Outposts

Louth Town  0  Boston Town  3

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Admission / Programme - £4 / No

With the absolute greatest of respect to Louth Town Football Club, getting to Louth Town Football Club, especially midweek, is not the most pleasurable of experiences!

In fact, I’ve got nothing but respect for the club, for making the move to the Northern Counties East League, where they will have to endure some serious journeys, not strictly mileage wise, more time wise, and some of them will of course be on midweek nights.

Context time, for those not familiar, Louth is in Lincolnshire, and the best way to describe it, is it sits inland between Grimsby and Skegness, just to the West of Mablethorpe.  But, the ground isn’t in Louth, it’s in a small village called Saltfleetby which is half way between Louth and the coast. From the motorway junction on the M180 it’s about 50 minutes away, whereas if you are heading from Lincoln it’s a similar kind of journey time.

So, whichever way you are going, it’s a right old poke, but as for Louth, they’ve got a right old poke about twenty times to contend with! They do have a derby game to be fair, Brigg Town, which is about an hour away…

My journey hinged on one thing, getting out of a meeting / training in Sheffield in good time, and hoping the roads were kind. It took me about two hours, heading down the M1 to the M18, onto the M180 and then down past Humberside Airport to Louth itself, and then the final leg out towards Saltfleetby. Two hours in a car by my standards is not a significant drive, but, and I remember this from the previous time I went to Louth (more on that later), it just feels like it’s a lot longer, probably because the last bit is the most challenging bit in terms of the roads and the speeds.

Louth Town won the Lincolnshire League last season and were one of the successful applicants to move into Step 6, but the story of football in Louth is a bit more complex. The current incarnation started life as CGB Humbertherm who changed their name in the 2017-18 season after the previous version of Louth Town folded.

The previous incarnation came about in 2007, playing in the Central Midlands League, before joining the NCE in 2010 after winning the Supreme Division title. In 2015 though the club resigned from the NCE and elected to drop back into the Lincolnshire League, but within a year the club found themselves locked out of their Park Avenue ground by the landlord who wished to develop the site.

But, going back a little earlier was the club known as Louth United. They played at Park Avenue and joined the Midland League in 1974, where they remained in 1979 before heading back to the Lincolnshire League. In 1977-78 they actually finished third in the Midland League which at the time was a feeder to the Northern Premier League.

In 1987 they joined the Central Midlands League and then in 1993 they took the jump into the NCE, where they remained until 2003, they did then end up back in Lincolnshire but had another season back in the CML in 2006-07, before once again dropping and folding mid season in 2009-10. By which time, they had left Park Avenue, to be replaced by Louth Town, with United having to play in Saltfleetby, which is where Town are now anyway, confused, yeah, aren’t we all!

So, noting all of that, when I went to Park Avenue, which version was I actually watching?

Turns out it was the day after Boxing Day in 2006, a local derby against Grimsby Borough that they lost 4-0, and it seems it was United I saw, in their CML days (second spell!).

Now Park Avenue was an interesting ground, and from memory I can recall two things. On the night I went it was bloody cold, but on a positive they had a stand with a glass fronted viewing area at the top which meant if you wanted to stay warm and have a scoop or two while watching the game, you could.

When I say stand, it was a huge tall building that stretched back from the pitch, with it’s already mentioned glass frontage, and of course an area in front of it for standing under cover thanks to the overhang above.

That was Park Avenue, but what about Saltfleetby then?

A work in progress without a doubt, but it does look like it’s going to be a very good little venue. A small car park greets you (be interesting when a big crowd rocks up), while behind the South goal is the dressing rooms and a bar area that was doing a decent trade. Three sides of the ground are railed while currently spectators are permitted on two sides. The area behind the goal is hard standing, while to the side on the East is also hard standing but it also has what looks distinctly like the foundations being set for a stand of some sorts.

The side where the dugouts sit on the West side does look like it may well be permanently out of bounds, but the trenches and wiring all look to be in place for floodlights which I would suggest are imminent.

Being able to ‘build’ a football ground in what is without doubt a very rural setting, and probably sought after as well due to it’s coastal proximity, has I suspect not been an easy job, but credit to Louth Town on what they’ve managed to do, and clearly continue to do.

So, onto the football, well it was 2-0 to the Step 5 visitors at half time and if I’m being honest, Louth were never at the races. Louth did put up a better showing in the second period although the visitors from down the road did go on to score a third. It’s very early days and the transition from notional Step 7 to Step 6 is a big one, you are effectively going amateur to semi-professional in old money. What was once ‘paying subs’ is flipped to ‘getting petrol money’, it’s a jump and let’s not forget that. I can think of another club not too far from Louth (in comparative terms) who have also made the same move, and trust me, those players will be on a screw!

I did enjoy it, and even the journey home, via Lincoln, was actually a relatively painless and relaxing one. Football in Louth has had it’s up’s and downs over the years, let’s hope the move to Saltfleetby and all that brings, see’s some stability and sustained progress.

Still a frigging long way though!