Mickleover Memories

Mickleover Royal British Legion  1  Clay Cross Town  2

Central Midlands League – Premier Division South

Admission / Programme - £4 / £1

Not many places take me down memory lane when it comes to my childhood, but Mickleover is a place that certainly does.

As far back as I can remember, we would all get in the car on a Saturday morning and off to Grandma Doreen’s we would go, 8 Oak Drive, I remember it so well, a bungalow at the end of a cul-de-sac. We would spend the day at her house while Dad would head off to football, at first it would be to watch the Rams, but then it became Belper Town, until such a time when I was old enough to start going to games with him.

I started going regularly to football in 1983, at the age of eleven, but some Saturday’s, if it was a longer distance away game for Belper we’d not always go, sometimes we went to Burton Albion instead, but every so often the Baseball Ground as a special treat, which I think Dad liked because he used to leave me in the car listening to the radio while he met his mates in the Vine pub at the end of Madeley Street to have a beer and play cards.

I can’t recall why this happened though, but one Saturday in March 1985, as Belper were heading towards the league championship, I found myself in Mickleover minus my Dad. The Nailers were at home to Sutton Town, and I can think of any logical reason why I wouldn’t have been at the game, but anyway, I wasn’t, he was, so I decided to have a little wander.

With permission from Mother granted, I took a little stroll around Mickleover to Ypres Lodge to watch Mickleover Royal British Legion play Denby Drury Lowe in a Central Midlands League game. My memories are hazy, I just remember a large expanse set amongst some housing, with some wooden buildings in one corner, presumably one of which was the actual legion itself. The game ended 0-0, and that was kind of it.

Football in Mickleover at that stage in the Eighties was all about RBL, they had some decent players, they played in the FA Vase for eight seasons, and indeed for one season in 1992-93 they competed in the FA Cup, ironically losing to Belper Town. They were founder members of the Central Midlands League, where they remained until 2001, before dropping out into local football. Of course that kind of coincided with the club from just up the road, Mickleover Sports, who’s own climb up the leagues is well documented.

RBL bounced back though, returning to the CML in 2013 from the Midlands Regional Alliance, a competition they remain in still today. After that game in 1985, I didn’t return to RBL until 2010, this time for an MRA game against Punjab United, and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised with what I found. The actual British Legion building was now a large two story construction that also serves as something of a community hub. With a bar on the top floor, you could walk out onto the balcony and watch the game if you so wished.

This season, they’ve had probably the clubs best campaign in many a year, they look like finishing runners-up in the league, and only a few days previously they had beaten tonight’s visitors Clay Cross Town to win the League Cup at Alfreton Town’s ground.

As I say, Clay Cross Town were to be the visitors tonight, and barring an unmitigated disaster (trust me, they’ve had one or two at the Cross), they are going to win the league, and should they get a win at Poppyfields, as the ground is now known, then the title would be 99.99% in the bag.

I’ll be honest, and this isn’t meant to be in any way a knock at Mickleover Sports (or FC as they are now known), but whenever I go to Station Road I don’t actually feel like I’m truly in Mickleover, and that’s probably because it’s on the very edges of the place, and to get to it you don’t enter the village itself. But to go to RBL, I go past places I can remember so well as a child, East Avenue on the left hand side which took you round past the shops and the Robin pub. Along Western Road, to the junction with North Avenue, the route I would have walked from Oak Drive back in 1985, all memories of an innocent childhood.

I enjoyed spending time in Mickleover as a child, but we move on don’t we, so sentimentality to one side, what have I got to tell you about the night RBL played Clay Cross?

Firstly, I do like the place, you now drive up through a small new build estate and park to the side of the large building. The RBL building dominates one side of the ground and with the bar opening at 7pm, it paved the way for some al-fresco boozing to take place. Opposite the RBL are two small areas of cover that sit adjacent to the dugouts, while the fence that backs up to some more new build housing sits tightly to this side of the ground.

To the left of the RBL is an all-weather area for small sized football, while behind the goal it is open, as it is behind the right hand goal. Trees are maturing around the edges of the ground, so despite it’s hemmed in nature, it does have a very nice aesthetic feel to it.

One member of the RBL management team is David Holmes. Dave I remember from his playing days, and quite some player he was. He had a brief spell at Belper Town before going on to Gresley Rovers and really making his mark, earning a big money transfer to Gloucester City when at the time some thought he may move into the Football League. He then had spells with Burton Albion, Ilkeston Town and Alfreton Town amongst others before retiring.

The game was tight, two good sides to be fair, and it was RBL who took the lead through Mason Booth-Davies, only for Callum Lytham to equalise on the twenty minute mark. The game remained close as we moved into the second period but the vital winning goal came via Sam Kelly in the 72^nd minute when his shot took a deflection and eluded the RBL goalkeeper.

So, Clay Cross effectively won the league with the victory and I assume promotion to the United Counties League, but RBL on the other hand, I can see no reason why they can’t be in the mix for the title next season. Promotion though, mmm, not sure that getting floodlights at Poppyfields is going to be that straightforward given the amount of housing in close proximity.

But for me, just to be able to go back into the heart of Mickleover is something I’ll never tire of doing, memories of my formative footballing years, a time when Derby County were in the third tier of English football, oh hang on a minute……….