Shortwood United Football Club are ticking along very nicely.

And while that may be self-evident – their flagship team are in the upper reaches of Hellenic League Division One West, they’ve set up a Development side this season and they also run a couple of age group teams – it only tells half the story.

That’s because Shortwood United Football Club have endured a very traumatic recent history, a period that saw the club in dire financial difficulties which in turn saw them almost go out of business a couple of years ago when they were in the Southern League.

Happily the club is on a much more even keel now – albeit they are playing at a lower level – but those dark days of the last few years are now helping to shape the club’s new philosophy.

“We want to be a community-based club,” said chairman and treasurer Bill Reay, a successful businessman who played for the club with considerable success back in the mid to late 70s.

“For us it’s not about playing at the highest level possible, we don’t pay our players.

“That’s not to say we’re not trying to be the best we can, we are, but it has to be sustainable.

“We had debts of getting up to £50,000 a couple of years ago, now they are down to about £12,000 and that money is owed to people like me.”

Shortwood United clearly means a lot to Reay, who retained links with the club even after a knee injury had ended his playing career.

He joined the club’s committee some 10 years ago and it’s fair to say that the past 10 years have been the most eventful in the club’s proud 120-year history, with incredible highs and some very low lows.

The highs have been well documented – promotion to the Southern League for the first time at the end of the 2011/12 season and that remarkable run to the first round of the FA Cup in 2013/14 which saw them host League One side Port Vale in front of a crowd of more than 1,200, a match that also went out live on national TV.

But after those good times came the bad when their crippling money worries forced them to pull out of the Southern League and was followed in the next season – 2018/19 – by relegation from the Western League Premier Division.

Now the club are regrouping in the second tier of the Hellenic League – they are attracting crowds of between 80 and 100 to their home games – but however well they do this season their greatest achievement is that they are still in existence.

“We were going to go bust,” said Reay, who took over as chairman at the start of the 2017/18 season and has been the main driving force behind the many changes at the club.

“The club is very dear to my heart. We’d done phenomenally well but I was always doubtful as to whether it could be sustained.

“Our major investor then decided to take a step back and after that our principal objective was just to stay alive.

“I put my recommendations to the committee and they were accepted.

“Pulling out of the Southern League was a big step but if we hadn’t have done that the club wouldn’t exist today.

“We didn’t keep any of our players when we went into the Western League – we had a really young side and it was really tough. Our oldest player was 19 and the majority were 17-year-olds.”

Relegation was pretty much inevitable but the side are faring better this time around and Reay continued: “It’s still a very young team but our joint managers Jason Scrivens and Mat Blythe are doing a really good job.

“The players are being coached well and we’ve got some strong prospects. We are happy to help those lads move to the next level, we certainly won’t stand in their way.”

The Development side, who play in Division Two West of the Hellenic League, and the youth teams – they are running under-13 and under-15 teams this season – are also benefitting from some expert tuition and Reay believes the future is bright.

“We won’t be changing our basic philosophy,” he said. “We won’t be paying players. We’ve got some very good sponsors and the money that we have got coming in will be used to improve the club.

“I like to think that we have the best facilities in the division and we’d like to continue to develop the club, but at our own pace.

“We’ve put a lot of money into our pitch – our pitch has been brilliant this year – we’ve put tons of sand on it and it’s standing up really well.

“We also need a new mowing machine that will cost us £11,000 or £12,000.

“We’re trying to build up a fund of money and grow the club.”

The money side of things would appear to be in good hands because Reay clearly has a head for figures.

Originally from Newcastle, he moved to this part of the world when he was 22 and landed a job as a production engineer.

These days he runs his own bio-technology business in Stonehouse but back then it wasn’t just in the world of business that he made an impression because he was also a decent footballer.

“I played for Gateshead before I moved down here,” said Reay, who lives in Nailsworth. “I was an inside forward and I used to score a lot of goals.

“I’m 5ft 9in and I was pretty smart with the ball at my feet, I knew where the goal was.”

Reay, who also won a county cap for Durham – it was presented to him by Arsenal great George Armstrong – played a handful of games for Cheltenham Town before moving to Forest Green Rovers where he enjoyed three or four good years in the County League before moving on to Shortwood where he had an equally good time.

After injury forced him to give up football, he was not lost to sport however because as with so many ex-footballers he very much enjoyed a round of golf.

But what makes Reay’s post-football sporting career a little more interesting is that he also took up rugby.

“I started playing for Cainscross,” he said. “I started off as a full-back and then they moved me to outside-half. I could always kick a ball, I could kick the ball miles.”

And Reay can remember his very first game for Cainscross.

“It was at Leyhill Prison, we escaped with a win,” he laughed.

Reay enjoyed the camaraderie that is part and parcel of rugby – “There has to be a strong spirit because it is much more of a team game than football,” he said – but football has always been his number one sport.

And these days he is more involved than ever in the beautiful game although he insists Shortwood United is by no means a one-man operation.

The club is run totally by volunteers including the social club which is led by Lee Jones, whose wife Laura also helps with the food.

“Simon Grant, the social club chairman, is involved in just about every activity and Steve Nash carries out fantastic work on our pitch,” said Reay. “From parking cars to manning the gate on matchdays to serving drinks and food to supporters, it’s all provided by goodwill on which the club survives.

“There are some really hard workers at the club. People like Jim Cunneen and Roger Grant. Roger is an absolute stalwart of the club.

“Peter Webb was chairman before me and took over when he was 30, he’s 75 now. His brother Richard is also a big supporter of the club, these are the people who are the heart of the club.

“They have supported the club with their time and money, they are marvellous people, they are the real heroes.”

And they are continuing to support the club, albeit in a slightly different way.

“Rather than chasing a dream which was done with the best of intentions, we’re investing in the club in a controlled and measured way,” said Reay, whose wife Sally is a vice-president.

“Yes, we did get to the end of rainbow, but at what cost?”