How former Premier League goalkeeper David Stockdale rescued and revamped FC Farsley

They held a sweepstake in the FC Farsley office. How many fans would come for the first men’s game at their Throstle Nest ground in more than two years? David Stockdale, the owner and first-team manager, was cautious, predicting 140. After all, the old club, Farsley Celtic, played in Buxton for much of the 2024-25 season and missed the 2025-26 campaign after going into liquidation.

When 480 came through the gates to watch the all-new FC Farsley play Collegians FC in a Yorkshire Amateur League contest, Stockdale realised the scale of his achievement in getting the club back on their feet. There remains an enormous amount of work still to do – and Stockdale was operating a digger before this interview – but it was the first step of a fresh journey for the Leeds-based club.

The former Premier League goalkeeper, once of Birmingham, Brighton and Fulham among a host of other clubs, is aware his situation is abnormal. He never expected to be running a club when he took on the job of Farsley Celtic manager 19 months ago. By that stage, the club, playing in the National League North, owed about £750,000 in debts and was on the verge of being wound up.

“When I came in to help, I had no idea what had gone on,” Stockdale says. “I told them: ‘You’d better start telling me everything.’ They owed a lot of people money. This place was derelict.

“I don’t know how the club finished that [2024-25] season. Players were not getting paid. I helped out as manager because I live in the area. But it was in a sad, sorry state. It was about managing people and getting through the season. You might get £5,000 per game, but we were playing in Buxton – that was a deal made by the last owner. A lot of money was going out.”

By the summer of 2025, Stockdale was putting in his own money in an effort to save the club. Farsley Celtic were relegated from the sixth tier initially to the ninth tier, then the 11th, before withdrawing from competition in June. Six months later Stockdale was forced into liquidating the club and established FC Farsley.

Stockdale says: “The bank was going to repossess it, so I had a chat with the bank, stakeholders and my financial guy to see if it was possible … and my wife was last on that list! It was a very worrying time for those three or four months, and it was ironic that we bought it on Mad Friday [the last before Christmas Eve], which I think sums it up. We’ve gone from really bad, to bad stress, to stress, to now having good stress where things are turning.”

The manager and his family have become fully immersed in the club, not just on the football side but in helping a local sports facility rediscover a place at the heart of its community. The club has a sports hall – which previously could not run because electricity bills went unpaid for months – and clubs have returned to play badminton, netball and five-a-side football. There is a cafe – from Ikea – and soft play, bought and fitted by Stockdale. His wife, Katie, is running the cafe, his daughters Molly and Daisy help out with activities for children and his son Billy is the kit man. Stockdale’s father, also David, a painter and decorator, has been involved in the refit.

“It’s been absolutely relentless,” says the club’s manager, who is also a qualified electrician. “People laugh, but I’ve always grown up being shown how to do things, DIY, helping yourself before people help you. If people see you do the work they’re more willing to help you. But secretly I love it. I’ve been on a digger, on a dumper. We’ve got to keep going.”

The next goal is the biggest: spending £1.5m on a state-of-the-art artificial pitch. It is hard to envisage looking at the main pitch, overgrown and in disrepair, having been neglected since April 2024 – the new team play on an adjacent grass pitch – but Stockdale knows it would be transformative.

“I want this to be a premium sports facility,” he says. “We’ve put in cricket nets in the sports hall, we want a new floor, we want to host netball and badminton finals. If we’ve got a 3G pitch on the main pitch and a good grass pitch, plus junior pitches, a kitchen, a beer garden – it’s hopefully everything you would want.

“I’m not stupid, I know what football costs. That’s why it’s two different entities here, the sports facility and the football side of things. I want to be the place where clubs who are playing Leeds United can come and practise – somewhere people can come to, somewhere people can be proud of. Historically, it’s never had the best facilities and it is run down; not much money has been spent on the place in the last seven years.”

The Stockdale family have the backing of their close friend Adebayo Akinfenwa, who played with Stockdale at Wycombe and has joined as a shareholder. Stockdale jokes that Akinfenwa is their “hype man” and says: “It’s not like he’s thought: ‘This is a great investment or a business move.’ It’s more a friendship thing. It was years in the making and it’s very organic.”

Stockdale hopes to engage more local fans and sponsors and cannot rest on his laurels, even after a successful relaunch. One look around the place tells him that. So it’s back on the digger when this interview concludes.

“It’s great when you sit back and have a pint of Guinness at the end of a game now and be like: ‘Yeah this is great, it’s going forward,’” he says. “But I’ve got this five- and 10-year vision in my head, and I’m only 10 months in. It might not get fulfilled, but this is my area, west Leeds – I grew up down the road. I won’t let this go.”