STURMINSTER Newton United’s rise has been so swift and so steep that even their manager admits he did not quite see this coming.
Five years after taking charge of a young, local side in the Dorset leagues, Nick Squires has just led the club into step five the playoffs – and into territory he describes as “pretty special” for a quiet north Dorset town.
The target last summer, he insists, was ambitious but realistic. Having finished eighth in their first season in Western League Division One, six points shy of the playoffs, the brief was simple: go one better.
“The aim at the start of the season was always to get into the playoffs,” Squires says. “We’d only been in Western League One for a season, so the objective in the off‑season was always to reach the playoffs.”
What followed exceeded even those hopes. United took the title race down to the “penultimate game” and into the final week, then, having finished second, used home advantage to win both the semi‑final and final on penalties.
For a manager who had never experienced a playoff campaign, and for a club that had never operated at this level, it was the stuff of non‑league dreams.
“Absolutely over the moon,” is how Squires sums it up. “To win the semi on penalties and then to win the final on penalties as well was pretty special. It was an incredible experience.”
Asked what it means, Squires immediately looks beyond the dressing room and says the impact on the town has been impossible to miss.
“I’ve seen some pretty emotional adults that have been around the area,” he says. He paints a picture of a “very quiet” former farming town that has “never been able to really establish itself properly”.
Now, he points out, Sturminster Newton United are one division below Dorchester Town, Weymouth and Portland United and could share a league with Sherborne next year. “It’s really, really put us on the map,” he says. “It’s certainly not been done by fluke or by an injection."
Instead, Squires talks again and again about persistence, youth development and doing things properly with “limited resources”. When he arrived five years ago, he inherited a core of seven or eight local players aged 17 or 18.
“What we’re now faced with is a group of somewhere close to 11 or 12 having played for us for five years that now find themselves at 22 and 24 years of age,” he explains. “They’re extremely capable, extremely talented, but more importantly, local homegrown products.”
That loyalty works both ways. Even as higher‑level clubs sniff around, Squires believes it will “take a fair bit to convince a local lad to leave a club that means a lot to them that’s actually now at a very, very good level”.
The scenes on play‑off final day underlined the bond between team, town and its next generation. The official crowd figure was about 480 but, once non‑paying children are counted, Squires reckons it was “closer to 600”.
“When you see the joy on the kids’ faces, taking the players’ shirts and getting them signed and taking shin pads and the goalkeeper’s gloves, and grown adults with tears in their eyes, you really start to realise what it is that you’re doing,” he says.
The next step, quite literally, is still to be confirmed. Promotion takes United into step five, but they are waiting to hear whether they will land in the Western League Premier Division or the Wessex League Premier Division. On this point Squires treads carefully – conscious of the affection he has for the Western League – but he does not hide where his club would rather be placed.
Geography and cost, he says, make Wessex the logical home. In a squad of unpaid players with jobs and families, those extra midweek miles matter. “You start losing games and having a bad season and you’re asking lads to go down there on very minimal return financially and the results aren’t there – it does become hard,” he says.
Wherever they end up, he is clear that the club will not rip up what has taken them this far. The plan is to keep faith with the local core, make only “subtle changes” and go into step five with what he calls a “very low expectation level”, ready to learn and grow into the division.
“We’re very realistic that step five might be our level. It could be one too far,” he says.
“Now it’s about finding our feet and making sure that we’re going to be a valued member for years to come.”
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