Photo by Simon Gill | Simon Gill Photography

First published in December 2023

When Roman Motyczak looks around the transformed Rothamsted Park he can’t help but think back to what it was like when he first took over as chairman a decade ago.

The club was on the verge of bankruptcy, the facilities were in a poor state and the team had been frustrated in their attempts to gain promotion from Division One of the Spartan South Midlands League.

‘I first got involved with a couple of other people about a year before I actually became chairman,’ says Roman. ‘We were trying to rescue the club because it was facing bankruptcy. We managed to secure a thousand pounds to see us through to the start of the season. Principally I was programme editor for the first year but then the chairman’s work commitments took him away so he resigned and everyone sort of said “why don’t you take it on?”. So I did.

‘There wasn’t a lot of competition to become chairman back then because it was a club with a leaky roof and a muddy pitch. It’s a very different place now. Crowds have gone from 30 or 40 to over 150 or nearly 200 quite often. The new pitch and the improvements to the ground have transformed the place but that didn’t happen overnight. It’s been a lot of work by a lot of people over ten years.’

Roman, who grew up watching his local side Reading at Elm Park, moved to Harpenden in 1996. His wife and three daughters were involved with gymnastics and so he’d often find himself at a loose end on Saturday afternoons and started watching the team. Gradually he got more heavily involved.

Shortly after Roman took over as chairman the manager Simon Andrews left and so his first big decision was to promote assistant manager Danny Plumb to the top job. ‘Danny was the manager for the first six years and every year we were improving. We finished eighth in the first season, then sixth, then fourth and then second so we got promoted to the Premier Division,’ says Roman.

In 2017-18, Harps finished third behind Welwyn Garden City and Berkhamsted in their first season back in the Premier Division. ‘We had a really good team and possibly should have come second but perhaps we were a bit naive at times,’ says Roman. ‘There was the excitement of coming into a new league and the team performed really, really well. We possibly could have got promotion and we perhaps should have invested at that time. I don’t know if we were ready for it but we’d have taken it.’

After a 14th place finish the following season, Plumb decided to step down at the end of the 2018-19 season. Initially Martin Standen replaced him but he moved on after six months when offered the opportunity to go to Bedford Town as assistant. Roman again promoted from within – appointing Standen’s first team coach Micky Nathan in February 2020 only for Covid to stop football in its tracks little over a month later. The following season was also curtailed by Covid and so although Nathan and his management team have been in charge for almost four years they’ve only had two full seasons.

‘While we’ve made big improvements off the pitch Micky, Steve and the management team are building something too,’ says Roman. ‘They’ve laid the foundations and they’re looking to push on as well. Players want to play in front of a crowd, they want to hear a cheer when they score a goal, not just a couple of claps. We’re now attracting crowds on a par with clubs at Step 4 or even Step 3 clubs and when we score there’s a big cheer. Everything is moving in the right direction.’

With the new all-weather pitch, terracing on one side of the ground, seats in the stand and covered standing area, Roman knows the club now has the foundations to operate at a higher level. ‘I’ve heard it said Harpenden isn’t a football town but any town with a population of 30,000 people and four secondary schools is a football town. The Colts are one of the biggest youth football organisations in the country so we are a football town,’ he says.

The introduction of end-of-season play-offs at Step 5 have increased the chances of promotion but have also intensified competition.

‘Reaching the play-offs is the goal, if at all possible,’ he says. ‘Everyone in the league has seen the play-offs give them an opportunity and keep the interest going to the end of the season. We’re on the edge of the play-offs now. We’d like to be a bit higher but we can challenge from here and hopefully push on.’

Green & gold

When Roman took over as chairman the team played in yellow shirts and blue shirts but in the run-up to the club’s 130th anniversary in 2021, Roman found a poster made in 1919 to commemorate the Harpenden Town players and officials who served in the Great War. It mentions that the club’s colours were green and gold stripes.

’I liked yellow and blue a lot,’ he says, ‘not least because it’s the colours of the Ukrainian flag.’ Roman’s parents came to Britain from Ukraine after the Second World War, as his surname – pronounced Motachak – suggests. ‘Green and gold stripes is such a unique combination and that really appealed to me. It does cause some issues sourcing the kit because there’s a limited number of manufacturers that do green and gold stripes, but I think it’s something we should stick with because it goes back to our original heritage. I’d like it to stay as our kit and I’d love to see the team playing in it at a higher level.’

The temptation to refer to Rothamsted Park as Roman’s Empire is strong but he’s too modest to take all the credit and is quick to stress running the club is a huge team effort, with dozens of volunteers mucking in. Roman rolls his sleeves up on a weekly basis, whether that’s heading to the cash and carry to ensure the bar is well stocked, tidying up at the ground or painting the away team dressing room floor, as he did a few weeks ago.

‘Off the pitch is as important as on the pitch,’ he says. ‘When I came here there were holes in the roof and no toilet paper. It’s now a nice place to come. We’re sharing the facilities with others now, we’re partnering with other people, and that brings a different dynamic but it also gives us a lot of opportunities.

‘I’d love to get to the play-offs this season and work on my transition to hand it over to the next generation of people who’ll look after the club, help it progress and build on the foundations that I and other people have put in place.’ GREEN&GOLD