THIS season has seen a remarkable turnaround in the fortunes of Atherton LR in the North West Counties League.

In December the club lay fifth from bottom of Division Two, having been relegated the previous season, and knocked out of all Cup competitions.

Last week the club won their final League game of the season which meant they moved ahead of Nelson and into the second promotion place and have regained their First Division status.

Change

The catalyst for the change was the appointment of Alan Lord as manager and he, along with his assistants Jason Holroyd and Danny Johnson, set about rebuilding the side. A number of players joined from local rivals Atherton Collieries, some came to the club through Danny Johnsons work with the Manchester FA's under 18's youth team and others have joined from outside or come through from the reserve team.

Only three players, Mike Rhead, Barry Massay and Garry Andrews remain from the squad Lord inherited.

To ease the transition LR were fortunate to have the benefit of prolific goalscorer Gavin Salmon on loan from Hyde United for three months.

At the turn of the year, LR were 20 points behind Nelson, who then led the division. The club's aim then was a top six finish ready to push for promotion next season, but since Lord's appointment LR won 21 out of the 29 League games played, including a club record of nine straight victories in April and May which saw Lord awarded the NWCL Manager of the Month award for April and Barry Massay pick up the Player of the Month award for the second time this season.

With the season coming to a close and Warrington Town having claimed top spot, Nelson finished their season five points ahead of LR, but the Atherton side had three games left.

They promptly lost the first one to Alsager meaning they had to win their last two games to go up. Bootle were dismissed to the tune of 6-1, but then they lost 2-1 at Castleton. However, Castleton had fielded some ineligible players of UniBond League standard and the game was ordered to be replayed and this time LR made no mistake.

Lord is a highly respected coach and tactician, but as well as that he has forged a real community spirit amongst the players and they enjoy playing both for the club and for him. While assembling the team Lord had an eye on the future and insisted that anyone coming to the club was intending to remain next season, the idea was to build for the future not a temporary fix.

Good news

As well as the success on the pitch, there has been good news behind the scenes.

Just three years ago the club was heavily in debt following their spell in the UniBond League and on the verge of being closed down by the bank. A new board took over and set about clearing the debts and reorganising the way the club was run. After a lot of hard work the debts are almost cleared so income can be fed back into the club and with a successful team, Atherton LR are well and truly on their way back.