Club news
One of Lewes
Football Club’s greatest ever players has announced that she is hanging up her
playing boots for the final time.
In her first
season at the club back in 2002/3, Kelly Newton helped the team win the SECWFL Premier Division League Cup and went on to captain
the side to three League titles and five more Cups including last season’s FAWPL Plate. She
has clocked up more than 350 appearances.
Lewes FC Women’s
manager, John Donoghue, commented: “I’ve
been lucky enough to work with players, male and female, who’ve represented
their country and who love to play the game on its competitive edge. Kelly has
all they had and more.”
Kelly’s playing career
started at the age of nine, for Horsham Sparrows and she was playing senior
football for Horsham Ladies within three years. At 14 Kelly made her first team
debut in the Sussex County Cup final v Brighton and by 15 was a regular League
player. Moves followed to Three Bridges, then Whitehawk and, at 21, Brighton who
at the time played in the National League. In her third season at the Seagulls,
Kelly made her move to Lewes and the team went undefeated for the rest of that
season.
As captain,
Kelly took Lewes from the South-East Counties Premier League to the FA Women’s
Premier Southern League – step 6 to step 3 and played for her county from the
age of 18 to 33.
Lewes FC’s longest
serving Manager and former board director Jacquie Agnew added: “Every once in while a player comes along who
epitomises what the game is truly about. Kelly Newton gives 100%, whether in
matches or in training. She commands and marshals those around her and plays
the game in the competitive spirit in which it should be played. Kelly has the
rare ability to balance that competitiveness with self-control. She has been
the heartbeat of the side and I am sure will, one day, make just as formidable
a coach as she is a player.”
Club Chairman
Stuart Fuller described Newton as “an inspiration to hundreds of players across her time
here at Lewes Football Club, creating a legacy that will continue to be felt
for years to come.”
