Retirement Benefits

Langwith Whitestar  11  Langwith Whitestar United  2

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Admission / Programme – No / No

Friday teatime and I’m clueless, I have absolutely no idea where to go the following day for a bit of pre-season footy.

I’d got this kind of half-baked idea of driving down to Ipswich for a game, but having been on the road most of the week with work, I can’t say as I was overly motivated by that prospect, but then the benefit of having friends who are retired well and truly kicked in.

Steve, who’s days are taken up by eating out, watching cricket on the telly and visiting zoological establishments, had got a bit of time on his hands and did some homework, and it was when he phoned me while I was on my way back from the Doncaster office that my mind was made up.

You see, he’d been having a fiddle around with social media and spotted that Langwith Whitestar, one of the new clubs in the Notts Senior League, were playing a home game against what appeared to be their Sunday team, also called by the same name, but with the suffix ‘United’ at the end.

That was an 11am kick off, but not only that, he’d discovered that another newbie in the shape of Notts Olympic had a home game at 2pm, on a ground we’d not been to, albeit quite possibly not the ground that Olympic were to be calling home for the season.

So, from nothing to two in the shape of a phone call, I was to return the favour the following midweek but more on that another time, but what was the trip to Langwith like then?

Firstly, a fair few clubs have been admitted to the NSL for the new campaign, and if I’m being honest I haven’t got the foggiest who many of them are, or indeed where they play, that will of course all be revealed when we either get a handbook or a fixture list. For example, Nottingham Greens anyone? All I can find is a political party, and I suspect they haven’t branched out into forming a football club….

Getting to Langwith is not an onerous task by any means, you come off the M1 at junction 29 and go down through Glapwell to the roundabout at Pleasley. It’s then the road to Shirebrook, along past the Academy and then a right turn which takes you into Langwith itself. The ground is on Cockshut Lane and is more Whaley Thorns than it is Langwith. Interestingly, Whaley Thorns has a train station, I haven’t checked, but I suspect it‘s not a frequent service and I can’t imagine you can get one after last orders, but anyway, if you are stuck one day in Mansfield without a car, fill yer boots!

The clubs home is a public recreation area, which is a vast expanse, with the football pitch set in the middle of it. They had stuck the obligatory respect rope down one side, probably as per NSL instructions, but otherwise, it was a nice rural setting on a morning that was pretty windy and threatened showers.

Steve had arrived before me, he’s retired you know, nothing else to do, but having met up and carried out the customary piss taking that usually occurs, it was time for the game, and I have to say, at one point I did have visions of seeing my record score, which happened at a game I shouldn’t have been at, when we weren’t allowed out, and a team scored 17 past another, let’s leave it at that shall we! The reason I say that is that the Saturday side had found the net NINE times before the break. The law of averages suggested I was looking good at beating the 17, every attack seemed to result in a goal, and no one showed any signs of easing up.

As often happens though, changes were made at half time to both tactics and personnel, which meant while it was still pretty much one way traffic, it wasn’t the ongoing massacre that was expected. Two more goals followed, they could have had more, but a combination of better defending, trying to walk the ball in, and a bit of good fortune meant that day at the place I shouldn’t have been at remains in the record books, even though I wasn’t officially at it…..but I might have been walking my dog past it at one point.

So that was that, another one chalked off, can’t see Langwith Whitestar calling anywhere else home this season, especially as they have a sign on the gate as you drive in. We had time on our hands and next stop was Nottingham.

I don’t have a dog by the way.