It’s been said for many years now that money talks in football and that’s certainly not something that Ken Mason would disagree with.

Mason, 57 has been treasurer of Harrow Hill Football Club for “30-odd years” combining the role with that of a player for a fair percentage of them.

He’s put as much into ensuring the club are on an even keel financially as he did when pulling on the club’s shirt back in the days when he was a creative midfielder.

These days the club run three teams – one in Northern Senior League Division One and two in the North Gloucestershire League.

“We’re a village club and we haven’t got an ecotricity man behind us,” Mason chuckled. “We’d like to get back into the County League but we’ll take it step by step.

“It’s all about the money.”

Mason knows what he’s talking about, of course. He sees the club first and foremost as a community club although any success is an obvious added bonus.

Not so long ago the club were rubbing shoulders with the leading lights in the Hellenic League Premier Division.

“We played at that level for five or six years in the early 2000s,” said Mason. “We had a good squad and we got some floodlights but in the end it was the affordability of playing at that level.”

In those days Mason was winding down his career in the 4ths and 5ths after being a regular in the first team earlier in his career.

He stopped playing in his early 40s. “We had a few too many hidings and I said, ‘No more’,” he chuckled.

It’s meant that for the past 15-plus years he has been able to devote much of his attention to his role as treasurer… and he certainly talks like a hardened money man.

Ask him what his expertise is when it comes to the folding stuff and he’ll say: “Holding onto it is the hardest thing for any treasurer,” before adding, “we’ve never got any money… or so I tell them!”

Mason, born and bred in the village although these days he lives in nearby Drybrook, is Harrow Hill through and through.

He started playing adult football at the age of 15 and has never played for any other team. These days his Saturday afternoons are always spent at the club and he wouldn’t have it any other way.

It’s a way of life that has helped sustain clubs like Harrow Hill for many, many years.

Mason isn’t the only devotee who eats, drinks and sleeps Harrow Hill FC.

“We’ve always been known as the Boseley club,” chuckled Mason. “Barry Boseley is an ex-player who is 70 now. He’s always at the club and Matthew Boseley is still playing for the first team.

“Then there’s Steve Boseley who was a real good player. He went to Derby County when Brian Clough and Peter Taylor were there and was in the squad at the same time as the likes of Charlie George, Archie Gemmill and Roy McFarland.

“He went on to play for Forest Green, Gloucester City and Cinderford before coming back to Harrow Hill. He was a quality creative midfielder.

“And our chairman Reg Taylor is another who’s been around the club forever.”

There are others too.

“There are a number of people without whom we couldn’t run this club,” said Mason, “especially our secretary Mark Boseley.

“Managers Jamie Addis, Ryan Pendrey, Nick Hopkins, Wayne Baldwin and Charlie Sullivan and committee men Andy Davies, Paul Jones and groundsman Roger Beckett all go above and beyond as well.”

With people like them all pulling together the dream of a return to the County League could become a reality for Harrow Hill in years to come.