Speak to anyone who is remotely interested in football, and ask them to name a non-league football club. There is a strong possibility that they'll say Blyth Spartans.
Some will even know that the club made it to the 5th round of the FA Cup in 1978 having seen off Stoke City in the 4th round. Wrexham spoiled what would have a 6th round tie against Arsenal. The draw had already been made so the record books show that Blyth were in the 6th round of the FA Cup…well…the draw anyway. That Blyth Spartans team played its way to legendary status. Jackie Marks was the coach. He went on to be a legend as well. Blyth Spartans has always been good at remembering legends…and now they’re going to remember another one in a very novel way. Robbie Dale has been a legendary player for Blyth Spartans. In a career spanning 16 consecutive seasons, Robbie, who played as a striker or left winger, made 680 appearances for the club scoring 212 goals. He started his career as he meant to go on; he scored a hat-trick on his debut in March 2005. His popularity extends far beyond Blyth. He was recently voted as the second best footballer to have ever played at Northern Premier League level. He was pipped to the title by the Leicester City and England striker, Jamie Vardy. He’s widely recognised as the one of the greatest players to have never played league football. The highlights of his career will have been leading Blyth Spartans to a terrific double in the 2016-17 season when the club won the Northern Premier League title and clinched the Northumberland Senior Cup. He was in the Blyth team that reached the third round of the FA Cup in 2009. Blyth beat Shrewsbury Town and Bournemouth before losing narrowly to Blackburn Rovers. In 2015, he was back again ensuring more national attention for Blyth Spartans by leading them into the third round of the competition for the fourth time. He scored in every round except for the local derby in the second round 2-1 win at Hartlepool Utd. His two goals in the 3rd round game at home to Birmingham City weren’t enough as City won 3-2 but, once again, Robbie had ensured that it wasn’t just the North East who’d be hearing about Blyth Spartans. However, all good things come to an end and on September 30th 2020, Robbie, who was 36, decided to call time on his playing career. He announced his retirement. So, how do you honour a true club legend? Thankfully, the fans at Croft Park are an imaginative lot. They’re commissioning a wall mural of Robbie. Quite rightly, it’s going to be painted onto the gable wall of a building which is also synonymous with Blyth Spartans. Fans far and wide will know the place…Gino’s Fish Bar, owned by local Blyth businessman/entrepreneur and Spartans fan, Shad Saleem. It’s at the Plessey Road entrance to Croft Park stadium. All being well and weather permitting, it’s planned that the impressive mural, the design of talented Sunderland based artist Frank Styles, will be completed during April 2021 although now that the National League North have decided to scrap this season altogether due to the Coronavirus pandemic, there’ll be no football played at Croft Park until August. No hurry. “We ran a discussion group on Facebook to find out what the fans thought should be done to honour Robbie and, after much discussion, we settled on the idea of a wall mural,” said ardent Spartans fan Simon Needham. “We need to raise £5000 so we launched a “Go Fund Me” page and kept our fingers crossed. I’m delighted to say that within the first week or so we’d raised £3500. It’s made up contributions which have come in from all over the world. The response has been fantastic. We’re continuing to write to local football supporters groups, arts and tourism bodies to see if they would be kind enough to either make a donation of whatever amount to the project, but alternatively we just need to spread the word and give the mural some publicity. Robbie has provided so much joy to so many people over the years that we felt it was only right that he should receive recognition for what he’s done.” And as you can see, the mural is going to look absolutely fantastic. Blyth Spartans are doing one of their legends proud…as usual. Great idea by a great club for one of the greatest non-league footballers…ever.