Eric the Red

"I DON'T think it's something you plan to do, it's just something that happened.

"From schoolboy days to the Lancashire League to the connection with Accrington Stanley, you grow up with it - it's something that's in your blood.

"After playing as a kid for Lancashire Schools, going on to a football career with Great Harwood and Accrington Stanley, you can't get away from it - you're hooked for life."

There is not an individual in East Lancashire more intrinsically linked to football and Cricket than Eric Whalley, a man whom his friends cherish and his rivals freely admire.

Outgoing and outspoken, for much of his playing and subsequent managerial days he was out winning.

With Clitheroe he enjoyed unprecedented success as a manager, leading them to the North West Counties' League championship in 1986 before moving to Accrington Stanley.

By then though, he had already made his name, transforming Great Harwood into legitimate contenders in non-league football.

Now, as chairman of Stanley, the ambition is to preside over their rebirth in the Football League - and not many would would bet against him.

"Eric Whalley's a winner," said Ian McGarry, Darwen manager as well as shrewd analyst of the non-league scene and, like Whalley, a man who calls a spade nothing else than a spade.

"While with Clitheroe he won everything in sight.

"His whole attitude is that winning's more important than anything else.

"I'd say he's blinkered - and I mean that in the right way. He won't be sidetracked." This testimony from McGarry is significant because, on more than one occasion, he and Whalley have crossed swords, most notably following a 4-0 hammering of his team by Whalley's Great Harwood several years ago.

"Well he immediately went on the radio to talk about how hard done by his team were so I went straight for him," recalled Eric.

"I don't even know if he'd put the phone back on the hook!"

Similar incidents reflecting Whalley's uncomplicated approach to life are not hard to come by.

In a time cricket match for Rishton against Haslingden, he once became so exasperated at their unwillingness to declare that he threw down the gloves, bowled the next over and promptly claimed a wicket before returning to his wicketkeeping duties, content that he had made his point.

Then there were the referees.

"It is well known that I had my fair share of problems with them too," he agreed.

"But I would always speak to them after saying whatever I felt - I never got personal - and I'd always have a drink with them.

"But they've never been my favourite people, referees."

There was never a problem with them in his playing days - it only came when he switched to management where the frustration of not being involved in the action on the field may have played a part.

"When you are out there on the field playing you can do something about changing the course of a game (Whalley frequently did as a prolific goalscorer for Great Harwood and Blackburn St John's)," he said.

"But when you are the manager there's little you can do once the match has started."

He has always been a 'doer' and it was inevitable that he should have become an influential player in this country's two most significant team games for he is a also natural leader of men. In his time as captain of Rishton CC, he led them to three Worsley Cup triumphs.

Equally inevitable was that whenever his playing days were ended - a knee injury prematurely brought a halt to his football - his considerable energies would continue to be channelled into both games.

He now serves as president of Rishton CC and at 1pm every day, after completing work at EW Cartons, the business he set up and now runs with his family, employing 33 people, he travels to the Crown Ground to run business at his beloved Stanley.

"We were going nowhere and I think that something needed to be done," he said when asked about his reasons for assuming the chairmanship.

"I think that the then chairman (John Alty) wanted to get up and pull out for whatever his own reasons were and I think the club was going nowhere.

"So, rather than let an outsider take over, I decided - and luckily I was in the position to do it - to buy the club from John Alty.

"And I've never regretted it.

"I think you're always going to have critics whatever you do.

"At the end of the day, hopefully the people that are involved will understand what you're trying to do.

"And luckily, certainly at Accrington, we seem to be doing that.

"We have the full backing a of a flourishing supporters' club which is brilliant.

"Financially as well, they do have social functions and they do donate money.

"They've just given us over £1,250 from a sponsored walk they had.

"It's been absolutely brilliant to be able to ask people to help out with funding that you really need."

The financial well-being of the club is better than at any time since the team's heady days in the Football League.

Brett Ormerod's recent sale to Blackpool is no doubt a factor in that.

But financial considerations were not imperative when the people at Stanley sat down to assess the 21-year-old's future.

Some weeks prior to the prolific (certainly in non-league) striker's departure, Frank Martindale, a hard-working club director and long-time friend of Whalley, told me of the club's desire to ensure that Ormerod was taken care of wherever he should go.

They were true to their word. Whalley took the day off work to drive Ormerod to Bloomfield Road where discussions with Gary Megson lasted several hours.

Over lunch - on the seafront at McDonalds - Whalley talked Ormerod through the situation, got in touch with Brett's father and in the afternoon the deal was completed.

"The good thing about the transfer of Brett Ormerod is that Gary Megson and Michael Phelan both fancy him as a player - they're very impressed by him," said Whalley.

"I would think he will have no problem certainly making it at that level and hopefully, as far as we're concerned, he'll go a lot further.

"We have a 20 per cent sell-on clause which would benefit us and hopefully Blackpool will feel the benefit of it as well."

Where benefit is concerned, Whalley believes he and his business have profited greatly through sport.

"I think the football and the cricket have helped the business - it's got me a few contacts that possibly I wouldn't have had," he said.

"And the level that I played has been a reasonable level, so that's helped.

"My work is based on the same ethos I applied in sport - I work hard and I play hard.

"When I come to work, I concentrate on work.

"When I leave here, I concentrate on other interests and responsibilities."

Among those are his sponsorship of the Accrington and District Junior Football League and the Lancashire Cricket League

If he is serious that sport has made him what he is - and there is nothing to suggest he isn't - he can rest assured that he doesn't owe it a dime.

The debt will always be the other way around.

Characters like Eric Whalley make sport the centrepiece of our lives.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.