Club History
The I.M.Marsh soccer school was started by Track Dinning in 1996 when coaches, David Grimes and Tony Ruddock, regularly taught 20-30 boys every Saturday morning.
One of those boys was Daniel Grace. His father, after not making it as a player, decided to embark on a spot of football coaching and, whilst completing 16 hours of
coaching to achieve the FA level 2 coaching award, Steve Grace was asked to lead a group at IM Marsh. This move proved to be a catalyst in the birth of Marshalls FC.
Soon after, the word was out the I.M.Marsh was (as, indeed, it still is) the place to be for Saturday morning coaching. The numbers of boys attending the soccer school
began to rise quickly. In 1997, a local scout group ask the IM Marsh camp for a friendly fixture. IM Marsh, then known as Martians, borrowed a green and yellow strip
from Latcio Lyons. The result is lost in the echoes of time, but the thirst for more organised matches began. Martians continued to play, albeit only 5 or 6 times in the
1997/8 season, but at the end of the season Steve Grace decided to take the team to the Umbro International Mini Football Tournament in Manchester.
At the time the team were under 9s and consisted of GK Mark Williams, David Hort, Sean Hogan, Daniel Grace, Neil Wilson, Steven Byrne, Jack Wedgwood, Ian Montague, Jordan Jones, Ben Steward
and Daniel Gordon. The day was arranged as a spot of fun in the summer for the boys, the borrowed kit never made it back to Latcio and has since entered club folk law.
The day started well and then got better. After taking the group stages by storm, the team steamrollered their way to the final, where they played a team from the south
coast. The match ended 0-0 and went to penalties. After 9 penalties the score was 3-3. Steven Byrne of Martians stepped up and smashed the ball home and was then chased
by the rest of the team and manager across all the other age groups' final matches.
Following the tournament success, it was recognised that this team must play together as an under 10s side in the following season. Unfortunately, they did not do it under the Marsh banner.
Coach Steve Grace was headhunted by Wrexham AFC and was unable to
continue with the team so the team was given to APH under the guidance of Tony Jones. The team won the league by Christmas and followed that with a cup victory. But Martians
was no hold. The I.M. Marsh camp continued, but as players came through the ranks and wanted to play team football, they had to do so away from Marsh. Local teams like Mossley
Hill and Springwood benefited massively from the I.M.Marsh soccer school. Returning to the Saturday morning camp, Steve, now a full time LJMU member of staff, decided to do
something about the production line of players leaving Marsh for pastures new.
Kevin Harris and Alan Smithies also assisted in getting the first Martians teams into local
leagues. When Kevin's Team reached the age of 12 the name Martians was replaced by MARSHALLS and, every year following, an age group has been added. In 2007, Marshalls opened
its arms and took on Mayfield Girls under Marshalls banner. 2007 also saw Marshalls FC enter a team into open-age football for the first time as a combination of youth team
players and existing IM Marsh coaches entered the Formers League.
After a successful campaign in which the team finished runners-up in the league and won the league cup, the
team applied for, and were admitted into The West Cheshire League. This means that all Marshalls players have a clear pathway in to the higher levels of the amateur game.
Promotion was secured into the second division at the first time of asking as the team finished runners up. Even more astonoshing was the fact that this historic feat was
repeated in 2010, when the side was promoted once more into the premier division, again at the first attempt. This was followed by a win in the Challenge County FA Cup against
Pinewood FC at Walton Hall Park.