Dunston UTS

Gateshead FC gets called the local derby, but for anyone who has stood at Wellington Road it is Hebburn Town that carries the sharper edge, the kind of fixture where the league table stops mattering for ninety minutes. Founded in 1975, the club went through three identities before settling on the present one, running as Whickham Sports, then Dunston Mechanics, then Dunston Federation Brewery once it moved to what became Federation Park. The current name arrived in June 2009, when UTS Engineering put its name on both the club and the ground.

Nothing in that long rebranding history matches what happened in May 2012. Dunston UTS beat West Auckland Town 2–0 at Wembley to win the FA Vase, a result that took a Northern League club to the national stadium and back with a trophy few outside non-league football expected them to reach. It sits above everything else in the cabinet: two Northern League Division 1 titles either side of it, a run of Northern League Challenge Cups through the late 1990s and early 2000s, and six J.R. Cleator Cups won in successive seasons.

Chris Swailes threads through the club's more recent history on both sides of the touchline: a player there from 2011 after a career that had taken him through Ipswich Town, Bury and Rotherham United, he later managed the side from 2016 to 2023.

The ground has kept pace with the name changes. The UTS Stadium on Wellington Road holds 2,500, with standing cover for 400 and seats for 150, a modest capacity that still fills out for the games against Hebburn Town.