Seasons and results
Northern Premier League Premier Division: final table, 2008–09
The final standings of the division in the season Witton Albion were relegated, as shown on the club's match console in June 2009 and confirmed against the published record, with the league's leading scorers.
In 2008–09 the Northern Premier League was sponsored by UniBond, and the old Witton Albion website carried the Premier Division table on its match console under that name. The Internet Archive copied the page three times. The last copy, made on 11 June 2009, shows every club with 42 matches played: it is the final table.
The final table
| Pos | Club | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Eastwood Town | 42 | 25 | 12 | 5 | 82 | 37 | +45 | 87 |
| 2 | Ilkeston Town | 42 | 23 | 13 | 6 | 59 | 34 | +25 | 82 |
| 3 | Nantwich Town | 42 | 22 | 10 | 10 | 83 | 41 | +42 | 76 |
| 4 | Guiseley | 42 | 22 | 10 | 10 | 98 | 60 | +38 | 76 |
| 5 | Kendal Town | 42 | 21 | 11 | 10 | 85 | 63 | +22 | 74 |
| 6 | FC United of Manchester | 42 | 21 | 9 | 12 | 82 | 58 | +24 | 72 |
| 7 | Bradford Park Avenue | 42 | 20 | 12 | 10 | 74 | 52 | +22 | 72 |
| 8 | Hednesford Town | 42 | 21 | 6 | 15 | 78 | 52 | +26 | 69 |
| 9 | Ashton United | 42 | 16 | 10 | 16 | 71 | 75 | −4 | 58 |
| 10 | North Ferriby United | 42 | 16 | 6 | 20 | 67 | 65 | +2 | 54 |
| 11 | Frickley Athletic | 42 | 13 | 15 | 14 | 50 | 58 | −8 | 54 |
| 12 | Ossett Town | 42 | 15 | 8 | 19 | 71 | 74 | −3 | 53 |
| 13 | Marine | 42 | 15 | 6 | 21 | 54 | 75 | −21 | 51 |
| 14 | Buxton | 42 | 13 | 10 | 19 | 56 | 58 | −2 | 49 |
| 15 | Matlock Town | 42 | 12 | 13 | 17 | 65 | 74 | −9 | 49 |
| 16 | Boston United | 42 | 12 | 13 | 17 | 38 | 52 | −14 | 49 |
| 17 | Worksop Town | 42 | 12 | 12 | 18 | 48 | 87 | −39 | 48 |
| 18 | Cammell Laird | 42 | 12 | 11 | 19 | 58 | 70 | −12 | 47 |
| 19 | Whitby Town | 42 | 12 | 10 | 20 | 58 | 71 | −13 | 46 |
| 20 | Witton Albion | 42 | 12 | 6 | 24 | 53 | 73 | −20 | 42 |
| 21 | Leigh Genesis | 42 | 11 | 7 | 24 | 42 | 88 | −46 | 40 |
| 22 | Prescot Cables | 42 | 5 | 12 | 25 | 52 | 107 | −55 | 27 |
P played, W won, D drawn, L lost, F goals for, A goals against, GD goal difference, Pts points. Three points for a win.
The archived table matches the published final table for the division line for line: all 22 clubs, in the same order, with the same records.
What happened at the top
Eastwood Town won the championship by five points and were promoted to the Conference North. Ilkeston Town, the runners-up, went up with them after the promotion play-offs, which also involved Nantwich Town, Guiseley and Kendal Town.
Guiseley were the division's leading scorers with 98 goals, sixteen more than the champions. FC United of Manchester, in only their fourth season, missed the play-offs by two points.
What happened at the bottom
Four clubs were relegated, though not simply the bottom four. Witton Albion, Leigh Genesis and Prescot Cables went down from 20th, 21st and 22nd. Cammell Laird, who had finished 18th and five points clear of Witton, were also relegated because their ground did not meet the league's grading requirements, and Whitby Town, 19th, were reprieved. Hednesford Town, eighth, left the league as well, transferred sideways to the Southern League.
Witton Albion's season
Witton finished 20th with 42 points: 12 wins, 6 draws and 24 defeats, 53 goals scored and 73 conceded. They ended four points behind Whitby Town in 19th, the last club to survive. Twelve months earlier they had been runners-up with 89 points.
The reasons were not hard to find. The playing budget was cut in the summer of 2008 and almost all of the previous season's squad left; the manager, Jim Vince, went too, and his former assistant Nigel Deeley took over. An encouraging start, including wins at Prescot Cables and North Ferriby United and a home victory over Ilkeston Town, was followed by eleven successive league defeats. Deeley was dismissed on 2 November and Gary Finley returned for a second spell as manager. The league's newsletter noted that the club's officials had also been worried by a sharp fall in attendances.
Finley's side picked up after Christmas, with home wins over FC United of Manchester, Buxton, Matlock Town, Ashton United and North Ferriby United in the first three months of 2009, but it was not enough. The match-by-match record is in the fixtures and results archive, and the players the club used are on the squads page.
Relegation took Witton into the Northern Premier League's Division One South for 2009–10. They returned to the Premier Division through the play-offs in 2012.
Leading scorers in the division
The same archived page carried a statistics panel dated 8 May 2009. No Witton Albion player appears in the list of leading scorers.
| Player | Club | League | Cup | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Michael Lennon | Nantwich Town | 27 | 7 | 34 |
| Ross Dyer | Hednesford Town | 21 | 8 | 29 |
| Dave Walker | Nantwich Town | 19 | 10 | 29 |
| Tyrone Barnett | Hednesford Town | 20 | 6 | 26 |
| Aidan Savory | Ossett Town | 23 | 2 | 25 |
| Mark Reed | Buxton | 20 | 5 | 25 |
| Craig Hobson | Kendal Town | 18 | 7 | 25 |
| Kyle Wilson | FC United of Mcr | 21 | 3 | 24 |
| Mark Bett | Bradford PA | 20 | 4 | 24 |
| Elliott Durrell | Hednesford Town | 17 | 7 | 24 |
| Ian Holmes | Eastwood Town | 20 | 3 | 23 |
| Gavin Knight | Buxton | 16 | 7 | 23 |
| Tom Cahill | Ilkeston Town | 12 | 11 | 23 |
Club names are given as the league printed them. The panel also recorded the season's biggest home win as Guiseley 6–0 Worksop Town, the biggest away win as Leigh Genesis 0–8 Nantwich Town, and the highest attendance as 3,719 for FC United of Manchester against Bradford Park Avenue on 25 April.
Sources and notes
The table was transcribed by script from the Internet Archive's copy of the club page dated 11 June 2009 and compared with the final table published for the season. Earlier copies of the same page, from February and April 2009, show the table as it stood on those dates and were not used.