Bobby's

Southam United  4  Chipping Sodbury Town  1

Hellenic League – Division One

Admission / Programme – £5 / £2

My mission, which I had no choice but accepting, was to find a game on the 23^rd of December, but the caveat being that I was home absolutely no later than 6.30pm.

I had an original plan, Welling Town v VCD Athletic, which was being played at Phoenix Sports ground in Dartford, but once the festive shopping delivery slot had been booked and confirmed, that little jaunt had to go by the wayside.

So, I started to look at the local stuff, working on the principle that getting to a new ground would be an impossibility, especially with some leagues having already called it a day until the New Year. I then had a thought, a very random one, about Leamington Hibernian, and the fact that they were playing games at an apparent temporary home in a place called Stockton. Knowing the Hibs have a history of being nomadic, I did wonder whether this short term location may end up being more longer term than first intended. So I had a look, and yes, they were at home, but where was Stockton, and it seemed it was on the outskirts of Southam.

Suddenly, I had an even better thought, how about wait a while to see what Hibs announce for next season, and check to see if Southam United have a home game at their new ground, Bobby Hancocks Park.

They had, Chipping Sodbury Town, so that was it, assuming all was ok weather wise, I was going. But on the basis the ground has been open a number of years now and is only around 70 miles away, why have I not been before, having previously been to the old ground on Banbury Road?

It’s all down to geography, and the fact that the club took a bit of time out of senior football when they moved grounds, but when they did re-appear, they started in the Second Division of the Hellenic League. They then realised like a lot of clubs that direct promotion from that competition isn’t a given so they moved into the Oxfordshire Senior League, a competition I pay less than a passing interest in, in fact, to be brutal, I have no interest in it whatsoever. But they got promoted, and re-joined the Step 6 Hellenic League First Division, which again, is a competition that I’ve never really set about pursuing. So, I kind of took the view with Southam, that if they came back to say the Midland League or the United Counties League, I’d go and have a look, but until then, see ya……

So, I could be home by 6.15pm, a plan was in place, all was good in the World, and not only that, I could spend Saturday morning building up the required points total to help negotiate the travel permits for the festive football agenda!

I went to Southam’s old ground between Christmas and New Year in 2004, it was a derby game against a re-born Leamington FC, and having seen the game at the New Windmill during the previous August Bank Holiday, I was interested to see how it would shape up, especially as Leamington in the first game had been comfortable 3-0 victors.

My memories were of a large crowd, some quirky and somewhat unsafe looking areas of terracing / cover, plus a very vocal set of away fans, and in particular chants aimed at the portly Southam striker Dan Cramp….the chant of “Cramp ate the burger van” being one of the more polite variants. Leamington won 1-0 by the way.

In fact, that season I saw Southam a few times, an away game at West Midlands Police where if I recall Cramp suffered a pretty bad looking injury, and then also an away game at Massey Ferguson where I got to meet the then Southam Chairman Charles Hill, who had kept me up to date about a dodgy pitch and whether the game was going to be on. I remember sitting in Tamworth Services when the call came from him, and to be fair, for a couple of years we had occasional contact via email. Looking at the club directory in the programme, it appears Charles is no longer involved with the club, albeit it does appear he was instrumental in the ground move.

Getting to Southam is pretty straightforward and my initial fears about pre-Christmas traffic in Derby and at the M69 turn off at Leicester proved unfounded. Once on the Coventry ring road you take the Rugby Road and then a quick turn off takes you onto the A423 Banbury Road and after around twenty minutes you are on the outskirts of the Warwickshire town.

The new ground is built at the back of an industrial estate, but at the same time is only a stones throw away from the old ground, which looks like at some point it’ll be built upon given the amount of construction going on in the area. In fact, it might already be somone's front room, I couldn't say for definite. 

They’ve done a very good job of it. A large car park greets you (assuming you go the right way and don’t follow the sat nav), and sat within that is the impressive building that houses the dressing rooms, club offices, a clubhouse and in front of it a balcony that provides excellent views of the action.

Today, you entered via the main entrance and made your way up the stairs to the clubhouse, where it seemed only a couple of club officials were on duty to help (festive unavailability), with the guy behind the bar performing various duties, including printing out a match programme in A3 size, which took me back to the 70’s and early 80’s when you got a newspaper when you went to the Baseball Ground! Free mince pies at half time was a nice touch.

Otherwise, it’s hard standing around the ground, including an elevated terraced area in front of the club building, while on the opposite side to the building is a decent sized Atcost style seated stand, presumably added to meet Step 6 requirements.

By the clubs own admission in the programme, the pitch wasn’t in the greatest of shapes, but to be fair, given that it wasn’t conducive to attractive passing football, the two sides served up a spectacle that wasn’t without incident.

The hosts took the lead after ten minutes through Josh Turton and then the same player made it 2-0. Nathan Scrivens was then sent off for the visitors on the half hour mark for a professional foul, and from the resultant free kick Craig Watkin made it 3-0, however moments later Alfie Davis gave the boys from the edges of Bristol a lifeline when he pulled a goal back.

While all of this was happening, the Sods lost their goalkeeper through injury, and the guy on the public address was having a fantastic time keeping on top of all of the happenings, not least trying to find a different track to play every time the ball found the back of the net!

The second half was a little bit tamer by comparison, with Watkin scoring the only goal, and in turn copying the celebration that West Ham’s Mohammed Kudus had performed a couple of hours earlier when scoring against Manchester United. By that I mean running into the crowd and taking a seat, which seemed to wind up the Chipping Sodbury management team even more than they currently were, having already had a minor spat with the PA guy over some mistaken identity / misinformation!

Talking of management teams, both sides had a member booked in the closing stages over some sort of bust up, not sure exactly what happened but I could see a home supporter getting very irate over something, but anyway, people do tend to get a bit carried away at Christmas don’t they!

So that was it, a 4-1 win for the hosts, and a very enjoyable afternoon in Warwickshire. I like what Southam United have done at Bobby Hancocks Park (he was a legendary former player by the way), it’ll be interesting to see if they do end up getting moved into a more Midlands based competition in years to come. This is a club that spent 37 years in the Midland Combination (including what it became eventually), and you do feel that would be a more natural fit.

That said, they must have their reasons for the route they took (assuming they had a choice), remember, I was on my way to Welling Town until forces out of my control intervened!!