What Happens In Costa......

Notts Olympic  0  Heanor Town Reserves  7

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Admission / Programme – No / No

Sometimes football clubs appear out of nowhere and before you know it, everywhere you seem to look you see their name appearing.

That’s exactly what's happened with Notts Olympic, I spotted them on Twitter back in May, and since then they have been regular, and I have to say very professional posters about a newly formed club, that really isn’t a new club at all…

You see Notts Olympic, the original version, were formed in 1882 and in the late nineteenth century they competed in the FA Cup playing against the likes of Nottingham Forest and Leicester Fosse. An amateur club, they competed in the Midland Amateur Alliance and the Notts Alliance, but they are probably most famous for one of their players.

Herbert Kilpin played for the club in 1890’s, before moving to Italy to work in the textile industry. He became one of the pioneers of football in the Country, playing for a club called Internazionale Torino, before moving from Turin to Milan and being one of the founding charter members of the Milan Football & Cricket Club, which became known as AC Milan. He spent nine seasons with the Rossoneri, making 23 appearances in total, and winning three titles.

Kilpin is so revered in Milan that in 2016 a film entitled ‘The Lord of Milan’ was released, while in Nottingham, a bar is named after him on Bridlesmith Walk while a green plaque depicting his birthplace adorns a wall on Mansfield Road.

It is also noticeable that there is something of a Gilpin influence in terms of football in Nottingham, alongside Notts Olympic, you also have a side in the NSL called The Rossoneri, while I have a suspicion that AC United may also be a nod in the great man’s direction.

So, Notts Olympic then. Well, it seems if you want to be involved with the club there are numerous ways you can do it, and raise funds at the same time. You can become a Board Member and have a say on the decisions and direction of the club, you can sponsor the club or you could become a Patreon at varying levels, either way the door is very much open, with the clubs goal of returning to the FA Cup, a competition that of course we know they had involvement with.

As I say, the clubs social media activity is very, erm, active and it seems from a marketing point of view they’ve got individuals who clearly have a handle on that subject matter. All is looking good on that front, but of course, you need a home and you need players.

The game against Heanor Town Reserves was being played at the Jubilee Sports Centre which forms part of the University of Nottingham campus just off of Wollaton Road, and for those of us a certain age, just a bit further along towards the City from where the Raleigh factory used to be! My understanding was though that the clubs home for the 2023-24 season was to be the Harvey Hadden Stadium, but we are still waiting for the NSL to confirm things for the campaign.

Anyway, Steve and I arrived in good time, and after a few issues locating the car park, which did include asking for directions, you know what Uni Campuses are like, we thought we’d try and find some liquid refreshment.

Costa Coffee, it serves a purpose clearly, but not as a pre-match drinking venue before a game. In fact, I was sat with my Americano (I don’t get coffee, and that’s as near as I can find to Nescafe), Steve had some poncey Latte, and it was quite awkward, we were out of place, fish out of water, blokes without a beer, you could cut the silence with a knife at times, we had to get out….

Once at pitch side, normal service was resumed and the decision was taken that what happened in Costa stays in Costa, we would never speak of it again, and, never would we knowingly allow ourselves to be put in that position, ever again!

I’ll be honest, a decent sprinkling of folks rocked up to watch the game, I’m not sure what level of ‘entry’ they were to Notts Olympic in terms of their involvement model, or in fact whether like us, they just went along out of curiosity, but turn up they did, for what was the first ever game of the club.

They got a bit of a lesson to be fair, Heanor won 7-0 and throughout the game they were comfortably the better side. Notts had some decent young lads but the athletic Heanor side looked like they’d played together for some time and their understanding of each others game quickly took the match away from Olympic.

So that was it, we’d witnessed history, and having read up a bit more about Herbert Gilpin and his somewhat colourful lifestyle, I can absolutely guarantee he wouldn’t have gone within miles of a Costa Coffee, in fact, I suspect he was looking down on us shaking his head in disgust.

Sorry Herbert, it won’t happen again…..