Longlevens AFC celebrate their 70^th anniversary next year and it’s fair to say they’ll be marking the occasion with the club in extremely good health.

Their flagship men’s team are established in the Premier Division of the Hellenic League with ambitions of making it into the Southern League in the years to come, and while the senior section is thriving, so are the junior and women’s sections.

“We’re a family club,” said chairman Mark Cornell. “We run about 40 teams across all the age groups from juniors through to seniors.”

And that makes for a very big family because Cornell reckons they’ve got some 750 players signed on across all the age groups.

“We run five adult men’s teams, we’ve got a vets’ team, a women’s team and more than 30 junior teams from under-8 through to under-18,” continued Cornell.

“That’s one of the great strengths of the club. About four or five years ago we were struggling for players but we’re very strong now.”

And there’s power to add because Cornell believes the girls’ section is ready to take off.

“The plan is to grow the girls’ football,” said 45-year-old Cornell, a financial adviser.

“Two years ago we didn’t have a girls’ section, now we’re running seven sides.

“And we want to keep going, the aim is for the girls to be as big as the boys.”

Cornell is playing his part in that development and not just in his role as chairman because he coaches the girls’ under-14s for whom his daughter Emily plays.

A former player, he enjoys that role as he does the role of chairman.

It’s the second time he’s been in the top job and he said: “I’m coming up to six years in this stint. I was previously chairman for five years from 2008.”

He gave up the role first time around because of work commitments, but one of the reasons he enjoys being involved so much is that he is surrounded by people he has known for years and years.

“I’ve been involved with Longlevens on and off for 29 years,” said the one-time Chosen Hill School pupil. “A good number of the people on the committee were people I played with back in the day.”

Those people include Craig Martin, who is also co-manager of the men’s first team alongside Mike Palmer, treasurer Chris Trout, Steve Davis and Andy Davis.

Steve Davis is the vice-chairman and Cornell said: “We are a volunteer-run club. Bill Davis is our president, he’s been involved for 50 years, he does everything, he’s amazing.”

Cornell actually played alongside Bill Davis, too, and they, along with a number of other club stalwarts can be seen on the touchlines most weekends supporting the club’s teams.

And those touchlines are spread around because the teams don’t all play their home games at the same venue.

Their ground at Longford Lane plays host to a good number of their games but Saw Mills End off Corinium Avenue in Barnwood is home for the men’s 1sts, while the club also use pitches at Plock Court and Longlevens Infants’ School.

“Our biggest frustration is that the 1^st team don’t play in Longlevens,” admitted Cornell. “There just isn’t any spare land in Longlevens. We’ve just got planning permission for a new stand and standing area at Saw Mills End and we’re going to improve the floodlights.

“The 1^st team are the pinnacle of the club, we obviously want them to do well.”

But while the Hellenic League Premier Division side are the pinnacle, the club’s beating heart is in Longford Lane, which is also home to their social club.

That’s where their 70^th anniversary celebrations will take place, with Cornell explaining: “We’re putting up a marquee, we’ve got John Hartson and Neil Ruddock booked as our guest speakers on Friday 25^th May.

“The day before, Craig Martin is marrying Rachel Yates and they are holding their reception at the club. On the Saturday we’re holding the kids’ presentation and then on the Sunday it’s the adults’ presentation.”

That’s an action-packed four days in anyone’s book and Cornell, along with many others, will certainly be very busy – fortunately he lives only 200 yards from the ground!

But such is the nature of sport that once the marquee is taken down attention will turn very much to the 2024/25 season.

“We’ve held our own in the Hellenic League,” said Cornell. “There’s no timeframe to get into the Southern League.

“We had four promotions in six or seven seasons about 10 years ago. The Hellenic League is very, very competitive, we’re competing against teams like Worcester Raiders, Westfields and Worcester City.

“There are clubs in the league with much bigger budgets than ours, we’re punching well above our weight.”

But Longlevens like mixing it with the big boys as they showed a couple of years ago when they took on Gloucester City in the second qualifying round of the FA Cup.

“That was a special day,” recalled Cornell. “We lost 3-1 but we were so good.

“We should have been at home but the tie was switched to Gloucester. The crowd was just under 2,500 and there were so many supporting Longlevens.

“There are three divisions between the two clubs but we were amazing, it has to be the best day in our history.”