Alehouse (Part One)

TL Darby  0  Donisthorpe  2

Burton & District Sunday League – Second Division

I swore it would never happen.

As far as I was concerned, Sunday football was one thing and one thing only, pub football, and I had absolutely no intention of making any sort of effort to watch it.

My view was a stereotypical one of overweight cloggers who had just fallen out the pub, and after ninety minutes and a fag or two, they would be back with pint in hand to discuss who they had just kicked up in the air.

Clearly, certainly historically, it’s a bit more than that. Locally back in the seventies and eighties we had the Midland Sunday League which contained great sides like Northcliffe United, Redfern Athletic, Belper Laundend and Marehay Royal Oak.

On a national level, the FA Sunday Cup is a prestigious competition and to reach the latter stages of that, you are in all likelihood a team made up of semi-professionals who ply their Saturday trade a decent way up the football pyramid.

But, history and the upper echelons aside, I was still very much of the view that it was largely made up of ‘Alehousers’, and nothing would get me out of the house to watch it.

But then I’ve allowed one or two people to get into my ear.

Dave, upon moving to Stone, has developed a habit of watching games in the Stafford and Beacon Sunday Leagues, but Steve, who at one point shared my views, had also started to watch a few games, but his rationale was a bit more calculated than Dave, who simply wanted something to do on a Sunday!

Steve wasn’t overly keen on the idea of watching rock bottom level parks football on a Saturday, when he could be somewhere more exotic, like Sussex, or Wales, or more recently, Leicestershire. Put another way, in his World, going to a Midlands Regional Alliance or Hope Valley League game on a Saturday was a waste. So he had a look to see if he could knock off the grounds in a different way, and that lead to Sunday football.

I saw the sense, if you are going to watch a grassroots game on a Saturday for what is effectively a box ticking exercise, why not watch the same players turning out on a Sunday on the same pitch, for a different team?

Ok, I was kind of buying it, but rather than trawl through a pile of Sunday League fixtures to find the grounds that were used by the Saturday clubs I was chasing, I let Steve do the hard work, and he managed to conjure up a nice little double on the first Sunday of September!

Willington of the MRA had moved to Hatton from their base in the village, and three divisions deep into the Burton & District Sunday League were TL Darby, the side representing the Volkswagen dealership of the same name.

So that was it, a 10.30am kick off, and after a couple of aborted attempts to find the entrance to the Sports Ground on Scropton Road, I’d landed, and weirdly, without warning, into the car park rolled Dave! Seems after telling him the previous day of my plans and the fact that he could spread his wings into Derbyshire and East Staffordshire, he decided to pop over himself. Then of course, complete with trail of expletives having missed the turning and driven into the next village, Steve arrived, we had a full set.

It’s a pitch, with a kids play area to the side, and behind the goal sits the dressing rooms and a Sports & Social Club, that appeared to be open. I was quite impressed that none of the players chose to have a pre-match pint, in fact I was quite impressed with myself that I didn’t partake either!

I’m not going to dwell on the game, it wasn’t very good. The away side looked better throughout and won 2-0, in fact it could have been many more but hitting the target seemed a challenge.

Yes, with it being the first game of the season, one or two looked like they’d enjoyed the Summer, but to be fair, no dissent, no attempts to maim or dismember a member of opposition, and the half time fag break passed by with minimal urinating in the bushes!

So, some pre-conceptions blown out of the water, this wasn’t the disorganised clog fest, bordering on civil war I was expecting. Ok, it wasn’t Champions League, but it was honest stuff. Tick in the box, in more ways than one, but what was the afternoon going to bring, more to follow, followers…………!