Appreciation

Hilton Harriers   1   Mickleover Reserves   3

Central Midlands League – Premier Division South

The clock was ticking past 12.30, it looked bloody cold outside, and according to Twitter my game of choice in South Derbyshire was very much on.

The problem was, I was nice and warm, Mrs H had got some weird subtitled Korean film on called ‘Parasite’, and having joined it quite late it was making no sense at all to me. That said, it was quite entertaining, and for a few moments I did wonder about staying put, but having never once in my football watching years allowed the TV and the central heating to win over me when a game has beckoned out in the fresh air, I wasn’t about to start now.

The village of Hilton is not far from Casa Hatt, a short run down the A38 and onto the A516 in a Stoke-rly direction leads you to a place that has grown significantly over recent years thanks to a massive housing development. The proximity of Toyota, JCB, Rolls Royce and Bombardier as major centres of employment lead to the need for more housing, and as a consequence, the services in and around the village have struggled to cope to a certain extent.

Schooling is one facet of everyday life that has been stretched, and I know that well as my Sister was once the Deputy Head at the local Primary. A new school has been built, while on the edges of the housing developments have appeared commercial and retail outlets, notably you will find car supermarkets and the famous ‘King of Caravans’ but more on that one later!

I’ve not written a blog for a while, and to be honest that hasn’t been due to a lack of football, as I’ve been to a quite a few games recently. But those who know how this works know I only write about my ‘Football Tourism’ adventures when it involves a venue that hasn’t previously been scribed about. Plus, of course, I might have got myself on the naughty list in recent weeks, and it wouldn’t have been very sensible to advertise the fact………

Skipping back, Boxing Day involved a trip to the ‘El CarParkio’ derby game, in Derby, between Borrowash Victoria and Graham Street Prims. And to be fair it did whet my appetite for a football purge over the festive period, because of course, no one quite knows when it all might grind to a halt again, for possibly even the final time this season.

With the heater at it’s maximum blast of 28 degrees and the toasted seats on level three, the journey into Hilton was accompanied by the words of Michael Stipe, “When you’re sure you’ve had enough of this life, well hang on......”. 2021, please be better, but for now, we do hang on, maybe with our finger nails at times, but we hang on for when we can feel normal once again.

Track and Trace was completed and it was into one of the final car parking spaces at the Mease Pavilion, a vast expanse located on the edges of the housing development, incorporating a large brick built changing block and a couple of pitches, one of which was railed off and in use by the first team of Hilton Harriers.

I’ve been to the Mease once before, and it was back in April 2013 when Bradwell were the visitors in the Staffordshire County Senior League. Since then they made the move to the Central Midlands League in 2017 and have remained in the Premier Division South ever since. They are on the very edges of the CMFL footprint, albeit it’s not an insignificant footprint in that league. This in itself has been a huge challenge in recent weeks due to the tier system and the fact at Step 7 and below clubs cannot have players travelling between counties in Tier 3, so the beleaguered fixtures secretary has been busy re-arranging games so clubs could play against others from the same County.

The upshot of this is that Hilton were presented with a very local derby game against Mickleover FC Reserves, with Mickleover of course being the first suburb of Derby you get to heading East out of Hilton. Mickleover Reserves, the club previously known as Mickleover Sports Reserves, and this is where the ‘King of Caravans’ comes into the mix.

Don Amott’s business was set up over 50 years ago, and it is now widely recognised as one of the largest caravan and motor homes outfits in the UK, and those of us of a certain age will remember the adverts on ITV back in the early Eighties, the jingle of course which crowned Don as the ‘King of Caravans’. Find it on You Tube and then try to get it out of your head!

Don is a huge sports fan, previously he’s been Chairman of Derbyshire County Cricket Club, while he’s also been on the board at both Derby County and Burton Albion, whereas nowadays he happens to be the Chairman of Mickleover FC. You have to say as well that under his stewardship Sports have moved forward tremendously. They dropped the ‘Sports’ suffix, they intend to rotate the pitch 90 degrees and install a 4G surface, while as we speak, they sit top of the Premier Division of the Northern Premier League, with the Conference North more than just a pipe dream away.

Don was watching the game today, along with another local legend, former Rams, Forest and Scotland midfielder Archie Gemmill. Archie has won three First Division titles, one European Cup, two League Cups and with it 43 International Caps. Of Course, his greatest moment in front of the Tartan Army came in June 1978 when he scored a quite magnificent solo goal to put the Scots 3-1 up against the Netherlands. The goal is rated as one of the greatest ever in a World Cup match.

Local celebrities aside, a crowd of around 120 were in place for what turned out to be a very good game of football indeed. Mickeover took a first half lead, but then found themselves down to ten men following a straight red for bringing down an attacker bursting through on goal.

This galvanised the hosts and they did force an equaliser early in the second half, but after that Mickleover re-grouped, and with some very talented youngsters in their side they re-took the lead with a powerful header from a corner. The scoring was over in the closing stages when a searing drive from the edge of the box found the back of the net before the goalkeeper had chance to move. Bobby Battison, Gus Williamson and Tom Eccleshall were the scorers for Mickleover.

To be fair to Hilton though, they played some good stuff and on another day they could have got something out of the game. 

With snow forecast, plus a Tier review on Wednesday which could quite easily see large parts of the Midlands moved into Tier 4, it may well be that the blog has to lie dormant for a period of time again. The 2020-21 football season is hanging by a very thin thread right now, and to be honest, I’m struggling to get my head around the possibility that the season could be drawn to a premature closure in January. I mean, surely we can’t have to wait until July again before we can watch a ball kicked?

Trips to Ireland, Football Weekends in Holland and Germany, Easter in Cornwall, pre-season in Devon, and of course, the Megabus to London, they’ve been missed, missed like you’ll never appreciate.

That’s a good word, ‘appreciate’, we won’t be taking that for granted again will we?    

The Rules

Fernwood Foxes   3   Elston United   2

Nottinghamshire Senior League – Division Two South

I’m really not sure if I was supposed to be at this game?

I mean, football has started again, and apparently anything that was at Step 7 (as was) or below could admit spectators, according to the first announcement, but then, we got another announcement on the eve of the next set of scheduled fixtures suggesting that while it would be very difficult for spectators to be stopped from watching at these levels, it was not to be encouraged?

Then, I saw on Saturday morning a local club advertising that entry to their Step 7 game would be £3, however, spectators were encouraged not to attend! Mental……

Add into the mix the Tier system which has quite clearly shafted the North of England, unless of course you live in parts of North Yorkshire, Cheshire or Cumbria, and then suddenly it becomes debateable about where you can travel anyway. Is Tier 3 to Tier 3 ok? Is it not ok if you go via Tier 2? Tier 3 to Tier 2 is a no go, but can you go Tier 2 to Tier 3? I’m buggered if I know?

Of course, if it’s for work purposes then of course you can travel, and that’s why we had further chaos at Steps 3 to Steps 6 because for the players it was classed as work, but, if you were in Tier 3 it had to be behind closed doors, which quickly became apparent it wasn’t happening for both financial and moral reasons.

But, if you play football below Step 6, and were in Tier 3, you could not leave your County to play football, and this, again, caused chaos in local leagues as not all teams were in the same Counties, and indeed, neither were all of the players!

It was a mess, to be frank, and as I write this we’ve had a further change to the rules around spectators, which means a load of clubs have postponed two weeks worth of fixtures for no apparent reason now, and instead we’ve got a bunch of friendlies, that, were initially behind closed doors, but now aren’t!

Then of course, we’ve got the review of tiers on Wednesday anyway, when it could change again?

So, it was Saturday morning and I quite simply thought, “f*** It!”, I’m going to a football match!

I worked on the principal that the Newark Derby between Fernwood Foxes and Elston United wouldn’t fall foul of the fact one of the teams was based in a different County, and therefore couldn’t travel the mile or so to the game. I also assumed the players would be all local lads anyway and that rule wouldn't come into play either. 

I’d been meaning to head to Fernwood for a while but for a variety of reasons this season it hasn’t happened (I won’t list them all, you can imagine what they are though). The Foxes joined the Notts Senior League at the start of the campaign, and while the village of Fernwood is just off the A1 to the South of Newark, the club is based to the North of the town centre at the Lincoln Road Playing Fields.

It’s a touch tricky to find, my technology took me into the town centre, and then out again in a northerly direction, just over the railway line where Newark Northgate Station is, before turning right into a housing estate.

The playing fields are the East edge of the estate, down a narrow entry to the car park, and once inside you’ve got a large expanse of pitches with a brick built facility in the centre of it. The site is then flanked further to the North and East by the large Newark Business Park.

With two sets of players warming up, it was game on, on what was a chilly but dry day, and in terms of spectators I would say around 20 or so had turned up for what I guess can be described as the ‘other’ Newark Derby. With games between Town and the club formerly known as Flowserve being the major event, albeit that is taking a break as the newly named Newark FC embark on a rapid rise up the pyramid. Town, however, seem keen to try and at least stay on their coat tails.

So, Fernwood v Elston, how did it play out?

Very decent game to be fair, the hosts were leading 2-0 at half time, and then made it 3-0 just after the break thanks to a penalty. The goals coming from Callum Chilvers, Darik Samson and William Taylor. However, as the game moved into it’s closing stages goals from Harry Johnson and Jake Ledbetter narrowed the deficit to just one goal, leading to quite a frantic finish.

Fernwood hung on though for only their second win of the season against a previously unbeaten Elston side. And, from my point of view, I wasn’t ejected, arrested or indeed made to feel unwelcome at any stage, but even so, I’m still not 100% sure if I should have been in attendance?

I write a blog though, is that not technically work? That said, the wages aren’t very good if I’m being honest…….