewells to Duncan, who died in October that year.

Should they win at Vicarage Road, the Chesterfield of 2024 may not catch a nation’s hearts in quite the same way but the club is making its way back.