Woodmancote United are relative new boys to the Cheltenham Football League – they have just started their third season – but all the signs are that they will be permanent fixtures for many years to come.

That is certainly the wish of their impressive chairman Morgan West, who also founded the club.

The 33-year-old is a solicitor based in Cheltenham and obviously knows all about the right way and wrong way of doing things and it’s abundantly clear that his club has been set up in the right way.

Both on and off the field standards have been set, so much so that on two occasions the club have said no to being promoted as a result of a league restructure.

“We want to be promoted on merit,” said West. “We want to win promotion on the pitch, we want to earn our stripes.”

It means the club are again playing in Division Four this season but with the strong hope that it will be third time lucky in 2019/20.

In the past two seasons they have made it into the end-of-season play-offs only to lose out at the semi-final stage to the eventual winners.

And if they are to finally clinch a place in Division Three next season there is every likelihood that West will play his part on the pitch as well as off it.

“I played nine or 10 games last season and I expect to play the same sort of number this season,” he said. “I play when I’m needed but hopefully someone better will come along and they won’t need me!”

West is originally from Weymouth, moving up to this part of the world some seven or so years ago for his job.

“I joined Winchcombe Town when I first came here but after four or five months I snapped my ACL playing for the reserves,” he said.

That was back in January 2013 and after a lengthy absence he returned to Winchcombe as manager of their 3rds and then 2nds before, after a break from the game and with an eye on returning to playing, joined Regency Town who had teams in Division Four and Division Five of the Cheltenham League.

“I played for the reserves and it was nice just to get some games under my belt,” explained West. “Then halfway through the season the manager packed it in so I ended up managing again.”

Not that he had an easy time of it.

“The 1st team were struggling and the reserves were getting pelted,” West continued.

“I’d be bringing in players but they’d end up playing for the 1st team. When it came to the last game of the season, with the 1st team’s place in the division above secured, I asked if the players I’d brought in could play for the reserves.

“As fate would have it, it was against Winchcombe 2nds and we won 13-1. The previous week we’d got absolutely hammered by St Paul’s with eight men!”

That was at the end of the 2016/17 season and when Regency decided they wanted to play Sunday league football West formed Woodmancote United and a good number of the players who’d he taken to Regency came with him.

Setting up a football club is not easy, of course, even though Woodmancote made a flying start to the new campaign.

“In that first season I was chairman, manager, physio, secretary and pretty much involved in everything including picking up dog poo!” said West. “But we started fairly well, won something like nine games on the bounce and were joint top at Christmas.”

The club fell away a bit in the second half of the season but it was still a pretty impressive debut campaign, one that they matched last time out after Scott Green and Terry Williams had taken charge of matchday affairs.

Both still play and West said: “They work well together and probably have been playing Cheltenham League football for a combined 40 years so have lots of experience and have added some really good players to the squad.”

West, who lives in Bishop’s Cleeve – Woodmancote play their home games at Bishop’s Cleeve playing fields – clearly knows his football as well, and not just on the pitch.

“When I set up Woodmancote United I wanted something with a bit of an identity, I wanted the club to be part of a community,” he said.

“We want to be successful, we don’t want to be around for five years and then fold, we’re building for the future.

“We contemplated getting a reserves side going this season but there seems to be a pattern of clubs expanding too early and then both teams struggle so we want to make sure that if we do it, we do it at the right time.”

The hope is that the club will eventually play their homes games in Woodmancote with West adding: “We want to be a bit more than just a football club.

“We want to contribute to charities – local where possible – give back to the community, engage with local businesses and have regular socials and fundraisers.”

And they are not just words because the club arranged a charity match in mid-August which raised £236 for CALM, a men’s mental health charity, and also ran a penalty shootout competition at Bishop’s Cleeve Street Fair in the summer raising money for the club and the charity behind the fair.

The club goes back to a local pub after home matches with free food put on and players also enjoyed a weekend trip to Weymouth, playing a local team before enjoying a night out in the seaside town.

“We’re a club which goes beyond just fielding a team on a Saturday afternoon,” said West.

And while that is clearly the case, winning on a Saturday afternoon still matters.

“We’ve intentionally got a fairly small squad this season but will need to strengthen in several key positions still to really challenge for honours,” West said.

But after twice missing out narrowly in the play-offs, he added: “This season we are hoping to be right up there.”