Jay Lovell to Captain Cockfosters Fc in Wembley's FA Vase Final
Cockfosters FC will walk out at Wembley on 17 May with 33-year-old Jay Lovell as captain, putting a defender who works the stadium’s escalators into the middle of the club’s biggest day. It is the first FA Vase final in Cockfosters’ history, and Lovell arrives there after more than 15 years in non-league football.
Lovell and Wembley
Lovell’s route to the final has been unusual even by non-league standards. He is an escalator engineer from Hertfordshire, works for the company responsible for installing, maintaining and upgrading the escalators at Wembley Stadium, and is required on site on event days in case there are any problems or issues.
That job has put him inside the stadium before as a worker rather than a player. He remembered being on site for last year’s FA Vase final and thinking his chances of playing there were as likely as winning the lottery. “I remember walking around on the day of the FA Vase final last year before everyone got there,” Lovell said. “There is a silence and you think, ‘I could actually get here one day’.”
Cookfosters route to Wembley
The club reached the final by beating Kent-based Punjab United 3-1 on aggregate over two legs in last month’s semi-finals. Cockfosters, from Enfield in north London, now face AFC Stoneham, who are based in the Hampshire town of Eastleigh and play in the Wessex League Premier Division.
Lovell said the idea of captaining the side at Wembley still had not fully settled. “It’s like winning the lottery - you spend the money in your head before you’ve won it,” he said. “I never thought I’d get to Wembley.”
17 May at Wembley
The final puts Lovell’s work life and football life in the same place on the same day. “All of the lads are coming to watch me. We’ve passed the job on to someone else,” he said, adding that a boss joked: “Having a two-hour break to go and play football, are you?”
He called the moment “fairly emotional” and said, “It’s always been what-if, and now the what-if has come true. It still hasn’t sunk in that I’ll be there on 17 May playing.” For Cockfosters, the job now is simple: beat AFC Stoneham and lift the FA Vase for the first time in the club’s history.
