Artificial Intelligence

Heybridge Swifts  0  Grays Athletic  1

Isthmian League – Division One North

Admission / Programme – £10 / £2

Not getting any better is it on the weather front?

After the monsoons of the previous week, we have now entered the modern day Ice Age, whereby temperatures seem to be sitting at sub-zero, which of course, despite the wildly outrageous claims from some clubs about games being on, is a complete killer. Sub-zero and grass don’t mix and don’t let any groundsman or indeed match official who’s been called on to do an early inspection convince you otherwise.

Having looked at my list of options on the Friday night, I narrowed it down to one, and that was a game on the plastic in Essex, the game at Heybridge Swifts, located in an area of the Country that I have to say I’ve got limited knowledge of, or indeed travel experiences to count upon.

Heybridge is a village next door to the town of Maldon, which in turn if we are doing the map test, sits South of Braintree, East of Chelmsford, North of Southend, and also on the River Blackwater which runs into the sea South of Clacton (on sea!). To put it into a footballing perspective, you’ve got Maldon & Tiptree down the road, Witham Town up the road, Braintree Town, Coggeshall Town and indeed Chelmsford City all close by. It’s a busy area football club wise, but as I said, not one I’ve experienced a lot of, having only been to Chelmsford and Braintree of the ones mentioned.

Swifts are one of those clubs I feel like I’ve been very aware of for some time largely because they’ve punched at a good level for a while (Step 2), and had some impressive FA Cup runs over the years, playing the likes of Bristol City, Exeter City, AFC Bournemouth and Gillingham at the First Round Proper stage, a series of games that many a club at a higher level would love to have been involved in.

So what’s the deal with Heybridge then? Formed in 1880, they spent the first ninety years of their existence playing in minor county league football, until in 1971 when they became founder members of the Essex Senior League. Three consecutive title wins came in the early eighties and that in turn saw them move up to the Isthmian League.

By the mid-nineties they’d worked their way up to the Premier Division, they of course had their FA Cup glory, but they missed the cut for the newly formed Conference South after losing a Play Off to St Albans City. They also went on to lose another promotion play off a couple of years later in 2006 when they lost to Hampton & Richmond Borough.

They left the top tier of the Isthmian in 2009, and since then, despite a couple of close calls, they’ve remained in Division One North (Step 4). When I say close calls, they’ve lost in two play-off semi-finals, and indeed actually beat local rivals Maldon & Tiptree in a play-off final, but due to only five of the eight play-off winners gaining promotion, they were denied, somewhat harshly, by finishing in sixth place on a points per game basis.

I had a spiffing journey down to Essex. I elected to take the A14, which is a much better route now the changes have been made at Huntingdon and you can now basically have a clear run all the way onto the M11 at Cambridge. Off you get at Stansted Airport and then along the A120 dual carriageway to Braintree, before heading down through Cressing, into Witham and then out under the A12 and into Heybridge.

The whole journey took me bang on three hours, and upon arrival I was directed to a parking space by the friendly chap on the gate. In hindsight, I should have parked on the road, because at that point I didn’t realise the parking arrangements were going to be akin to the car deck of a cross channel ferry!

It’s a very nice ground is Scraley Road. You go in via the turnstiles behind the North goal, and to your left hand side is the building that houses the dressing rooms, the clubhouse and indeed the tea bar. Moving round in a clockwise direction you have a large seated stand on the halfway line, while behind the South goal is an area of covered terracing. Then as you move round to the West side of the ground you’ve got a smaller stand with a couple of rows of wooden bench seats. Obviously we’ve now got a 4G pitch, and with that you always get a shiny new pitch side barrier. Yes, it’s very tidy, well kept and aesthetically pleasing on the eye.

The game pitched two play-off contenders against each other, with Essex neighbours Grays Athletic in town, and backed by a good travelling support in a crowd of 369, it was they who took the points home thanks to a goal just after half time through Cheyce Grant who cut in from the left hand side and placed a shot into the bottom corner past goalkeeper Callum Chafer. Grays played the bulk of the second period with ten men after Rob Clark was given his marching orders for a second yellow (despite the fact the referee first of all booked the wrong person!)

The game was both tight and entertaining though, Heybridge can probably count themselves slightly unfortunate not to have taken a point given the amount of possession they had, especially with a man advantage, but, Grays you always felt had that bit of spark in attack that could cause problems.

It was nearly 5pm before the game finally finished, and when the cars finally disembarked the ferry in an orderly fashion I was back out and heading back home the way I came. No traffic issues again on the way back, let’s hope that next weekend, we don’t have any weather issues either, I’m running out of plastic options!

Humble Folk Without Temptation

South Park (Reigate)  1  Leatherhead  0

Isthmian League – Division One South Central

Admission / Programme – £9 / £2

It had been an apocalyptic week, it felt like the contents of the oceans had been sucked into the sky and unceremoniously dumped on the length and breadth of the United Kingdom.

It’s been a far cry from the heady days of Mid July when we were about to spontaneously combust as rivers and reservoirs ran dry. Welcome to the twenty first century on Planet Earth, a planet that in another 150 years will no doubt either be on fire or under a mass of water, according to Gary Lineker.

In fact, there’s no point anyone having children anymore, I mean, I fully expect my great, great, great grandchildren to either melt or drown, so let’s just accept we’re on a fast track to self-destruction, but at the same time, it’s great to see the price of petrol coming down, it makes long distance trips to football that little bit more affordable……

So, being blunt, as I rose from my slumber as the house was burning kilowatts of energy by the second, it was quite clear that I wasn’t going to be watching a game on grass today. The South of England was largely under water, with more to come, so it was time to play the 3G / 4G card, but at the same time being a little cautious as images from the South West showed the plastic at Plymouth Marjon where myself and Mrs H went recently, underwater!

South Park (Reigate) looked a winner, a new venue, a local derby against Leatherhead, and an early tweet to suggest waders and a snorkel would not be needed, fire up the Quattro, we are going to Surrey, lock up your cockerpoo’s and stock up on dry roasted peanuts fellas, the further advance was in the bank and I reckoned it might just cover the cost of a pint!

Right, an apology to South Park, largely because they will be absolutely sick and tired of references to Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s quite superb animated comedy about four kids in a Colorado town. I can imagine some of the comments now…..

“Do you have ample parking, day and night…..”

“Did you ever have a player called Kenny, that got killed, the bastards……”

“That player called Kyle, was his Mum a big fat bitch….”

Anyway, childish I know, but I still say the opening fifteen minutes of the South Park Movie was the funniest fifteen minutes of viewing I’ve ever seen in my entire life, but let’s leave that for now and focus on the football club.

Formed in 1897, they played in the local leagues for over one hundred years until 2006 when significant ground improvements saw them in a position to make a leap up to the semi-professional Combined Counties League. They won promotion to the Premier Division in 2011 and then a resounding Championship win in 2014 saw them promoted to the Isthmian League and Step 4 of the first time in the clubs long history. Cups wise, they did once get to the Fourth Round Qualifying of the FA Cup, losing to the local Plod, whereas they had a pretty impressive run the FA Trophy one year, finally succumbing to Tranmere Rovers at Prenton Park.

At the start of the current season though, they decided to add the suffix of their home town of Reigate to their name. Clearly for those unfamiliar, it does give the club more of a local identity, and of course, it may also attract more local interest from those perhaps not aware of the club and it’s rise up the football pyramid.

The journey down was an absolute Ken Doddle, the M25 behaved impeccably and soon I was on the road into Reigate, a town I have neither visited or travelled through previously. Like many Surrey towns on the edges of the M25, you ain’t getting a pad for £70,000 like you can in Doncaster, in fact £70,000 might just about get you a garage. Yes, Reigate is very nice, very desirable and it has a one way system round the town centre that gives you ample opportunity to stare into shop windows at all the things the kind of money that we Northerners don’t have, can buy you. I always say, if you have a Pret a Manger as opposed to a Greggs, you know you’ve made it!

I did think once about doing South Park on the train, and to be fair when I looked at it more closely, I thought it might have been a bit far to walk, well, I can tell you having driven from the railway station to the ground on the very South West edge of the town, I wouldn’t fancy having to walk it on a wet day, it’s bloody miles!

I did eventually find it, down Whitehall Lane, and of course, ample parking was available in the nearby school, which in itself was less than a minutes walk from the clubhouse.  The clubhouse sits at the top of the venue, and I have to say it was very nice and very reasonably priced, I’d even go as far as to say that it was full of humble folk without temptation……

The bar filled up, with a good number of Tanners fans flocking in for what was their first ever league game against their near neighbours, but getting into the ground itself wasn’t going to prove to be that straightforward. The path that lead from the clubhouse to the turnstiles was flooded, despite the valiant attempts to clear it, so we had to traipse over a field, which was somewhat sodden and slippy, but thankfully no disasters and no compensation claims were forthcoming, and before long the crowd of around 260 were happily inside the Stade de la Eric Cartman.

The new 4G pitch is a very recent addition, and as usually comes with that, you get some very nice pitch side barriers. The dressing room and tea bar building sits on the half way line, while the only spectator accommodation sits behind the South goal in the shape of two Atcost style stands, one slightly bigger than the other. To be fair though, getting to them was something of a challenge, only the South end of the ground was largely flooded, including an area of the 4G albeit the area in question was not actually part of the playing surface.

South Park took the lead in the second minute via a low shot from Sam King, and it was around that time that a further biblical rainstorm engulfed Surrey and probably reduced property values by a small percentage. The first half saw the hosts pretty much in control of proceedings with Leatherhead seriously lacking in ideas. In terms of league placings by the way, South Park are very much in contention for a play-off spot, Leatherhead are very much in contention for very little.

The second half saw Leatherhead have far more of the ball and they did start to make progress in wide areas, but despite numerous balls being put into the danger areas, they had no one up front to convert the chances. I could revert to the old adage about playing until midnight, I won’t, but you know what I mean….

So that was it, a 1-0 win for South Park that they absolutely loved, beating Leatherhead is clearly a popular event in Reigate, and the on the field celebrations were testimony to that. The getaway was easy, the roads were clear and I was back in the grim North by 7.45pm. Furthermore, no one killed Kenny either…..

Legacy

Sheffield City  4  Silkstone United  3

Sheffield & Hallamshire County Senior League – Division One

Admission / Programme – No / Online

If I can be frank, the first Saturday of January for me is a right royal pain in the backside.

Work have come up with this idea that all staff at all levels have to be in the branches for what has been quirkily coined as “All In Saturday”. This is largely because of the levels of activity that are anticipated after a campaign that takes advantage of peoples boredom / relationship break downs that happen during the festive period.

Anyway, I won’t bore you with the minutiae of the details, but it basically means I have to rock up in a branch on the said Saturday, do what I do, and then hope for an opportunity to make a getaway to get to football. That’s fine, I can work around it, but it is quite restrictive in terms of your options in the sense that you have to stay reasonably local. Last year for example I ended up going to Staveley Miners Welfare on the plastic after my preferred game in the Hope Valley League at Dronfield Woodhouse fell by the wayside, but this year I’d got a slightly more adventurous plan.

Moorside Rangers in the Manchester League, which was ok but two factors had to be considered, firstly I would have to leave no later than 12.30 to make it, but secondly, the weather was an issue. It had banged it down with rain and I had my doubts as to whether it would take place. So, I was sat on the Friday night trying to look for Plan B’s when I spotted something that very much caught my eye, but before I do the full reveal and all that, you need the back story!

A few months ago while giving Alan Oliver a lift from Walshaw Sport to Bury Bus Station, he dropped in that he’d heard about a team in Sheffield who were going to be playing at the Olympic Legacy Park. Now I was familiar with the OLP because it was built on the site of the old Don Valley Stadium, and a few Summer’s ago I’d gone along to watch a rugby league game between Sheffield Eagles and Featherstone Rovers. I wasn’t overly impressed with it if I was honest. It was very limited and looked to have been done on the cheap.

I forgot about my conversation with Alan, but then not so long ago as I was in the car with Steve going to Bracknell Town, he bought the subject up but furbished me with more detail, in terms of who the club was (Sheffield City) and where he’d read about it (Tony Kempster Forum). I had a quick look and yes, it was all there, but the plan was to move in at the start of the 2023-24 season.

I then subsequently spotted that a one off game took place before Christmas, but, as I said, the night before the day at work, I spotted on Twitter that they had another ‘one off’ game, this time against Silkstone United, and it was a 3pm kick off.

Plan B was sorted, I told Steve, he had got Moorside as Plan A as well, but then as Saturday morning progressed, we had a conversation that swung us both towards Sheffield City. Nothing was coming out of Moorside about the game being on (it was subsequently called off), but, they also had a number of midweeks in early April, which would have been a much easier and safer bet.

So, unanimously it was going to be Sheffield City at the Olympic Legacy Park, but was it a better venue than I remembered it?

I’m no expert in the politics surrounding the hosting of the Olympic Games in 2012, but it seems one of the caveats of awarding the games to London was that some of the loot raised by the event was that sports facilities around the UK would be upgraded / constructed for future generations, ie a legacy. Hence Olympic Legacy Park.

So, the stadium built in the Attercliffe area (where the brothels used to be, apparently) for the World Student Games, known as the Don Valley Stadium, a venue I have seen Sheffield FC, Rotherham United and Sheffield Parramore play at, was subsequently demolished. In it’s place popped up the OLC, and when I went for the rugger game, I was completely underwhelmed. It was a 4G pitch, with a large student type building behind the goal, and a temporary stand down one side with a tarpaulin roof. Is this what the 2012 Olympics had given the Sheffield? The Don Valley wasn’t perfect, but bloody hell, I’d been to better cages at schools!

Anyroadup, once I’d gone under the railway bridge, eyed up all of the now boarded up boozers, and pulled into the car park just off of Worksop Road, I spotted Steve’s wagon, he’d beat me to it. I found him wandering about aimlessly as men of a certain age have a habit of doing, and after I’d enquired as to his wellbeing, reminded him of where he was and all of that, we had a look around and have to say I was massively surprised at what I found.

The ground was now fully enclosed, and more importantly, where the stand / tent used to be, was now a huge building housing dressing rooms / offices / corporate facilities (albeit still being constructed) and conjoined to this at the front a large seated stand with capacity for I would say getting on for 1000 or so spectators. It was impressive, it was now a proper stadium, we could now wander to the nearest broth…sorry, pub, safe in the knowledge that we wouldn’t be watching football sat on a pile of scaffolding!

The Sheffield City FC story then, well, I suspect it’s not a very long one as I only became aware of them last season when they appeared in the league, in fact I seem to recall watching a game at Graves Park in Sheffield, New Bohemians were the home side, while playing on the adjacent pitch were indeed City.

What I will say though is they have excellent social media, they look to be ambitious, and they also look to building links with the community. It does also look like they have got a good number of sponsors, and based on first impressions before the game chatting to a couple of people involved with the club, they come across as a thoroughly decent bunch of folk, or ‘reyt’ as they say in Sheffield!

The game itself was a bit of a belter to be honest. City were 2-0 up but then the visitors pulled a goal back just before half time. The game went from end to end in the second period, and as the goals went in at either end, we moved into added time with the scores level at 3-3. City went for it, they threw men forward and then with what was effectively the last action of the game, they scored to make it 4-3.

It wasn’t quite the last action though, there was just enough time for Silkstone to kick off before the referee blew for full time. A very good game on what turned out to be a very enjoyable afternoon out.

Keep an eye on Sheffield City, this is a story that has only just begun, and next time I’m forced to work on a Saturday, you know what, I might find my way down Attercliffe Road again, but keep it quiet, it’s got a bit of a reputation you know!

Malc

Hucknall Town Reserves  2  Southwell City Reserves  1

Nottinghamshire Senior League – First Division

Admission / Programme – No / No

I can’t exactly remember when or where I first met Malc Storer.

It was one of those situations whereby you start to see someone at games, on a reasonably regular basis, and then as you both kind of start to recognise each other as your paths cross, you start to greet each other with a nod or even a ‘hello’.

Then of course it gradually leads into the odd brief conversation before suddenly you find yourself on first name terms, spending long periods of the match chatting about all and sundry.

Before I knew it, I was mates with Malc, in fact we were all mates. Steve, myself, Malc, Kev Goodman (Malc’s next door neighbour, best buddy and soul mate), Pete, and many others who had the privilege over the years of getting to know Malc through a common love of local non-league football.

was another level though, a man totally dedicated to football in Nottinghamshire. He would easily attend 200 games a season, in fact one year I think he managed to get to over 300. He would have season tickets at local clubs, this season it was Basford United and Nottingham Forest Ladies, but it wasn’t uncommon for him on some days of the week to get to either two or three games.

He had a blog, it was called ‘On The Road’ and over the years it essentially did two things, it raised money for local charities of which it raised thousands through donations from fellow lovers of local football, but it also provided a simple yet brilliant service.

Malc would compile all of the fixtures and results for all of the local non-league teams, even down to the local Sunday leagues, and publish them on his blog. The best way to describe this would be on a Saturday night, at around 7pm you could go on and find every result locally, without having to trawl through various different websites, but then an hour later, he would publish all of the midweek fixtures.

The midweek results would be on by 10pm, and on a bad weather day, he would be updating postponements. His blog became so well known locally that clubs, and people involved with clubs would update him with information, so he could keep his readers up to date.

It was always easy to know where to find Malc, a little asterisk on the fixture list would highlight what matches he planned to attend, on the night of Wednesday 4^th January, he was going to the first ever competitive game at Hucknall Town’s Aerial Way ground, a reserve team fixture against Southwell City.

Malc never made the game, he passed away in the very early hours, after being admitted to hospital a few days earlier, but not before asking Kev to post an apology for his inability to update his blog.

Steve phoned me on the Wednesday morning to advise that Malc had gone, I was stunned, I’d been looking forward to the usual banter at Hucknall that night along with Steve, because we’d been ribbing Malc on a regular basis over the past couple of years about the delayed move his home town club were making to the other side of Watnall Road.

The tributes that followed were simply overwhelming, clubs, players, officials, leagues, friends and anyone that knew him took to social media to post their condolences and memories of a wonderful man. As I type this, Malc is the front page headline of this weeks Hucknall Dispatch newspaper, he would have been hugely embarrassed by it all, and not for one minute would he have ever comprehended just what everyone thought of him. A very humble and unassuming man, all he ever wanted to do was watch football, chat to like minded people, provide a service to local football followers and support his charities.

It almost felt that we simply had to go to the game at Hucknall that night, to pay tribute in our own way to Malc, and of course at the game, much of the talk in the bar and in the ground was about him, along with the minutes silence that was held. A minutes silence that pretty much extended to every game in Nottinghamshire the following Saturday.

Hucknall Town’s new ground is a very impressive place, one that Malc would have enjoyed visiting. Situated a stones throw from the old ground, it sits in what is a small industrial area, on what is effectively a cul-de-sac. The first thing you spot is that it’s got a couple of decent sized car parks, and a smart frontage to what is the clubhouse and changing room building.

The clubhouse is large and spacious, while in front of it is a stand that runs the full length of the pitch with two thirds of it taken up by yellow and black seating, with the rest being flat standing. Behind one goal and down the opposite side to the stand is an open area with a concrete walkway, but the goal at the West end of the ground has a large and deep area of cover, albeit with flat standing as opposed to terracing beneath it. Next to this as you move down to the North West corner where the exit gate sits, is a toilet block and an officials room with views of the pitch through large glass windows.

It’s excellent for Step 6 and would easily make Step 4, which is a level Hucknall will I’m sure be looking to get back to as a minimum over the next few years. The move has been worth the wait, this is a venue that will stand the club in good stead for years to come.

For the record, Hucknall won the game 2-1 and I would estimate around 100 or so came along to watch it. It is also worth noting the pitch, a superb playing surface that drains incredibly well so we were told, and evidence would back that up both on the night and at games since.

But it was all about Malc as far as many of us were concerned and it finally hit home the following Saturday how much we would miss him. Like clockwork, on a Saturday I would get in from a game, then it would be my duty to prepare the family meal, so I’d retire to the kitchen, open a can of beer, and start getting things ready. Once everything was underway I’d get the phone out and jump straight on Malc’s blog to check out the results of the day, and then look for games to go to the following midweek.

A couple of people had already posted on social media that Saturday nights will never be quite the same again, and I know exactly how they felt. We will miss the bearded wonder, more than he ever could have imagined. Rest well Malc, the football community of Nottinghamshire will never forget you, and all that you did…..

Wednesday 4^th January

*Heaven

Illogical

Gedling Miners Welfare  0  Nottingham Forest U23  7

Nottinghamshire Senior Cup – Quarter Final

Admission / Programme – £6 / £1.50

It’s actually criminal, criminal that in all of my years of following local non-league football, I’ve only ever been to the delightful Plains Road home of Gedling Miners Welfare on THREE occasions.

I first went in 2003-04 for an August Bank Holiday Monday morning game against Dinnington Town, spending it in the pleasurable company of Frank Harwood off of the Central Midlands Football League.  It was part of a marathon treble that day that also took in games at Alvechurch and Barwell. In fact my second visit came at the end of the same season for a game against champions Retford United, this time in the company of then Belper Town manager Gary Hayward, a man well known in local football circles, having been associated with numerous clubs.

It was not for another nine years before I made another visit, this time a heavy defeat by Stapenhill who had goal machine Steve Hart in the side and I think he might have netted five that night. I recommended him to the then Belper Town manager Peter Duffield but it appears he was already on the radar, and was not for budging at that point in time!

Another nine years has since passed, and if you were to ask me as to why my visits have been so sporadic, I can’t come up with a logical answer. In my mind, it’s perhaps perceived to be a bit awkward to get to on an evening, having to traverse the Nottingham Ring Road and all that, but otherwise, I have no reason at all for swerving them, I guessed then, it was time to make up for lost time and take a look.

So what’s the Gedling Miners Welfare story then? Born and raised in an area known for it’s non-league football, think Arnold, Arnold Kingswell, Gedling Town, Carlton Town (nee Sneinton), Miners Welfare were a long standing Nottinghamshire Senior League outfit who jumped ship to the Central Midlands League, before becoming founder members of the East Midlands Counties League. Of course, the EMCL morphed into the United Counties League, where they happily sit plying their trade at Step 6.

Of all of those clubs I listed, Carlton Town would be the most senior, but Gedling Town have gone and when the two Arnold sides merged to form Arnold Town, it ultimately ended up in their demise with the club now at Step 7 playing some miles away on the edges of Calverton. Gedling Miners Welfare have thrived and moved forward though, and they had the chance to make a few quid on the evening of my long overdue visit thanks to the visit of Nottingham Forest U23 in the County Cup.

Plains Road then, so what’s it like? Pretty tidy if I do say so myself. Located on a busy road that runs from the Arnold side of Nottingham into the City Centre, you enter into a car park that is shared with a Nuffield Health Gym and the Mapperley Plains Social Club (which the football club uses). You enter the turnstiles in the corner and to your left behind the goal is some covered standing with a low roof. Moving round you have the tea bar in the opposite corner, with the dressing rooms next door in a large building that adjoins the social club, while another area of cover stretches nearly the full length of the South touchline, within it a mixture of flat standing and some seats.

The goal at the City end is uncovered while since my last visit another area of low roofed cover sits on the side that backs onto Plains Road. So cover on the three sides, some seats, and most importantly a pitch that had dealt very well with the recent deluges, including one on the day of the game that saw a few other local fixtures succumb to it.

The visit of any Forest side at the moment is always one where you have to make the most of it from a financial perspective, and on the night the club seemed well geared up in terms of food, drink and printed material. The only downside being the driving rain which I’m sure would have taken a good few off the gate.

A declared crowd of 310 was a decent reward for Gedling, but on the field as was probably anticipated, it ended up turning into a bit of a procession as the young Reds showed all their pace, awareness, first touches and clinical finishing to record a 7-0 victory. To be fair though in the first half, Gedling dug in well and caused a few problems, but a 26^th minute goal from Billy Fewster and a further strike from Esapa Osong ten minutes before the break saw Forest’s young un’s with a 2-0 half time lead.

The goals came at regular intervals in the second period, Osong made it 3-0, Oli Hammond netted a fourth and then Osong went on to complete his hat-trick to make it 5-0. Kieran Harrison then saw red for the hosts before goals from Hammond and Lewis Salmon finished the scoring and saw the Reds move into the semi-final where they will play Newark & Sherwood United.

You know what though, the journey back was a pretty quick one to be fair, not anything like as lengthy and troublesome as I remembered it. Maybe then, with absolutely no logical reason not to go to Plains Road, it’s about time I got over a bit more frequently.

White 'Orses

Westbury United  1  Melksham Town  1

Southern Football League – First Division South

Admission / Programme – £9 / £1

Let me explain how I operate.

Each season I have a list of clubs to visit, they are basically new clubs, and / or new grounds that have appeared in the various leagues I like to keep on top of. Over recent years that can range from anything from twenty up to forty, and I think this year it was something line twenty eight, but either way, you get what I mean.

What I then do, is have a secondary list, which is basically every club in Step 3 and Step 4 that I have yet to visit, that doesn’t ordinarily drop onto the main list, and to keep that very simple, it’s basically the Southern League and the Isthmian League.

The plan with that secondary list, as a minimum is to get to at least ten new venues a season, but usually it ends up being fifteen or more, largely due to holidays where some of the more outlying venues can be visited. At the start of the season I had something in the region of fifty grounds still to visit, and while using the simple mathematical assumption that fifteen a year would mean it would be polished off in three years give or take, it doesn’t quite work like that.

You have something like fourteen feeder leagues into Step 4, some of whom promote two clubs, so each year, over recent years, as much as you might knock fifteen off, you find a good number being added on again. I won’t say it’s a thankless task, but it’s not that straightforward.

This season I’ve boxed off two of the closest ten to home already in the shape of Beckenham Town and Bracknell Town, while to be fair, the Christmas and New Year period often turns out to be a good time to tick a few off. Last season for example between 18^th December and 3^rd January I managed to knock four off, but this season it wasn’t quite so easy.

I won’t travel far on Boxing Day, and with only Steps 1 and 2 playing on New Years Day, it just left Monday 2^nd as the only day where I could go a good distance to take in a new ground.

I had two options, both in the Southern League, within six miles of each other on the Wiltshire / Somerset border. On the Somerset side we had Frome Town playing at home to Larkhall Athletic, whereas over the border in Wiltshire newcomers to the Southern League, Westbury United had a tasty local derby against Melksham Town, a neighbour from juts eight miles away.

No disrespect to Frome, but the Westbury game was the one that stood out, and with a 1pm kick off, it meant an early start from Derbyshire.

I’ll tell you what, you can’t beat an early start on a Bank Holiday, there was nowt on the roads. Down the A38, round the M42, down the M5 and then along the M4 to the Chippenham turn was one of the easiest journeys I can recall taking in recent years. It was only once on the A350 that it got a bit busier as the route took me round the perimeter of Chippenham, through Melksham and along the edges of Trowbridge. Westbury was arrived at by just after 11am, around three hours from departure, I was first in the car park, thankfully the friendly stewards had already manned the entrance gate!

So what’s the story with Westbury United then? Formed in 1920 they were a Wiltshire League side from many years before joining the semi-professional Western League in 1984, winning the First Division in 2018. They remained in the competition until 2021-22 when they were moved laterally to the Hellenic League, where it turned out to be probably the greatest season in the clubs history. They finished runners up to Bishops Cleeve and thanks to having the requisite point per game average it allowed them to be promoted to Step 4 for the first time in the clubs history.

Nicknamed the White Horse Men after the famous chalk White Horse which sits on Salisbury Plain less than two miles from the town, they play at Meadow Lane which is a ground located to the North of the town centre, pretty close to the railway station.

I really liked the ground, it’s very traditional but homely at the same time. While it has been modernised as all clubs who gain promotion or compelled to do, it doesn’t feel like the kind of place that could ever be spoiled by progress. As you enter, one side of the ground is largely given away for car parking, while a line of trees separates the car parking from the walkway along the side of the pitch. The Meadow Lane end of the ground has a small area of covered terracing in one corner which backs on to the tea bar, while at a ninety degree angle is the clubhouse and dressing rooms. The clubhouse did a roaring trade, as did the temporary can bar that had been installed to ease the pressure on the main building!

A seated stand sits on the half way line and it is some distance from the pitch, and, to be fair, blighted by the fact that when a big crowd is present people stand in front of it so what use it is if you are sat down is debateable. A large part behind the top goal is out of bounds, with access behind the goal limited to a few yards either side.

A big crowd rocked up, 824, so it was busy, with a good number having travelled down the A350. Before the game Westbury were sat in the upper echelons of the table whereas Melksham, who when they joined the Southern League a few years ago looked like they might go straight through to the Premier Division, have not had it that easy this time around.

It was very much a game of two halves. Westbury took the lead thanks to an excellent free kick from Ryan Bole in the 23^rd minute, but then ten minutes later the scores were level when Sam Hendy found the equaliser for the visitors.

The whole complexion of the game changed just before half time when Westbury’s Charlie Walton saw red. Now this is an incident that has sparked much debate on social media, and indeed a video of the incident is there to view. In summary, a Melksham player went to clear the ball inside his own penalty area and Walton travelling at pace stretched to close it down. Still images suggest his eyes were firmly on the ball, but he made contact with the defender and at speed, I’ll admit it didn’t look that great, but having watched it back I thought he genuinely went for the ball and the defenders follow through caught Walton. In my opinion, a yellow would have sufficed, and I think to be fair, the referee perhaps didn’t take enough time to reflect on what he saw, and, perhaps also allowed certain players reactions to the incident to affect his judgement. Not blaming the Melksham players btw, they also reacted to what they saw and of course, you are going to get onto the referee about it, that’s just football isn’t it.  Anyway, it was a divisive incident, some will agree with me, others won’t.

So, that kind of killed the game as a spectacle, the second half was largely a non-event, very little happened in the way of chances and you kind of felt that the longer the half went on, both sides were happy with the point.

So by 3pm they were done, but one thing I must add, the Westbury United tannoy announcer was without doubt the best I have ever witnessed in non-league football. Highly informative, eloquent, confident, but without being wrapped up in his own self-importance (we’ve all heard the ones that think they are rehearsing for a slot on local radio!). I don’t know his name, but great work sir, keep it up, anyone who publicises the different brands of lager in the clubhouse is fine by me!

The journey back wasn’t quite so straightforward, the sat nav decided I was having a tour of the delightful town centre of Bradford On Avon, and I was going to take ride round the edges of Bath, but otherwise I was home for 6.30pm.

Frome is happening in two weeks time if all goes to plan, I do like a trip to the West Country!

Mardy Bum

Kirton Brickworks  0  Bestwood Colliery  5

Nottinghamshire Senior League – First Division

Admission / Programme – No / No

It was 2pm on New Years Eve, I was sat on the sofa, all my plans had gone down the toilet and I was set for an afternoon watching the telly, and at that stage it was too early the crack open the session lager.

Mrs H had gone to East Midlands Designer Outlet, and I was a grumpy bunny. Plan A was Wirksworth Ivanhoe, that was off due to warthogs, I did look at Plan B down at East Leake but when I finally found out Wirksworth was off and I’d got my dilatory arse into gear, it was too late to make the 1pm kick off.

With the face on, I was scrolling through Twitter when it jumped out at me, Kirton Brickworks v Bestwood Colliery, but being played at the Radford Hymas Academy in Mansfield, with a 3pm kick off! Have it, we were back on, it was a new ground, and it was less than half an hour away, like wasps in a jar, we were buzzing!

The RH Academy (as is it’s abbreviated title) is a relatively new facility that was built on the Western edges of Mansfield as a football academy / training ground for Mansfield Town Football Club. Club owner John Radford and fellow director of the Stags, Steve Hymas, were the driving forces / funders of the project and having never visited before, I have to say I was very impressed with what I found upon arrival.

Located beyond a primary school down a narrow lane, a car park opens up on your right hand side with a smart two story building complete with branding and signage directly in front. It looks like this building contains dressing rooms, offices, classrooms and a large canteen area. To the left of the building are further buildings containing dressing rooms and gym facilities, while the centre piece is a floodlit 4G playing surface complete with small seated stand.

Adjacent to the 4G are superbly manicured grass pitches complete with dugouts and filming gantries, and respectfully, for a club of MTFC’s stature, this is a really impressive and professional base that would without doubt impress any new recruit or promising young scholar.

My arrival was a bit later than I normally rock up for games, largely due to the late decision to go, but when I did arrive I did spot a few familiar faces. The Groundhop UK duo were in attendance complete with a fellow traveller from Milton Keynes, while also in attendance was ‘royalty’ in the shape of Lord Tony Incenzo, the self-styled Minister for Non-League Football (if he reads this I fully expect him to block me on Twitter – as is his modus operandi!)

It was raining, quite a bit, but that wasn’t to put the hardy souls off who had pitched up for the game, and I have to say, despite the score line, it was a very entertaining and engaging game of football.   

The 5-0 away win came courtesy of goals from Kasey Fisher, Carey Knight, Courtney Samuels, Macauley Tinsley and Jake Fisher, but to be fair on the balance of play, I did think Kirton played some good football and had some decent spells in the game.

The difference I would say was down to the fact that Bestwood were stronger physically and to my mind they were a little bit more streetwise and clinical when it mattered. Taking your chances is critical at any level of football, and Bestwood certainly did that.

So with the rain pouring, and the final whistle looming I made for the exits, it was dark, and it was time to go home. 2022 was over from a footballing point of view, and what a memorable year it has been, but for now, it was time for lager, cheese and biscuits.

2023, Happy New Year everyone, may all your plastic pitches be evenly crumbed......!

Movements

Sutton United  3  Boldmere Sports & Social Falcons  1

Midland Football League – Second Division

Admission / Programme – No / No

It’s just a simple fact of local football life that clubs move grounds.

You tend to find though that lower down the pyramid, some clubs have a propensity to move more than others, and it kind of depends on what camp your club is in.

Those less lower down the food chain, who need things like stands and floodlights, will sometimes be more inclined to have ground share arrangements, which can in some cases see them move on a fairly regular basis, notably in the West Midlands where groundsharing is something of a standard practice.

Those who operate below Step 6, who don’t need such elaborate fixtures and fittings, and typically only need a field and dressing rooms, well that’s a different kettle of fish altogether, they can go from one season to another season with a new venue. sometimes because they get kicked out because the venue has been earmarked for something else, sometimes because they aren’t happy with the facilities they’ve been using, and sometimes because they aren’t very good at paying the rent!

West Midlands again, I’m going to give you two examples of clubs who to be quite frank, became a bit of an ordeal in terms of moving from one place to another. Both of whom have these days gone off the radar it seems.

Let’s start with Burntwood Town, right, between 2006 and 2014 I managed to watch them on five different grounds in the Cannock area. The first one I saw them at which I think they might well have owned, was quite a good facility, but then it went from one local authority venue to another, until I seem to think they finally disappeared after a short spell at the Coppynook Playing Fields in downtown Hednesford.

Then we had Malvern Rangers, a bit more of a drag but a very nice place to get dragged to on a Saturday. They had three venues in three years, each one gradually further away from the town centre, in fact by the time they made the final move they actually changed their name as they’d moved that far out of Malvern!

Eight venues, two clubs, neither of whom are around anymore, who’s the fool here then? And I haven’t even started on the Midlands Regional Alliance and the local authority venues in Derby and Burton Upon Trent….that’s a volume on it’s own!

But we do what we do don’t we? Now most of the time we find out in pre-season about moves, but every so often we get double sixed by a club that does it mid-season, and that glorious honour this time around belongs to Sutton United of the Midland Football League, who thanks to an article in a publication, it came to light that they’d moved a few hundred yards as the crow flies from what was their old venue behind St Chads Church in Sutton Coldfield, to a new purpose built stadium behind the allotments on Coleshill Road!

So with a Bank Holiday Tuesday afternoon fixture against cross town rivals Boldmere Sports & Social Club Falcons appearing on Full Time, for myself and Steve, and we weren’t the only ones by any means, it became the venue of choice for all of these with a ticking fascination. The big question was, what had they actually moved to, and what had driven that move?

It became abundantly clear when we arrived why they had moved, what they had now got was a fabulous new facility that should give them the basis to climb the pyramid, something it seems they are very keen to do.

Description wise, you turn down a well signposted driveway where you find a car park at the bottom, which in fairness isn’t the biggest, especially when you report later in the day on social media that over 400 spectators had turned up for the game!

A smaller all weather pitch sits directly in front of you, while the clubhouse sits to the side of the car park where all things of a lager and crisp nature could be purchased, unless you carried cash that is, they don’t like cash it seems, cash is not King in the Royal Town of Sutton Coldfield.

A couple of latch lifters later, Steve and I had observed the comings and goings of many members of the traveller fraternity as they compared Boxing Day notes and New Years Day plans, and on the back of the fact it looked like it was going to be a bit busy at pitch side we made an early exit to the ground itself, arriving at a ridiculously early two minutes before kick-off.

The ground itself is very good, a large changing room block sits widthways on the half way line, while to the right of this as you enter is a decent sized seated stand. The ground is fully enclosed, with one side backing onto the allotments, while the 4G pitch is accessible all the way round via a hard standing pathway. It was floodlit of course, and I would hazard a guess that as a minimum it would be virtually Step 5 compliant, and not a million miles away from Step 4. They would need turnstiles, and probably a touch more cover, but otherwise, this was a very good venue, and it looks like the efforts to make the move have been totally vindicated.

The game pitched the top of the table homesters against the bottom of the league visitors, so you would have been forgiven for expecting a straightforward home win, and while it was a home win, it wasn’t totally straightforward.

Matthew Bishop gave Sutton the lead in the 19^th minute netting a rebound from a free kick, and then within a few minutes it was 2-0 when Joseph Delaney found the net with a well taken composed finish.

However, Will Jones pulled a goal back on the 27^th minute from close range, which lead to the visitors having a good spell.  

The two goal advantage was restored in the second period when Yousef Semlali found the net just after the hour mark (according to the record on Full Time), although having watched back the footage of the game (it is available on You Tube) I would say it was quite clearly an own goal.

A deserved win, no doubt about that, but credit to Boldmere for putting up a good show and never giving up against what is clearly a talented and confident outfit.

The only thing I would say about Sutton, is perhaps on the day they missed a trick by not charging a nominal admission fee. I don’t think anyone would have objected to paying a couple of quid, and that from a financial point of view would have turned what already would have been a very good day with bar takings as it was rammed, into an excellent day.

No, this is a very good ground move on many levels, totally justified, and from what we saw, they are here to stay, this is not another Burntwood Town, there could never be another to be fair! I expect to see Sutton on the list of clubs very shortly looking to get Step 6 status, and that will happen, where they go after that, watch this space….