Words: Charlie Hood
At first glance, Catholic United shouldn't really exist in modern football conversation. They're a community club tucked away in Southend-on-Sea, founded in 1959 to serve the local Catholic community. They don't have a trophy room full of major honours or thousands through the turnstiles every Saturday. But scratch beneath the surface and you find one of those nice, improbable football stories that reminds you why grassroots football still matters.
It begins, fittingly, in green and white. Nearly a decade after the club was formed, Catholic United wrote to Celtic asking if they might be able to help a fledgling club with a set of shirts. The Scottish giants obliged – the Roman Catholic connection undoubtedly helping – donating their famous green-and-white hoops.It cemented an identity: more than half a century later, Catholic United are still wearing hoops because Celtic once decided to help out a small club in Essex.
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Long before Jude and Jobe Bellingham became two of the most recognisable young footballers in Europe, their old man was terrorising Essex defences. Mark Bellingham was one of non-league's great goalscorers; a prolific striker whose career yielded well over 700 goals while balancing football with his job in the police. During the early 2000s he spent time leading the line for Catholic United, doing what he did almost everywhere he went: bagging goals for fun.
There's a photograph that perfectly captures football's ability to connect generations. Mark stands in full Catholic United kit, proudly holding baby Jude. Nobody in that picture knew they were looking at a future Champions League winner and England superstar. It was simply another Saturday afternoon at a local football club.
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Football has a habit of writing neat endings. One of Catholic United's brightest youngsters was Cameron Carter-Vickers, who played there as a kid, before being spotted by Tottenham's academy. Years later, after loans across England, the centre-half found himself pulling on the famous hoops of Celtic. The same club whose donated shirts had shaped Catholic United's identity decades earlier. When Cameron first signed, and the link back to Catholic became known, Celtic fans caused a run on the club’s webshop. You might, occasionally, see a Catholic shirt in the stands at Parkhead.
That's the beauty of clubs like Catholic. They're not measured by crowds or TV deals. They're measured by the kids they give their first game to, the volunteers who paint the changing rooms every summer, and the coaches who stand in freezing rain on Sunday mornings. Or the people who run the clubhouse knocking out £2 pints to parents in the late 90’s…
I spent a few years there myself: under 11s to about u14s. We had a good side - won the league in our first season, struggled after promotion. Girls and drinking and smoking got in the way, and, to my eternal regret, I started playing rugby. But, like thousands of boys and girls across the country, I learned about teammates, responsibility, winning gracefully (sometimes) and losing badly (most of the time). Those lessons travel far further than any football career.
Today, Jude Bellingham is one of the biggest names in world football. Cameron Carter-Vickers is a Celtic stalwart. Mark Bellingham remains one of English non-league's great goalscorers.
The unlikely thread connecting them all isn't a Premier League academy.
It's a little football club in Essex, wearing green-and-white hoops because, once upon a time, Celtic answered a letter.