Tuscany

Dulwich Hamlet  2  Slough Town  3

National League South

I do like a trip to the smoke.

We’d had it planned for a while that we’d head down to London on August Bank Holiday Sunday, take in the sights and sounds, before picking up a game somewhere in area.

Mrs L had it all sorted, we set off on the Sunday morning before most people had done their first fart of the day, and to be honest, the journey down the M1, M11 and into the Docklands was trouble free, except of course the final couple of miles when finding our hotel was a touch troublesome.

Suitably in place, we spent the Sunday doing the usual stuff like museums, Harrods, Westminster, Covent Garden etc, before retiring back East for a few jars in the Hotel bar.

The plan for Sunday was a simple one, jump in the car after breakfast, park up at the football ground, get the train back into the middle and finish off the sightseeing by taking in Buck House and Regent Street. Once all of that caper had been taken care of, it was back to London Bridge and the Beckenham bound train for East Dulwich.

That’s right folks, the Hatt’s were going to Dulwich Hamlet, a club with a rich history, and of course, quite a rollercoaster period over the past few seasons.

It’s not been a bad season so far for Hamlet, prior to the game they sat second in the National League South behind early leaders Wealdstone, and if results were to fall right they could well be top of the pile by the end of the Bank Holiday.

The visitors from Slough had moved towards mid-table after a slower start and looked to be gaining in form and confidence, so it promised to be an interesting game.

On the field, the story of Dulwich Hamlet is all about one of the biggest amateur clubs of the day playing in the Isthmian League since before the War, while also having success in the famous old Amateur Cup, winning it four times.

Since the early Seventies the club has been predominantly an Isthmian Premier outfit, barring the odd short spell in the First Division, but this pattern reversed in 2001 when they began a twelve season spell outside of the top flight.

Promotion was won back in 2013, and by the end of the 2016-17 they had won promotion to the National League following a Play-Off Final victory against Hendon. This made up for the disappointment of the previous two seasons when they lost in the final to both Bognor Regis Town and East Thurrock United respectively.

Last season, their first outside the Isthmian League since God was a lad, saw them finish 14^th.  

It’s been as much about events off the pitch as much as it had been about footballing matters though.

The old Champion Hill ground, just off Dog Kennel Hill, was an absolute belter of a stadium. A large arena with grand terraces and a large main stand, it was immense, but it also fell foul of the Taylor Report. The ground was demolished in 1991 and some land, which was owned by Kings College, ended in the hands of Sainsbury’s, but as part of the deal a new Champion Hill was built on the site of the old stadium. They played their first game at the newly built ground in 1992.

All was good in the World, the ground was listed as an Asset of Community Value in 2013, but due to a technicality this was then withdrawn. The ground ended up in the ownership of developers in 2014, and so it transpired, did the club. The developers took over the running of the club, cleared the debts, and had plans to develop (as you would expect) and with that modernise the stadium. But, a battle with the council ended with stalemate and as a result the developers decided to pull the funding leaving the club in a mess.

It went from bad to worse, by March 2018 the developers had forced them from the stadium and consequently they had to ground share with Tooting & Mitcham United. Not only that, they were being threatened with being unable to use the name Dulwich Hamlet. A battle commenced, public support was gained, it got discussed in parliament, and finally, by the start of this season, they were allowed back into Champion Hill.

Support over the past few seasons has increased dramatically. From averaging just a few hundred in the early noughties, by 2015-16 that was over 1,300. Last season it was around 1,800, while for the game today it was over 2,000.

The support base is an interesting one, they have a large activist element. ‘The Rabble’, who reside behind the goal have a Guardianista approach and have campaigned against discrimination and homophobia, amongst other things. They have links, and indeed draw support, from clubs around Europe, one being a German club called Altona 93, who the club and it’s supporters have a very strong bond with.

Arriving at Champion Hill, you can feel the vibe as you walk through the park to the turnstiles. The support base is of all ages, wearing their colours of pink and blue proudly. Once inside the ground, it’s a very friendly and welcoming place, with seemingly no boundaries of any nature. Without doubt this is a community club that is open to absolutely everyone.

Once inside the ground, the large main stand straddles the half way line, while at the back of it is the very impressive clubhouse with superb décor. If you want, and arrive early enough, you can watch the game from the windows at the front.

Behind both goals is open terracing, while opposite the main stand is a small area of covered terrace. Interestingly, a banner hung over the barrier in front of the terraces and all it said on it was ‘Tuscany’.

I notice during the game the fans were singing about Tuscany, so I did my research, or at least Mrs H did the research!

Turns out, when they applied for planning to build the new ground back in 1991, a local resident complained, saying that it would spoil her views, which she felt reminded her of Tuscany. Not being funny, or disparaging or owt like that, but this is Sarf London innit? No, she found her pleas fell on deaf ears, but the fans of Hamlet never forgot it!

So, the game then, played in a sweltering heat.

Slough took a surprise lead in the fourth minute through a Warren Harris header, but just two minutes later and the scores were level thanks to Reise Allassani.

Dulwich took a 28^th minute lead when that man Allassani pounced and that was how it remained at half time.

Dulwich had chances to make the game safe in the second period and their inability to take these proved costly when in the 78^th minute George Wells scored with a terrific shot from distance to grab the equaliser. 

With just five minutes remaining, disaster struck when Ben Chapman gave away a penalty for Dulwich, and up stepped Matthew Lench to score the winner, and on balance it was probably the right outcome.

Disappointing for Dulwich on a sweltering day, but a very enjoyable afternoon all the same for the Hatt contingent.

The sat nav did us no favours going back, we got to drive past the Oval, over Vauxhall Bridge, down past Hyde Park, along Park Lane to Marble Arch, before heading out along the A5 to the motorway.

It wasn’t as scary as it may sound, certainly not as scary was when a lorry smashed into the side of us as we exited the M1 at Derby, it was either take the impact or drive into a concrete wall at high speed, and with little time to make that decision, I went for the lorry!

All were safe and undamaged, the car, well that’s another story, but it won’t take away from a great weekend in London, and a visit to a super football club in Dulwich Hamlet.

Nimby

Fleckney Athletic  1  Barrow Town Reserves  3

Leicestershire Senior League – First Division

I needed a quick Plan B.

You see, I was on the train back from Glasgow, which in itself on the Friday of August Bank Holiday was an experience I really don’t wish to have to go through again, when I spotted something.

I had been plotting a trip to Leeds for the following day, to watch Wortley in the Yorkshire Amateur League, but it transpired the game was off, where could I go?

Leicestershire took care of the predicament, because lets be honest, when eight new grounds suddenly appear at the start if the season you are somewhat spoiled for choice. Both Fleckney Athletic and Kibworth Town were home, and with them being only a few miles apart, it seemed an obvious and safe bet.

Discussions with Steve saw us come to an agreement that we’d head to Fleckney. His game at Madeley was also off, so it seemed to tick the boxes.

Fleckney are one of two sides who were parachuted into the First Division of the Leicestershire Senior League, along with Greenhill YC, largely on the back of a successful Leicester & District League campaign last time out when they finished runners-up to Houghton Rangers who themselves chose not to make the move up.

Fleckney is one of the longer journeys for me in the LSL, being located South of the city. To get to it you exit at the Leicester South junction of the M1 and then navigate your way across the delights of the ring road which runs past the Fosse Park Shopping Centre.

At the legendary Pork Pie Island you head off the ring road and go down through Wigston, into Oadby and then out the other side into the countryside. Fleckney itself is a modest sized village a few miles West of the A6, and upon arrival it was time to rendez-vous with Steve in a pre-selected watering hole.

On a beautiful day it was time for the beer garden at the Old Crown, before making our way back up Leicester Road to the Fleckney Sports Centre which sits right on the Northern edge of the village.

Set a decent distance from the road up a driveway, the first thing to jump out at you is the Sports Centre itself, with a small floodlit artificial pitch and a bowling green to the right of it. To the left of it are a number of football pitches, while behind it is the cricket pavilion and the cricket field where the village team were playing at home.

Beyond the cricket field, not visible from the rest of the complex is the pitch that is the home of Fleckney Athletic. Accessed through a gate and down a grass bank is an immaculate playing surface, with a brand new fixed barrier down one side, complete with advertising hoardings.

Two sides of the pitch are banked, giving excellent views of the proceedings, while it’s rural location creates a very scenic place to play and watch a game of football.

The game itself saw two sides with 100% records going up against each on the field, and it proved to be a game that always held the attention, with no lack of skill on display either.

The visitors ran out 3-1 winners thanks to goals from Brandon Hands, Komel Squedke and Oukari Diawara, while the solitary reply for the hosts came from Luke MacDonald. On balance, the result was probably the right outcome.

Trying to establish a football club though, especially in a village, presents a few problems. That came to prominence at half time when Steve and I were looking at the club notice board at the entrance to the pitch, which contained a detailed map of the pitch area and highlighted which areas were for spectators and which were out of bounds.

An elderly gentleman sidled up to us and started muttering, before turning to us and saying…

“Out of bounds, well this is public land and none of it is out of bounds, I shall be taking that up with the council.”

I suppose every village has them, and if he wants to stand in an area that is prone to flying cricket balls after well timed sixes, then perhaps he should be allowed to. I can imagine on that basis, the sympathy when he gets clonked by one will be minimal.

Mind you, he’d probably sue anyway, because he wasn’t aware it was out of bounds, you now how it works…..

Keep progressing Fleckney, it looks to me like you are doing a mighty fine job!

Pure Filth

Pollok  5  Kirkintilloch Rob Roy  1

Scottish Juniors Western Region – Championship

When it comes to buying magazines, WH Smith and the like are ok, if you went relatively mainstream stuff and the odd speciality issue about wood turning or making model trains.

But, if you want the more edgy material then you need to go and have a chat with Dave round the corner, who has a few contacts and can get you pretty much anything you want, legal or not. It’s not always glossy and well bound, but by crikey, it’s eye-watering material by anyone’s standard.

I’m talking porn of course, the days of a top shelf in your shopping centre being stockists of such material seem to be long gone, you need to dig a bit deeper nowadays. It’s a sign of the times, the kids of today, sadly, can no longer point to the sky and say “Mum, what’s Razzle?”

Myself, like many others, have a thing about porn, but I’m talking porn of a different kind, I’m talking football ground porn. Football grounds that if they were a magazine, they would not just be top shelf, they would be under Dave’s counter and served in a brown paper bag.

The Scottish Juniors is the capital of this kind of porn, the epicentre of all things pure filth, the kind of material that can mentally scar someone of innocence and inexperience. It’s for the few, not the many, the connoisseurs if you like, the chosen ones, the ones that simply cannot be satisfied by an Atcost stand, a nice barrier and floodlights.

The dirtier, the dingier, the more dangerous, the better. I’d heard about it, but I only discovered this porn for myself just over a year ago, and now, I simply cannot get enough, it’s worth five and half hours on a train, just for that ninety minutes of footballing eroticism.

In that year, I’ve had an overwhelming urge, and that urge was to go to a game at Pollok’s Newlandsfield Park. The problem is of course, outside the months where we’ve got the light nights, you can forget a visit to the vast majority of Junior grounds, Pollok included, as they simply don’t have floodlights, and I only go up in the midweek.

But, this time round, after convincing the boss that we needed to move our meeting for August back by a week, it just so happened that it now coincided with a full Western Juniors programme and indeed a home game at Newlandsfield. The boss knows about my football obsession, after he discovered I went to a game at Kilwinning back in May, I was affectionately referred to the following day, quite publically, as ‘The Kilwinning Prick’. I took it as a compliment, especially after a more recent meeting when a colleague was simply called ‘Prick’, so I guess that makes me a bit more special……!  

So, after landing in Glasgow Central just after 4pm the plan was straightforward, dump the bag at the knocking shop that pertains to be a hotel, and then head round to Spoons for the obligatory Pizza and Pint deal.

With this consumed it was onto the train for the twelve minute journey to Pollokshaws East, which just so happens to be slap bang outside the ground. It was a touch early, on a pretty wet evening, to enter the ground so I decided to set up camp for a short period in Lok’s Bar which sits right outside the stadium, almost directly behind the goal. Like a number of Junior grounds, Pollok don’t have a social club on site, so a nearby pub ends up becoming the unofficial home of the supporters, and it seemed to be that Lok’s met that criteria.

Ok, so the ground, did it reach the parts lesser grounds simply couldn’t reach?

Well of course it did, and despite the weather preventing a more detailed poking of the nose around it’s various nooks and crannies, it simply oozed character and history.

Seats? Forget them, to be a proper authentic piece of Junior Porn, seats are a no no, because proper football fans stand up. Cover? Absolutely, because it pishes it down on an almost permanent basis in Scotland, so you need lots of that, with terracing steps underneath, and a cavernous roof that allows the cries of “Gae Tae Feck” to echo beautifully around the arena.

I’d better describe this middle paged spread hadn’t I?

You go in through the turnstiles in the corner, and immediately to your left, almost on the corner flag, is the club building that houses the dressing rooms and the offices. Moving around behind the goal the area is terraced from one end to the other but minus any cover.

The opposite side of the ground is where the cover stands. Painted in the club colours of black and white, it’s an iconic structure in Western Junior football, with the club name written into the fascia. The terracing steps are deep, steep and plentiful, and with pretty much all of the crowd, of which I would estimate 250-300 under it on the night, it made for a great atmosphere.

The other goal also has open terraces behind it, while the side opposite the stand is also terraced, but with the relatively newly built residences right behind it, it does create both an enclosed and an inner city feel to the ground. If ever a ground does not need modernisation, then this is it, and as the area around the ground does fall victim to the developer, all it does is allows the timeless character of the stadium to ooze out even more.

If ever there were an argument for the Juniors to remain just that, and not do what their counterparts in the East have done in terms of jumping ship to the Senior ranks and becoming subject to licencing, then Pollok is that argument.

We did have a game, and on the night it was a pretty one sided affair.

Pollok won 5-1 against a forlorn Kirkintilloch Rob Roy (possibly one of the greatest club names in football after Deportivo Wanka and Fotballaget Fart), who themselves finished with just nine men on the field.

It maintained Rob Roy’s 100% losing streak and left them at the bottom of the table, while Pollok were nestled nicely at the top of the pile with four wins and one defeat from their five fixtures.

Have they got what it takes to crack Auchinleck Talbot this season, bearing in mind the Ayrshire side 

are erecting floodlights and that may mean something sinister may be afoot? It’s hard to say but the early signs are very positive.

So that was Pollok, I was satisfied, it was the sort of football ground you simply won’t find in WH Smith…………

Go on, you know you want to, but be careful, you may need to start paying Dave a visit!

Youth

Greenhill Youth Council  5  Anstey Town  4

Leicestershire Senior League – Division One

I’m not completely au-fait with all things Coalville, despite it’s relative proximity to my neighbourhood.

I didn’t even realise a football club existed in the town until perhaps 2003 when I started to sniff around the Leicestershire Senior League and found Coalville Town. Now that was a bit of a story, they moved up through leagues at a pace and after a couple of late season mishaps they finally found themselves in Step 3, this after a Wembley appearance in the Vase and an FA Cup First Round adventure.

I then discovered the delights of Bardon Hill Sports and indeed Ellistown who both have tidy little grounds on the outskirts of the town. Ellistown was an eventful one, I saw a game abandoned after two minutes due to a serious injury in a County Cup tie with Oadby Town. Bardon Hill wasn’t quite as eventful, I can’t remember who they played but I do recall a tidy ground a nice clubhouse.

Then of course, I discovered Ravenstone, an LSL lower division club playing on a parks pitch, my memories of a game at that venue are a little hazy, I’m seeing black and white and a climbing frame, but not much else, I think they’ve now vanished.

So, other than a few returns to Coalville Town, as I say, I’m not well versed the place at all, so when I saw a side named Greenhill YC had been accepted into the LSL this season, it never for one minute occurred to me that they might be from the aforementioned.

A quick sniff around the interweb and it soon became clear that they were a successful side from the North Leicestershire League, and their home base was indeed on the Greenhill estate which sits a stones throw from the Bardon Hill ground.

Pre-season was quite interesting, as no sooner as they been announced as members of the league, they were bemoaning on social media the fact that they’d lost a few players to a local club that were paying money. Turns out it was Ellistown….

But, local football politics aside, it was time to go and have a look at what the next piece of the Coalville footballing jigsaw had to offer.

I met Steve in a pub just off the M1, he had already been to Greenhill in pre-season so he was going the opposite side of the motorway to watch Sporting Markfield. After a pint and some pre-footy banter I made my way the short distance to the Greenhill Youth Centre.

The car park was full, but the new housing development opposite had street parking, however before dumping the wagon I spied a chip shop just further up the road. With hunger setting in, chips and sausage was the order of the day.

Safely parked, it was getting towards kick off, in fact as I made my way past Don Noble Bookmakers with fodder in hand, the players were making their way onto the pitch.

A decent sized crowd had assembled, along with a good number of the travelling fraternity, at the side of the roped off pitch inside the large expanse of the Youth Centre. A BMX Track, a couple of pitches and a five a side court make up the complex, and it seems something of a community hub.

The game was superb, no question about it.

At 66 minutes visiting Anstey Town had a 4-1 lead and looked completely in control of proceedings, but then it all changed in dramatic fashion. The hosts scored twice in a matter of minutes to reduce the deficit to one goal, and then eight minutes before the end they scored again to bring the scores level.

Momentum was very much with Greenhill now, and if another goal was going to come, it was only going to be one way. With four minutes to go, Greenhill crowned a fantastic comeback with a fifth goal and ultimately the winner, albeit Anstey missed a great chance in added time to make it 5-5!

A home official took the time to come and chat to us in the second half, and he cleared up a query.  You see some of us thought the YC in the clubs name stood for Youth Club, whereas some of us thought it stood for Youth Centre (after the Youth Centre they play at), but it appears it was neither, in fact it’s Youth Council. Some connections with a local church it appears.

A great night at a football club that is honest, hardworking, and realistic. They know their limitations and have no pretentions to be something they can never be.

In Coalville, it might be a case of knowing where you sit in the the pecking order.

White Stars

Madeley White Star  5  Cheadle Town Reserves  1

Staffordshire County Senior League – Division Two

Some clubs deserve success, and the reason they deserve success is they try and do everything right.

Madeley White Star fall into that category, as the tale I’m about tell will explain.

Upon looking at the make-up and the locations of the Staffordshire County Senior League this season, I only needed to visit two new grounds. One was City of Stoke, and the other was indeed Madeley.

They have just moved into the league this season, and with an opening game of the campaign at their High School location, it seemed as good a chance as any to get a visit in nice and early. You see, Madeley have an active and informative Twitter account, so in the run up to the game we were kept fully informed of proceedings.

The journey was a straightforward one on a lovely Summers day, taking me along the A50, past Stoke City’s ground, who were entertaining the Rams today, and then down to Whitmore, before heading up the backroads to Keele.

The road from Whitmore to Keele goes via the Keele Service Station and that was a road I’ve wandered up and down on a few occasions. When I was at Keele Univesity, we used to go out on a Friday night to the Students Union (the SHAG as it was known – Students Having A Good Time!), and then carry on drinking back in our rooms until the sun came up, then we would go to the services to get breakfast. Happy days and all that!

Anyway, Keele has changed an awful lot since I was tax dodging, the old Hawthorns Hall of Residence has now gone and been replaced with housing, while the campus itself is huge, certainly compared to what it was.

Madeley is just past Keele, and the High School is easily found on the left hand side. Signs took you to the sports centre, where plenty of car parking is available. The club had put signs on the doors giving directions for both player and spectators alike, and it was just outside these doors that I encountered a club official who was helpful and welcoming in equal measures.

The club had done their first ever programme, and that was guaranteed to pull a good number of the fraternity to the game. So I nabbed one of those from him, and was given directions to the nearby Working Mens Club for some pre match refreshments.

I bumped into a lad called Ian from Buxton who has gone from hooligan to hopper as he’s got older. I know a few lads who’ve made this step change, and funnily enough, most of them seem to be Manchester City fans. Great company though as we had a pint and swapped stories.

Back at the ground before the game, a large number of the great and the good were in attendance, with the furthest distance being travelled appeared to be Ramsgate, where the gentleman known as ‘one shirt’ resides. Why has he got that name? Take a guess….

The club official I’d met earlier was now manning the refreshment facilities, available for a donation, while the pitch itself was in great nick despite a couple of days of heavy rain. They’d fully roped the pitch, while on the dugout side, the bests views were to be had from the grass bank.

I would estimate the crowd to be 40-50, with at least half of them members of the FT reading travelling community. Now then, the game, it turned out to be a comfortable 5-1 win for the homesters, with the hugely impressive Kieran Brown netting four of them.

Brown is a quality player, holding on to him will be key for Madeley, and if they can do that I’ll stick my neck out now and say they’ll probably win the league.

A cracking day out at a wonderful club, with good company and a great performance to boot. What more could you want?

I wish Madeley White Star well, and would urge you to pay them a visit. Because they do it right.   

  

92 Again

Tottenham Hotspur U23  3  Manchester City U23  1

Premier League 2 (Under 23)

This season was always going to be something of a challenge when it came to re-completing the 92, a mission I achieved for the first time back in January at Fratton Park.

I had the proud record of achieving the goal that many had done before, but for only a matter of three months, because as we all know, Spurs moved into their new stadium prior to the end of the last campaign, I was back at 91 again!

So, how was I going to ‘do’ the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium?

Four options as I could see, the first being a vain attempt to get a ticket for a league game, and judging by reports that seemed to be nigh on impossible.

I could have waited for a favourable League Cup, FA Cup, or if it goes wrong, a Europa League tie, but that was purely dependant on how the die would be cast.

Bingo, they announced a pre-season friendly against Inter Milan, and that was very easy to get tickets for, except we were on holiday in Devon, so from a practicality point of view it simply wasn’t viable.

Finally, I know that the Premier League Under 23 sides usually have one or two games a season at their main stadium, and I had to just see if that were to happen, and indeed the dates fall favourably.

They did, the opening home game on a Friday night in August was to be at the stadium, against Manchester City. The capacity was to be limited to 9,999, and initially it was season ticket holders, members and such like that were allowed first dibs on the tickets. That window didn’t last too long and by the Tuesday the tickets were on general sale, and after a very simple registration process, a ticket was being printed out for just £5, oh happy days!

My mate Dave was also going, so we agreed that he would drive from Stone to Casa Hatt, and I would take the wheel for the trip down the M1. We left at 2pm, the sat nav said we would arrive at our pre-planned parking place in just over two hours, but courtesy of an accident just before the M25 turn we ended up going via St Albans, London Colney and South Mimms, never touching a motorway again before arriving in Enfield, an hour after the scheduled time.

Dave had a plan, he had found a street virtually opposite the Southbury overground station, where we could park for free, and he called it spot on, within two minutes of locking the car doors we were boarding the train for the seven minute journey to White Hart Lane.

Dave had another plan, it was called the Antwerp Arms, a Good Beer Guide listed pub on the edge of a park, and less than ten minutes walk from the stadium. We found it with ease, and guess what, no sooner had I turned my snout up at the real ales and gone for a Heineken, two of his like minded mates popped in, anyone would think he’d planned it!

Food beckoned, we found a Turkish takeaway and had something that tasted very good but probably in all honesty could kill you!

So, I’ve not been in the vicinity of White Hart Lane since the late Eighties when I made two consecutive trips to the old stadium to watch Derby County win on both occasions. My memories of the area outside the ground were pretty vague, but what I can say is that it’s not an appealing part of the World by any stretch of the imagination. The ground may have added a new dimension to the locality, but it remains a largely unattractive, run down, and somewhat menacing part of North London.

The ground though, now that is something special, we made our way through the various security checks and were soon in our seats in what was the clower tier at the North West corner of the stadium. It look hugely impressive, notably the South bank of seats which climbs from bottom to top in one huge tier. Also catching the eye was the golden cockerel on the South roof, while behind the North goals, two racks of executive boxes appear to be suspended from the roof.

It's immense, the best ground in England right now, but then we’ve got Brentford to look forward to of course…..

The only annoying element was the obscene amount of spectators who simply cannot get to their seats in time. It was a constant stream of bewildered people, all obsessed with photographs and selfies, from minute one all the way to half time, looking around aimlessly for their perches. The latest arrival, 70 minutes, now that is impressive!

The game was a bit of a tame affair for the 5,731 spectators in attendance. Troy Parrott gave Spurs the lead with a curling effort, before Paris Maghoma replicated his finish with a second goal before the break.

Parrott got his second and Spurs third goal from the penalty spot in the second period, before City scored a late consolation goal.

The train back left twenty minutes after the final whistle, and was busy, and that was with less than a tenth of the average crowd in the stadium. On a normal match day, I daren’t think what White Hart Lane Station might look like. The journey to the M25 was easy, as was the trip back up the M1, I was in the front door just after 11.30pm.

So that’s it, the 92 is done again, and one of the more difficult venues is in the bag. Spurs have done a quite brilliant job of it, it was definitely worth the wait.

Brentford next though, I suspect that might not be quite so onerous, but knowing my luck they’ll probably go and get promoted!

2-4-6-8 Motorway

Old Altrinchamians  1  Stockport Georgians  5

Manchester Football League – Premier Division

Us obsessive football fans do get somewhat bored during pre-season.

This becomes increasingly apparent on the various forums as the subject matters do get increasingly more random, and indeed banal.

Typically, topical matters have included ‘Nearest Ground You’ve Not Visited’, ‘Grounds Furthest From A Railway Station’ and of course, one of my favourites, ‘Grounds You’ve Had A Toilet Related Mishap In’.

One that also popped up recently was ‘Grounds You Can See From A Motorway’, well, this is a subject that is somewhat contentious. Why would that be you might ask? Well, take Walsall, that can be seen plain as day from the M6, and of course would qualify, but what about Carlisle United? You can see the floodlights from the M6, but they are about two miles away? Can you really see the ground?

Anyway, this subject matter rumbled on, and to my surprise, the name of Old Altrinchamians came into the mix. I was surprised in the sense, that the quoted M60 is a road I’ve driven round on countless occasions, but never could I recall seeing a football ground in the said location?

It turns out it was one of those contentious ones again, in the sense that the ground of the Old Alts (as they will be known from now as it’s easier to type), sits almost right underneath the motorway, but as it’s very well shielded by trees, you would have to pull up onto the hard shoulder and lean over the edge of the barriers to actually get a glimpse of it.

Ok, not a very exciting subject matter I admit, but I guess back in the pre-internet and Google Maps days it was always a challenge when travelling in foreign parts to try and work out who’s ground you’ve just seen? On that, and this is in the modern era, I was once on a tube train going into London with a load of Liverpool fans who were also on the way to a game. We travelled past The Hive, the home of Barnet, when one of our Scouse brethren asked loudly “Who’s ground is that?” We were met with silence, until one of them, in all seriousness, piped up, “Burton Albion”. They really shouldn’t be allowed out should they?

So, back to the subject matter in question, Old Alts. It was my one and only choice of a game on a wet and windy Wednesday night, in fact it was so wet I did have some doubts whether the game would be on, but it turned out to be ok.

The journey from the other side of the hills was fine, and pretty soon we were trundling along the M60 admiring the floodlights of Stockport County (stop it!). The Old Alts ground  is at Crossford Bridge Playing Fields, with the River Mersey running close by, along with the motorway and the M56.

It’s a large complex, comprising of a number of sports fields, an athletics track, and a railed off pitch that is set away from the main pitches, right underneath the motorway, and this is where they play.

After parking up and checking all was ok, I took a very short walk to the Bridge pub on Dane Road and had myself a pint of San Miguel. I wanted some dry roasted peanuts, but they didn’t do bar snacks, just meals, I wasn’t happy, I won’t be going again. What’s the use of a pub without bar snacks?

Gripe aside, I was back in time for kick off along with a handful of spectators, which included Andy and Martin, two fellas I know from the circuit. Old Alts had drawn their opening game with newly promoted Pennington 2-2, while neighbouring Stockport Georgians had also been held to a draw on the opening game courtesy of a 3-3 with Beechfield United.

It started well for Old Alts when Dave Drinkwater gave them the lead but by half time, thanks to some excellent football from the visitors, they had raced to a 4-1 lead.

You did fear a cricket store at this stage, but a much better second half performance saw the hosts concede just one more goal. The scorers for Stockport were Luke Flanagan, Adam Gardiner, Samuel John, Michael Rodden and Will Wareing.

Old Alts have now embarked on their fifth consecutive season of Manchester League top flight football, equalling their best ever run since joining the league. They finished twelfth out of fifteen last season after finishing bottom the previous campaign. Clearly they will be looking to push on this time around. They showed enough in patches during the game to suggest they’ll be ok this season.

So, the ground that is hidden under the M60 is ticked off, and, in case you were wondering, my answer to one of those three initial questions at the start of this blog, Hitchin Town, I’ll leave the rest to your imagination………….