Jason Waterman

By Alex Hayward, Head of Marketing & Strategy

Last season was, by almost any measure, the most successful in the club's history. Four of the five senior teams won silverware, and the crowds were the highest the club has recorded for its senior football. The Men's First Team, in its first year at Step 5, chased the play-offs to the final weekend. We sat down with Director of Football Jason Waterman to go through it team by team, and to look at the season ahead for each side.

The job is not quite the one a supporter might picture. Jason does not pick the teams. That is each manager's call, every week. His lens is the longer one, covering recruitment and retention, the structure beneath all five senior squads and the youth setup, and what each squad needs to look like across a whole season rather than a single Saturday. He speaks to first team manager Shaun Middleton most days, and daily through pre-season, but his own work starts well before the team sheet goes up. He measures himself, as he puts it, on the progression of all the teams, not just the one that draws the biggest crowd. Most of the work is long-term: the planning for this season, the players to target and the shape to aim for, began in the cold months around Christmas.

Five competitive senior teams under one badge is rare at this level, and Jason is clear the five are one club rather than five separate ones. "It isn't five individual teams with no connection," he says. "There's a consistency in how we do things, and it's as inclusive an approach as we can make it." In practice that means coaches and players crossing between the teams. Dan Templeton has run several sessions for the women over the summer, and Wayne Roberts, the first team goalkeeping coach, has been down to work with the Ladies' keepers.

It is all built without a safety net. There is no wealthy backer, so the money comes in through the gate and from the club's sponsors and partners, and everyone who runs the place day to day does it as a volunteer. "We don't have the biggest budget in the leagues we're in, and we never will," Jason says. "But we use that money really effectively." The phrase he keeps coming back to is that the club is ambitious, but wants to do things in the right way. A big part of that is a strong thread of Newquay players through every team, people born in the town or brought through its youth setup, so the town feels the club is its own.

The Men's First Team

A first season at Step 5 could have been about survival. It turned into a play-off race that ran to the final weekend, the side missing out by a single place against opponents long established at this level. Only two clubs in the Western Premier scored more goals all season, and both went up. Crowds grew month on month, peaking at almost 670 for the visit of Oldland Abbotonians in April, with a seasonal average above 460. That ranks eighth in the country at Step 5, and inside the top 200 of all non-league clubs, a list that includes the likes of York and Rochdale, who pull five and six thousand in far bigger cities.

The recruitment this summer followed a clear read of where the season was lost. The attacking play was rarely the problem. The points slipped away in quick transitions and from the team's own set pieces, largely against the five sides who finished above them. So the work has been to tighten things up without losing the attacking threat. Connor Paine and Jacob Kevern add steel and flexibility in midfield and defence, Shaun Semmens returns to his hometown as an aggressive, front-foot goalkeeper, and Tim Nixon brings creativity with experience at Step 4. The core that won the title has largely stayed together. Leading the line again are forwards Louis and Jack, who between them have scored more than a hundred goals across the last two seasons.

Jason is honest that it gets harder from here. "The league is stronger this year than last," he says. There are nineteen teams, and by his reckoning eleven or twelve of them could be looking at the play-offs. The aim is to challenge at the top again, and to finally go deep in a cup. The Cornwall Senior Cup, in particular, has eluded the club for a long time.

The Women's First Team

The women earned a second promotion in a row last season, and a second cup to go with it, lifting the Mason King Cup a year after the League Cup. The reward is a much bigger stage. They step up into tier 6 of the National League system, with regional fixtures across Devon, Dorset and Somerset, a place in the FA Cup, and every home game back at Mount Wise. Many of those will be double-headers, the Veterans in the morning and the women in the afternoon, to draw as many people through the gate as possible. With the men at Step 5 and the women now in the national pyramid, Jason makes a claim he is sure holds up: no other club in Cornwall runs a men's and a women's side at the levels Newquay does.

Craig Ludlam has come in as Head Coach alongside Lucie Beesley, with more appointments to follow. The cross-club coaching means the group has the same standard of staff as the men. Jason puts the ambition plainly. "I can't think of a more attractive place for women and girls to play football in Cornwall right now." The job now is to build the depth beneath the senior side so the step up is one the club can sustain.

The Reserves

The Reserves won St Piran League Division One with 145 goals, the most in the division by a distance, and the fewest conceded. Eleven of those players pulled on a first team shirt on a matchday last season, which is why Jason rates the side for what it produces as much as for what it wins. "The trophies are brilliant," he says, "but making sure the seconds and the under 23s are feeding the first team is the main thing." That flow depends on the development work Dan Templeton and Andy put in with the group, and the chances to reach the first team are earned rather than handed out. This season the side steps up into the St Piran Premier, with several of them training with the first team through pre-season.

The Under 23s

The Under 23s, as the side is now known, won Division Three last season and reached a cup final. It is a young group, many still playing 16s and 18s on a Sunday, and a winning one at that age too, with the 16s taking their league and the 18s the County Cup. The new name is deliberate. "We want the lads to feel like they're on a development path, not that they're the third best team." It gives the climb from youth to first team a clearer ladder, and the higher division will test how far this group can keep climbing.

There is a change in the dugout too. Last season the team was run by Marcus, Greg, John and Leon, with Marcus as manager. This year Leon takes charge, with Marcus, Greg and John as his assistants. Leon also manages the Under 18s, so he knows these players well. He stepped in to lead the coaching not long after last season had started, and the job he did earned him a Manager of the Year nomination on the Cornish Soccer podcast.

The Veterans

The Veterans won their league without losing a game, though the season was a frustrating one. Their side was strong enough that too many opponents took the walkover rather than turn up. When games did go ahead, they put seven past the teams who finished second and third. A league restructure should help. They now sit in the Premier Division (West), playing each side home and away, which should mean fewer walkovers and more football at Mount Wise. They open the new campaign with unfinished business, a cup final against rivals Gunnislake held over from last season.

What comes next

Behind all of this sits a five year plan, built with the Youth section, that takes in the senior teams, the pathway beneath them, coaching and facilities. The aim at the heart of it is straightforward: find local talent, keep it at the club, and give every player the environment to get better. Newquay has always produced good footballers, and Jason wants them playing their football here, at a club players increasingly want to come to.

Much of that comes down to what surrounds the football. The pitch, tended by Dan Kendle and the grounds team, is one Jason calls an absolute carpet, better than many you would find several leagues higher. The club is winning grants and working with the Football Foundation and the Premier League Stadium Fund on further improvements to the ground. "We're not reactive with the infrastructure any more," he says. "We're being proactive." Behind the scenes there is goalkeeping coaching, sports psychology and a performance and analysis operation built over the summer, poring over footage on possible signings and picking apart the opposition. It is the kind of setup he reckons you don't usually find at this level, much of it offered by people from around the country who put their hands up to help.

Ask him how the club tops a record season and the answer is short. "A lot of people asked me that. For me, it's that we don't stand still."

Come and be part of it

Take a step back, and very little of this is standard for a Step 5 club. Newquay builds it anyway, with whatever skills come its way, brought by people who give their time. That is the how in This is How We Rise, and it keeps working only because people keep stepping forward.

So here is the invitation. Come to a game, whichever side is playing, and you will find attacking football and a proper day out. If you want to do more than watch, whether that is a trade, a professional skill, or a few hours on a matchday, there is a place for you at Mount Wise.

To get involved, email us at: [email protected]

Or find us at: newquayafc.com