When Jon McDonald first stepped into the dugout, alongside then-manager Nick Gray, the view of Craik Park was very different.
Back in 2012, crowds were hovering around the 30-50 mark, there was little in the way of seating off the pitch and the team was struggling to stay in Northern League Division Two. There needed to be a shift in the club’s fortunes.
Eight years later and the view is unrecognisable. An evolution of the off-field facilities has coincided with a meteoric rise on the football side too.
McDonald played his part, helping Gray to lay the foundations. He left to pursue a stint as manager at other Northern League clubs before returning a few years ago to pick up where he left off.
“Back when I first started, there weren’t many who would come to games and the club had been struggling to get out of Division Two,” said McDonald.
“We just missed out on promotion in our first season. Since then, the club has come full circle from when Nick and I walked through the door. There has been a tremendous amount of work gone in on all levels of the football club, with a lot of good players and coaches playing their part.
“The club has been transformed, it is playing at a higher level and the ground itself has changed beyond recognition – the facilities are second to none – and the club has had success year on year.”
McDonald hit 200 games as part of the coaching team at Morpeth Town on Tuesday night, with a 3-0 win at City of Liverpool FC, in the FA Cup, a fitting way to mark the occasion.
“For anybody, 200 games is a lot of games,” he added.
“I’m over the moon to still be at the club and hopefully we can kick on again. We’ve had Covid but if you look at the division this season, it is a really tough division.
“But I’d like to think we will be there or thereabouts; we’ve got a great squad and I think, if we can perform like we did at Liverpool, we’ll do OK this season.”
