Tony

Hadley  0  Ware  2

Southern League – Division One Central

Admission / Programme - £10 / £2

Steve and I play this game, which typically starts in March.

We look at the league tables across the Country and try to work out who we think is best placed for promotion to the leagues that we tend to keep on top of. We are predominantly talking about Step 5 clubs moving to Step 4, largely because the criteria and process is pretty transparent. The variable is whether they will finish in the requisite league placing, but some clubs by March are inevitably better placed than others.

Steve has got a shocking record for taking calculated risks and falling flat on his face. He’s seen clubs with seemingly unassailable leads in a Devon Loch style, have disasters, Reading Town and North Leigh being examples in recent years. He even went to a club who had won the league (Haywards Heath Town) only to see them suffer a post season points deduction. We’ve had ground grading failures, clubs folding, the lot, so much so, Steve is that much of a Jonah now he doesn’t bother looking anymore! Conversely he markets himself as someone who can be guaranteed to balls up a clubs season at the drop of a hat, just by turning up……..

I’m not so bad if I’m honest, I couldn’t ever recall having any disasters, in fact last season I picked on a couple and got them spot on, namely Walthamstow and North Shields, but at the same time I got one properly wrong, and it was all because of technicalities!

Risborough Rangers were nailed on, along with New Salamis to get the two promotions spots in the Spartan South Midlands League, so off I went on a delightful Spring Saturday morning for a game against Crawley Green and all was good in the World. I must admit that when I turned up and took a look at the ground, it did occur to me that they might have some work to do to get the required grading, but given that clubs have time to do that, I never gave it much of a second thought.

They were a friendly club, the game wasn’t great though, it finished 0-0, but it mattered not, a promotion place was duly sealed, until the bombshell….

Turns out that the ground had actually failed the grading for the level they were at (Step 5) so the FA decreed that not only would they be denied promotion, they would be forcibly relegated to Step 6 instead! Wowzers, anyway, they appealed on a technicality, something to do with planning permission and funding delays due to Covid and the very slow local authority that governed them, but all that did was allow them to remain at their current level, promotion was a no go.

The benefactors of that were Hadley, a club based in Arkley which is just outside of Barnet, and I’d never been.

So, Hadley, what’s that all about then? Formed in 1882, they spent the bulk of their history in the local leagues until 2008 when they were admitted to the Second Division of the Spartan South Midlands League. They won promotion at the first attempt, and did the same the following season, making it to the Premier Division and Step 5. They had a brief flirtation with the Essex Senior League for a season but were quickly moved back, until last season when the third place finish saw them get the nod.

The Brickfield Lane ground was only used from 1992, and for a period they moved away while development work took place, finally moving back in after floodlight and a stand were installed in 2016. Clearly though, unlike Risborough, it was deemed good enough, and with a few days off work, I decided to give it a blast midweek.

There is something truly delightful about the M25 at tea time, even though I was only on it briefly, making the short journey from the M1 to the A1 exit at Borehamwood. It was somewhat clogged, but turned out the issue was someone trying to go round it on a pushbike which created a major health and safety issue, yes you read that correctly, a pushbike….

Coming home was another matter altogether, but more on that later.

You leave the A1 at the second exit for Borehamwood, and it’s only a very short drive East to the village of Arkley which is both very rural and indeed pleasant. I don’t think cost of living crisis is a phrase overly used in Arkley if I’m taking a guess.

The ground is a bit of a bugger to find, you go through a set of lights and have to turn a tight left up a track to access the ground, and the ground itself is well hidden by the greenery so spotting any football related structures is nigh on impossible. So after a u-turn on a private road, I was soon in place in the club car park, in good time to devour the food items that Mrs H had lovingly prepared for me.

Brickfield Lane is one of those grounds where the clubhouse is in effect a community building that sits outside of the confines of the ground itself. I had a little wander in and partook of some cold cannage that was on offer, it wasn’t the biggest of venues but with sport on the telly even at an early hour it was attracting a decent sized crowd.

You enter the ground itself from behind the goal, and you are immediately underneath an area of cover that is both narrow and shallow, but handy on a wet and windy day. Round to the right is another area of cover that has been neatly embedded into a length of carefully trimmed foliage that provides a very aesthetically pleasing natural enclosure to that side of the facilities.

The goal at the far end is just open standing while on the side nearest the main road you have the standard section of seating and a tea bar to the side of it. The dressing rooms are outside of the ground and sit adjacent to the clubhouse.

The pitch was in good nick, and the game was to pit Hadley against a Ware side that has started the season strongly and even at this early stage were one of the sides you would think may well be in the shake up at the end of the season.

To be honest, in terms of the balance of play, the game itself was pretty even, but like anything, it comes down to who takes the chances when they come along, and that is exactly what Ware did.

Hadley shaded the first half in terms of chances but didn’t put them away, however when Ware’s Liam Dulson was played in by the experienced Renee Howe, he made no mistake.

Ware were more composed in the second period, but Hadley still managed to create opportunities without having the killer touch they needed, but as they chased the game, with ten minutes to go Dulson popped up to score his second and secure the three points for the visitors.

That was how it ended, and having made a hasty retreat from the car park I was hopeful of making it home before the witching hour where Mrs H had promised to wait up for me so we could have a disco and go for a kebab……

All was good in the World until the overhead signs advised that the M1 was closed between two junctions in the Northampton area. I won’t bore you with the gory details but what initially said 11.45pm on the sat nav finished up being a final arrival home at 1.20am. Mrs H was in bed and the kebab shop was closed.

As I drove the final couple of miles, I vowed that never again would I drive to a midweek match that involved the motorway network and a long distance, it was just too painful.

That said……