The Soul Of Football

Mount  6  Courthouse  0

Barnsley & District Sunday League – First Division

A fellow blogger from the Nottingham parish, in his introductory piece, talks about his ‘search for the soul of football’. Well, I think I’ve finally found it!

The Barnsley & District Sunday League, second tier, Sunday 5^th January 2020, was the competition and the date, while the venue was 5ives Sports Centre, or Kendray Recreation Ground as it’s also known.

The back story is a simple, albeit frustrating one. You see in my quest to tick off all the new grounds in the Sheffield County Senior League this season, I’d got Ardsley Athletico on the list, and of course they were playing at a new venue, the aforementioned Kendray Rec of course.

I could have gone on a Saturday, but chose to go on a Sunday instead, and having noted that Ardsley had played and got well beaten on the pitch the previous day, I worked on the assumption that the game would very much be on the day after as no adverse weather had befallen us in the interim period.

What I hadn’t accounted for, was the fact that I found out the day after the game on the Sunday, Ardsley had pulled out of the league! The bastards! Having said that, my mate Steve won’t be shedding too many tears after being told last season by the club secretary that their game he was planning to go to had been postponed, only to see a result on the website that night! An angry exchange took place that night via text, he got an apology for their ‘cautiousness’, but being Steve, he held a grudge!

Anyroadup, I set off just before 10am and was pulling into the car park fifteen minutes before kick off, and with two sets of players warming up in typical Sunday League fashion, we had a game.

I’ve never watched Sunday League football before this season, yet this time around I’ve seen games in the Worksop, Alfreton, and Burton leagues, whereas this was to be my second in the Barnsley variation. The bandwidth of standard has been huge, from being easily as good if not better than Step 7 on a Saturday, down to abject dogshite that I could probably get a starring role in.

Unfortunately, from a footballing point of view, this was at a the lower end of the scale, but from an entertainment point of view, it was top class!

Mount and Courthouse are two pubs in the centre of Barnsley, and in terms of league positions, Courthouse were bottom with a 100% record of defeats, while Mount were second and aiming for promotion. The pattern of the match therefore proved to be no great surprise.

Mount won it 6-0, although the league website says it was 7-0. I’m sure I only counted six goals, but I wouldn’t want to gamble my internal organs on that. It was 2-0 at half time and largely speaking one way traffic, but to be fair, Courthouse did have a couple of decent chances in the first period.

So why have I discovered the soul of football?

It was just brilliantly entertaining from a humour perspective, and also, neither side took themselves especially seriously, they just went out to enjoy themselves. No bad fouls, no argy-bargy, no posturing or handbags, and no dissent towards the referee. In fact, the only dissent was towards their own team mates who had made a gaffe or not followed instructions, and even then it was done with a tinge of banter.

The highlight for me came when at 6-0 down, the Courthouse goalkeeper, who had not had the best of afternoons, decided he’d had enough, He decided to swap places with an outfield player and go upfront.

Courthouse won a penalty thanks to a handball that also resulted in a red card. Up stepped the aforementioned former goalkeeper, and his shot was saved. But, not only did  he see his shot saved, he went down injured in the process of taking the kick and had to have the physio on for treatment, you really could not make it up.

The lad who got the red card by the way was celebrating wildly, his actions looked to have preserved a clean sheet so he was truly vindicated.

A lot of the banter isn’t repeatable (I got told off by Mrs H very early in my blogging days for using bad language), but suffice to say some of the one liners were priceless, especially when the Mount centre forward put the ball over the bar when presented with an open net six yards out.

In terms of the facilities, well the ‘Sports Bar’ was shut, but the away team had set up a table to sell hot drinks which was very welcoming. The pitch itself wasn’t the best and it looked like someone had ridden a motorbike over it the night before, but it was playable, and with a grass bank behind one of the goals, I got a decent viewing point for the game.

Unless something appears out of leftfield. That’s Sunday football over for me this season, but part of me will never tire of the Barnsley & District Sunday League, and if the opportunity presents itself in future seasons I wouldn’t hesitate.

The soul of football indeed.