Boynton & The Marsh

Boynton Sports  3  Rowsley 86  4

Friendly

You probably wouldn’t get away with it these days, but back in the mid-Nineties the small town of Killamarsh had a team in the Central Midlands League, and in their match programme they made a proud exclamation.

“The definition of a Killamarsh queer, a man who prefers women to beer!”

Clearly not the kind of comment that would pass any political correctness rulings modern society, but what it does do is tell you a little bit about a town that sits on the very South East edge of Sheffield, albeit just inside the border of Derbyshire. The ‘Marsh’ is a mining town but the last pits closed in the early Eighties, nowadays, like many former mining communities, regeneration has seen smaller Industrial Estates springing up as the prominent employers.

The Rural Marsh

The sports facilities at Killamarsh have always been very good, with the Juniors Club on Sheffield Road being the hub for both football and cricket at junior and senior levels. The football pitch has predominantly been used for Sunday and Ladies football over recent years, but Boynton Sports from the Sheffield County Senior League saw an opportunity to being Saturday football back to the town.

Boynton Sports Football Club were formed in 1952, and the name came from the fact that the club were based around the Devonshire Arms pub in Shirecliffe, and the road that runs alongside is Boynton Road. After a break from football they re-joined the County Senior League at the start of last season, plying their trade at Concord Leisure Centre on the artificial surface, but looking for a more suitable base was high on the agenda, so clearly Killamarsh ticked all of the boxes.

They finished third in the Second Division last season and that has earned them a promotion to the First Division for the current campaign, and like Kiveton Park the previous evening, their presence on social media is excellent so with pre-season friendlies and locations well advertised in advance, the opportunity to go and see them play Rowsley 86 in what promised to be an intriguing game presented itself.

The Edge Of The Plateau

The clubhouse at Killamarsh is excellent, as you would expect. It’s a huge single story building with several different rooms that can be utilised for various events and functions. Next to this are the dressing rooms, while at the opposite end of the building are the cricket facilities.

Directly in front of the clubhouse is the cricket field, while beyond that, set on something of a plateau is the railed off football pitch. The club employs a groundsman so everything is in tip top condition, although from talking to the chap behind the bar, it appears he wasn’t too keen on the match taking place tonight due to the hard and dry nature of the pitch.

I must admit I really like the whole set up. The clubhouse was nice and indeed welcoming (you don’t always get that at some members clubs), while I was impressed by the tidiness and picturesque nature of the football ground. Two sides of the ground while railed, are open, while the other two sides are hemmed in by trees. Spectators have full access to all sides, but if I were to have one slightly adverse comment about it, it would be the distance from the dressing rooms to the pitch, which involves a walk across the cricket field. But, Boynton Sports must be absolutely delighted to have managed to secure facilities as good as this, and quite rightly so.

The game was intriguing as both sides have been promoted since the end of last season, Boynton I’ve already commented on, whereas Rowsley won the Midlands Regional Alliance and have taken up a place in the Central Midlands League Division One North.

Railings

Rowsley set off at a pace and looked very impressive as they took a two goal lead inside the first half, and then as the game moved into the second period they got a third. Rowsley have won the MRA three times in four seasons and very much looked like a side that has played together for a long time, and more importantly, won together.

But, undeterred, Boynton never gave up and continued to try to play football, and not long after Rowsley’s third goal, after changing things round, they pulled a goal back, and then another, followed by the equaliser.

By now, any notion this game was a friendly was out of the window. Boynton desperately wanted to win it, Rowsley were rattled and didn’t want to lose it. The referee was forced to intervene on more than one occasion as passions ran high.

The Long Walk

However, in the closing moments it was Rowsley who capitalised on Boynton pushing men forward to grab the seventh goal of a hugely entertaining game and the winner. What a fantastic game of football, and a thoroughly enjoyable spectacle, the best game I’ve seen so far this pre-season.

I expect both sides to do absolutely fine this season as they both know how to play football, but as for Killamarsh, the pubs looked to be pretty empty as I drove away from the town, maybe the menfolk were all at home with their wives and girlfriends. Perhaps that is now far more socially acceptable than it was twenty five years ago when it was deemed to be deviant behaviour!

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