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.