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!