Tony Cassidy was the first manager (he also played) of Marden Over 40’s. Appointed in the late 70’s by club founder Police Inspector John Wear who put together an over 40’s side to play friendlies. Later Marden joined the current Sunderland based league.

Tony explained

“Very soon old professionals and ex Northern League joined the league and standards rose rapidly. It extended my career by 7 or 8 years. I got some of the old lads together and it was a case of 40 minutes each way followed by food and drink and a lot of “all our yesterdays”

“We had people who would rather watch us on a Saturday morning than go to a game on a Saturday afternoon”.

I had previously been managed and coached by Tony at Marine Park FC in my earlier senior football career. Marine Park had played in the Northern Alliance. After 6 years of running at North Shields Polytechnic I couldn’t wait to turn 40 and play again for Tony.

Tony a fitter and later a gaffer at at Swan Hunter ‘s had gone down in local history in 1969 as part of the North Shields side that won the Amateur Cup at Wembley beating
Sutton United 2-1 in front of 47.000. A fantastic achievement beating the Amateur Cup monopoly held by the Southern teams. 16 years old I missed that game choosing to watch The”King”Denis Law, Best and Charlton at St James Park. I now wish I’d been at Wembley to witness it.

Playing for Tony was always a pleasure. He was charismatic bright and inventive and his standards were high. He’d done a bit of research into Don Revie and Malcolm Allison and couldn’t wait to try stuff out. We trained hard on a Wednesday night in numerous locations. These locations included changing in Tynemouth Cricket Club and running down and back to Tynemouth beach to play and do shuttles under the moonlight. He even introduced circuits and occasionally “nights out”to build team spirit instead of training.

Training at Argyle Terrace opposite the Spread Eagle (there’s a private estate on the pitches now) in the winter nights Tony used improvised floodlights. Arc lights and scaffolding temporarily erected on the changing room roof and electricity “borrowed” again from the council. They were taken down at the end of the sessions. Inventive and ahead of his time.

Tony’s approach desire and management brought a lot of success to our club and it’s fitting I finish with his own words which he uttered when he had to give up his management role (because of work commitments) with the club several years ago:

“Atmosphere was everything at my former clubs and when I brought some of those same players to Marden it was the same. We won everything on offer and we have maintained the highest standards throughout all those years”