Barton Town walk out for one of the biggest matches in the ninth-tier club’s history on Saturday, when Chorley visit in the FA Cup third qualifying round. In the stands will be April Hitchcock and her two-year-old son Freddie — and in the dressing room, as before every game, the memory of the goalkeeper the club still calls their own.
James Hitchcock, known to family, friends and team-mates as ‘Hitchy’, died in December 2024 after being punched in an unprovoked attack. The former Leeds United academy player was 32. He was struck from behind at York Railway Station as he made his way home from a day out with friends, and died in hospital.
The blow came the day after what proved to be his final game, a 1-1 draw with Bottesford Town in the Northern Counties East League Premier Division. James had produced a fine save that afternoon, and Barton manager Anthony Bowsley remembers telling him so as he came off.
“As he was coming off, I said to him ‘great save Nigel Martyn’ because Hitchy was a Leeds fan and he had a little chuckle to himself,” Bowsley said.
His death came shortly before what would have been his first Christmas as a father, six months after the birth of Freddie. “It has still not fully sunk in. I see little Freddie growing up and it hits me so hard,” said his father, Chris Hitchcock.
April, who married James in July 2022, says being around the club where he played brings her comfort, although the pain remains close. “It’s really sad looking at where James used to stand in goal and saying ‘where is he?’” she said. “He should be stood there.”
Jack Bulless, a Barton Town defender who also played alongside James at Bridlington Town, should have been on the trip to York but pulled out through illness. Andy Norfolk, a long-time friend and team-mate, did go, and recalls an annual Christmas get-together — “a day trip, nothing too heavy” — and the Manchester derby playing on television in the bars they visited.
“We arrived back at the station to go home early,” Norfolk said. “I ended up getting a taxi back to Hull as the train was not for another hour. I remember Hitchy saying he was going to get some food.” It was the last time he saw his friend.
Leeds Crown Court heard that James suffered a fracture to his skull and brain damage when he fell to the floor after being punched on the right side of the back of his head. April recalls the call she received that night. “I’d just put Freddie to bed when I got a call to say James had been hit, that he was unconscious, and was on his way to hospital,” she said. “At that point I thought he had concussion and I needed to pack a bag because he was only going to be in for a day or two. When I got to the hospital they explained that he needed to be transferred to the intensive care unit at Hull Royal Infirmary. He was on a life support machine until he lost the battle.”
Mckenzie Dicicco, who was 22 at the time, was jailed for six years and eight months in July 2025 after pleading guilty to manslaughter. Judge Guy Kearl described what happened as a “cowardly, deliberate and vicious attack on a man who had no chance to defend or brace himself”. After the verdict, April spoke of being “lost and alone as the love of my life was so selfishly taken from me”.
At Barton Town, whose 3,000-capacity ground sits within sight of the Humber Bridge, the tributes are permanent. ‘Hitchy #1’ has been sewn on to the back of the club’s shirts, and a plaque at the entrance to the players’ tunnel carries his name. His two former clubs, Bridlington Town and Barton Town, meet annually for the James Hitchcock Memorial Trophy, which raises funds for the Victim Support National Homicide Service.
“He is always with us,” said Bowsley, who signed the goalkeeper in the summer of 2024 after he left Bridlington Town. Norfolk added: “It’s a beautiful thing to have on the shirt. Before each game I look at the back of the shirt and have my 10 seconds with Hitchy before I put it on.”
Those who played alongside him remember the laugh first. “You could hear him before you saw him because of his distinctive laugh,” said Bulless, while Norfolk described it as an “outrageously infectious” cackle. Bowsley remembers a player who “always had a smile on his face” and was “a bit of a practical joker” — and a good goalkeeper with it. “He was a really good shot stopper and really good with his feet,” he said. “He was at Leeds academy and then played the local leagues in Hull before going to Bridlington and then Barton.”
Bulless recalled the changing-room sweets that gave James away just as the manager was trying to deliver a team talk, and the noise of the packet rattling from the corner.
Chris Hitchcock, once a non-league referee before he stopped so he could travel to watch his son play, has returned to officiating since James’s death. He was an assistant referee at Barton’s FA Cup tie with North Ferriby earlier this season. “When James left us I thought, ‘right, what used to take my mind off things many years ago?’ It was refereeing and that’s what I went back to,” he said. April, meanwhile, continues to take Freddie to matches. “I want to raise my little boy in a world where he knows about his dad,” she said. “I want to make sure he is involved as much as his dad was.”