Birthday Bloopers

Moorside Rangers  3  Dukinfield Town  0

Manchester Football League – Premier Division

Admission / Programme – No / No

I got myself into a wee spot of bother recently.

I’m not going to sugar coat it, or indeed beat around any bushes with this one, I’ll just tell it how it is. I forgot Mrs H’s birthday.

Well, that isn’t strictly correct, I didn’t forget it, I just got the day wrong, I was a day too late (I did wonder why we were booked to go out for a meal though, should have been obvious really). Anyway, I had to grovel, I think I got away with it, but, when Mrs H told me that Master H’s birthday was also imminent and we were having a party on a Saturday night that meant I had to be home by a certain time, my bargaining power was gone!

To be fair though, I mentioned in my last blog that I was getting a bit jaded with the driving so needed a bit of a break, so that meant a long term target in the shape of Moorside Rangers was suddenly on the radar.

I’ve been plotting a visit to Moorside all season but a variety of factors have put the kybosh on it, namely the weather and the Manchester League fixture change roulette wheel! Given the number of home games they’ve got to fit in before the end of the season I could easily have slipped it in during April or May in midweek, but, so be it, a Saturday in Salford beckoned.

The weather behaved itself, so much so I can’t recall a single game at any reasonable level being called off for weather on the Saturday of the game, which is something of a rarity and probably something that could last have been said in maybe November? So I could set off with confidence, but I will have a little moan, about Manchester in general, if I may.

Moorside Rangers ground is 65 miles from my house, but in a car it can take anything from an hour and three quarters to two hours to get to it. Maldon & Tiptree was over 100 miles further away and takes only an hour more! Getting to Manchester, despite it’s proximity, is a pain. You can go by countless different routes but the time taken is almost always the same. In fact it’s got to a stage now where I set off, and don’t even plan my route, I just head in whatever direction I fancy as I get to it, be it the new High Lane link via the Airport, straight through Stocky, up to Glossop, or through Wilmslow. I don’t really care anymore, each way is as tedious as the other, but this time I let the technology guide me.

The unreasonable shite of a sat-nav turned me down into New Mills, on to Mellor, through Bredbury and onto the M60 anti-clockwise, which to be fair didn’t feel in the slightest bit helpful or indeed quick, but then again I suppose I’ll never know what I would have faced had I let instinct and intuition take over.

Mild annoyance to one side, I was off the M60 at Middleton and very quickly heading down to the edges of Prestwich and over the border into the City of Salford, where Moorside Rangers play, at Agecroft Farm, which is right opposite Agecroft Cemetery in Pendlebury.

The ground is set in a large expanse, with a fully railed pitch sitting nearest the car park side of the complex, with a few buildings and portacabins serving as dressing rooms, a tea bar and storage areas. Other than that, and a couple of dug outs, it kind of describes the venue, which has the main road to the South side and an electricity sub-station to the North side. The pitch was in good nick though and is credit to the club given the prolonged spell of adverse weather we’ve had to deal with.

The game pitted a home side sat in a mid-table position, against a side who were also in a mid-table position, it definitely felt like it had a mid-table feel about it, and we hadn’t even kicked off yet.

Once the game got going it wasn’t one way traffic by any means, but you felt Moorside always had the edge, winning the game 3-0 thanks to goals from Keenan Switzer, Ruben Rose and Kai Taylor. The standard was good and it was played in a friendly and competitive spirit, which in turn made for a good spectacle.

And you know what, I trusted my instincts on the way back, I went via Stocky, and I was arriving at the party almost bang on 5.30pm….good books I was in, which is quite useful given my plans for our forthcoming Easter holiday in Devon.

As a slight footnote, I also think that having completed the Manchester League Premier Division with this one, it’s the first time I’ve ever actually done that, and it’s been a league on my list since about 2006. Not saying I was avoiding it or anything, but that bloody journey…..

Jam

Maldon & Tiptree  0  Bury Town  0

Isthmian League – First Division North

Admission / Programme - £10 / £2

I have a problem with jam.

As a child, I didn’t have a problem with jam, I’d have it in sandwiches, I’d have it on toast, I’d even raid my Grandma’s cupboard for what seemed like an endless supply of jam tarts. In short, I couldn’t get enough of the stuff.

But that’s changed, you see as an older and eminently more sensible man, I’ve developed a fundamental issue with sweet and savoury combinations. So jam with anything savoury is properly gross, just like the thought of chocolate spread on anything bread like, or those sick heathens who think it’s even remotely appropriate to lob maple syrup on bacon.

But, the other issue is jam jars, they’re ok when first obtained from the supermarket, but once they’ve been opened they become a sticky mess, so even going into the fridge to get one out for family members who are clearly depraved, is a horrible experience.

So, you can shove your jam, unless of course you are having it with clotted cream on a scone, now in that case I’m all for it, bring it on, but other than that, it’s horrible stuff.

Maldon & Tiptree FC are called the Jammers (to be fair I’ve probably already peed them off by now, but if anyone is still reading from Jamsville, thank you!). The nickname comes about because the village of Tiptree is famed for it’s preserve making industry. The company Wilkins & Sons employs over 200 people and is a multi-million pound business. To put it into perspective, Tiptree has a population of around 7500 people, so a decent proportion of the employed population work in jam!

Let’s change the subject for a while.

I decided to head for Essex once again, this time to an area that it appears has been labelled the ‘Essex Riviera’. Next door to Heybridge where I went the other week, Maldon is a small town that sits on the estuary of the River Chelmer, but it has something of seaside feel to it what with it’s promenade and it’s harbour. It’s also famous for it’s famous people, one of whom is former England cricket captain Sir Alastair Cook who could bat a bit, and some geezer called Sam Ryder who would have won Eurovision had it not been for the Ukrainian sympathy vote.

It's not the easiest place to get to, I had designs of going the same way as I travelled to Heybridge but a closure on the M11 meant my technology decided I was going all the way down to the M25 and then onto the A12. I did set off a bit late to be fair, a long story involving a car park in Derby, but that’s not one to labour on, however it did mean I was a bit later than I would normally be arriving at the ground, so much so I had to mangle a grass verge to park.

So what’s the deal with Maldon & Tiptree FC then?   

Once there was a Maldon Town Football Club and once there was a Tiptree United Football Club, but let’s start with Maldon Town. Formed in 1946, they spent time in local leagues, followed by the Essex Senior League and then the Eastern Counties League, indeed finishing runners up in 2003-04 and getting promoted to the Southern League. The year before promotion they had reached the semi-final stage of the FA Vase, losing to AFC Sudbury, a neighbouring club so to speak. A promotion via the play offs the following season took place and they had a year in the Premier Division of the Isthmian League, before suffering relegation after just a solitary campaign.

In September 2009 the Tiptree United Chairman took over Maldon and also moved his club to Maldon’s ground. Before the season was finished, it was announced the two clubs were to merge. Tiptree for the record, were an established Eastern Counties League side who actually reached the FA Vase Final in 2002 only to lose to Whitley Bay at Villa Park. The year before the merger, Tiptree had been moved to the Essex Senior League, having left the same competition in 1979, after originally being founder members in 1971.

So, we had a merger (albeit that is open to debate from a terminology perspective), and how did the new club do?

In 2013, 2017 and 2019 the club reached the Final of the Step 4 Play Offs on three occasions, only to lose to Thamesmead Town, Thurrock and agonisingly on penalties to near neighbours Heybridge respectively. So they remain at Step 4 still, but they have had some FA Cup success. In 2020 they beat Leyton Orient 2-1 in the First Round before losing 1-0 against Newport County in the Second Round. In 2021 they once again made the First Round, this time losing 1-0 to Morecambe.

Currently managed by none other than Peter Taylor (he of England, Leicester City and Crystal Palace  fame), they occupied something of a lower mid-table position before the game, with visitors Bury Town sat in what can best be described as an upper mid-table position.

The ground is a large expanse, set in an area that was notable for the fact much new build housing appears to be popping up in the proximity, albeit nothing appeared to be encroaching upon the stadium. You enter in the corner, and to your right is a seated stand, with the clubhouse and dressing rooms set away to the rear of it. The tunnel area from the dressing rooms leads to an unusual brick built construction that houses the dugouts, which means you cannot get access to Mr Taylor even if you wanted to!

Two other areas of cover adorn the ground, one being a seated stand that stretches back a good distance and is embedded into a grass bank on the Eastern side of the pitch, while a further seated stand sits behind the North goal. I should imagine on a cold day, it’s probably colder than most grounds when you pay a visit to Maldon & Tiptree.

The game, well it finished 0-0, and to be fair, both sides had a couple of decent chances, but as I put the key in the front door at around 8pm that night, I did wonder that had they still have been playing the score would probably have remained goalless! It wasn’t a bad game quality wise, it just lacked a bit in terms of excitement.

You know what though, I’ve covered some serious miles on Saturday’s so far this calendar year, and I have to admit that it’s starting to get a bit tiring, so for the following two Saturday’s I’ve had closer to home games imposed on me (I’ll not bore you). That said, it won’t be long before I’m craving another trip out to the South of England.

One thing I won’t be craving though is jam, bloody awful stuff!

The Hare

Hartley Wintney  1  Metropolitan Police  1

Southern League – Premier Division South

Admission / Programme - £12 / £2.50

I genuinely thought that childhood memories would come flooding back last Saturday, but I was sadly mistaken.

Hartley Hare, a character from children’s TV programme Pipkins, a show screened throughout the Seventies aimed at the pre-school brigade, was someone who I connected with on so many levels. Not least due to the fact that my sister had a cuddly hare, that she called Hartley, an ugly moth eaten rodent, who once got left on a Portsmouth to St Malo ferry following a family holiday to Brittany.

Anyway, I was kind of hoping that the Hampshire village of Hartley Wintney may have been connected to the said buck toothed fleabag in some sort of way, maybe it inspired his name, maybe there was a blue plaque on a wall to signify his birthplace, or maybe even a pub named after him, but I was wrong, very wrong, and in the words of Jon Pigeon, frankly, I was livid about it!

The day hadn’t started that well to be honest. I was advised upon my arrival into the downstairs area of the house that it was indeed my Aunty Jill’s 65^th birthday so I had to hotfoot it to the shops, and then to Fritchley to deliver the gifts. That was fine, but it seems the one and only cash point in the town centre of Belper was out of action, so I was without wedge, and with the plan to go straight to Pipkins-ville from the drop off, I was going to have to pick up some cash on-route.

With gifts delivered and birthday greetings passed on, it was off to the dual carriageway and motorway network to head for Hartley Wintney, but with a sense of excitement that only a satellite navigation system can give you! I mean, do I go M42, M40 and then A34 followed by M4, or do I go M1 and A43 to the M40, or do I go M1, M25 and then M3? I had so many options but I was going to let the computer decide my route, and I have to say I was reasonably pleased with the M1, A43, M40, A34 then M4 option it gave me, simple pleasures like this in life are all I need, and of course memories of fictional children’s TV characters, that were probably created by drug-addled writers who filled scripts with inappropriate euphemisms that no one picked up on!

So with the route a happy one, the journey a straightforward one, and Hartley Wintney entered with little or no pain, it was just a case of parking up and finding a cash point, but not only is there no Hartley Hare in Hartley Wintney, it seems there is also no cash dispenser in the centre. To be fair though, in my own little tiny mind I’d assumed it would be a bigger place than it actually was, more of a small town, but it seems it’s just a village. I parked up, nowt could be found, so I asked someone…

“No, we don’t have a cash machine, you can try the Post Office, but that’ll probably be shut anyway.”

So I went to Tesco and asked if they did cashback, they did, so I asked for a lottery ticket, but then confusion caused by a breakdown in communication meant I’d paid for my ticket before the cashback had been sorted, so I had to buy something else, like a newspaper. By now my £30 cash withdrawal had cost £3.40 in a lottery ticket that won me nothing and a copy of the Daily Mail I never read……and still no frigging Hare!

Sorry, football, that’s right, I’d gone to watch a football match, I’d almost forgotten about that so much have I been ranting on about other stuff! So what was that all about then?

Well, Hartley Wintney were formed in 1897 and were originally called Hartley Row, hence the club nickname being ‘The Row’. They played in various local leagues for the bulk of their history until becoming founder members of the Home Counties League (now called the Combined Counties League) in 1978.

For a number seasons they’ve bobbed up and down between the two divisions of the CCL, until 2015-16 when they won the Premier Division. At the time the ground failed the grading so they were declined promotion, but then they went on to win it again the following year, and this time all was good in the hood.

n their first season at Step 4 in the Southern League, they finished fourth in the East Division and as a result went into the play-offs. AFC Dunstable and Cambridge City were beaten and promotion to the Premier Division South was secured.

Covid has been a bugger since then, but in their first season they were in eighth spot when things were curtailed, while last season they finished fourth bottom and managed to retain Step 3 status. This season they currently sit in a relegation place, but certainly by no means adrift.

You have to put this into context though, Hartley Wintney is a village of just 5000 inhabitants, and to have a side at Step 3 is a remarkable achievement.

The Memorial Playing Fields ground sits a short distance from the centre of the village and first impressions were of a friendly, welcoming and well run club. Parking on the road outside (after the cash debacle I was too late to get in the car park), the turnstiles sit in the South East corner, and to your immediate right is a changing room block with the clubhouse adjacent. The clubhouse is raised up from pitch level, and with an overhang in front of it, it’s a popular area for spectators to congregate.

Moving round anti-clockwise, it’s hard standing all of the way until you get to the West side of the ground where two seated stands are located, with a tea bar at the very end. Behind the South goal is an area of covered standing the runs two thirds of the way along the width of the pitch.

So that’s the ground, what about the game?

Firstly, Metropolitan Police, I’ve only ever seen them play once and that was in the 1994-95 season when Belper Town drew them in the FA Vase quarter finals, and we all trotted off to Surrey to see a memorable 1-0 victory. So, after a gap of nearly 28 years, it was nice to be able to see how the serving officers of the constabulary were performing on the field, and if league tables are anything to go by, I would suggest not too badly, for serving Policemen……..

They took a first half lead through a cracking free kick from Herson Rodrigues-Alvez, but in fairness to the hosts as the game moved into the second period they really took the game to the visitors and deservedly equalised in the 82^nd minute when Harry Cooksley smashed home an absolute pisswhistler from outside the box. On balance, Hartley Wintney were worth at least a point and on another day they could easily have got all three.

315 watched it, and having parked on the road I was able to make a quick getaway and be Reading bound without any major issues. Ok, I admit I was a bit let down by the lack of anything Hartley Hare related, but then again, there comes a point in all of our lives that we have to learn to let things go……..

Maldon & Tiptree next week, and my memories of an inappropriate cuddly toy with links to the jam making industry!

Branching From The Arterial

Hullbridge Sports  1  Heybridge Swifts  3

Isthmian Football League – First Division North

Admission / Programme - £10 / £1

Essex was calling again as the mission to reduce the Step 1 to Step 4 grounds down to a manageable level continues at a relatively modest pace.

47 before today, I still think I’ll be driving a Nissan Qashqai and sucking Werthers Originals before I finally complete the task, but in the meantime I’m sure I can have a bit of fun giving it a go.

For the first time in what seemed like ages, we actually had a good weather weekend, and with Hullbridge Sports being a club that has suffered a bit with waterlogging  in the past, I thought it was as good an opportunity as I was going to get at this time of year to pay them a visit. The opponents were Heybridge Swifts who readers will recall I visited the weekend before and had a spiffing time.

You would be forgiven, other than the fact I’ve already mentioned the County of Essex, for wondering whereabouts in the Country Hullbridge actually is. To be specific, it sits between Southend on Sea and Chelmsford, but more towards the Southend ‘end’ of the A130. Hullbridge is a village with a population of around 7,000, with the River Crouch bordering it to the North, and as a result it is a popular boating destination for those who like to float on the water.

Journey wise it was quite a straightforward trot down the M1, then round the M25 to the Southend Arterial Road, a road that has been well trodden in the past eighteen months, notably for two visits to Basildon to take in the town’s football teams. The A127 can be a bit of a sluggish road, especially around said Basildon and it’s Hollywood style white letters on the side of the road, but eventually you find the turn off for Rayleigh and it’s then a bit of a cross country run to the village.

As is my way, I arrived in good time having set off at 10.15am and was soon directed via a well potholed entrance to parking space at the side of the ground, and being a little bit more thrifty and self-sufficient these days it gave me plenty to time to tuck into a packed lunch of potted meat sandwiches and roast beef Monster Munch, which was carefully wrapped in a Farmfoods carrier bag, sat next to my bus timetable. I didn’t need to catch a bus, and have no plans to do so in the foreseeable future, but you never know when you might need to refer to the Trent Barton Sixes scheduling…….nor does one know when they might need to fit a modern stereotypical image!

This opportunity of sustenance and indeed solace gave me an opportunity to have a look at the history of Hullbridge Sports Football Club.  They were formed in 1945 as Hullbridge United, playing in the Mid-Essex League and the Southend & District League. In 1953 they dropped United and added Sports, but it was still Southend area football until 1984 when they moved up to the Essex Olympian League.

1990 saw them move into the Essex Senior League, which they won in 2018-19 and in turn gained promotion to the Isthmian League. They’ve remained at Step 4 ever since, plying their craft in the First Division North, alongside such luminaries as Hashtag United.

You enter the ground via the turnstiles that sit almost on the half way line, adjacent to the dressing room / tea bar / clubhouse building which runs from the half way line up to the corner of the ground. Behind the North goal is an area of cover that runs the width of the pitch, with a low roof, while the East side where the dugouts are is inaccessible to spectators.

It’s flat standing with no cover behind the South goal whereas on the West side of the ground are two seated stands of an Atcost style, of differing sizes. The pitch by the way, given the issues they’ve had with it in the past, was in excellent condition I thought.

I gave the bar a little try, it was very spacious, warm and welcoming, with Sky Sports to boot, it was a shame in the end that we had to go out into the cold to watch a football match, but, to be fair, it proved to be a very entertaining spectacle, and a classic game of two halves!

Heybridge were so far on top in the first period it was like the old boxing adage, it would have been stopped by now they were so far ahead on points! But, they only had two goals to show for it, a seventh minute header from Callum Taylor and a further goal less than ten minutes later from Ross Wall.

Numerous chances went begging for Heybridge and you did fear for Hullbridge, but the second half was a somewhat different story. The hosts came out on the front foot and subsequently put Swifts on the back foot, but it took until the 79^th minute before they got back into the game thanks to a goal from Sam Elwood. The goal was the signal for Sports to throw the kitchen sink at Swifts, but it all fell flat in the 88^th minute when Rob Harvey converted a penalty for the visitors to restore the two goal cushion.

So that was it, 201 watched it and I decided to go back via Chelmsford and the A12, fancying a bit of variety and all that. Home was reached by 8pm, Essex seemed a long way away all of a sudden, but methinks it won’t be long before I’m back, only my old Essex Boy mate Derek does like having a read about his former stomping ground…. maybe one day soon he might join me!

Real Tinto

East Kilbride Thistle  0  BSC Glasgow  2

West of Scotland League Cup – First Round

Admission / Programme - £6 / No

I’ve learned quite a bit about how it works in Scotland when it comes to looking for football fixtures.

First of all, there is little or no point looking too far in advance, because the chances are, unless it’s in the upper echelons, you won’t find any games. I use the very handy Scottish Football Fixtures website which tends to start giving you the fixtures up to about three weeks in advance, by day.

I do appreciate that the weather recently has meant a few games being re-arranged, some at short notice, but even so, what you see three weeks before on the lists, compared to a couple of days before can be two very different things.

Hence now, I try not to set anything in stone, because invariably it will change. When I first looked at the options for the January visit to Glasgow I had a choice of one game, at Drumchapel United, but then after the final weekend before the trip, Drumchapel had gone due to a re-arranged Scottish Cup tie, but options were now on offer at Dundee (a bit too far?), Linlithgow Rose (all ticket and sold out), Rangers Training Ground (would they let me in?), or New Tinto Park which was a 4G being used to host an East Kilbride Thistle home game.

New Tinto Park it was to be then, which having done my homework was only a seven minute train journey to Cardonald away from Glasgow Central. But, before we get onto New Tinto Park, we need to talk about the old Tinto Park.

I’ve been doing this groundhopping malarkey for a good few years now, and I like to think I’m reasonably well versed in what’s going on in the football ground World. There are parts of the UK I know better than others, and clearly I’m more travelled in some parts of the island than I am in other areas. I don’t for one minute profess to knowing a vast amount about Scotland, particularly the clubs and the grounds in what was / is the junior ranks, but in all of my time that I’ve been entrenched in the pastime, I’ve never quite seen a w@nkfest like it when it was announced that Benburb were leaving Tinto Park.

I’d never heard of Tinto Park, I’d heard of Benburb, but that was about it, and to be honest, I can honestly say I’d never up until that point had a conversation with anyone about the ground. Put another way, I’d not heard a single person, even those that had done a fair bit North of the border, even mention the place.

But then it happened, it was announced, the clock was running down, and suddenly the greatest football ground that you’d never visited, simply had to be visited because it was indeed top shelf porn of the highest order. I was curious, I had a look, and to be truthful, my initial thoughts were of an oversized cowshed that looked like a complete and utter health and safety disaster, set in a part of Glasgow that you wouldn’t want to be running around in late at night for fear of your very existence.

Basically, you had an almighty covered terrace down one side, with more terracing sweeping behind the goal, much of it overgrown, and in 2014 they exited stage left, for it soon to be swallowed up by housing. But my God, as the great and the good made their pilgrimages to the ground (the locals must have been delighted with the levels of interference by the Hopperati), and waxed lyrical, dribbling into their cask ales about the glory and the sadness that surrounded Tinto Park.

I didn’t give a flying, I never went, I was never going to go, I had no desire to go. But it did strike me that if you told some people that they were bulldozing a field with a sh ed in it, in the middle of nowhere, then dressed it up as iconic, you had half a chance of being able to hold a festival at the venue if you so wished!

Anyway, when they built New Tinto Park a stones throw away, they simply had no chance, they were on a hiding to nothing, it would never be able to even come close to the old Tinto, it wouldn’t have even been fit to wipe the rear of Tinto, it would of course be a bland, stereotypical new build that had all the character of a Tesco’s trolley park. In fact, it begs the question as to why they even bothered, because if the Hopperati are not going to flock to it, add it onto Futbology and record You Tube videos about it, then it was clearly a huge waste of money and time.

Unless you are of course Benburb Football Club, who now have a brand new facility, with floodlights, a 4G pitch, dressing rooms, covered accommodation, a bar and a car park. They must be gutted to have sold Tinto Park which was probably a complete money pit, and ended up with something as new, functional and financial viable as this!

Talking of financially viable, they had lent the ground to East Kilbride Thistle to allow them to take on BSC Glasgow in a long overdue First Round tie in the West of Scotland League Cup. EKT’s ground has been unfit so the league ordered the game to be played on a suitable surface in midweek, hence why I was jumping off the train in Govan just over an hour before kick off.

It's a reasonable, albeit steady walk from Cardonald Station, heading up and over the M8 before cutting back along the side of the motorway, down a couple of alleyways, before New Tinto appears slightly elevated on your left hand side. I would say it’s about a fifteen minute trot, but an easy enough one to be fair, you just stay parallel to the M8 and then look for the floodlights! Ibrox Park by the way, is a further ten to fifteen minute walk further on in an Eastward direction.

The ground is easy to describe, the clubhouse and dressing rooms are behind the East goal, with the area of cover sat on the South side. It’s accessible on all four sides, while to the North is a new housing development, one that sits on what was the footprint of the old Tinto Park.

The West of Scotland League has five divisions, ranging from a Premier Division down to a Fourth Division. The Premier Division sits at Step 6 in Scotland, feeding into the Lowland League, but in terms of the game in question, East Kilbride play in the Third Division, visiting BSC Glasgow, or Broomhill as they are known, play in the Fourth Division.

Interestingly though, while EKT are the long standing junior outfit in Scottish football from the town, they are not the most senior, East Kilbride FC who are a newish entity, sit well placed in the Lowland League and are one of the sides tipped to make it into the Scottish Football League at some point in the near future. Also in the Lowland League is a club called Open Goal Broomhill, who were previously called BSC Glasgow, so I am assuming that the BSC who I was watching, are maybe the reserves?

Anyway, we got a bit of a shock. BSC took the lead in the first half when Alexander McGhee netted from close range, while early in the second period the lead was doubled when Mathew Melvin found the net. It was a deserved victory for the side from just across the River Clyde, and sets them up for a game against St Rochs in the Second Round.

A crowd of around 50 or so paid the £6 to get in, while pints of Tennants and Scotch Pies were readily available in the bar area if you couldn’t be bothered to go outside and watch the game on a cool but dry night. I made the train back with a couple of minutes to spare and was quickly back into the City Centre. We travel up again at the end of February, and I’m not even going to bother looking just yet, a lot can happen in Scottish football in a month, just ask anyone who follows Aberdeen!