At the age of 26 Rob Small made the bold decision to swap his gloves for the dugout and it looks to be paying off.
The former Bowers & Pitsea goalkeeper called time on his playing career five years ago to embark on life as a manager.
Bowers & Pitsea v Morpeth Town
FA Vase
Semi-final first leg
Len Salmon Stadium, Pitsea
3pm Saturday 12 March 2016
Winning sides receive £6,000 from The FA prize fund
After a stint in charge of Southminster St Leonards, he returned to Bowers in the summer of 2014 to take the reins of a stuttering club.
Small immediately led a promotion charge last season, only to narrowly miss out, and now the Essex Senior League side are preparing for a two-legged FA Vase semi-final with Morpeth Town – with Wembley on the agenda for the victor.
“There is no chance I would have ever done this as a player, unless I was sitting on the bench for a good team,” said Small.
“I wasn’t a particularly fantastic player and I felt like I wanted to have a crack and if I did it early enough, I might have a chance of managing at a much higher level than I could play at.
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— The FA (@FA) March 11, 2016
“Sometimes when I have played against teams who don’t know who I am, they tend to go to my assistant managers, assuming they are the manager.
“I’m pretty fresh-faced – not so much now since my five-month-old Henry was born, but I’m regularly getting ID’d in the local supermarket!
“It will take a long while for this to sink in, what we have actually achieved. For a club like Bowers & Pitsea, and for me, it will be something that we remember for a long time – the year that we got to the semi-final – and if we can go one step further, it is the sort of thing that follows you around for the rest of your life.”
However, an FA Vase final would not be Small’s only significant milestone this summer – his wedding takes place in Cyprus the following day, on 23 May.
The 31-year-old admits the planning could have been better, but fiancee Zoe comes first, and he would miss out on any potential trip to Wembley.
But that is a bridge to cross when he gets to it.
“We know we are underdogs and I’m not going to upset the future Mrs Small until it’s a conversation that needs to be had,” added Small. “But deep down she won’t be terribly disappointed if we didn’t make the final!
“If the wedding would have been a few days later or earlier, I don’t think the conversation would have been a particularly tough one but it is cutting it a little fine – any sort of delay and missing our wedding is not at the top of her wish-list.
“The funny thing is that the wedding was already put back because I said I don’t want to get married in the football season!”
Morpeth are the side charged with ensuring there is no dilemma for the Bowers manager and in Chris Swailes they have a player 14 years Small’s senior.
“We’ve got a
semi-final over two legs - which is a great achievement for a small club like Morpeth Town”
Chris Swailes
Morpeth Town veteran
The 45-year-old – who has retired twice, had a six-inch screw inserted in his heel and undergone four heart operations – scored for the Highwaymen as they beat Bristol Manor Farm 2-0 in the quarter-finals.
Swailes has won the Vase twice already in his epic career and the veteran defender is hoping to make that a hat-trick.
“Of course I’d like that, but it’s for Morpeth, for Ken [Beattie, chairman], for Nicky [Gray, manager] and for all the lads and for the town itself with the supporters,” he said.
“It’s something we’ve wanted to do all season, get far in the Vase, and the fact that we’ve got to a semi-final over two legs is a great achievement for a small club like Morpeth Town.
“It would be brilliant to reach the final and such an achievement and I’m sure it would be for Bowers and Pitsea too.”
The first ever Non-League Finals Day takes place at Wembley Stadium on Sunday 22 May – with The FA Trophy final taking place immediately after the FA Vase decider.
