STEETON’S NWCFL First Division North season gets underway at home to Cleator Moor Celtic on Saturday, but if some dissenters had their way, they would still be playing amateur football.

Manager Roy Mason took to Twitter last weekend, upset after being told he was the man who “has taken football out of the village” and that him being in charge is “all about his own ego”.

Mason said: “Odd people just don’t seem to like the idea of us moving forward, and it hurt to hear hear some of those things that were said to me on Saturday night.

“With football at this level, you’re not in it for any self-gratification.

“I don’t get paid, but I do put in a lot of hours and it’s a real labour of love.

“I knew seven or eight years ago that the West Riding County Amateur League we were in was going to die, and that we would be at a crossroads.

“Did we want to go up and become semi-professional, or go backwards?

“All I’ve ever wanted is to better myself and this team and leave them in the best position possible.

“The run we’ve been on since we moved up to the North West Counties, we’ve played in the FA Vase, visited grounds we could never have imagined, and had 1,000 fans at Marley for a game against Bury AFC.

“Fortunately, 99.9 per cent of our supporters are behind us on this journey.”

That journey restarts with an opening day game against Cleator Moor, with Mason saying: “This will be the first time we’ve started a campaign at Marley, which is nice.

“We played Cleator Moor towards the back end of last season away from home, so we know what they’re about.

“They’re a big, physical and direct side, who are strong from set-pieces.

“But we need to use Marley to our advantage on Saturday. It’s a good surface for fast, flowing football, and it’s probably why we had a good win over Cleator Moor at home last season.

“We didn’t lose a home game after playing Bury at Christmas, so really it’s on the road where we need to learn to mix things up.”

Pre-season has not exactly run smoothly for Steeton, after some heavy defeats and a late start.

Mason said: “It’s been frustrating, because we had it all planned out, but then lost our first two games because our county affiliation hadn’t come through, and we’re probably a good week behind where we should be.

“Last Tuesday we lost a friendly due to the heat, so we had to hastily arrange a game against Campion for the next day, and had players missing.

“Campion are the best team we’ve faced by far, and everyone else has been in a higher division than us, as we want that test, so the real thing in the league might be easier.

“We’ve lost some games by fine margins in pre-season too.”

Mason is not worried that Steeton still need a few more signings, saying: “We were in real need of a centre-half with Jerry White retiring.

“It was somewhere we needed to strengthen, but Omar Anjum coming back to us in that position from Eccleshill will help.

“With social media nowadays, people are saying how we need players in certain positions now, but we need to be patient, as we know once the season starts and some lads aren’t getting game time, they’ll become available for us to sign.”