It may have been something of a roller-coaster ride over the past 10 years or so but the good times are certainly back at Cheltenham Civil Service Football Club.

The men’s flagship team are setting the pace in Northern Senior League Division One and if they are on top of the pile at the end of the season they will return to the County League for the first time since 2016/17.

There’s still a fair way to go, of course, but if they do win promotion there will surely be no-one happier than club chairman Alan Wakefield.

“It would mean an awful lot to the club,” said Wakefield. “For someone like me there is unfinished business.”

And it’s easy to understand why because Cheltenham born and bred Wakefield, now 65, was at the helm when they were last in the County League, a time that did not end well for the club.

“It was my second spell as chairman,” said Wakefield, “and the first thing I did was fold the first team. We dropped out of the division during the season.

“That was the hardest thing to do, I’d never been involved with a team folding before.”

So why did it happen?

“When we won promotion to the County League for the first time we won the league at the first attempt,” said Wakefield, who was on the club’s committee at the time after serving as chairman from 2007 to 2011.

That title win came in 2014/15 and Wakefield admitted: “It was a bit of a shock. We didn’t expect to do so well and we didn’t have anything in place to move on.

“Our facilities weren’t good enough for the Hellenic League and as a result quite a lot of our players left.”

The club carried on in the County League for another season and a half but when Wakefield took on the top job again he gave them two choices.

“It was costing us too much money to play in the County League,” said Wakefield, a former player with the club.

“It was costing us £150 to £200 a week for three officials, matchday programmes, food, and we were also picking up quite a few fines. It was a struggle on the pitch too.

“I said we could carry on as we were but warned them we were likely to lose all our players at the end of the season because we had no money, or we could fold the first team.” 

The club chose the latter option, although Wakefield admitted: “The way we came out of the County League was more disappointing than getting relegated.”

That was obviously a very low point for the club but things started to turn around quite quickly. The reserves took on the mantle of being the club’s flagship men’s team and under manager Steve Holend they have been on an upward curve ever since.

They won the Cheltenham League Division One title in 2017/18 to get back into Northern Senior League Division Two and they made it back-to-back promotions at the end of the following campaign.

Wakefield is taking nothing for granted as they enter the final couple of months of the season and rightly so because Service have only a two-point advantage over Berkeley Town, and Chalford are very much in the hunt even though they are a further three points adrift.

All three teams have 10 games to play while Dursley Town are 12 points off the lead but have played three games fewer.

“Realistically, it’s between the four of us,” said Wakefield. “Dursley have got a few games to catch up, that might be their undoing – that’s what I’m hoping!

“They’re all good sides. We’ve applied for the County League and I’m led to believe that you’ve got to win the Northern Senior League to get into the County League.”

And Wakefield hopes that Service’s ace in the pack is hot-shot 27-goal striker Stu Midwinter.

“He’s been banging in the goals,” said Wakefield, a former striker himself. “He’s been our leading goalscorer for the past four seasons, this will be the fifth.

“He plays either left or right of the centre-forward and he knows where the goal is. Teams who have a good goalscorer normally do well.”

And if the club do return to the County League, Wakefield is confident that they will be ready this time around.

“We know what to expect and we’re much better prepared,” he said. “Obviously there are no guarantees but our finances are so much better, we’ve had a financial restructure.

“If we do go up we want to go up and make an impression. Ultimately, we want to get into the Hellenic League.”

It’s clear that Cheltenham Civil Service AFC mean an awful lot to Wakefield, who, back in the day, also played for Prestbury Rovers and Prestbury Old Boys.

He also had a spell with Charlton Kings in the County League and said of his playing days: “Like a lot of players, I started off up front when I was a whipper-snapper but as I got slower I moved to sweeper and centre-half.

“I’m just under 6ft and was quite skilful on the ball. I could head a ball, I didn’t take any prisoners!”

These days Wakefield is enjoying his football – albeit as a spectator – as much as ever and at Service it’s not only about the men’s flagship team.

“The reserves are chasing a quadruple,” he said. “They’re top of Division One in the Cheltenham League, they’re through to the semi-finals of the league’s two cup competitions and they’re in the County Junior Cup final.

“The 3^rd team are in the promotion play-off places in Cheltenham League Division Two and we’ve got teams at under-16 and under-14 age groups as well as running a ladies’ team.”

That all means there’s an awful lot of football being played at Cheltenham Civil Service, which is great for everyone involved of course.

“The games are coming thick and fast,” said Wakefield. “It’s all to play for, it’s going to be a fascinating March and April.”