Bedfont Sports 1 Hertford Town 0
Isthmian League – First Division Central
Stop the World, cancel everything, Armageddon is upon us, life as
we know it will never be the same again, or at least not until Sunday night….
Yes, welcome to good old fashioned British Hysteria at the
prospect of Storm Dennis hitting our shores.
Ok, I don’t want to be too flippant because places like South
Wales, Herefordshire and West Yorkshire have suffered, and suffered
consistently over recent times, so it would be cruel to say their plight was
not very serious, because clearly it was and will remain so for some time.
But, I have to say, as a nation we are a set of proper fannies!
Right, some examples from Saturday last, the National League top
flight see’s nine of it’s twelve games postponed, largely due to the ‘prospect’
of bad weather and possible health and safety issues for players and
spectators. We then had a situation in the Wessex League whereby Hamworthy
United play on a plastic pitch, but the visitors Horndean refused to travel for
health and safety reasons.
Hang on a minute, other than two games that suffered waterlogging,
every single game in the top four professional leagues in England played, so,
why was it ok for those to take place, and fans to travel the length and
breadth of the Country, yet it wasn’t in the National League, or Horndean?
A massive overreaction if you ask me, but sadly, what we kind of
expected?
I had a Storm Dennis plan, it was Bedfont Sports v Hertford Town
on the plastic. My only concern being high winds and the prospect of a fussy
referee or possibly even fussier players deciding it wasn’t conducive to a game
of football. But, I was happy to take the risk.
I’ve had Bedfont on the radar since the start of last season, but
I’ve been saving it for Dennis, or one of his cousins. Last season we didn’t
get many Dennis’s so I didn’t take advantage of it, but now the time had come,
over recent weeks and months the plastic card has had to be played for obvious
reasons.
Bedfont, now this is a bit complicated, but I’ll try to simplify
and not bore. A quick look at Football Club History Database (I use it a lot as
you may have gathered!) and a search on the name brings up the following.
Bedfont, Bedfont & Feltham, Bedfont Green, Bedfont Town and of
course, Bedfont Sports.
Sports and Feltham are the current clubs playing at a senior
level, two different clubs, albeit playing next door to each other. While
Sports, on the face of it, don’t appear to be connected to any of the previous
incarnations, in fact they started life as a Sunday side, absorbing a junior
club by the name of Bedfont Eagles along the way.
The rest of them, well, I’ve kind of lost the will and want to
focus on the current, no offence to Bedfont and it’s footballing history like,
I’m sure it’s fascinating, but not today!
The weird thing is though, Bedfont is a South Western suburb of
London, close to the M25 and Heathrow Airport, with a population of around
12,000, yet so much has happened from a footballing point of view, and I’ve not
even mentioned FC Deportivo Galicia yet…..
The football grounds sit on Hatton Road, which runs parallel to
the airport. Bedfont Sports is the first ground you come to on the right hand
side, with the pitch running widthways to the road, while the ground of Bedfont
& Feltham sits next door but runs lengthways to the road. The journey
itself, which was clearly very silly of me as we’d been advised to only make
essential journeys, was very simple as some people had obviously taken the
advice seriously and left the roads nice and clear. My journey was essential by
the way, I don’t miss football on a Saturday…..
I did set off early just in case the M1 was scattered with
overturned lorries, but it wasn’t, so I pulled into the car park at 1.30pm and
took up a space in the bar. The rain was intermittent, and the wind was no
worse than on a windy autumn day. Put it this way, a plan was landing at
Heathrow every ninety seconds (I counted them) and none of them appeared to
come in sideways!
So, Bedfont Sports then.
They joined the Combined Counties League in 2009 after a seven
year spell in the Middlesex County League. By 2012 they’d made it to the top
flight and Step 5, while a runners up spot in 2017-18 saw them promoted to the
Isthmian League, where they now remain. A mid-table finish last season was
viewed as a success, whereas this season they are more than holding their own
in the Central Division.
The ground is excellent. They have seats on three sides, and cover
pretty much runs all the way round all four sides, so sheltering from the
elements was never going to be an issue. It was smart and tidy, while both the
tea bar and the clubhouse did the job just fine. I have to say they were a very
friendly bunch too. Yes, I liked what I saw, this is an impressive set up, and
with the large junior element to the club, they look to be a thriving
organisation.
Sadly, not too many turn out to watch them, with just 67 on
Saturday, which was slightly under the average of the season, which is 71. A
seasons best of 151 saw the August Bank Holiday game against Chertsey Town,
while just 34 witnessed the visit of FC Romania back in November.
Visitors Hertford Town suffered a serious blow in the warm up when
Harvie Gardiner went down injured, very badly it appeared. He was in
considerable distress and pain, and had to be stretchered from the field. The
chat was that he’d suffered a broken leg, but I’ve not seen that confirmed.
The game, I’ll be honest, it wasn’t great, but you couldn’t blame
the conditions. Very few goalscoring chances were created, but as the game wore
on I did feel if anyone was going to score then it would be the visitors. But
then, just as I was counting the 28th plane landing of the second
half, Sports won a penalty in the 88th minute.
Goalkeeper Ben Herd had plenty to say about the award, took his
time getting ready, and then, bizarrely he decided to run up and boot the ball
off the penalty spot and out of the ground. He got a yellow card, but the
tactic seemed to work as he went on to save the tame penalty kick.
However, two minutes into three of stoppage time, great work on
the left from Lucas Sinclair saw him lay the ball back to Veron Kokurinkov who
smashed the ball into the top corner to give Bedfont the three points. Did they
deserve it? Possibly not, but that’s football.
The journey home was straightforward, the roads were once again
quiet. But guess, what, of all the games that kicked off on Saturday, I’ve only
seen one report of an abandonment for rain, no abandonments due to the wind,
and not a single report of anyone coming to grief either travelling to, or
watching a football match!
Maybe next time the footballing World won’t be quite so hasty.
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