From Farsley to Fiorentina: Ex-South Shields and Spartans defender ready for historic Euro adventure with TNS

Former South Shields and Blyth Spartans defender Jack Bodenham has experienced something of a ‘whirlwind’ over the last six months.

After leaving the Mariners to join their then-National League North rivals last summer, Bodenham was part of a Spartans squad that fought an unsuccessful battle against relegation from non-league football’s second tier last season. His departure from Croft Park was confirmed in May, Bodenham returned to his native Wales to link up with former Middlesbrough defender Craig Harrison at The New Saints. Fast forward four months from a heart-breaking day when a defeat against Brackley Town and a win for relegation rivals Farsley Celtic condemned Bodenham and his Spartans team-mates to the drop, the defender is now preparing to face the likes of Fiorentina and Panathinaikos in the Europa Conference League after helping his new side to a historic achievement in recent weeks.

The New Saints saw their Champions League qualification bid brought to an end by Hungarian side Ferencvaros - but went on to become the first Welsh side to reach the league stage of a major European competition with a 3-0 aggregate win over Lithuanian side FK Panevezys in a Conference League play-off. Their reward will be away days at Serie A club Fiorentina, Irish side Shamrock Rovers and Slovenian outfit NK Celje and home clashes with Greek giants Panathinaikos, Kazakh club Astana and Swedish side Djurgardens. From relegation heartache in English football’s sixth tier to facing one of Italian football’s elite in months has, in Bodenham’s own words, shown how quickly life in football can change.

He told The Gazette: “It’s been a bit of a whirlwind to be honest. What happened last year at Spartans wasn’t nice at all. I’ve still got a lot of friends up at the club as well, whether that’s on the playing side or behind the scenes with fans and stuff. It hit me quite hard to be honest, being relegated with them, not just for myself, because it’s never a nice to thing to have on your CV, but for people in and around the club. I knew how much it meant to them - but then coming back to sign for TNS and what’s happened in the last eight weeks, it shows how quickly football can change really.

“We couldn’t have asked for a better draw to be honest. There were a few big boys in there, Fiorentina being one of them. So to draw them, and to draw them away was even sweeter. It still hasn’t sunk in properly and I don’t think it’ll be until we are actually there that it will sink in. It’s amazing, we’ve got some fantastic ties. Travelling over to Shamrock in Ireland should be a good one, an all-British tie, and Panathaniakos at home, another big boy. We’ve been really lucky in that sense.”

It is all very different to the events of the summer of 2021 when Bodenham was released by boyhood club Cardiff and made a slightly-unexpected move to the North East as he joined a South Shields side battling for promotion into the National League North. Bodenham’s time with the Mariners seemed all but over when he joined Spartans on loan during the first half of the 2022/23 season before making a permanent switch to Croft Park during the following summer. Months after leaving the North East to return to Wales, the defender admitted his move to region had been a step into the unknown - but stressed the move and the support he received had laid the foundations for his progress as a footballer and, more importantly, as a person.

He said: “It was a bit of an unexpected one to be honest because leaving Cardiff at 21, I didn’t expect to be going and I hadn’t really heart of South Shields as a club. But everything that was in place there, and the success they’ve had in the last couple of years, shows why I made the step to go there because it felt like it was the next step for me, to gain experience in men’s football. I had a great grounding there with (Graham) Fenton, Jon Shaw as well, they’ve always been amazing for me and I still stay in contact now. They helped me a lot in moving up there, it was a great environment for me to begin my journey in men’s football.

“I had this conversation with some family members and said when I decided to go to South Shields, I went there as a bit of a boy, I spent three years in the North East and feel I’ve come back as a boy to a man. It’s a cliché but that’s the experience I gained up there, not just on the pitch, but life experience as well because I didn’t have anyone up there to rely on. I just had to get on with things myself. Probably looking back, it’s one of the best things I could do really.”

Although the focus has been on their history-making European exploits, Bodenham’s side have made a strong start to their defence of the Cymru Premier title after The New Saints won their first three league fixtures, conceding just one goal in the process. Their European adventure will not resume until the first Thursday of October with that highly-anticipated visit to Fiorentina, by which time they will have played another four league games. Remaining focused on achieving success and progress on a number of fronts is the main aim for Bodenham, despite the obvious lure of facing high calibre opposition from the continent.

“We have to switch our league heads back on but we don’t want to let it pass us by, this experience of Europe and hopefully we can enjoy it,” explained the defender. “But we want to be a success in it as well. We don’t want to be remembered for being one of the worst teams in the group stage of the competition, we want to keep striving to get better and that’s exactly what we’ll be doing.”