Sunday League Spotlight: NWX FC

As Newbury Sunday League goes through a period of change and rejuvenation, one constant has been NWX.

The club arrived on the scene in 2020, the result of a group of friends looking to get active and socialise following the pandemic.

Their second season saw them cruise to the Division One title, securing promotion to the top tier without losing a single game.

Season three saw a fourth place finish, before further success last season, when they won the title with a five point margin over rivals Kingsclere.

As the two sides battle for the crown again this year, we spoke to chairman and manager Craig Robinson about the club’s origins and the state of the league as a whole.

“We started off as a group of friends meeting in and out of lockdowns,” he said.

“Stewart Johnstone and Josh Wallin were huge parts of setting up and running the team.

“There were some lads playing for us back then who had never kicked a ball before.

“It was computer gamers mixed in with guys who had played all their lives.

“We’ve gone on from there and now we have a really good social community, we’re all still mates.”

Support from Thatcham based groundworks company, Northworx Ltd, has helped the side rise from the second tier to reigning champions.

“It’s a family run team,” Robinson explained.

“Our goalkeeper Jack North is my cousin, and his dad David owns Northworx.

“We were trying to come up with a name and just decided to abbreviate it!”

The club’s success has come at a difficult time for the league as a whole.

19 clubs made up two divisions when the club launched in 2020, but the start of this season saw just six take part, which has since risen to eight.

“We’ve worked with the committee running open sessions to try and get more people in,” he said.

“If people are interested in joining the league they should message @NWXFC on Instagram and we can point them in the right direction.

“We were gutted that Paggies left, because we were building up to finally beating them to the title, but now we’ve got a new rivalry with Kingsclere.

“But if we do enough work contacting local Saturday teams and businesses, then our aim for next season is a minimum of ten teams.

“It’s about having a fun environment, socialising and creating community, so we need local pubs too.

“It’s good to see the committee getting hands on and working together with the clubs, too. We’re pushing to build something.

“There’s a buzz… people are talking about Sunday League again.”

Recent weeks have seen the club move their home games to Kintbury, having previously been based at Henwick Playing Fields.

“Funnily enough we played at Kintbury in our first season,” he recalled.

“It’s just a bigger pitch, we can play the way that we want to. We had to adapt our strategy on the smaller pitches at Henwick.”

Five seasons in and looking better than ever, NWX are still full of ambition.

“Both the league and the cups are really important to us,” Robinson said prior to his side being knocked out of the BBFA Sunday Cup by Give Back FC.

“This is the first season we were really confident of competing in the Berks & Bucks Sunday Cup.

“It was a good test to see where the Newbury league is at, compared to the Reading leagues.”