Last On The List

Dudley Kingswinford  5  Stourbridge Standard  5

West Midlands Regional League – Division Two

Admission / Programme - £4 / No

‘The List’ – anyone who’s been reading my blogs now for any length of time will know that I operate, in fact no, I live my life, by lists.

That’s certainly the case when it comes to football, and where I’m going to go to watch a game. Each season, I draw up a list, and each season that list could be anything between 20 and 40 clubs long, depending on what’s happened over the Summer. Yes, I’ve got a number of leagues I keep on top of, and they all have their own movers and shakers, while at the same time, clubs find new homes, and finding out who’s moved to a new home can be a challenge in itself!

Steve operates the same way (we both used to own Sinclair Spectrums by the way), and at the start of the season I had a grand total of 25 clubs down to visit. That was a bit smaller than in recent seasons, but based on that, I reckoned with fair weather and not too much buggering about with the fixtures, I could be home and hosed by early November, leaving me the rest of the season to pick and choose, and ultimately get down the Southern and Isthmian League’s.

As it panned out, the last Saturday of October was a weekend where we had a work event of mine to attend in Birmingham on the Saturday night, so I had to stay reasonably local. It worked out perfectly as well, because I’d saved Dudley Kingswinford for that specific date, they had a home game, and, as long as the preceding Saturday’s went to plan, it would be the last one on ‘The List’ to complete! The champagne would certainly taste good later in the evening!

Dudley Kingswinford were a bit of a mystery when they first appeared in the constitutions, other than a well known Rugby Union club of the same name, I could find nothing about them at all, other than a youth side of the same name. Turns out from what I could eventually glean, it was in fact the very same youth side deciding to have a crack at senior football.

Once the handbook landed it all became a bit clearer, they were indeed connected to the rugby club, played in the same colours, and had a pitch at the back of the rugby ground that they were going to use.

It’s not the easiest place to get to if truth be told. My sat nav took me down the A38, along the A5 to Muckley Corner, then along into Walsall before crossing the M6 and taking the Black Country Route down past Bilston. It was then across through Coseley and Sedgley, into Himley and then finally after lots of lefts, rights and roundabouts, into the very nice suburb of Kingswinford.

The location is pretty rural, and to be fair, the rugby club itself is pretty impressive, as you would expect from a club playing in the fourth tier (National League Two). You enter into a large car park, and directly in front of you is the floodlit rugby pitch, with a good sized seated stand on one side. The clubhouse and dressing rooms sit on the edges of the car park, the entrance to where the football pitch is located involves a wander around the edges of the building and through a gate where admission was being taken.

My old mate Dave was also in attendance, he’d been to a West Midlands Christian League game that morning and was off pub ticking after the game in the nearby Wolverhampton suburb of Penn. I too would be drinking after the game, along with Mrs L who spent the game sat in the car reading, but my kind of drinking would be very different to Dave’s!

The pitch itself was fine despite all of the recent bad weather, although the grass was a touch long and didn’t lend itself to quick passing football. Otherwise it was just a case of standing behind a rope, along with the 78 spectators who Dave counted had turned up to watch.

Wow, what a game, between a Dudley side floundering near the bottom of the table and a Stourbridge Standard side who are effectively the Under 21 side of Stourbridge FC, and flying high in the table.

The 1-1 score line at half time gave no indication of what was to pan out in the second period. Dudley raced into a 3-1 lead, Stour got it back to 3-2, then Dudley went 4-2, before it went 4-3, 5-3 and then as we moved towards added time, 5-4 as Stour fought back!

As the game moved into the third minute of added time, Stourbridge scored the equaliser and made the final score 5-5. It had been a superb spectacle, great entertainment and both sides deserve credit for the effort and endeavour that they put in. It is also worth noting that it was exceptionally well refereed.

You know what, it was not a bad way at all to complete ‘The List’, even Dave, who does take some pleasing, admitted it had been a fantastic afternoon’s entertainment. While Dave set off to find the pubs, myself and Mrs L had to work our way out to the M5 at Oldbury, and then scoot onto the M6, across Spaghetti Junction, down onto the M42 and round to the Hilton Metropole at the NEC.

Over 300 guests were arriving from all over the Country, but I bet I was the only one who’d watched a 5-5 draw a couple of hours earlier. The celebrations were pretty wild as evening wore on in the midst of a free bar, as I sat back with bottle of beer in hand and the black tie around the neck loosened, I could be safe in the knowledge that it was mission accomplished, the M25 was now suddenly about to very much come into focus.

Dudley Kingswinford however, it was you that made my day!