Williams to savour Brigg's big day

RUPERT METCALF

The Brigg Town back-room staff that will take their team from Humberside to Wembley for tomorrow's FA Carlsberg Vase final against Clitheroe includes a man who has played in three Wembley cup finals - but no one will enjoy the day more than their general manager, Barry Williams.

A Welshman who moved to Brigg after the Second World War when he married a local girl and started a greengrocers' business, Williams has been involved with the club for half a century. "He started out as a committee member, he was chairman for about 30 years and, when he stepped down two years ago, we made him general manager," Brigg's secretary, Bob Taylor, said. "He's at the club every day, he looks after the office but does so much more. Right now [Thursday evening] he's running the bingo."

Williams will be watching his team play at Wembley for the first time. A trip to the national stadium is no novelty, however, for Brigg's assistant manager, John Kaye. He played for West Bromwich Albion in the 1967 and 1970 League Cup finals and, in between in 1968, became the first man to be substituted in an FA Cup final.

A tough defender who also played at Wembley for the Football League representative side, Kaye's first club was Scunthorpe United, where one of his colleagues was Ralph Clayton, Brigg's manager.

Apart from a five-year break, Clayton has been with Brigg since the 1960s, and he brought Kaye with him when he returned to the club six years ago. "They're a couple of characters," Taylor said of Clayton and Kaye. "Kaye does the tactics, Clayton is the motivator. They've seen it all. They treat our lads like their kids."

Brigg, of the Northern Counties East League, have two experienced former Football League players in their side: the striker Andy Flounders, once of Hull City, and the former Blackburn defender, David Mail. Clitheroe, their opponents from the North West Counties League, can field several players who were with Colne Dynamoes when they won the Vase in 1988.