Newport And Jolley Did The Hard Yards To Fulfil EFL Dream

No look of disdain, no questions asked. That’s a standard Saturday afternoon ritual pitchside at Oxted & District FC, where turning up late and keeping your manager on his toes by taking home the kit when you’re specifically told not to is all part of the fun.

Jolley may not be tempted to light up with the nicotine-needing strugglers, but living for the weekend he embraces the atmosphere.

Little did the then gangly wideman or his trademark grass-roots colleagues know what was ahead for him.

Newport County owe a lot to those open pitches and hard knocks handed out by the Surrey Intermediate League. They aren’t the only ones.

Two years after helping write AFC Wimbledon’s biggest chapter, Jolley would return the Exiles to the Football League 25 years after financial ruin forced them to fold and plummet into the bowels of Non-League football.

“They were great days at Oxted & District,” the nippy forward, who last year retired but remains a key part of the Woking backroom team told us as our Promotion Final flashback continues.

“Essentially it was pub football, it was a kick-around for us. Smoking at half-time, not many on time - that kind of thing. Everyone had great fun, we loved it.

“Then one day former West Ham defender Ian Pearce came down for a game. He’d not long retired and fancied some football. He saw something in me that I really didn’t and got on the phone to Martin Tyler, who was number two to Alan Dowson at Kingstonian in the Ryman League.

“I had given up on doing anything in football aged 17. The dream every kid has just went. I was happy being with mates and just playing for fun.

“Then I went on trial, I must have been 21, and things just got better every year.”

He scored the goal to put County ahead four minutes from time against Welsh rivals Wrexham at Wembley in 2013, Aaron O’Connor completing their triumphant return having slowly but surely climbed the English pyramid since reforming in 1989.

But could things have been very, very different?

“I could have actually been wearing a Wrexham shirt that day,” he said. “I had been on loan at Newport from Wimbledon and I was recalled - I did really well the Dons and they wanted me back so they could get a January bidding war going.

“I was playing my best football ever - Luton wanted me, Forest Green did as well and I met them both. Wrexham were also really interested and gave me an offer but Newport got me going again, I really wanted to go back there but money was tight.

“They eventually did a deal with Wimbledon that would make up the rest of the money if Newport got promoted - win win!

“I was so keen to get the move that I accepted less wages to go there. I just had a great feeling and thankfully it had a happy ending.”

Jolley is lucky. He’s worked under three managers who inspired him. Dowson, who took him to Hampton and then Woking, Terry Brown - a legend in Non-League circles and of course the late Justin Edinburgh.

“It’s hard to sum him up,” the attacker adds. “All I can say is that I know I just had to get back to Newport and play for him.

“Money and travel wasn’t important. Everywhere else was closer and better paid, but Justin just made me want to play and got so much out of me.

“He is every man manager a player wants. He just got that extra ten per cent out of a player. The year we went up Wrexham battered us in that final.

“For 85 minutes they did a job on us - but we defended for our lives and as they say, stayed in the game. It was so fantastic to get Newport back up after so long and after all the fans have been through.”

His current manager Dowson has also been having a very difficult time.

Struck down by the Coronavirus, the worrying news of his stay in hospital came as a total shock to all.

“They call me the Son of Dowse so for my footballing father to go through that was clearly so distressing,” added the 32-year-old.

“It brings it to your doorstep. He is invincible you think, but this disease doesn’t care. Thankfully he is getting there now and on the phone as always!

“We’re all missing football but when a man like the gaffer is going down, you know things are serious. Everyone is doing a great job with it so let’s hope it won’t be too long until things go back to normal.”