Cages

Oldbury United  2  Bewdley Town Development  1

West Midlands Regional League – Division Two

Admission / Programme - £5 / No

I had a plan, we’d leave Weymouth early on the Saturday morning, and as long as the traffic behaved itself, then I reckoned I could drop Mrs and Master H off, before doing an about turn and heading to football, in Wolverhampton!

All went pretty much to plan, Storm Adolf or whatever it was called wasn’t helpful as high winds and rain buffeted much of the South of England, and of course the lottery that is the A38 at Lichfield gave us a decision to make in terms of going all the way up to East Midlands Airport.

Feeling a little weary after what was around four and a half hours on the road, the car was unloaded and it was time to do an about turn, the destination being the City of Wolverhampton College, Bilston Campus!

My only concern was the game I’d got in mind, Oldbury United v Bewdley Town Development, while it may have been scheduled to be played on an artificial surface, I had no concerns about the weather, but at the same time, neither club had put anything on social media. I did have a backup plan at Dudley Kingswinford which wasn’t far away, but I was mindful that was due to be played on a grass pitch, and to be fair, games across the Country were being called off.

It’s the West Midlands Regional League, we’ve got two new venues this season to visit, it was looking like four at one stage but when Brierley Hill Alliance discovered they couldn’t find any players, and Kewford Eagles decided not to bother, it left us with a couple of clubs in the Black Country, both of which were not far from each other.

Oldbury came as a bit of a surprise though, they’ve been around, on and off, for a while now, so not a new club by any means, more on that later, but I must admit, I wasn’t expecting to see them on the new grounds list for this season. But, what of this club?

I remember the name from when I first got into non-league football in the mid-Eighties. And the reason I remember it is very specific. I think we were on a family day out to West Midlands Safari Park, and when we drove down the M5 I remember seeing a set of distinctive floodlights on the right hand side, very close to the edge of the carriageway. I can’t remember exactly how I worked it out, probably via the Non-League Directory and a Birmingham A-Z, but it was the Cricketts home of Southern League club Oldbury.

Oldbury United came about when clubs Queens Colts and Oldbury Town merged and joined the Worcestershire Combination in 1966. A couple of years later they joined the Midland Combination before electing to join the Midland Division of the Southern League. They remained for four seasons before a bottom placed finish saw them relegated to the West Midlands Regional League. They won the competition in 1992-93 but were not promoted, and instead were founder members of the newly formed Midland Football Alliance which commenced in 1994-95 season.

They remained in the competition until the 2008-09 season which was a campaign marred by a dispute with the owners of the Cricketts, which meant they had to spend the season at the home of Tividale FC. Unfortunately, the loss of the Cricketts was too much and at the end of the said season, the club folded.

A reformed club (I can’t comment on whether any links to the previous club remain) appeared in 2017-18, in the West Midlands Regional League Division Two, but the following season saw them resign part way through. Once again though, they re-appeared at the start of last season, in Division Two, finishing in seventh place. This time around, as we know, they have set up base in Bilston, eight miles away from their old home which was on York Road in Rowley Regis.

I was fortunate to get to the Cricketts on York Road, it was a midweek game, it would have been 2003 and I seem to think it was a Birmingham Senior Cup tie, possibly against Moor Green, but as I’m writing this blog from a holiday home in the Lake District, I don’t have my records to hand to confirm!

I remember it being a proper old fashioned non-league ground, which, if Google Maps is anything to go by, still stands. It had low roofed covered standing behind one of the goals and also on the M5 side, while a seated stand and some more cover sat on the York Road side, where the dressing rooms and the impressive clubhouse were located. I don’t know if it’s in use anymore, I seem to think other teams did play there after Oldbury, one of the being Crown if memory serves me correctly, but as it stands right now, I couldn’t tell you.

Anyway, back to present day, the journey down was fine, I had to deal with the Walsall Ring Road and then out over the M5 to the Black Country Route, but once past the distinctive Queen Street home of Bilston Town, it was a right at the next roundabout, up through Bilston itself with the college on the right hand side.

The 4G is round the back of the college and is exactly what you would expect, a caged facility but without a viewing area, and a couple of temporary dugouts on the far side. I was relieved to see it was game on when I arrived, in fact, not only was it game on, it was £5 admission to watch it, from the outside of a cage, through a fence…….but, it seems one or two clubs are charging a decent amount in the WMRL Division Two this season, which is fine, but as someone who was charged similar at Dudley Kingswinford said to me, this is effectively Step 8 football? Having said that, when you consider the costs of actually putting a game on when you add in venue hire, officials, other expenses etc, you can’t blame clubs for wanting to generate cash in any way they can.

Game wise, it was a competitive affair, goals from Luke Aherne and Alex Thompson put the hosts 2-0 up but a late strike from Wilfie Cavanagh reduced the arrears and lead to a nervous closing stages for Oldbury, but they did ultimately hold out for the three points. Interestingly, before the game I understand the referee made it very clear that he would not hesitate to issue yellow cards for any form of dissent. It seems that warning fell on deaf ears to a certain extent, until the message finally got through when it was clear he meant business. Nine yellows issued in total!!

I was ready for a lie down when I got back, 330 miles to watch a West Midlands Regional League Division Two game, not the sort of thing I’d do every weekend!