Movements

Sutton United  3  Boldmere Sports & Social Falcons  1

Midland Football League – Second Division

Admission / Programme – No / No

It’s just a simple fact of local football life that clubs move grounds.

You tend to find though that lower down the pyramid, some clubs have a propensity to move more than others, and it kind of depends on what camp your club is in.

Those less lower down the food chain, who need things like stands and floodlights, will sometimes be more inclined to have ground share arrangements, which can in some cases see them move on a fairly regular basis, notably in the West Midlands where groundsharing is something of a standard practice.

Those who operate below Step 6, who don’t need such elaborate fixtures and fittings, and typically only need a field and dressing rooms, well that’s a different kettle of fish altogether, they can go from one season to another season with a new venue. sometimes because they get kicked out because the venue has been earmarked for something else, sometimes because they aren’t happy with the facilities they’ve been using, and sometimes because they aren’t very good at paying the rent!

West Midlands again, I’m going to give you two examples of clubs who to be quite frank, became a bit of an ordeal in terms of moving from one place to another. Both of whom have these days gone off the radar it seems.

Let’s start with Burntwood Town, right, between 2006 and 2014 I managed to watch them on five different grounds in the Cannock area. The first one I saw them at which I think they might well have owned, was quite a good facility, but then it went from one local authority venue to another, until I seem to think they finally disappeared after a short spell at the Coppynook Playing Fields in downtown Hednesford.

Then we had Malvern Rangers, a bit more of a drag but a very nice place to get dragged to on a Saturday. They had three venues in three years, each one gradually further away from the town centre, in fact by the time they made the final move they actually changed their name as they’d moved that far out of Malvern!

Eight venues, two clubs, neither of whom are around anymore, who’s the fool here then? And I haven’t even started on the Midlands Regional Alliance and the local authority venues in Derby and Burton Upon Trent….that’s a volume on it’s own!

But we do what we do don’t we? Now most of the time we find out in pre-season about moves, but every so often we get double sixed by a club that does it mid-season, and that glorious honour this time around belongs to Sutton United of the Midland Football League, who thanks to an article in a publication, it came to light that they’d moved a few hundred yards as the crow flies from what was their old venue behind St Chads Church in Sutton Coldfield, to a new purpose built stadium behind the allotments on Coleshill Road!

So with a Bank Holiday Tuesday afternoon fixture against cross town rivals Boldmere Sports & Social Club Falcons appearing on Full Time, for myself and Steve, and we weren’t the only ones by any means, it became the venue of choice for all of these with a ticking fascination. The big question was, what had they actually moved to, and what had driven that move?

It became abundantly clear when we arrived why they had moved, what they had now got was a fabulous new facility that should give them the basis to climb the pyramid, something it seems they are very keen to do.

Description wise, you turn down a well signposted driveway where you find a car park at the bottom, which in fairness isn’t the biggest, especially when you report later in the day on social media that over 400 spectators had turned up for the game!

A smaller all weather pitch sits directly in front of you, while the clubhouse sits to the side of the car park where all things of a lager and crisp nature could be purchased, unless you carried cash that is, they don’t like cash it seems, cash is not King in the Royal Town of Sutton Coldfield.

A couple of latch lifters later, Steve and I had observed the comings and goings of many members of the traveller fraternity as they compared Boxing Day notes and New Years Day plans, and on the back of the fact it looked like it was going to be a bit busy at pitch side we made an early exit to the ground itself, arriving at a ridiculously early two minutes before kick-off.

The ground itself is very good, a large changing room block sits widthways on the half way line, while to the right of this as you enter is a decent sized seated stand. The ground is fully enclosed, with one side backing onto the allotments, while the 4G pitch is accessible all the way round via a hard standing pathway. It was floodlit of course, and I would hazard a guess that as a minimum it would be virtually Step 5 compliant, and not a million miles away from Step 4. They would need turnstiles, and probably a touch more cover, but otherwise, this was a very good venue, and it looks like the efforts to make the move have been totally vindicated.

The game pitched the top of the table homesters against the bottom of the league visitors, so you would have been forgiven for expecting a straightforward home win, and while it was a home win, it wasn’t totally straightforward.

Matthew Bishop gave Sutton the lead in the 19^th minute netting a rebound from a free kick, and then within a few minutes it was 2-0 when Joseph Delaney found the net with a well taken composed finish.

However, Will Jones pulled a goal back on the 27^th minute from close range, which lead to the visitors having a good spell.  

The two goal advantage was restored in the second period when Yousef Semlali found the net just after the hour mark (according to the record on Full Time), although having watched back the footage of the game (it is available on You Tube) I would say it was quite clearly an own goal.

A deserved win, no doubt about that, but credit to Boldmere for putting up a good show and never giving up against what is clearly a talented and confident outfit.

The only thing I would say about Sutton, is perhaps on the day they missed a trick by not charging a nominal admission fee. I don’t think anyone would have objected to paying a couple of quid, and that from a financial point of view would have turned what already would have been a very good day with bar takings as it was rammed, into an excellent day.

No, this is a very good ground move on many levels, totally justified, and from what we saw, they are here to stay, this is not another Burntwood Town, there could never be another to be fair! I expect to see Sutton on the list of clubs very shortly looking to get Step 6 status, and that will happen, where they go after that, watch this space….