'I chose my football club's AC Milan colours - after 56 years it was time for a change'

Few non-league football clubs have had a chairman as influential as Neil Johnson. Now retired after over four decades in the role at Kimberley Miners Welfare Football Club, NottinghamshireLive looks at a club where change is slowly but surely being felt.

Neil took over at KMWFC in 1982 from his dad, the previous chairman, Fred Johnson. The 70-year-old has been involved with Kimberley since he joined as a player aged 14 and continued to play for them until his early 50s.

Now, he has handed the reins over to a younger generation. Neil decided to step down in July 2024 after 42 years as chairman.

His successor, Ryan Doherty, was coached by Neil as a player at Kimberley before taking a similar route as manager and then progressing to the top job.

"I offered him the position because it needs youth and new ideas," Neil explained. "I'm 70 years old, and it becomes harder to do as you get older.

"I don't want to interject him at all with whatever he does. It's no good going on same old, same old. We've never played as high as this in our past, but for the last three seasons, we're in step five of the pyramid, and it needs some new blood.

"They gave me an honorary role, which is very nice of them. All I do is turn up to the committee meetings and don't say very much unless I have to because I don't want to undermine what's going on. I think so far it's been very good. They're moving forward very well."

The club is named after the mining welfares that were created across the country to support the lives of colliery workers. They were popular places to socialise and play sport as the mining industry boomed at the beginning of the 20th Century.

As well as football clubs, welfares across the country included cricket pitches, swimming baths and even libraries. Nottingham has several football clubs named after the mining welfare in prominent mining areas across the city, including Calverton, Gedling and Rainworth.

However, coal mining declined rapidly towards the end of the century. Nottinghamshire’s last coal mine closed its doors in 2015. KMWFC were formed in 1926 – the same year as the General Strike – and just 12 months later the miners' welfare in Kimberley opened.

Neil’s father Fred became chairman of the club in 1954 and lasted almost 30 years before handing the baton down to his son in the early 80s.

One major decision at Kimberley thanks to Neil came when they were on the lookout for new club colours in the 1970s, having decided to change their traditional claret and blue. Neil was working as a lace manufacturer at the time, the same industry Nottingham-born AC Milan co-founder Herbert Kilpin used to work in during the late 19th century.

Having felt a kinship to Kilpin's story of forming one of the world's most famous football clubs, Neil proposed Milan's iconic red and black colours to the Kimberley committee.

"We needed to be noticed," he admitted. "Herbert Kilpin went to Italy and made a cricket and football club called AC Milan, and they play in red and black, so why not play in those colours?

"I asked the committee, and they said, 'Why not?' We don't clash too often, and he was a lacemaker, hence why it appealed to me."

Having been a huge part of Kimberley for so long, Neil could be considered as the non-league Sir Alex Ferguson of football chairmen in terms of his longevity.

"I've been with the club for 56 years. I've had some very enjoyable times," he admits. "I started playing as a 14-year-old. The standard wasn't particularly good at that age group, but the fact of the matter was I got a game every week and enjoyed it

"Of course, you have to take things on the chin, but football has given me a lot of pleasure. It's given me a lot of heartache as well."

Now, Doherty is in charge at Kimberley, where he has succeeded one of the longest-serving figures in English football. The 36-year-old has lived in the town all his life and works as a company director by day.

"Neil's been integral to all the things that have happened in our history and our future and put us in the position that we are in today," he said.

"I still don't feel like I've done it yet [replaced him]. I still feel like he's the boss when we do the meetings, and I'm still waiting for his input to make sure that it's all gone okay.

"Things are moving quickly. It's been a bit of a fact-finding exercise because you walk into something, and I'm used to doing things in my day-to-day work life that I want to do, but you're conscious that at a football club, everyone's volunteering. Things don't always happen as quickly as everyone would like them to. It's a different environment.

"We've still got a battle to stay up, but we've got six games to go, and we've just climbed out of the relegation zone for the first time. We are in a good position with six games left."

One subject Doherty raises is the 3pm blackout across English football and how scrapping it could potentially benefit some non-league clubs. The rule stops matches from being televised on Saturday afternoons when most games are played and was introduced in the 1960s to encourage fans to attend lower league games.

"If you have a 3pm Premier League game on Sky or TNT Sports and show it in the clubhouse while we're playing on the pitch next to it, that's going to be a good thing for teams like us," he says. "But obviously, not all clubs will have that facility."

Doherty is also keen to express the importance of Saturday's Non-League Day for his club. Kimberley are in action at home to promotion-chasing Lincoln United (3pm kick-off), and entry is free for all at the Stag Ground.

"Obviously, non-league day gives us an opportunity to showcase what we do without the distractions of local professional clubs like Nottingham Forest and Notts County," he explains. "Our attendance has taken a massive uplift whenever the local professional teams don't play.

"We've just been granted planning permission for a brand new clubhouse and changing rooms. We're planning to start building in May, and I think it will run until probably Christmas time, so we're going through a very much transition process at the minute, not just with changing chairmen."

To learn more about Kimberley MWFC visit their website and follow their progress through social media channels on X and Facebook.