Breaking The Rules

WLV Football  1  Sikh Hunters  5

Friendly

It was enough to make your stereotypical Groundhopper drop his potted meat sandwiches all over his train timetable.

We had the pre-season friendly that is clearly taboo as it’s not real football, on a plastic pitch which is frowned upon unless it’s minus fourteen Celsius and six inch deep in snow, with a cage round it which clearly means it’s not a football ground, and finally a University side which is effectively schools football and not actually proper!

It was the perfect storm, so it was safe to assume when myself and Steve set off for it, that as far as the neutral travelling contingent went, we were likely to be in the minority, of two, and we were right, but more on that later.

The Pesky Cage - It Should Be Banned!

WLV is an acronym for Wolverhampton, and is used in much of the branding for the University of Wolverhampton, hence the football team is called WLV Football. Like most, if not all University teams, they play in the BUSA Leagues, but also like one or two others, they’ve elected to branch into Saturday football and try their luck in the football pyramid.

Similar entities have included at various times Loughborough, Cardiff Metropolitan, Keele, Manchester Metropolitan, Northumbria, and of course the most famous, Team Bath, who made it as far as Conference South and the First Round Proper of the FA Cup.

Playing at the convenient Walsall Campus of the institution which sits just off the inner ring road (Broadway), it’s an easy place to get to, and in fairness it’s set in a smart area of the town. The ground is precisely as you would expect, a cage, albeit with access to view, a 4G surface and floodlights. The University buildings look modern, while car parking is ample and adjacent. It does the job absolutely fine.

It's Just Not Football

So, an application has been made and accepted for the Midland Football League, where they will play in the Third Division, which is effectively Step 8. Exotic venues such as Central Ajax, FC Shush and Coventry Plumbing await.

With an active and informative Twitter feed, the game against neighbours Sikh Hunters who ply their trade a couple of steps above, has been advertised for some time and on the day of the game was confirmed by both clubs, so it was all systems go.

Pre-match snifters were taken in the bar at the Metro Inn on the roundabout which joins Birmingham Road with Broadway, we sat outside, apparently we are now being told it’s not safe to sit outside because of the weather. I agree, it doesn’t take long for your lager to go all warm, so I’m going to do my drinking behind closed doors for the foreseeable future.

So what about the game?

In Fact - I Shouldn't Even Be Here

It was played very competitively, one or two yellow cards were shown and especially in the second period, things got a little feisty at times. So why people say pre-season friendlies are non-competitive rubbish is beyond me, this was as competitive as most games you would see at a decent level of football.

Sikh Hunters looked a very good side for long spells, they won the game 5-1, and towards the end of the game their superior fitness and quality shone through as WLV tired, but, after going a couple of goals down early on while being terrorised by a very handy Hunters front pairing, they did pull a goal back with a cracking finish and for periods they had the visitors on the back foot.

From an entertainment perspective, it was very watchable indeed, and both sides had some very good players on display. This is what I don’t get about artificial pitches, it allows the better footballers to play football without hindrances like bobbles, puddles and undulations, so how anyone can argue that the games are inferior is talking garbage. If you can’t play football on a modern day artificial, they you can’t play football, end of! Furthermore, it’s no advantage to the home side really, as most modern day players train on artificial surfaces anyway?

As for the cage, well as long as you can get inside it and watch without obstruction, what’s the problem? Is it any worse than a field in the middle of nowhere without even a rope around it? Not in my book it isn’t.

But what about WLV? I thought they showed enough in the game to suggest they’ll have a decent season, some of the players looked to have experience, and from a physical perspective they should be able to hold their own. Difficult as always to draw conclusions from one display, especially in pre-season, but the signs are pretty good. Sikh Hunters on the other hand looked a very tidy outfit, and having moved to new ground, they look a club very much on the up.

You Know What - I'm Just Going To Pretend It Didn't Happen

Other than what looked to be friends and family of the WLV players and some folk who’d travelled with the Hunters, Steve and I were probably the only neutrals. That may well continue to be the case going forward to a degree, especially within the travelling fraternity, you see too many idiosyncratic rules are being broken by clubs like WLV, but as those of us who know anything about non-league football will tell you, those rules are daft.

When it comes to watching football, the only rules that matter as those maintained and managed by the referee, the rest is just absolute cobblers!