Swanwick

Boot   2   FC Chadd 2013   2

Alfreton Sunday League – Division One

The Sunday League football crusade continues unabated, and it looks like extending into November due to a combination of factors.

Postponements have curtailed one or two games, re-arrangements have taken place, and I’ve even had a slight issue in terms of a team from a Young Offenders Institution and being able to glean whether a game is actually taking place or not!

The latest one that’s crept up on us is another change in the Midlands Regional Alliance. You may recall earlier in the season I took in a game at Riddings Recreation Ground, the new home of Inter Belper, well it seems that for some reason everyone who plays on the ground in Riddings, be it Saturday or Sunday, has been turfed off and left to find a new home!

It seems Inter Belper have found a new home, and that happens to be Swanwick Recreation Ground, a venue very close to home, but, and this is something Sunday League football is teaching me, I never had any idea that it actually existed.

I only found out about this change a couple of weeks ago, and I missed my first opportunity to pay it a visit because I had a pre-arranged amble round Alfreton Golf Course with young Master Hatt. However, despite one or two games being postponed in the Alfreton Sunday League this weekend, it seemed the game between Boot and FC Chadd 2013 was still on, or at least it was an hour before kick off when I started to dig out some dry clothes after a very wet previous day in Nottingham.

Socially Distanced Steve had also got it on the radar, and to be fair, just as I was driving into Swanwick he gave me a call to say he was at the ground and all was ok. I had been pre-warned not to try and park on the roads that run up to the pitch due to the tightness and lack of parking spaces, so with a space found on High Street, it was a short walk over the road and down to the rec.

Swanwick is a village located on the road from Alfreton to Ripley. To be honest, I’ve not really had an awful lot of contact with it over the years, barring a couple of trips to watch the now defunct Swanwick Pentrich Road, and a couple of pre-match pints in the local boozers before the games.

Swanwick Hall School, along with Frederick Gent at South Normanton was always my old schools big rivals, I don’t think we ever had the all-out mass fight with them that was always threatened, but we did play them once at football when we were in the Sixth Form and we did beat them! They had Kevin Pilkington in goal, who went on to sign a professional contract at Manchester United, playing six times, then he went on to play over 300 games for Mansfield Town and Notts County.

If you didn’t know where Swanwick Recreation Ground was, you wouldn’t find it, simply because you can’t actually see it until you are on it! If you are coming up the main road from Alfreton, just as you pass the Cross Keys pub on the left, you do a left down Chapel Street and it sits right at the end. You’ve got two pitches, one raised on a plateau, with a changing room block in the corner. The pitches looked in very good condition to be fair, but once it pitch side it was noticeable that we only had one team!

Not to worry though, like the cavalry coming from the pub car park, already clad in their kit, at the top of Chapel Street you could see the lads from Chadd making their way down to pitch side. Chadd is of course the nickname for Chaddesden, a huge housing estate on the North side of Derby, and they happen to be in the Alfreton Sunday League after it merged with the Derby Sunday League a few years ago.

With an old school referee in charge, we had an entertaining game, albeit, the pitch was very narrow and consequently the ball did seem to be out of play for a fair amount of time. Both sides had a decent contingent of staff / helpers, so with a lively atmosphere on the touchline, they were treated to a 2-2 draw, with Chadd getting the equaliser late in the game. A fair result I guess, with the Boot, named after the nearby Boot & Slipper pub, goals coming from Finn Parkin and an own goal. Boot also included Sam Weston (Son of Rainworth Miners Welfare & ex-Selston Manager Craig Weston) in their side, a cracking lad to boot (no pun intended)! Chadd’s goals came from Charlie Naylor and Jake Walters.

Two more Sunday’s I reckon, unless of course anything changes, and in the current climate things can change very quickly. Now then, what’s the number again for the Young Offenders Institution…..