Norton United are based in the small town of
Smallthorne, part of the wider urban sprawl of
Stoke-on-Trent. In common with many of their brethren in black and white stripes, Norton hailed from what used to be a coalmining area, although the pits wound down in the late 1970s. The club play at the Norton Miners Welfare Institute and Cricket Club named after the nearby Norton Colliery, which is where they get their name. To that end, they are not named after the pit itself, but the Miner's Welfare Institute that serviced it.
A fairly new club, they formed in 1989 when the president of the cricket club thought the institute ought ot branch out into the beautiful game. Starting life in the
Staffordshire Senior League, they soon found their way to the
Midland League, where they were three-time champions. These days they play in the
North West Counties Football League Division One, which is the tenth tier of English football.
Their ground at the Welfare Institute is so small that it doesn't have an official capacity, but it's recently been completely resurfaced and have just had floodlights installed, so they're definitely a club on the up. However, seeing as the ground is only a mile-and-a-half from
Port Vale's ground they might have trouble attracting as many punters as they would like of a Saturday, so good luck to them on their quest up the leagues.
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