Wing-A-Ding

Horsforth St Margarets  5  Rawdon Old Boys  1

West Yorkshire Football League – Premier Division

Admission / Programme – No / No

Some events stick in the mind more than others, and the day I went to the wrong ground to watch Horsforth St Margarets is one of them.

There is slightly more to it than you might think though. It would have been in the now infamous Covid season of 2019-20 and I’d noticed that they’d moved from wherever they once played, to a 3G pitch at Leeds Trinity University on Brownberrie Lane, in Horsforth. I decided I’d have a bit of it so set off happily to Leeds, traversing the M621 and the ring road round to the West, only to find myself in a very nice area populated with pubs and restaurants, with Brownberrie Lane sat in front of me.

I then noticed on my left a big sign saying ‘Horsforth St Margarets FC’ on it, so into the entrance I went, parked up, had a walk around, and noticed that no one was in situ and clearly no football match was going to be taking place. It was only then that I realised I’d had a temporary memory blank, and for some reason I’d completely forgotten that I was meant to be going to a University campus.

Clearly then, with brain de-fuddled, I had a look at Google Maps and realised I’d turned left two hundred yards earlier than I should have done, but not to worry, I was soon parked up and having a subsidised pint in the students union bar.

Horsforth St Margarets moved again though a couple of years ago, to Woodhouse Grove School which was located in the village of Apperley Bridge which sits betwixt Leeds and Bradford, but then it was only recently when I was pratting about on social media that I spotted a post whereby they announced they were moving ‘home’.

Turns out ‘home’ was exactly where I went first time round, only not to find a game, oh the irony, but at least I knew where it was!

King George’s Field it’s called, and judging by the photographs, they’d put a smart rail around the pitch, they already had a clubhouse in place that was used by the cricket club as well, and, if memory serves, they have made noises in the past about a possible tilt at getting into Step 6 football.

So, it was an after work job for the game against very near neighbours Rawdon Old Boys. Seemed a good idea at the time but I’d forgotten just how much of a ball ache the M621 and the Ring Road can be during rush hour, but anyway, 127 sets of traffic lights, 89 roundabouts, 47 pedestrian crossings and an escaped giraffe later, we were pulling into the car park, which was absolutely rammed due to a kids cricket match taking place.

Neither club had put anything on social media about the game, I was just relying on the league website, but to be fair, as I walked towards the clubhouse I spotted a gentleman who I known of, who goes by the name of a method of public transport. If he was sat outside the clubhouse (he wouldn’t be in it, he won’t spend any money!), then we definitely had a game on.

In fact, rant time. You would be surprised how many travellers / groundhoppers / fuckwits, whatever you want to call them, rock up at grounds, perch their arses in clubhouses and don’t so much as buy a glass of tap water. I mean, you wouldn’t walk into a pub and do that, so why is it then ok to do it at a sporting social club? Do they not open to make money and help keep the club in existence, or are they just somewhere for people to drop in and keep warm?

Anyway, game on, and a very nice clubhouse was open serving both beer and snacks, while, somewhat surprisingly, a hatch to the rear of the clubhouse was serving hot drinks and a very impressive selection of food items, more akin to a pub menu! I had something waiting for me when I got back so I didn’t partake, but the food at ‘Wing-A-Ding’ did look very nice!

So, the pitch was set on something of a plateau, with grass banking behind one of the goals and part of the way down the side opposite the clubhouse. Behind the other goal it sloped down to where the cricket pitch was, while the area in front of the clubhouse was elevated slightly from pitch level.

The new barrier is a very neat and tidy thing while the pitch itself was in cracking nick. I would suggest getting floodlights might not be too much of a challenge from a planning perspective, while hard standing would need to be put in place, as would some sort of enclosing system as taking admission would be a problem in it’s current state. Otherwise, it’s a ground that certainly has scope for development.

The game itself was pretty one sided, although visiting Rawdon didn’t help themselves in the first half by trying to play out from the back. This tactic saw them quickly go three goals down before the break, with the strikes coming from Laurie Power, Joe Tasker and Jake Kilbride.

Power got his second as the game moved into the closing stages after Rawdon re-grouped and steadied the ship a little, before Sean Fitzpatrick scored the hosts fifth as the game came to a close. In the meantime the visitors did score a consolation goal through George Beaumont.

And that was that, the roads were a little bit more appealing on the way back, until the M1 decided it was going to go down to one lane around Meadowhall, and what a joy that was adding half an hour onto my arrival home time.    

I should have eaten at Wing-A-Ding…..