Nemesis

Brighouse Sports  4  Bowling Eagles   1

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On numerous occasions over the past few years I’ve had conversations with SDS (Socially Distanced Steve) and they have centred around the fact that some clubs, and indeed getting to watch them play, can be something of a challenge.

To be fair to SDS, when he decided to take on the Hope Valley League, that issue became pretty much half of the teams within it! Turning up at grounds, games not taking place, yet results appearing on websites later in the day, and of course the infamous club who shall not be named, who refused to tell him the location of a game because they feared that he ‘worked for a publication’ and was planning to turn up to write about them!

This is the Hope Valley League for Christs Sake, not the Belarusian Premier Division in mid-Pandemic! 

I’ve had some fun myself over the years, there was the club just over the border in Staffordshire who wouldn’t tell me if a game was on unless I identified myself and explained the purpose of the visit. Then of course another club (from the same league) who were more than happy to tell me if the game was on, but, it would only be on if I could print out and take five signing on forms to register new players to make up the requisite number to enable the match to be played!! Seems the manager / secretary had a broken printer and I was about to save the day…..(this is not a joke by the way, a very true story!)

Last season, I spotted Brighouse Sports had merged with Brighouse Old Boys from the West Yorkshire League, and with it came a move to the Sports Club in the town, plus a change of name to Brighouse Sports Old Boys! In early August I sent them a message on Twitter asking if an advertised game was on, but was to find that despite it duly taking place, it was being played at the old ground of the Hipperholme and Lightcliffe College.

Little did I know, but I was about to embark on what seemed like a monthly dialogue with Glen Hall, the Twitter guy and First Team Manager, that ended up going on for a year before I finally got to see them play!

Back in August 2019, I was never going to see a game at the Sports Club for a period as Glen explained to me, they share with rugby league, and had to wait until that season had finished before they could change the posts over and re-mark the pitch.

With other plans, along with not anticipating what was about to happen in the World both in terms of the weather and of course the great plague, I made contact again in October. However this time while the game was scheduled to be at the Sports Club, there was some doubt about drainage and at the eleventh hour the game was moved to the college.

This was to become a common theme.

I tried again in December, all was good with the pitch, but as it was a cup tie that had been postponed the two weeks previously, the rules stated the match had to be switched to the oppositions ground, that is what you call sods law! By now and I was beginning to wonder if fate was conspiring against me.

January, same old, drainage problems, this time with the stark warning from Glen that he couldn’t see when a game would be played again at the Sports Club, until a month or so later when I got a message out of the blue saying the pitch was fine and a game against Howden Clough would be on at the ground. Sadly, I was on a train to London at the time.

Early March, I tried again, but the weather had been monsoon like in the run up to the game, so the message was once again that the fixture had this time been moved to a 4G pitch.

Then the season came to an abrupt end, a season that I’d drawn up a list of 50+ clubs to visit, and Brighouse Sports Old Boys ended up being the only one I couldn’t get to, they had become my nemesis.

But then, I spotted on Twitter once again a list of pre-season games for the club that had dropped the ‘Old Boys’ from their name. So I got in touch with Glen and he advised me that a game I had picked out on a Wednesday night in August was indeed being played at the Sports Club, and, spectators would be more than welcome etc etc.

What could go wrong? Pretty much anything given what has gone before over the last twelve months, but on the day of the game with a confirmation tweet, good weather, and fingers crossed, it was off to Brighouse.

The Sports Club is a cracking venue, on the North of the town centre just off the main road to Bradford. A large car park sits at one end with a very large clubhouse facility being the focal point of the venue. The clubhouse however was not open for the game.

A cricket field sits at the car park end, whereas beyond is the railed pitch that houses the football and the rugby. I have to say, the pitch looked superb, with a significant amount of work having been carried out on it in recent months. It was a very pleasant venue, and on a warm night, a fantastic place to be watching football.

As kick off time approached, it was noticeable that while both sides were out on the pitch, we seemed to be lacking a referee, given my luck, surely not, and as more time passed still no sign? But, lo and behold, over the cricket field he came, and we got underway fifteen minutes after the scheduled start date.

Visiting Bowling Eagles from the Bradford area compete in the Yorkshire Christian League, which is a Saturday morning competition, and in fairness they put up a good fight against a young Brighouse side that would surely have won promotion from the third tier of the WYL had the season run to a conclusion.

Brighouse played some very good stuff on the night, and won the game 4-1, this after being 3-0 up after just 22 minutes, at which point I half expected a cricket score, but it was not to be. If you were being super critical, the one thing Brighouse lacked in the game was a bit of cutting edge in the final third, the build-up play, the movement and fitness levels were all excellent though.

Later that night I got a message from Glen, asking if I’d made it to the game, happily I could confirm that finally I’d made it. It might have been a long wait, but, at least I didn’t have to confirm my identity, state my purpose, or, take any signing on forms.

They do things properly at Brighouse Sports Club.