Down Regatta Way

West Bridgford  3  Eastwood Community  1

East Midlands Counties League

For a number of years West Bridgford Colts were mooted as possible entrants to the Central Midlands League. I didn’t try and find a bookmaker who’d give me odds on it, but if I had, they probably would have been quite short.

As a very successful junior club, with good facilities on Regatta Way, they were clearly well placed to make the step up to senior football, and when they put a side in the Under 19’s league along with some of the more senior local non-league clubs, you felt it was just a matter of time.

But, they took a slightly different route from the one we all expected, they made the move into the Nottinghamshire Senior League, worked their way through the divisions and then having made some great strides in terms of developing the ground, they found themselves at Step 6 for the first time in 2016 when they were promoted to the East Midlands Counties League.

Clearly on a roll, they were crowned Champions in their debut season, scoring 115 goals and amassing 94 points in the process. Promotion to the Midland Football League and Step 5 had been achieved, or so we thought.

Without knowing the full in’s and out’s of what actually then happened, it did look from out the outside that the club imploded. I might be wrong, but the management team and the players suddenly either had a change of heart, or, wanted rewarding accordingly, and as a result the club found themselves parting company with many who had taken them to glory.

Promotion was declined and at one point it did look like the senior section would cease to exist, but they rallied round and were able to carry on in the league they had just won. They managed to secure a fifteenth placed finish last season, and it does look as though some stability has been restored.

When I first went to Regatta Way back in 2013, it had a smart changing room complex with clubroom, and was set in a huge complex of sports pitches, very close to the National Watersports Centre at Holme Pierrepont. The football club shared the facility with Gedling & Sherwood Cricket Club, who had two pitches, while from a footballing perspective there were three pitches.

The ground has transformed hugely over the past five years. Now with floodlights, the main pitch is fully enclosed, and has a small Atcost on one side. The two other football pitches are fully railed and infilled, and also have dugouts. It looks very smart, while the club building is always tidy, and the car park spacious.

Access wise it’s a doddle, straight round the Nottingham Ring Road, and once you reach the roundabout at Gamston, rather than turning right towards six-fingerville (Grantham), turn left and then do a right at the lights. The ground is a couple of hundred yards on the right hand side.

I took Derek with me tonight. I only met Derek a few weeks back through my old pal Dave Garrow. He’s a real football enthusiast, and living in Nottingham I suggested I pick him up and we head over to the game together. Derek is a smashing fella, very knowledgeable, well-travelled, and we have a common interest in football programmes and memorabilia, hence how we got introduced.  It’s not every day you get to go to a game with the Guildford City and Aldershot Reserves coach driver from the early Seventies!

So what about the game? Well West Bridgford were rock bottom of the table with seven defeats from seven league games, while newly promoted Eastwood were in a mid-table position. Myself, perhaps like many neutral observers in the crowd of exactly 100, were probably thinking this would be an easy away win, and when they took a sixth minute lead it certainly didn’t change my opinion.

However, I’d not bargained for the spirit the hosts were going to show, and when the equalised four minutes later from a clear penalty, it seemed to raise their confidence and energy levels.

The scores remained level at half time but then in the second period West Bridgford capitalised on a mistake to score their second goal just short of the hour mark, and then twenty minutes later they sealed the victory with a very well taken goal. In the end, no one could argue with the outcome, West Bridgford thoroughly deserved the three points that took them away from the foot of the table.

An enjoyable game, especially the second period at a ground I visit infrequently, but then again, you know what they say about us Rams doing our business on the Red side of the Trent………