Mr. Watson was the mainstay of the Heiligenhaus visits. He is still involved with the League in that he is a Life Member. Mr Surgey picked up the baton as Chairman when Mr.Watson retired and through his leadership the League grough the eighties into a much healthier competition in the numbers stakes. The League at this time was running teams right the way through from Under 12's to Under 16's. Mr Surgey was a big believer in encouraging the younger element to become involved and this process carried on into the 90's with firstly Bill Pearce then Dennis Banner being appointed League Chairmen.
Under their leadership the League ventured into Mini Soccer and membership grew from about 120 teams to 180 teams in just 4 seasons by the mid 1990's. It was in 1992 that we were approached by the then Managing Director of the CHAD (Mansfield's local weekly newspaper) to become involved through sponsorship and we became the 'CHAD’ Mansfield Youth Football League'. Through the CHAD's financial support we flourished to having 200 teams in membership ranging from Under 8's to Under 16's and for 3 seasons we ran football for girls' teams until they formed part of the recently formed Nottinghamshire Girls & Ladies League.
In 1996,as a gesture of remembrance of Mr Surgey,who died the previous year, we staged an International Youth Football Tournament in Mansfield with teams coming from as far as Denmark,Spain ,Poland and Russia. This was a huge success, and with the CHAD's support it was very much our biggest venture to date.
With Bill Pearce handing over the reigns to Dennis Banner we reciprocated some of the visits which saw representative teams go to Denmark & Poland and this saw new links open up into Finland.
In 2001 we were approached by Mansfield Town FC.,our local Football Club to become associated with them and ultimately in late 2002 a 3 year Agreement was signed,leaging to the League's current status. We have still retained the support of the CHAD and indeed the current MD there is our League President.
For Season 2003/2004 we will have in excess of 200 teams again, including ,for the first time in 20 years, an Under 18's section, and we hope to maintain this rediscovered status for years to come. Our new Chairman is Les Sharpe, appointed in 2002 and under his guidance we aim to go from strength to strength.
As Club Secretary ,Graham Hall has been involved with the League for almost 30 years as Committee Member, Treasurer and then League Secretary. Recently an Assistant Secretary ,Sue Paling was appointed to relieve the workload somewhat. We have a healthy Committee consisting of 25 members,a far cry from the original 10 people who first thought of the idea at the time,in 1950 to organise a Youth League.
