Two Down

Sutton Bonington  4  Thorpe Acre  2

Friendly

Considering it’s not that far away from Casa Hatt, I’d never even heard of Sutton Bonington, let alone visited it before.

The Leicestershire Senior League is certainly going to be an adventure this season with all of the new additions, and having chalked off Northfield Emeralds only the other week, an opportunity presented itself courtesy of a pre-season friendly in the village that sits next door to Kegworth.

I approached Sutton Bonington from the direction of Milton Keynes, which to be fair would not be my normal route to the general area around East Midlands Airport, but a work engagement meant I was away pretty early in the afternoon from the City akin to Lego Land. Arriving far too early back up North I holed up in a Hotel in Kegworth itself and spent the time dealing with the deluge of pre-holiday emails that had arrived.

Sutton’s elevation to the LSL is one of many as I’ve said, but strangely they’ve made the move despite having finished bottom of the Premier Division of the North Leicestershire League last term. That said, squads change very quickly and judging relative standards is not easy, in the sense that would the third tier of the LSL be any more of a challenge than the top flight of the NLL? Time will no doubt tell.

Sutton Bonington, upon arrival from Kegworth, is dominated by a campus belonging to Nottingham University, and the village is indeed just on the Nottinghamshire side of the County boundary. The campus sits on the main road in on the North side of the village, but once into the village it has to be said, it’s very nice indeed.

It’s one of those villages that is dominated by the one main street, and upon this main street Steve and I did spy upon a very nice looking pub, that opened at the convenient hour of 5pm. The pub was tried and tested, and was literally a two minute walk from the Recreation Ground home of the football club. Steve had already checked it out, the nets were up and players had started to arrive.

The visitors were neighbouring side Thorpe Acre, now that’s a name I had heard of! I remember back in the Eighties a team called Thorpe Acre Hallam used to play in the Central Midlands League, and, if anyone is interested, I have one of their programmes for sale on eBay for a bargain price of just £1.25 which includes postage and packaging!

Sales pitch aside, I’ve no idea if Thorpe Acre are the same club but without the Hallam, or a new entity, but all the same we had a game to watch.

The Recreation Ground is basic, in fact it’s a pitch. That might sound a tad disparaging but it’s not meant to be, if they had floodlights a stand and an electric scoreboard I would say so, but they haven’t, but what they do have is a pitch in a lovely, scenic, rural location, and what a very nice place it is to watch a game of football.

It didn’t start too well for Sutton, they were two goals down, and having suffered a big defeat at Bottesford the previous week, it did look somewhat ominous. But, the game turned on it’s head, and thanks to goals from James Dann, Jordan Crossland and a brace from Joe Fitzsimmons, they went on to record a 4-2 victory.

It’s going to be very interesting for all of the new sides who’ve moved to the LSL this season, not least Sutton Bonington who, based on last season, have made a greater leap than anyone, but time will undoubtedly tell.

The one good thing about all these new clubs is it doesn’t take me long to get back to blighty over the border in Derbyshire, I just need to have a look on a map now to find out where places like Fleckney and Newbold Verdon are!