Spectrum

Bracknell Town  7  Staines Town   1

Isthmian League – Division One Central

Forty seven years down the line, I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m a bit different. Ok, lets be more precise, I’m actually a bit weird!

The signs were there to see when I was a mere toddler, because according to my Mum I used to astound the passengers on the Belper to Fritchley bus service by being able to name the make and model of every car we passed on the journey, I was still in nappies!

It was flags and capital cities next, I could look at a flag, from anywhere in the World, name the country and the capital. My primary school teacher described me as a special, back before special meant something else!

We then had a fish obsession phase, which I cleverly combined with my football obsession. So much so my Mother was quite perturbed one day when she found I’d created the ‘Fish World Cup’, indeed the Perch v Pike semi-final was a pivotal encounter what with the Barbel awaiting the winners in the final….

We had a bout of trainspotting, that was quite brief, and I suppose quite normal under the circumstances, but then as I reached my latter teenage years, something very unusual took over.

It all started in Sixth Form, I was in a Geography A-Level class when my teacher, the wonderful John Featherby who I still see from time to time at Belper Town games, came out with a comment. We were looking at a map of Charleroi in Belgium when he said “I find maps fascinating.”

That was it, I may have been 17, I may have just got my driving licence, I may also have popped my cherry for the first time, but, I too had decided that I was going to find maps fascinating!

What I did next was quite bizarre. I started with a London A-Z Map, I then branched out to all of the major cities in the UK, it then moved onto the smaller provincial towns, but going beyond the A-Z company. Estate Publications, GB Barnett, Wanderley, Bartholomew, you name the company, I had an account with them!

By the end of it, I had dozens and dozens of street atlases and maps of the UK. Did any of them come to any use? Apart from Birmingham for football purposes, largely they were of no use whatsoever, but I did like looking at them! I mean, at what point in my life is a street map of Ely ever going to be useful? But it didn’t matter, and, strangely, my Mum also quite liked them, and guess what, I’ve still got them all.

By now, if you haven’t already gone away from reading this because it’s simply too disturbing, you are probably thinking that if I had been born thirty years later my parents could probably claim some kind of benefit due to my condition. It hasn’t gone away I might add, football grounds, football programmes, You Tube videos of fish, train timetables and fare manipulation, I’m into it all. I’m not into Real Ale though and beer ticking, knackers to that, set of freaks that they are!

Anyway, one of the A-Z street atlases I bought was Bracknell, but it wasn’t just Bracknell, it also included Wokingham and Ascot to be precise, and at the time of the acquisition, I genuinely did think to myself that it would never be of any benefit as I would never ever go to Bracknell.

Being honest though, the advent of satellite navigation and Google Maps has made printed maps redundant anyway, so in theory I will never need to pick up a map again, and that’s quite sad in many ways, but reality I guess.

Another thing that’s a little unusual for me is my memory, I remember the most bizarre things, most of them historic, but it’s the level of detail that sticks with me. For example, I could quote the surname every person who lived on Dale Close in my former home village of Fritchley and what the house numbers were, from 1985, there were 21 of them. 

So, Bracknell, I’ve never been, I’ve never seen the team play, but I do remember something from the early Noughties (my memory again). It was the Non-League Paper and a column written by former Arnold Town player Stuart Hammonds. He was talking about his emotions having been ‘forced’ to leave Bracknell as a player due to a budget cut. He mentioned a song that he played on his car CD player on his way home from that final meeting that reduced him to tears, because it was the players song, and because the team had broken up, they would never have that moment together again. Frustratingly, I cannot remember what the song was!  

Bracknell Town have a plastic pitch, and at this moment in time, that’s a very good position to be in. Not only that, from my own selfish perspective, it means I can undertake a lengthy journey without concerns. Like Bedfont last week, I’d saved it, and now was the time.  

I didn’t fancy the M25 so I elected to go down the M40 and then exit at Wycombe, taking the road via the edges of Marlow and Maidenhead, which in turn took me into Bracknell via the pretty and expensive looking village of Holyport.

Bracknell is a sizable place, the centre of which looks modern and well catered for by the service sector. A number of modern style flats and apartments have been built, no doubt to meet the demand for a growing workforce in the town, but also to cater for those who like to commute into London.

The ground on Larges Lane is very close to the centre of the town, just off what is known as the Met Office Roundabout, which makes me think the aforementioned organisation is based in Bracknell. Parking is available at the adjacent cricket club, and once through the turnstiles and up the ramp you can see the ground in all it’s glory.

Three sides of the ground are purely hard standing, but on the cricket field side of the ground is both a seated and a terraced stand, while two club bars are situated either side of the spectator accommodation. The changing rooms are also located within these buildings. It looks modern, and I suspect when the 3G was put down, much of the ground was refurbished at the same time.

They are also well supported, a crowd of 327 pitched  up to watch a side that over the years has tried in vain to get to a level a town of it’s size would warrant. Back in the Seventies and early Eighties they were a Spartan League outfit, before being admitted to the Isthmian League in 1984.

They tripped around in the lower levels of the Isthmian until 2004, when they were moved into the Southern League, a competition they left in a downwardly fashion in 2010 when the club ended up in the Hellenic League. By 2012 they had gone down again and were at Step 6, unthinkable really.

They bounced back and a runners up spot in 2018 saw them promoted back to Step 4, where last season in their first campaign they reached the play offs, only to lose to Cheshunt in the final, after Westfield had been beaten in the semi stages.

So a Step 4 Play-Off is as good as it’s got, but with the size of the town, the support levels that go with it, and the perfect location on so many levels, this is a club that needs to be and should be playing a level higher.

Bracknell went into the game sat just outside of the Play Off places, while visiting Staines Town were next to bottom, having sacked ex Derby County player Martin Kuhl the previous day from the managers role. Staines have been in freefall for a few years now, and to be fair, the game exemplified that hugely.

By half time the hosts had torn Staines apart and lead 4-0. Nathan Minhas had netted a hat-trick in a twenty minute period, while Max Herbert had got the fourth. Daniel Bayliss smashed home a brilliant fifth just after the break, before Sebastian Bowerman and Bayliss had made it 7-0 on the 70^th minute. Staines pulled a goal back thanks to a neat finish from William Efambe, but salt was rubbed into the visitors wounds close to the end of the game when goalkeeper Louis Dixon got a straight red for handling outside the box.

So that was it, a very good day out, it went smoothly, without any need whatsoever to peruse the Bracknell A-Z. I was back home by 7.15pm and soon adding football match 3502 to my all time records (I forgot to mention those….)

In case you were wondering, I did have a computer when I was a kid, it was a ZX Spectrum, how appropriate…………

Olivers Army

Handsworth U21  6  Harworth Colliery U21  1

North Midlands Development League

My mate Steve’s swears by it, he calls it his second home (his first being the Etihad Stadium – his third being his house in Chesterfield!).

Olivers Mount, the home of Handsworth Football Club, apart from the first team of course who play at Sandy Lane in Worksop, and having not been for donkey’s years, I thought it was time to go and check out the new facilities, and with it, see what all the fuss is about.

I’ll be honest, I was going to go to Sandy Lane tonight to watch the Worksop Town v Newcastle Town game, but given the rain we’d had and the forecast for the evening, I decided not to risk it, especially as they’ve had a few games called off this season already.

I knew Handsworth was a safe bet, and working less than three miles away, it seemed the sensible and the safe choice to make as the tail end of Storm Denzil continued to wreak havoc on the nation.

The Handsworth story is an interesting one. They joined the Sheffield and Hallamshire County Senior League in 2003, where they worked their way through the divisions until gaining promotion to the Northern Counties East League in 2010. They lasted two seasons, winning the First Division in the second season but due to ground grading issues, they were demoted back to the County Senior League.

While all of this was going on, a team called Parramore Sports worked their way out of the County Senior League, became Sheffield Parramore in the Central Midlands League, won it, and got to the NCEL. They then changed their name to Worksop Parramore, but after three seasons they merged with Handsworth to form Handsworth Parramore. The ground they used was Sandy Lane.

The man behind the Parramore rise was local businessman Pete Whitehead, but he realised that playing out of Worksop (he was the owner of Sandy Lane) was probably not going to be the long term answer for a Sheffield club. So the merger with Handsworth, who had a base and a thriving junior set up, provided much more scope for long term sustainability.

The aim was always to get the club back to Olivers Mount, and move up the pyramid, but it was met with logistical problems. Mr Whitehead left the club at the end of the 2018-19 season despite having come pretty close to attaining Northern Premier League football, and now the club plays out of Worksop as plain and simple Handsworth again, but the NPL is now largely unrealistic in the foreseeable future.

The junior and reserve sides have always maintained their base at Olivers Mount, which is located right at the side of the Sheffield Parkway, and this season has seen a 3G surface installed. The ground has lights, it has three stands, two of which have been transported from Sandy Lane, and a nice social club. However, the dressing rooms are a fair old walk from the pitch, and until that issue is resolved, the ground won’t be able to be used at current first team level.

As I say, the last time and only time I went was in their debut season as a NCEL club, it was against Glasshoughton Welfare and was a comfortable 4-0 victory. Almost ten years ago, a visit was long overdue.

It was pretty much as I remembered it, situated at the end of the road that is called Olivers Mount, once through the gate you have a cricket field in front of you, that appears to be now used for football only. Going round to the left takes you to the car park in front of the clubhouse and dressing rooms, while going round to the right takes you down to the car park which is just above the football ground.

The clubhouse is smart, and was busy pre match, in fact a good crowd had assembled to watch the table topping Under 21s. The walk down the path to the football ground is a lengthy one, before dropping down some steps that bring you pitch side. You can get all round the ground but to be fair everyone congregates on the one side where the old seated stand sits, flanked either side by the Atcosts that were shipped in from Worksop.

I’ve not seen an U21 game for a long time, and I’d forgotten just what good football is on offer. Handsworth played some excellent stuff, and won 6-1 thanks to goals from Mo Saeed (2), Sam Morley (2), James Woodhouse and Lawrence Ward. Saeed’s first goal was an audacious lob over the keeper from ten yards, quite spectacular!

Harworth put up a good fight and played some decent stuff, but Handsworth have some fine youngsters, Oscar Seth in midfield, a former Brighouse Town player, in particular stood out.

I can see why Steve likes to pay regular visits to Olivers Mount, it’s got everything really. A bar, a guaranteed game, cover, and more importantly, a very good football team. In fact, what’s not to like?

Dennis My Arse!

Bedfont Sports  1  Hertford Town  0

Isthmian League – First Division Central

Stop the World, cancel everything, Armageddon is upon us, life as we know it will never be the same again, or at least not until Sunday night….

Yes, welcome to good old fashioned British Hysteria at the prospect of Storm Dennis hitting our shores.

Ok, I don’t want to be too flippant because places like South Wales, Herefordshire and West Yorkshire have suffered, and suffered consistently over recent times, so it would be cruel to say their plight was not very serious, because clearly it was and will remain so for some time.

But, I have to say, as a nation we are a set of proper fannies!

Right, some examples from Saturday last, the National League top flight see’s nine of it’s twelve games postponed, largely due to the ‘prospect’ of bad weather and possible health and safety issues for players and spectators. We then had a situation in the Wessex League whereby Hamworthy United play on a plastic pitch, but the visitors Horndean refused to travel for health and safety reasons.

Hang on a minute, other than two games that suffered waterlogging, every single game in the top four professional leagues in England played, so, why was it ok for those to take place, and fans to travel the length and breadth of the Country, yet it wasn’t in the National League, or Horndean?

A massive overreaction if you ask me, but sadly, what we kind of expected?

I had a Storm Dennis plan, it was Bedfont Sports v Hertford Town on the plastic. My only concern being high winds and the prospect of a fussy referee or possibly even fussier players deciding it wasn’t conducive to a game of football. But, I was happy to take the risk.

I’ve had Bedfont on the radar since the start of last season, but I’ve been saving it for Dennis, or one of his cousins. Last season we didn’t get many Dennis’s so I didn’t take advantage of it, but now the time had come, over recent weeks and months the plastic card has had to be played for obvious reasons.

Bedfont, now this is a bit complicated, but I’ll try to simplify and not bore. A quick look at Football Club History Database (I use it a lot as you may have gathered!) and a search on the name brings up the following.

Bedfont, Bedfont & Feltham, Bedfont Green, Bedfont Town and of course, Bedfont Sports.

Sports and Feltham are the current clubs playing at a senior level, two different clubs, albeit playing next door to each other. While Sports, on the face of it, don’t appear to be connected to any of the previous incarnations, in fact they started life as a Sunday side, absorbing a junior club by the name of Bedfont Eagles along the way.

The rest of them, well, I’ve kind of lost the will and want to focus on the current, no offence to Bedfont and it’s footballing history like, I’m sure it’s fascinating, but not today!

The weird thing is though, Bedfont is a South Western suburb of London, close to the M25 and Heathrow Airport, with a population of around 12,000, yet so much has happened from a footballing point of view, and I’ve not even mentioned FC Deportivo Galicia yet…..

The football grounds sit on Hatton Road, which runs parallel to the airport. Bedfont Sports is the first ground you come to on the right hand side, with the pitch running widthways to the road, while the ground of Bedfont & Feltham sits next door but runs lengthways to the road. The journey itself, which was clearly very silly of me as we’d been advised to only make essential journeys, was very simple as some people had obviously taken the advice seriously and left the roads nice and clear. My journey was essential by the way, I don’t miss football on a Saturday…..

I did set off early just in case the M1 was scattered with overturned lorries, but it wasn’t, so I pulled into the car park at 1.30pm and took up a space in the bar. The rain was intermittent, and the wind was no worse than on a windy autumn day. Put it this way, a plan was landing at Heathrow every ninety seconds (I counted them) and none of them appeared to come in sideways!

So, Bedfont Sports then.

They joined the Combined Counties League in 2009 after a seven year spell in the Middlesex County League. By 2012 they’d made it to the top flight and Step 5, while a runners up spot in 2017-18 saw them promoted to the Isthmian League, where they now remain. A mid-table finish last season was viewed as a success, whereas this season they are more than holding their own in the Central Division.

The ground is excellent. They have seats on three sides, and cover pretty much runs all the way round all four sides, so sheltering from the elements was never going to be an issue. It was smart and tidy, while both the tea bar and the clubhouse did the job just fine. I have to say they were a very friendly bunch too. Yes, I liked what I saw, this is an impressive set up, and with the large junior element to the club, they look to be a thriving organisation.

Sadly, not too many turn out to watch them, with just 67 on Saturday, which was slightly under the average of the season, which is 71. A seasons best of 151 saw the August Bank Holiday game against Chertsey Town, while just 34 witnessed the visit of FC Romania back in November.

Visitors Hertford Town suffered a serious blow in the warm up when Harvie Gardiner went down injured, very badly it appeared. He was in considerable distress and pain, and had to be stretchered from the field. The chat was that he’d suffered a broken leg, but I’ve not seen that confirmed.

The game, I’ll be honest, it wasn’t great, but you couldn’t blame the conditions. Very few goalscoring chances were created, but as the game wore on I did feel if anyone was going to score then it would be the visitors. But then, just as I was counting the 28^th plane landing of the second half, Sports won a penalty in the 88^th minute.

Goalkeeper Ben Herd had plenty to say about the award, took his time getting ready, and then, bizarrely he decided to run up and boot the ball off the penalty spot and out of the ground. He got a yellow card, but the tactic seemed to work as he went on to save the tame penalty kick.

However, two minutes into three of stoppage time, great work on the left from Lucas Sinclair saw him lay the ball back to Veron Kokurinkov who smashed the ball into the top corner to give Bedfont the three points. Did they deserve it? Possibly not, but that’s football.

The journey home was straightforward, the roads were once again quiet. But guess, what, of all the games that kicked off on Saturday, I’ve only seen one report of an abandonment for rain, no abandonments due to the wind, and not a single report of anyone coming to grief either travelling to, or watching a football match!

Maybe next time the footballing World won’t be quite so hasty.

The Pie

Kilmarnock  2  Rangers  1

Scottish Football League – Premier Division

Apparently, the ‘Kilmarnock Pie’ is known for being the best pie that can be purchased at a football ground in Scotland, and probably anywhere in the World. I know that because my mate Rosco, from Killie, told me.

Back in 2003, local purveyor of pies, Brownings The Bakers, created the pie, especially for the football club and it was originally called a ‘Killie Pie’, but it seems in recent years, lawyers, injunctions, controversy and even a ban have tainted this match day delicacy.

A very messy situation, played out in the Scottish media, but the meat and gravy variety, whatever you want to call it, is very much available, bucking the usual trend North of the border of Scotch Pies and Bridies.

Pies aside for the time being, Scotland was upon us again and it just so happened that a full programme of SPL fixtures should fall on the night before our meeting.  It also just so happened that with Rosco living in Kilmarnock, and thanks to local knowledge and the fact the discussion about the February trip took place at the end of November, he urged us to book into the Park Hotel which sits in the football club park, and that tickets would be ‘nae bother’.

The only slight issue with said Kilmarnock based colleague is that he’s got a Rangers season ticket! It proved to be only a minor matter, off he trotted to the ground a week before the game and seven tickets were procured for the main stand. It seems that games involving the Auld Firm rarely sell out, apart from of course the away ends, the only concern being away fans buying tickets for the home end, like we did, but we did promise to behave!

The journey from Belper began at 8.45am, a lift courtesy of Brother in Law to Derby Station, and then a train to Crewe. I had an hour in Crewe to kill before getting the Avanti Service direct to Glasgow Central. Glasgae was hit slightly later than planned, triggering the delay repay clause, but giving me just enough time to hop across a couple of platforms for the Kilmarnock bound choo choo.

Rugby Park is a ten minute walk from the centre of Kilmarnock, and is basically a straight line from the railway head. The first thing that strikes you as you leave the station is a pub on the corner called ‘Fanny By Gaslight’ and a tourist sign pointing you towards the ‘Dick Institute’. So, you have an instant choice, a Fanny or a Dick, or if you’re greedy or indeed unsure, go for both!

The Park Hotel sits literally behind the goal in the car park at the football ground, and was originally owned by the club. I don’t think it is now, but it still has a football feel about it, the Blues Restaurant being one example. I have to say as well that for less than £60 it was excellent value. The bar, the rooms and the food was very good, and the number of football fans converging on it before the game backed that up.

The meeting point was the First Edition pub in the town centre, and that was where the boys converged at the pre agreed time of 5.30pm. Food and drinkies were taken, but not too much food, the Killie Pie was waiting for us. We had time for a quick one in the Killie Bar before the game, and then it was into the cauldron of Rugby Park.

Just over 8,000 had assembled inside the relatively modern stadium as kick off approached. The three home sides of the ground were sparsely populated, whereas the end where the Rangers fans were located was packed to the rafters. I would have said the crowd split was probably 50/50.

At one time they used to give Rangers and Celtic both ends of the ground but that’s changed in recent years as it caused more problems than the money it generated for the club. It’s perhaps a sad indictment of Scottish football that the Auld Firm visits don’t get any more fans off their backsides than the likes of Livingston and Ross County. If the big two do eventually go South, as my mate said to me, that would be the end of Scottish football in terms of it being a spectacle, in his words ‘it would end up like the Northern Irish league’. Might be a bit more interesting though?

Rugby Park was rebuilt fairly recently, well, three sides were. It reminds me very much of Millwall’s ground, so from a descriptor point of view, three box style stands, with one older more traditional stand! The main feature for me being the floodlights which are mounted on the stand roof. Imagine old style pylons, but take away the pylons and stick the bit on the top on the stand roof, and that’s what you’ve got!

The Rangers fans made a hell of a noise, no one sat down, and from what I could gather, and I don’t profess to be able to decipher the dialect, they didn’t sing anything that could have triggered a fine. I could be wrong though, but to be fair Killie is a red, white and blue town, and as my mates told me, there will be more Gers in Killie than Killie fans, so no point going out of your way to offend anyone.

The game, oh dear!

Rangers took the lead just after the half hour with a 25 yard belter from Scott Arfield but they failed to kick on and then we saw the various sides of Alfredo Morelos. First a stupid dive and he gets a deserved yellow card, then an audacious chip from an angle that hit the bar, then a headed miss from five yards when he looked odds on to score then another crazy dive when somehow he avoided a second yellow and then a goal disallowed for offside. No one can say the guy isn’t entertaining! The sad postscript of course being allegations that he was racially abused, with the Police investigating.  

It all started to go wrong for Rangers when Kilmarnock equalised on 76 minutes courtesy of Stephen O’Donnell who converted a Niko Hämäläinen shot that was going wide. Then with two minutes left, the Killie fans went mad when Eamonn Brophy fired a shot across the keeper into the far corner of the net. I’ve never seen an end of a ground empty so quickly, and our Gers mate also made for a hasty exit!

The text came through, he was in a pub close to the ground so we went to join him, he wasn’t a happy man, and was even less of a happy man when Steven Gerrard was interviewed on television and questioned the players ability to handle pressure. That probably wasn’t a comment for the public domain. The title is going to Celtic, nine in a row, and that will hurt Rangers.

So, the pies?

I had one at half time, Colin had three, one before the game and two at half time. Absolutely awesome, without doubt the finest pie I have ever had, huge chunks of beef with gravy, while the pastry was cooked to perfection. I could have had more, but I’m not a fat boy like Colin!

Eight hours on the road, it was worth every minute!

Plain Ham

Larkhall Athletic  2  Thatcham Town  0

Southern Football League – First Division South

In my own tiny little mind, I was trying to work out just how Larkhall Athletic named their ground, and it went something like this.

“What we’ll do, is we’ll have three types of rolls on sale at our first game, Cheese & Ham, Cheese & Onion or Plain Ham, and whichever proves to be the best seller, is what we’ll call the ground.”

Thankfully, despite my own personal preference of Cheese & Onion, it happened to be Plain Ham, and so that was how it worked, a football ground named after a sandwich, and probably given the choices available, the right choice as well.

Clearly that isn’t how it happened, in fact I’ve got no idea how the ground got it’s name, but it’s merely a sideshow to what turned out to be a very good day out on the outskirts of Bath.

Storm Ciara was hitting the headlines, but to be fair as the week went on, it seemed that Saturday wasn’t going to suffer too much of an impact. In fact as I rose from my pit on the morning, checking to see if the game was on was not even on the agenda, it was a glorious day, a glorious day for a run down the M5.

Larkhall Athletic fell onto my weirdly concocted radar at the start of the season as they were one of the ten nearest Step 1-4 grounds I’d not visited. Most of those grounds involved a trip to the South East, so it was nice to be heading in a different direction. I left Belper at 10am and by 12.30pm I was pulling up outside a pub in the village.

Larkhall sits right on the North East edge of Bath, in fact you don’t have to go anywhere close to the City to get to the ground. A quick detour off the road from the M4 and within minutes you are into the tight and steep streets of the village. After a quick pint it was back up the single track road and into the car park at Plain Ham.

The car park sits on the South side of the ground, and once parked up and in place, it reminded me so much of Shortwood United from Nailsworth, a club blogged a couple of years ago. A village, narrow roads, top of a hill, car park behind the goal, ground cut into a hillside, the similarities were endless.

The club house and dressing rooms are the first thing to greet you, after you’ve passed the home of the City of Bath Petanque Club, which from my limited knowledge is a boules type game that originated in France. They have a smart facility, but today was all about the football.

Sat in the bar, a club official came to talk to me, turns out he was a former Captain of the club and was now the groundsman. A lovely chap, I mentioned the Shortwood comparisons, he smiled and agreed, it appears the two clubs have a bit of a bond.

With kick off fast approaching I thought it would be a good idea to go and pay my admission, and once through the turnstiles, you can’t help but be impressed by the rural beauty of the location, and of course the fantastic views.

The ground is cut into a hillside, so the West side is raised significantly above pitch level, and has a low roofed stand running down two thirds of the touchline. The concrete walkway in front of it eventually drops to the same level of the pitch as it gets to the top corner, upon which it turns right and heads behind the goal which is tree lined. A very small area of cover sits to the right of the goal but to be fair you would be hard pressed to get more than three people in it.

The side opposite the stand is again lined with trees, but behind which there is a considerable drop down to some allotments. A larger area of cover sits on this side just before we get to the South goal, where again the path slopes upwards back to the turnstiles and the clubs facilities.

The views from the elevated areas of the ground are stunning, and while not looking out over the City, they are to the East of Bath and the villages built around the hills are a wonderful sight on what was a clear day.

Larkhall Athletic joined the Western League in 1976, and they competed in the second tier continually, right up until 2009 when they won promotion to the top flight. They won the top flight in 2011, and then again in 2014, this time gaining promotion to the Southern League.

In their first season at Step 4 they made the Play-Offs, beating Evesham United in the Semi-Final, before losing to Stratford Town in the Final. Since then they’ve never threatened to trouble the top six, but this season they sat third in the table before the game against recent FA Vase winners and second paced Thatcham Town.

The game was hugely entertaining, it had a bit of everything.

Thatcham were not at the races in the first half on a bobbly pitch and found themselves 2-0 down. The first goal came in the fourth minute through Alexander Lambert who scored from close range, while the same player netted a fantastic second after running from the half way line to score.

The second half was not without controversy. Firstly, the visitors were awarded a penalty for what the referee adjudged to be a foul by the Larkhall goalkeeper on Kyle Tooze. I thought it was a bit soft to be honest, but after discussing it with his linesman, the referee chose to award a free kick to Larkhall for a foul during the build up.

Yellow cards started to proliferate proceedings, and Thatcham’s irritation was becoming plain to see, with the manager also receiving a card for his protestations, but the real clanger moment from the referee came with fifteen minutes to go.

Thatcham were awarded a free kick for a run of the mill holding offence, and Sam Barder (who was on a yellow) shouted to his teammates to “Get it in the box”, however, the referee heard something different, he thought he heard “Get him in the book”. A second yellow and a red for dissent, ridiculous, and you had to feel sympathy for Barder.

But, as the time approached 5pm and the final whistle blew, you could not argue with the outcome. Larkhall had been superb, they were organised, disciplined and when the chances came they put them away. Thatcham will view it as a bad day at the office.

What a cracking day, at a cracking club, and you know what, the cheese and onion rolls were to die for!

Then & Now

Newark Flowserve  3  Selston  2

Midland Football League – Premier Division

It would be January 2008 and I was stood at the side of a partially railed football pitch set in the middle of a housing estate in Nottingham. A shell of what looked to be an old and derelict clubhouse stood adjacent, while the game itself was held up for a couple of minutes while a bloke inadvertently walked his dog across the pitch while the match was in progress.

If someone had said to me that in just over ten years time, that ground, and that club, would be challenging for promotion to the second tier of non-league football, I would have laughed them all the way back to the tram stop.

But, Basford United were that club, and just look at what they are all about now? A super ground, 3G pitch, success on the field, and an owner in the shape of Chris Munroe who has steered the ship superbly over the past decade.

Moving towards the top side of Robin Hood County is another club, a club who I saw back in December 2004, plying their trade in the Central Midlands League. After a few modest seasons the club went into abeyance, before returning in the 2013-14 season in the bottom tier of the Nottinghamshire Senior League.

Successive promotions saw them gain promotion to Step 6 and the East Midlands Counties League, which they finished runners-up of last season, gaining promotion to the top flight of the Midland Football League. They currently sit top, on goal difference.

The two clubs stories are not dissimilar, in fact you can draw many parallels, but very much like that time when I first went to Basford, on that day when I was stood at pitch side at Flowserve in 2004, I never thought for a minute I’d see them battling for promotion to Step 4, certainly not after they disappeared from senior football for a period.

Stretching back to the War, right through to the Nineties, a club called Worthington Simpson were a feature of the NSL, a works team from Newark playing on the Lowfields ground that sat in the grounds of the factory. In 1998, following a re-brand / takeover of the company, they became known as IDP Newark. That lasted for three seasons until another change, and this time the Flowserve name became the clubs suffix. By 2004 they found themselves in the CMFL.

Known as ‘Simmos’, and now ‘The Highwaymen’ life started to change when businessman Gary Clarke took over as Chairman. It would be wrong to speculate upon his level of investment, but the ground has improved to keep pace with the progress of a team that attracts players who could play at a higher level of football.

To be fair though, the good folk of Newark have certainly got behind the club, with crowds regularly over 200 for league games, and with numerous clubs battling at the top of the table this season, they’ll all be returning to watch what promises to be the tightest battle for a promotion place in some time.

Since that day in 2004 (it was against Pinxton and they won 1-0), I’ve never been back. Well, that’s a lie, I went last season for a game against Rainworth Miners Welfare that the referee called off at 7pm because the pitch was, I quote, “A bit slippy and dangerous as a result”.

I have made a point of trying to venture up this season, purely because I wanted to see just how much progress they had made. The game against Selston was an interesting one for a number of reasons. Firstly, the two clubs battled for the EMCL title last season, with Selston eventually coming out on top. The game at Flowserve towards the end of the season attracted over 600 spectators through the gate.

This season the contrast couldn’t be more stark, Selston, who largely due to their ‘corinthian’ approach are struggling at the foot of the table with just one win all campaign. The two met at Selston in the Nottinghamshire Senior Cup recently, I was at the game, and after half an hour Flowserve were 5-0 up! The game was then abandoned just after the hour mark due to fog. Selston subsequently withdrew from the competition.

Parking in the large car park outside the ground, a short walk up the drive takes you to one of those modern turnstile contraptions, and just inside is the clubhouse and dressing rooms that sit behind the goal. To the right of the said goal is a seated stand that has been plonked in since my last visit, while moving anticlockwise to the side where the dugouts are located is an area of cover. What I like about the cover is the fact that the fascia has been designed in a classical style and looks like something from the Fifties or Sixties.

It’s a two sided ground, both the area behind the top goal and the side opposite the dugouts are out of bounds for spectators. How far they can go with this arrangement I’m not sure, they will certainly be allowed to go up with it, but whether they can stay up is down to the grading police of course.

I expected a comfortable home win, but I was wrong, it was far from that.

Zak Goodson gave the hosts a fifteenth minute lead, but within a couple of minutes Rory Davis had equalised with a cross that eluded the Flowserve goalkeeper and appeared to find the net via the far post.

Ben Moore then put Selston 2-1 with a deflected free kick in the second half, and for a period the well organised and disciplined visitors kept the hosts at bay.

However, the experienced and dangerous Ben Hutchinson scored twice in as many minutes as the game moved into the final quarter to swing the momentum back the way of Newark, and from that point they weren’t likely to lose their grip on the points.

On balance, it was a touch harsh on Selston, especially given the gulf in league placings, but if they continue to perform as they did, they will secure more points before the end of the season.

Flowserve, lost top spot on goal difference to Heather Athletic, but with Coventry United and Sporting Khalsa also both winning, you would be a brave man to call it this season.

Whether it’s this season, or next, Flowserve are on the way up, and emulating a club like Basford United is not beyond the realms. However, what you can say with both clubs, is all those years ago, you never saw it coming!

Via Cardiff

Eastleigh  2  Woking  0

National League

The question was loaded to a certain extent.

“Are you going anywhere near South Wales next Saturday?” asked Mrs H.

It wasn’t so much a question, in all fairness, it was more of a three line whip.

Mrs H’s brother, hereafter known as BIL (Brother In Law), was due to pick a car up from Cardiff, and given his tendency to avoid all things public transport where at all possible, I was seen as a clear candidate for a lift to Glamorgan.

If I’m honest, given his natural ability at DIY and my complete lack of any ability, which has saved us a fortune over the years, combined with numerous lifts to catch trains to Scotland, it was the least I could do. Besides, on the day we married, his first words to me when he shook my hand after the ceremony were “welcome to the mafia….”, yep, my card was well and truly marked!

In terms of football though, to link in with a trip to Cardiff, I had four Home Counties clubs, two South Coast, one West Yorkshire and one Somerset based club on my target list, the ideal scenario would have been the Somerset based option, but clearly it doesn’t work out like that and Larkhall Athletic were not at home!

So, if I left Belper at 7.30am, got to the West side of Cardiff by 10.30am, did a quick turnaround, avoided the rugby traffic, shot back across the M4, down the A34, and then the M3, I could be in Eastleigh for 1pm. And with that I could complete the National League top flight, having got it down to just one with the visit to Dover Athletic last weekend.

Eastleigh v Woking, yes, it was a plan and it was do-able. I didn’t need any traffic aggravation or bad weather to hinder it, but all things considered, I reckoned it was a good move on my part. Despite the length of time on the road, I was actually quite looking forward to the adventure. But then, I would look forward to lying on a bed of sharpened nails in preference to the full day of kitchen wall painting that was on the agenda for the following day. Five and a half hours one way seemed tame by comparison.

So, BIL was picked up along with Mrs BIL and off we toddled down the M42, M5 and M50 before embarking on a coffee stop just outside Ross-on-Wye. The traffic was light and even with the egg chasing the traffic around Cardiff on the M4 was no problem. We did choose to enter from the West rather than the East because of the congestion and road closures, and that worked a dream as we were soon sat outside a garage in Whitchurch.

Stood down from my duties, I was soon back on the M4 and over a blustery Severn Bridge into England. It was destination Eastleigh and the sun was shining! The M4 was very well behaved as Swindon passed by on the left, while the A34 Newbury by-pass served it’s purpose. Winchester was not the bottleneck I was previously used to, and even the closure of the M27 at the bottom of the M3 caused me no pain. In fact, the only aggravation I had was the last couple of miles, and that was purely down to my lack of research into road closures adjacent to the ground, which meant doing a loop back under the motorway and into the outskirts of Southampton.

Eastleigh Football Club is something of a story, allow me to elaborate.

Formerly known as Swaythling, under their new guise they spent the Eighties in the Hampshire League and the newly formed Wessex League, from where they won promotion to the Southern League in 2003. The clubs first season in the Southern League saw them finish high enough to earn a further promotion, this time to the top flight of the Isthmian League.

A third placed finish saw a further promotion to the Conference South, where they lost twice in the play-offs before eventually winning the title in the 2013-14 season.

Since then they have plied their trade in the top flight of non-league football, and have twice competed in the play-offs for a place in the Football League. They lost to Grimsby Town in 2014-15, while last season they were beaten by eventual winners Salford City.

The FA Cup has been good to them in recent seasons as well. Twice they’ve reached the Third Round Proper, losing to Bolton Wanderers in a replay and also to Brentford. This season they fell at the Second Round stage to Crewe Alexandra. 

This season to be fair has not been as successful as last seasons campaign, and going into the game against relatively close neighbours Woking (by National League standards), they sat not a million miles away from the relegation places.

Eastleigh have been fortunate in the sense that they have been backed financially, and alongside the success of the team they’ve built an impressive stadium, and not only that, they command average crowds of not too far short of 2,000. I would hazard a guess that the club is sustainable nowadays, and has an infrastructure to support them.

The ground is smart. Set in a large expanse between the M27 and the M3, the entrance road along Stoneham Lane is tight, but once in the car park you haven’t got to worry about finding a space even with the crowds they get. The main stand spans half the length of the pitch and offers an elevated view of proceedings, while opposite in the general direction of Southampton Airport is a covered terrace that spans runs the length of the touchline.

Behind the North goal is a two storey building that houses a bar and restaurant alongside the shop and some offices, with some covered terracing in front, while to the side is the Hangar Bar which is the clubs main social club. Behind the South goal is a large seated stand that is a recent construction, and this allows segregation when required, as it was against the visitors from Surrey.

All in all, an impressive stadium that meets Football League criteria, but, the pitch is not great. They’ve had some games called off this season, and in places it was heavily sanded. I can remember that the Bolton Wanderers FA Cup tie was almost called off a couple of seasons back now due to issues with the pitch, and given the recent weather, especially in the South, they’ve suffered more than most at this level.

The game was entertaining, but the first half was somewhat more engaging than the second period. Eastleigh, or the Spitfires as they are known, started on the front foot and took the lead in the tenth minute when Jack Payne scored with a superbly timed volley from a tight angle.

They got a second goal in the nineteenth minute when Tyrone Barnett powered home a header, and at that stage there was only one side in it.

The second half saw Woking have more possession of the ball, but to be honest, they didn’t seem to pose too much of a threat on the Eastleigh goal, and in the end it was the hosts that saw the game out to gain a vital three points.

Despite being held in the car park for safety reasons at the final whistle, while pedestrians cleared the area, a very easy journey back from a traffic perspective saw me back home for 7.45pm. So in all, eight hours on the road, but a day that ran like clockwork.

I wonder if BIL fancies painting our kitchen, only I could do with a lie in………….