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…..