Breaking Every Rule

Wollaton III   2   Sutton Travellers   2

Nottinghamshire Senior League – Foundation Division

&

Trent Vineyard   4   Ballers   2

Nottinghamshire Senior League – Division Two North

It was February 2008 when myself and my old mate Jamesie decided we were going to create some mischief!

At that time, the Non-League Matters Forum on the Tony Kempster website was a brilliant and thriving place. Some fantastic discussion, sharing of knowledge, sharing of experiences and general chatter was being posted on a continual basis.

Some of the posters were very learned and well travelled individuals, while others had some excellent inside knowledge as to the workings of clubs and leagues. It was brilliant, and sadly today’s version of it, for a variety of reasons, is not a patch on what it used to be, largely because the vast majority of the better posters have stopped using it, which largely is down to a select few who have both monopolised it and put others off with their ‘behaviour’.

Yes, so as you can imagine, the great and the good of the groundhopping and non-league World were all over it, but, the downside was that it was also a place that was inhabited by those who you perhaps wouldn’t want to engage with over a pint.

Politicians, smart arses, back-biters, snipers and in some case, just tossers in general did come to the fore from time to time. What also came to the fore were those who could collectively be termed as the ‘Groundhopping Police’, a group of individuals who made the rules, stuck rigidly to the rules, and clamped down on anyone who seemingly broke the rules.

What am I talking about you may ask?

Well, the best way to describe this group of individuals is to give examples. Could you count an abandoned game in your records? Is a new ground a new ground if as little as six inches of the pitch overlaps with what was the old pitch? Do pre-season friendlies count as real games? Are you allowed to count a game if the opponent is a reserve team? Does Youth football class as real football? If you miss the kick off does it count? We even get the bizarre stuff, like the clown who doesn’t count a 0-0 draw as a proper game and has to re-visit the ground as a result, or the ones who refuse to go into the ground, irrespective of how far they’ve travelled, if a programme isn’t available!

Don’t even get me on those who think anyone who drinks lager before a game as opposed to real ale should be banned from entering the ground!

This self-styled police force would be prowling the forums, and despite claiming to be of the ‘There are no rules, you set your own rules’ brigade, they were quick to jump on anything that seemingly didn’t tick all the boxes, with comments like “You surely can’t be counting that can you?”, or “You would never catch me doing that…..”

Anyway, Jamesie and I hatched a plan that would send this mob into an absolute tail spin, something that would both disgust and intrigue at the same time, we were planning on causing chaos!

Watch two games at the same time!

We spotted this could be done, and the location was to be Yarnfield in Stone, Staffordshire. You see, we’d fathomed out that at the home of North West Counties League Stone Dominoes, there were some outside railed pitches that were used by teams at different levels of the pyramid, and, given the proximity to each other of these outside pitches you could stand in the corner between two, and watch both games. The date was set, 23rd February 2008, and on one pitch we had a Staffordshire County Senior League game between Barlaston and Eccleshall, while on the adjacent pitch we had a West Midlands Regional League game between Stone Old Alleynians and Punjab United Sports.

Yes, it was a bonkers plan, but we were going to give it a go! To cut a long story short, we pulled it off successfully, and based on all of the rules listed above, we actually ticked all the boxes, including getting a programme at each game. But then, I left it to Jamesie to break the bad news on the forum…

It went mental, quite literally, we were beneath contempt, idiotic, dragging the good name of the hobby through the mud, we were the lepers, in fact, lets be honest, we were both cheats and frauds!

This all happened over the course of a Saturday night, but then, one of the original posters who had initially called us everything from a pig to a dog, came back late in the evening with the following…

“I’ve had a look, and this could actually be done again at least twice before the season ends, once in March and once in April, if of course you felt that way inclined?”

Yep, the initial adverse reaction had turned to one of curiosity, and actually, others were now starting to think about replicating it! I then threw another spanner in the works by providing a chronological run down of the afternoon, but interspersed it with about a dozen visits to the bar to re-stock on cans of Carling! Yes, more carnage…..

So let’s fast forward to today and this mad, bad World we are currently living in. It’s hard to plan games at the minute, but on the Thursday evening I decided I was going to stay fairly local so I took a look at the Nottinghamshire Senior League fixtures. It came to my attention that two games were taking place at Beeston Fields Recreation Ground, but, they had staggered kick off’s on different pitches!

It was like 2008 all over again, I smiled to myself, and without necessarily knowing the geography, I was going to turn up for the 2pm kick off between Wollaton Thirds and Sutton Travellers, and if it was possible, I was going to try and take in the Trent Vineyard against Ballers game on the adjacent pitch which kicked off at 3pm!

Arriving a good 45 minutes before the first game all was looking good, but with a deluge of rain forecast it was one whereby things could change quite quickly. Both sides for the first game were pitching up, as did Socially Distanced Steve, who I must admit I’d not discussed my plans with beforehand, but, being a like-minded creature it did not surprise me that he had the same cunning plan.

Did the geography work though? Well, the two pitches ran parallel to each other, with a gap of around thirty yards between the two, so I reckoned if you perched on the path that ran across the bottom of the playing fields, equidistant between the two pitches, this was a goer!

Game one kicked off as the heavens opened, a game in the Foundation Division, and trust me, the heavens did indeed open! I had an umbrella, Steve had to hide under some bushes, but it barely made a difference, the rain was coming down at such a rate we were going to get wet no matter what.

The pitch held up fine though and it was Wollaton who took a first half lead through a penalty. As the first half wore on players from both Trent Vineyard and Ballers were turning up, while the obligatory ‘Respect’ rope was going up along pitch side. This game of course was being played in the next tier up, Division Two North.

Both the second half of the first game, and the first half of the second game, kicked off almost simultaneously at just after ten to three, and this was where you needed to have your wits about you. Sutton came back with two goals to take the lead in the first game, while Ballers took the lead twice in the second game to lead 2-1.

Wollaton found an equaliser and the first game ended 2-2, while Trent managed to also make it 2-2 in time for the interval in the second game, the overlap part of the games had been completed and we’d managed to see all seven goals that went in during the 45 minute period. Steve and I did work in tandem though with a socially distanced plan, I had my eyes primarily on the first game, Steve on the second, and should the action reach a point whereby a chance may be created we would shout to each other. So the cries of “Over here!” and “This way!” came at regular intervals!

The rain continued to pour down as we edged closer to the action in the second game for the second period, and it was to be the hosts that scored twice more to win the game 4-2, having been behind twice.

By the final whistle, we were drenched, the car park was starting to flood and with a pair of jeans virtually sticking to me, the journey home was a touch treacherous with flash flooding on some of the roads.

So it went without a hitch, mission accomplished, all the rules broken once again, but it was great fun. While I’m sure virtually every reader of this article will be sat currently shaking their heads in disgust, it’s worth pointing out, just for reference, that on both the 7^th and the 21^st of November, this double could be replicated, if anyone is foolish enough and indeed wants to drag the hobby through the mud, wishes to take it on….