The School

 

Pass Move Grin  2  Beeston Development  1

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Towards the latter part of 2018-19 season a football club called Rushcliffe came to my attention.

They burst onto social media platforms, and indeed the popular Non-League Matters forum with a bit of a bang, and clearly those who ran the accounts had a very good knowledge of local football, plus an understanding of the mechanics and the politics that go with it.

I followed them, they were initially going to join the Notts Senior League but made a late decision to move into the Notts & Midland Amateur Alliance instead. The reasoning behind this was because they felt to join the NSL at that stage would be a step and standard too far for them.

I also established at the time that they were playing in East Leake, and if memory serves me that was due to the costs involved in getting a suitable facility in their own borough, which is of course just South of the River Trent in a desirable yet fairly central area of Nottingham.

I’d also heard of the Nottingham Football Centre, based at Rushcliffe School, a popular and well utilised venue, albeit one I’d never seen a game at, and to be honest, I was at a bit of a loss as to why it had never been used by an NSL side on a Saturday before as a regular base, especially as it had grass and 4G options.

Things have changed in recent months though, now I assume Rushcliffe would have made the step up to the NSL anyway as was their long term intention, but with news that the Amateur Alliance was folding and all clubs were being invited to join the NSL, they dropped onto my radar once again. Social media has been busy and it soon became clear that they would be taking up residence in their ‘home’ patch, at the aforementioned Football Centre.

As soon as football was allowed to resume, the fixtures came thick and fast at  the Centre, pretty much every Saturday has seen Rushcliffe and Rushcliffe Ravens (reserves) have home games kicking off at different times, on both grass and plastic, while other teams were encouraged to take advantage as well.

I’d got the Centre pencilled in for a Rushcliffe game until I spotted a Thursday evening fixture that caught my eye, a game between Beeston Development, and the superbly named Pass Move and Grin FC.

Now, I’d come across PMG (it’s much easier abbreviated) a few years ago when they had some connection with the club that is now FC Cavaliers and was once Caribbean Cavaliers. For a season or so the club was named PMG Cavaliers and I saw them play at Charnwood College down in Clifton.

From my point of view, or certainly where I was looking, the name disappeared off the radar, although it seems it still carried on in youth circles. But then a team called Nottingham Education appeared last season in the Central Midlands League, and the team that is now PMG are what was that club, taking up the place in the CML, you following me so far?

I’m not going to talk too much about the growth and ethos of PMG as they have a ground of their own in Bulwell that I’ll visit in due course and report on, but for the purpose of this blog I want to really focus on the hive of activity that is the Football Centre.

I arrived in good time having fought my way through the roadworks on the delightful ring road, and was quickly parked at the front of the smart college, which even for non-term time (do we still have schools anymore?), was a busy place. You then walk round to the back of the college where a number of grass pitches are side by side, while the 4G surface is set in a cage, at the far end of the complex, surrounded on three sides by trees. A further grass pitch sits to the East of the 4G but in between is the Football Centre HQ, which you will be delighted to know contains a bar! How about that, a school with a bar?

It's an impressive set up, and on the night in question, the 4G was in continual use, while one of the pitches was being used for a gigantic outdoor keep fit session which was mildly entertaining viewing for a short while.

The game between PMG and Beeston took place on the grass pitch nearest to the 4G, the same pitch that my mate Dave had seen East Leake Robins play Rushcliffe on the night before it seems. And on a night that was warm and humid, and with a pitch that was very hard underfoot, it was going to be interesting to see how it panned out.

PMG were a young outfit, very young in fact, and it was they who went into a two goal lead, but Beeston pulled a goal back in the second period, and had it not been from some absolute heroics from the PMG goalkeeper, the result could easily have been very different.

It will be interesting to see how grassroots football in Nottinghamshire pans out this season, PMG are obviously a big part of the fabric, while the influx of new sides, including Rushcliffe, into the NSL will be one worth keeping an eye on.

I’ve a feeling I’ll be heading down the A52 quite a bit over the coming months…..