Social Experiment

Notts Olympic  3   Buyglass.co Reindeer  7

Nottinghamshire Senior League – Division Two

Admission / Programme – No / £2

Remember Notts Olympic?

Yes, a pre-season friendly at home to Heanor Town Reserves played at the Jubilee Sports Ground in Nottingham. The clubs first game having re-formed in the Summer, a club with quite a history that you are welcome to go back and read about, hence why I won’t repeat it here all over again.

Suffice to say, at that particular point in time, despite Olympic having teased us by saying that they were looking at various venues to base themselves at this season, the smart money seemed to be on Harvey Hadden Stadium in Nottingham, a venue that would have been befitting of a club with a rich history, stature and indeed ambition.

But then I was on holiday in the Lake District, and feeling a bit bored of looking at mountains I decided to have a view of the recently released fixtures in the Notts Senior League, which to be fair had been somewhat sporadic in their arrival on Full Time.

Where the hell was Gallows Inn Playing Fields?

It seemed that Steve had also spotted this at around the same time so an exchange of messages began, and it turned out that this was a sports ground on the edges of Ilkeston, opposite a pub called the Gallows Inn, which looked like it might have been the former home of Ilkeston RUFC.

Never saw that coming, nope, not one bit, largely because I’d never heard of the place, but even if I had, you never would have thought that Notts Olympic would have set up base in enemy country, Derbyshire! That would be like Sheffield FC, the oldest football club in the world (allegedly) moving out of the City and parking up in Derbyshire, that would never happen, would it………

Anyway, they clearly had their reasons why, and it’s not for me, or anyone for that matter to be critical without knowing the full facts, but as it stands, Notts Olympic are a Derbyshire based club, albeit only a goal kick away from their spiritual home county.

But then something happened, Rob Hornby, a legend in these parts and part of the NSL officialdom, a man who I know very well indeed, decided to give the club a little bit of publicity, by advertising the fact he would be producing a match programme for their first ever competitive home game at Gallows Inn.

Now I know what happens when Rob, or anyone for that matter, advertises that this is going to happen. It’s almost like a social experiment in the mass movement of a specific demographic of people.

A group, who I would number at around 50 or so, from all parts of the UK, would simply turn up purely for the said programme. The game itself would be secondary, indeed, may not even be watched if we are being honest, it was all about the paper.

If pressed, I could confidently list some names of who I expected to turn up and I reckon I wouldn’t be far wrong in my assumptions, it is that predictable, hence why it never fails to work and indeed make a few quid for the clubs in question. It’s no different to an organised groundhop really, you have a database of people who irrespective of the location, the timing or the standard, who will simply turn up anyway.

So Rob, who absolutely 100% does this purely for the benefit of the clubs in his league, and his charity, spotted an opportunity in terms of Notts Olympic, and then once he’d got the club on board, he sets about a relentless social media bombardment. To be honest, you couldn’t miss it, twice, thrice daily stuff would be on the feeds, things gain momentum, train timetables are scoured, real ale venues are sourced, locals lock up their daughters (and sons), a movement was en-route to Ilson, and nothing was going to stop it!

My journey from Stapleford, in terms of spectators for the game, was probably the shortest of anyone watching. I spotted people from Edinburgh, Sittingbourne, Uxbridge, South London, Warrington, Long Eaton, Lowestoft, Castle Donington…..epic journeys for many, but mine took four minutes, and even though I was about an hour and a quarter prior to kick off in terms of my arrival time, I got one of the final spaces in the car park.

Rob had done a grand job, having set up a stand in front of the dressing rooms selling programmes and badges, while also encouraging the club to set up a small drinks and snacks area next to him to raise a few more quid. You know what though, the amount of work he does for charity is incredible, he is so selfless and thinks so much about those less fortunate, despite quite publicly admitting to having not had the best of times himself throughout his life.

The social experiment had indeed worked, 70 or so spectators had turned up, the bulk being present only because of Rob, and that in turn saw both the club and Rob’s charity gain, which is a win-win situation if you ask me, and let’s not forget, alongside all of that we had a football match to watch, if you cared of course!

Gallows Inn Playing Fields is a huge venue, as you enter from the main road, to your left is a railed pitch with some remaining floodlight pylons, and given the fact it’s adorned with rugby posts, was probably the one time home of the local Union club. At the end of the drive adjacent to the car park is the dressing room complex, while beyond that is a massive expanse of grass, with football posts located at varying intervals, while the piece of grass being used for our game was down in the very far corner.

It was a decent spot to be fair, with trees lining the perimeter and the River Erewash to one side and the Erewash Canal to the other. I didn’t realise until I looked on the map that just beyond the trees on the South side of the complex is the Hallam Fields Ground which was the former home of Stanton Ilkeston, and now indeed the new home for the rugby club.

The downside was that the pitch had not been marked out, so the club had to use cones to indicate where the touchline was, while in terms of the penalty area, shall we just say it was at the referee’s discretion.

The game was against Buyglass.co Reindeer FC, the club formerly known as FC Mansfield, not to be confused with AFC Mansfield. Buyglass is a company, Reindeer is a pub, the ‘dot co’ bit, well, I did think they’d missed the ‘UK’ element off, but it seems not, anyway, an interesting choice of name to say the least!

The game was not without entertainment. The visitors took the lead after five minutes when Jack Sellars found the net, but within ten minutes a cracking effort from Kian North saw the scores level.

Keiron Wood made it 2-1 to the away side with a neat finish and that was how it stayed up until half time. Sellars made it 3-1 after the break (Olympic were now on their third goalkeeper), while Sam Murphy made it four with a low shot. The hosts reduced the arrears just after the hour mark through Julian Coates, before North almost immediately scored to bring it back to 3-4, which way was this game going to go?

The way of the visitors, because Murphy scored twice in as many minutes to complete his hat-trick, before the same player got his fourth and his sides seventh in added time.

The crowd set off back to all four corners of the UK at the final whistle, I had a fifteen minute drive. Notts Olympic’s big day had been a success, in no small part due to Rob Hornby.

A little bird tells me the Notts Olympic home ground story might not yet be quite finished, so maybe the Derbyshire thing is only a temporary stay, but then again, you never know, they might well find that they like it over here!