The Muddle

Blidworth Welfare Red   4   Beeston Development   1

Nottinghamshire Senior League – Division Two North

I was a touch confused!

Not unusual, you might be thinking, bearing in mind this is from a man who once went to meet his wife in a pub, only to go to the wrong village entirely and end up bumping into Nigel Clough and his family instead.

Ok, so I got my New Inn’s muddled up, but that was a long time ago, however, I was all of a muddle when it came to Blidworth Welfare Red, what, exactly, was that name all about? Are they connected to the Blidworth Welfare from the Central Midlands League? Where does the Red come from, are they all Forest fans and wanted to recognise the sad fact? And, furthermore, they play in Sutton In Ashfield, how come?

More on what they are about later, but, I’ll be honest, up until Friday night I had a different plan, I was going to go over to Newark to watch Fernwood Foxes play West Bridgford AFC, but, it transpired the lurgy had hit the guys from the East of the embankment and the game was duly called off.

I did look at other options, but to be honest Blidworth was number one choice, largely because they were very pro-active on social media, and checking the game was on proved to be simple and trouble free. The twitter guy I believe is the goalkeeper, and very quick at getting back to me he was too!

Blidworth Welfare Red play at the large Unwin Road Sports Ground which is just off the Kings Mill roundabout that conjoins Sutton In Ashfield with Mansfield On Sea. If coming up the A38 from Bodmin, you do a left at the roundabout, then left again, and finally, you spot a narrow left opening into the ground. The first thing you spot is that this is the home of Mansfield Athletic FC, a club I watched the other week on a Saturday morning in the Derby Church League, playing somewhere else completely!

Seems Unwin Road is the home for the clubs many junior sides, as it does have several pitches of various sizes, with boards up directing different teams to different pitches around a maze of roped off areas. Blidworth were using the pitch at the very top of the complex that backs onto the new housing that’s been built, and it did look to be the only full sized pitch.

It was as I was trying to navigate my way around the different roped areas to pitch side, that I was approached (distantly) by the Manager of Blidworth Welfare Red, who to be fair was probably just checking if I’d got lost on the way to McDonalds or something. Although in reality it was more likely to be the Track & Trace protocol!

It gave me the chance to ask what the club was all about, and it suddenly all made sense. On the basis that the bulk of the people that read this blog don’t actually work, and have ample time on their hands, I would imagine they have had the opportunity in the past to look at the fixtures and the teams that play in local academy football, typically played on a weekday afternoon.

Some clubs have two teams in the competitions, so to distinguish between the two they will often have a suffix, for example Belper Town have ‘Black Sox’ and ‘Gold Sox’, or in the case of Pass Move Grin, they have ‘Performance’ and ‘Elite’. Anyhow, it turns out Blidworth Welfare Red was one of those teams (I assume there was a Black, or a White, but probably not an Orange, as well). What happened was, they got to stage where from an age perspective they were too old for the junior / youth / academy leagues, and as they didn’t want to break the team up, they set up in their own right and moved into Saturday men’s football.

And that’s what it’s all about, they were connected to Blidworth Welfare FC, but not anymore it seems, and that explains why they had to find their own ground, in Sutton.

So what’s it like?

It’s a big old expanse, with a pavilion in the bottom corner, but right at the top is where the main pitch is. It’s fenced down a couple of sides with dugouts and a rope as a barrier on the top side adjacent to the houses. The pitch was also in very good condition, while if you came by car, there is ample parking inside the complex, although be careful if you pull in behind the goal as you’ve every chance of being wedged in as cars park back to back! Finally, I spotted an advertising banner up on the fence for a new housing development, and it seems my company were the selling agents, I might have to put an expenses claim in for the journey, checking out our marketing material and what have you!

Pre-match the hosts sat mid-table, while visiting Beeston Development only had one point to their name after four games. I had seen both sides in action during pre-season, but how was it going to pan out?

To be fair, it was a comfortable afternoon for Blidworth. A 4-1 victory was well deserved, and it was goals from Leon Bartle, Jamie Bourn, James Henry and Conner Pilmore which saw them on their way. Beeston went down to ten men on the half hour mark when Donny Howarth got a red card for a late challenge, while their consolation goal came from Sammy-Joe Smith.

The muddle was over though, the puzzle solved if you like, I could head back down the A38 in the direction of Bodmin safe in the knowledge that any confusion was put to bed.

Just to clarify though, I’m not from Bodmin, that just happens to be where the A38 finishes if you forget to turn off at Belper, and, Nigel Clough is a lager drinker!