Main Event

Denaby Main  2  Swinton Athletic  3

Sheffield & Hallamshire County Senior League – Premier Division

Admission / Programme - Free / Online

Tickhill Square in Denaby, now that brings back some memories.

It would have been 1984-85 when I first went, in Belper’s Northern Counties East League Championship season, and I remember the 1-0 victory well. Largely because it was the day when Burton Albion infamously lost 6-1 to Leicester City at the Baseball Ground in the FA Cup Third Round, and as the afternoon wore on the shameful scenes at the game were being broadcast on the radio.

The following season I can remember going on the opening day and seeing a 3-3 draw against the Nailers, and my abiding memory of that game is speaking with my Dad to the then Denaby Secretary, Arthur Jones, before the fun on the pitch started. 

I went a few more times thereafter, but then things got a little bit spicy in the mid-Nineties when the two clubs were going neck and neck for the NCEL title. In 1996-97 Denaby did indeed win the crown, losing just three games, but ground grading issues meant they were overlooked for promotion to the Northern Premier League and Belper as runners-up were promoted instead.

It went down like a shit sandwich, Denaby in their match programme for the final game of the season accused Belper of skulduggery, suggesting that because Mr H Senior was on the NCEL management committee, he pulled a few strings on the ground grading front and that was what swung it Belper’s way. Absolute rubbish of course, he had nowt to do with ground grading, but Denaby of course were entitled to think whatever they wanted to!

Denaby were never the same side again, and at the end of the 2001-02 season the club folded when they lost the use of Tickhill Square.

My early memories of Tickhill Square were of a ground that had a grandness about it, but it had clearly seen better days. The old main stand was a wooden affair that eventually burned down, while opposite was a further stand that from memory ended up being condemned and replaced by a new structure. It was a venue that oozed history, for Denaby United had a pretty illustrious one in the Midland and Yorkshire League’s, which included an FA Cup First Round appearance in 1958, when Oldham Athletic won 2-0 at Tickhlll Square.

So let’s fast forward then. Denaby United did re-form playing in the Sheffield County Senior League, albeit not at Tickhill Square, however, it didn’t mean that football was finished for good at the old venue, because along came Denaby Main FC.

Denaby Main joined the County Senior League in 2014, and since then they’ve done a great job in returning Tickhill Square to it’s former glories, as I shall try and explain.

I had no plans to go to Denaby Main on a Wednesday night in April for a 6pm kick off, but as my games of choice one by one fell by the wayside due to the rain, I had noticed a very confident tweet coming out of the club saying that they had no plans for a pitch inspection and the local derby against Swinton Athletic was very much on.

As we moved towards kicking out time at the office I’d made my mind up, 28 years after my last visit, I was going back, very curious to see how it had changed, not just in terms of the ground, but also the surrounding areas.

Denaby Main (as opposed to just Denaby) is a former pit village sat between Conisborough and Mexborough, and upon arriving in the village it was notable that various new commercial units had appeared on the edges, while some of the former pit houses had been replaced with newly built dwellings.

Parking at the cemetery which sits behind the old Denaby & Cadeby Miners Welfare building, I wandered in through the turnstile block behind the goal and cast my eyes around the venue, and indeed, it was much changed. The old main stand which was destroyed by the fire, has been replaced by a small seated stand, with the area to the rear that used to house the dressing rooms and a car park now sporting a Youth Hub.

On the opposite side is nowadays where all of the action is, a tidy bespoke seated stand, raised up from pitch level, provides the main vantage point, while to the side of this is a newly built dressing room and clubhouse block. A small area of cover also resides behind the goal at the Welfare end, and this stands away from the pitch tucked into the corner of the ground, while the opposite end remains open flat standing.

I would suggest, other than floodlights (the original lights have long since gone), this is a ground easily fit for Step 6 football, but whether the club have any intentions to move to this level, I couldn’t say.

So how did the game go? Well, firstly I was mightily impressed that they kicked off at 6pm, which is the set time for County Senior League games come April. I’ve been to many that have been later due to players struggling to make it on time, but in this case, no such concerns. The game itself was a bit of a cracker to be fair.

Denaby stunned the visitors by taking a two goal lead, but then we saw a dramatic turnaround in the second half where Swinton pulled a goal back from the penalty spot, before grabbing a late equaliser. As the game went into injury time the visitors threw the kitchen sink at Denaby and as we moved into the sixth minute of the aforementioned time, they forced home the winner which lead to some pretty impressive celebrations pitch side involving the team, the bench and a couple of rogue pitch invaders!

So that was Denaby, it was nice to go back, and it was great to see how Tickhill Square has gone through some impressive redevelopment work. The memories though, they truly did come flooding back…

Fine (Part 2)

Bashley  0  Cribbs  3

Southern League – Division One South

Admission / Programme - £10 / Online

It’s about January, and I’m telling Mrs H about the fact I’ve booked the Easter Weekend in Exeter, for myself, so I can attend the South West Peninsula Ground Hop, she’s fine with that, Mrs H does “Fine” very well.

But then, after a couple of moments of thought, back came the counterpunch…

“Ok, but I feel a bit left out now, and it’s ages until our Summer holidays, so why don’t we go away for the second weekend of Easter?”

I had to think on my feet, and in an almost tourette’s style response I simply blurted it out…

“Portsmouth!”

In a matter of seconds, after computing the question, I quickly thought of an area of the UK where I had a few grounds to visit, and, might be a half decent tourist destination. When I say half decent, when I went to Portsmouth as a kid it was a dump, but something in the back of my mind told me a renovation job had been done on the place and it was quite a good spot to visit.

Within an hour we had three nights in an apartment in Southsea booked, and with that I gulped in nervous anticipation. I mean, very little research had been done, I had thrown one in on a whim, and now we were going on a holiday to place that for all I know could still resemble downtown Beirut!

But, that aside, the choice of games was plentiful, it was still January, I had plenty of time to work out what we could do and hopefully try and justify the destination, which of course if it all went wrong, would be my fault, and my fault alone!

I felt a little more at ease having spoken to Steve, who in fact didn’t burst out into laughter and wish me all the best for the remaining days of my existence, in fact no, he said how nice it was nowadays around Portsmouth, he even recommended a restaurant!

So, the time had come, Devon had been a blast, it was then off to Wroxham on the Monday, back to work on the Tuesday, the Dutch visitors were in town on the Wednesday and then, finally, on the Thursday morning it was destination Pompey, which was duly arrived in around 11.30am.

You know what, it turned into a really good trip. Day one saw afternoon tea up the Spinnaker, a wander round the historic docks and then a few beers in Southsea which I have to say has some very nice bars and restaurants. Day two started with a bit of shopping action around the Gun Wharf Quay retail outlet, followed by the aforementioned meal at the impressive Brasserie Blanc, then of course, it was Saturday…..

My thinking around the football was driven by the awkwardness factor. In the sense that, which of the teams playing at home would be the trickiest to get to, and back, in a day from Derbyshire? We had a choice of Sholing, which is located in the East side of Southampton, Chichester City, which is a plastic option to the East of Portsmouth, and then slightly further along you’d also got Bognor Regis Town playing at home. But, the one that ticked the boxes was Bashley in the New Forest, about an hours drive from Portsmouth, set in a very scenic part of the World, and a bit of a swine to get to under normal circumstances.

The day started with a trip to Lyndhurst, an attractive small town in the New Forest, with an impressive Ferrari dealership as one of it’s main tourist attractions! We had a bit of an amble before taking a leisurely drive down through Brockenhurst, seeing more of the forest, before eventually arriving in the village of Bashley.

Bashley is a tiny place, and it’s pretty remarkable that they have a football club full stop, let alone a football club playing at Step 4. At one stage they even plied their trade in the second tier of non-league football when members of the Southern League Premier Division, but more on that shortly.

The club were formed just after the last War, starting life in the Bournemouth League before moving to the Hampshire League in 1983. They became founder members of the Wessex League in 1986, becoming inaugural champions, and then went on to win it twice more and in 1989 they found themselves promoted to the Southern League.

The first season in the Southern Division saw them crowned champions, and indeed gain promotion to the Premier Division, where they finished an impressive fourth in their first campaign, but after four seasons they were relegated back to the regional divisions again.

They spent eleven consecutive seasons at this level before a two season spell when they got moved to the Isthmian League which I’m pretty sure from a logistical perspective went down a treat! They came back to the Southern League though with a vengeance in 2006-07, winning the South Western Division with a stunning 102 point haul.

It was back to the Southern League Premier Division again where they spent a further seven years before relegation and two awful seasons in the South Western Division where they finished bottom twice, won a total of one game and over the two campaigns conceded 349 goals!

The Wessex League beckoned, and after a rebuild the club bounced back and won promotion at the end of the 2021-22 season thanks to a runners-up finish. The Southern League had been home since, and this season, relegation is unlikely, but mathematically they still have a little bit of work to do.

In the clubs first ever FA Vase season of 1987-88 they lost out to Emley in the semi-finals, drawing at home and then losing away, whereas in the FA Cup the greatest day came in 1994-95 when they won at Chesham United in the First Round Proper before losing 1-0 at home to Swansea City in the next round. 

So what’s the ground like? Very pleasant I have to say given it’s rural location. The entrance off the main road sees the Village Hall to the right and the turnstiles directly in front of you. The clubhouse sits behind the goal, next to the Village Hall, with the tea bar at one end. Moving round anti-clockwise to the garden centre side of the ground, you have a new hospitality area, next to a seated stand, with the dressing rooms behind.

Next to the stand is an area of covered terracing, and then another identical area of covered terracing which is out of bounds due to being used as a storage area, sits right night to it’s twin. Beyond that it’s hard standing behind the goal and then on the dugout side of the ground you have a couple of steps of terracing that run all the way back down to the turnstiles.

Bashley is a friendly club, and the whole place has a nice feel about it. On the day though that friendliness extended onto the pitch where play-off certainties Cribbs cruised a relatively comfortable victory against a home side that were pretty ineffective.

Harris Feltham gave the visitors the lead in the 23rd minute from the penalty spot, and then in the 53rd minute another penalty was despatched by Bailey Croome. The third goal came just after the hour mark when Jake Brown produced a lovely chip to the beat the Bash goalkeeper.

So back to Pompey we went, the little break almost over, but, one last thing.

When I said Mrs H does “Fine” very well, I meant it, and by that I’m referring to the parking fine I discovered on the Saturday morning slapped to my car! Seems she had inadvertently given my registration plate details, complete with a couple of letters incorrect, to the owners of the apartment, so the car ended up being wrongly registered! I’ve contested it, but I’m not holding my breath….

Revenge is best served financially, apparently!

Going Dutch

Keyworth United  2  Wollaton  2

Nottinghamshire Senior League – Premier Division

Admission / Programme – No / No

The message arrives from the Netherlands, the lads are coming over for a long weekend, and I’ve got two jobs, but two very important jobs.

Job One – collect them from Birmingham Airport, early on the Wednesday morning, and then get them back to Belper via some form of feeding station. 

Job Two – they want to go to a game on the Wednesday night, which is fine, but as monsoon season remains in full swing, I have my concerns that we’ll find anything.

Job One was easily dealt with, Job Two, well, as the day wore on all of the games close to home on grass were going by the wayside, and the only game I could realistically see being on, that wasn’t an unreasonable distance away was the Nottinghamshire Senior League at Keyworth United, where they were playing Wollaton on the plastic.

Theo and Rob have never been to Keyworth before, in fact they’ve never seen a game in the NSL before. In fact I could go on, we go to the Netherlands and end up at Ajax, Borussia Dortmund and Bayer Leverkusen, they go to Keyworth, seems a fair reciprocal swap to me…..

So I picks the boys up from the hotel, then goes to collect Mr H senior who has also decided he wants to come as well. So, I know what to expect when it comes to the evening, to a degree, I’ve been watching stuff like this for years as you know, but what are my companions going to think? I’d worked on the principle that if they didn’t like, they had live football on the TVs in the bar!

So Keyworth United, I’ve been a couple of times before. The first time being in March 2008 on the old grass pitch at the very back of the Platt Lane complex, it was a 1-0 defeat to Clifton. They then installed the plastic pitch at the Platt Lane end of the complex and it would have been October 2010 when I saw them lose 2-1 to Nottinghamshire Police.

In Nottinghamshire football circles Keyworth United are quite a big name. I remember them from back in the old Notts Alliance days, when along with the likes of Rainworth Miners Welfare and Hucknall Colliery Welfare, they were one of the major players. Of course the league changed to become what it is now and many of the clubs moved in other directions, namely to the Central Midlands League and beyond, but Keyworth, other than a brief spell when they did move across to the CML, have always been associated with the County based league.

Keyworth, located just off the Nottingham ring road, to the South East of the City, is not a poor village by any means, and the football club are very much part of the community. When I say football club, it’s more of a sports club because Platt Lane is shared by both the football and the cricket. Teams are varying ages are based at the venue, and as we arrived it looked like the women’s team had just finished a training session on the floodlit 4G.

They have a decent sized car park and the centrepiece is the clubhouse and changing room complex, with it’s large bar and cafeteria area in the centre. The football was on the TV, if it was all too much for the Dutch boys, they would be ok!

You can access one side of the 4G to watch the games, and they don’t charge any admission to watch the games, which to be fair if they were still in the CML they would probably have to do. The NSL top flight is notionally Step 7, so the next step up would be within the National League System and based on their location it would mean Division One of the United Counties League. Sandiacre Town got promoted last season from the NSL and as is stands they are in danger of coming straight back down again.

Keyworth are probably more than happy plying their trade is the NSL, and to be fair this season they sat comfortably in a mid-table placing prior to the game against a visiting side who are probably not going to win the league, but they are well set for a top three finish.

The game, on a cold evening, and watched by a decent sized crowd including many of the women’s team, turned out to be an entertaining one.

The visitors looked the better side in the early stages, taking the lead through Joshua Stevenson, but just prior to half time a goal from Ajay Bentham levelled things up for the hosts. Jarrod Westcarr, who had looked a real handful, gave Wollaton a second half lead, and at that point you did wonder whether coming back a second time would be too much for Keyworth, but they had other ideas.

It was very late in the game, when after a spell of attacking from the home side, Scott Litchfield was the man on the spot to force home the equaliser, and to be fair no one could argue that they didn’t deserve a point out of the encounter.

So, a 2-2 draw, and you know what, other than a spell just after half time, everyone who travelled in the car with me watched the entire game. The lure of Arsenal v Brighton on the box at no stage was too great to prove to be a distraction.

Mind you, it could have been worse, had the weather been any good I was going to take them to watch Derby Singh Brothers on a park in Sinfin, and that might have been a step too far in hindsight!

Fine (Part 1)

 Wroxham  0  Gorleston  1

Isthmian League – First Division North

Admission / Programme - £10 / £1.50

So, I’ve been back from Devon for one night, and I have to break the news, gently, to Mrs H that I’m off on my travels again, not far though this time, just the mere 180 or so miles and three and a half hours to the Norfolk Broads!

I’m nervous, but after a deep breath and a couple of bravery pills, I throw it in, the moments silence felt like a lifetime before I got a response…

“Fine!”

That’s it then, the all clear, well, what else does the word “Fine” mean, irrespective of the tone used?

I’ve had my eye on Wroxham all season, in fact I’ve had my eye on both Wroxham and Gorleston, the two Norfolk clubs that are very much out on a limb when it comes to the Isthmian League Division One North. I worked this out, a good number of clubs in the division are in Essex and in some cases inside the M25, so for a club like Wroxham a fair few of the away trips are two hours or more away. But, the alternative is probably not a lot better, the Northern Premier League East Division, or, the Southern League Midland Division, the travelling is probably not much different.

So, they are where they are, and if they want Step 4 and above, this is what they have to contend with, so I’m not going to moan one little bit about a voluntary journey I was making that was going to take the best part of three and a half hours!

Sat nav bingo took me down the M1 to the A14, along to beyond Newmarket and then up through the Thetford Forest to the Norwich Ring Road. Wroxham sits to the North East of Norwich so once I was comfortably into Partridge Country it didn’t take long to work my way round to the village that does indeed sit within the Norfolk Broad, and is in fact often referred to as the ‘Capital of the Broads’.

It was Easter Monday, I’d made good time and I did wonder whether it might be a good idea to head into the village and have a look at the waterways, but, I decided against it, the sun was shining and the football club had already announced that the bar was open!

The football ground is set down on a narrow road to the very South of the village, and is flanked to the right by the railway line, and slightly further to the left by the River Bure. It’s a very rural, and indeed a lovely setting for a football ground, and having chatted to the very friendly chap on the gate, he told me that they had even considered watering the pitch that morning because the surface was so hard. Weird isn’t it, we’ve had record levels of rain, ridiculous numbers of games called off and then a football ground set in the middle of an area that is surrounded by water is considering having to water it’s pitch!

The ground is very nice, on one side you have the dressing rooms and a homely clubhouse facility, while opposite on the River Bure side of the ground you have an old fashioned but well cared for seated stand. Behind the North goal it’s open standing while at the South end of the ground you have a section of modern terracing behind the goal. It ticks the boxes from a grading perspective, but it’s also, more importantly a nice place to watch football.

Wroxham Football Club were formed in 1892, playing in the local leagues before joining the newly formed Anglian Combination in 1964. They proved to be a successful club, winning the Premier Division title five times, and with the last one in 1987-88, it gave them promotion to the newly formed First Division of the Eastern Counties League.

The title was won in their first campaign and with it came promotion to the Premier Division, a league they joined in in 1988 and remained in until 2012. During that period they won the championship eight times, and twice they won it three times in a row, with the halcyon days being the Nineties and early Noughties.

It was inevitable then that they would make the move up, which they did in 2012 by joining the First Division North of the Isthmian League, but that move lasted five years before they were relegated back to the Eastern Counties League. A runners up spot in 2021-22 saw them promoted back again, where of course they remain.

For a club that dominated the Eastern Counties League for such a period, you might be forgiven for thinking that they made a few waves in the FA Vase, well if you did you would be correct. They made the quarter finals in 2001-02, losing to Durham City, then in 2009-10 they beat a highly rated Whitehawk in the semi-final, only to succumb to a dominant Whitley Bay side at Wembley, the North Eastern powerhouse running out 6-1 winners. The quarter finals were again reached in 2019-20 but they were well beaten at home by Bristol based outfit Bitton.

It's a lovely sunny day, a good crowd of 319 has rocked up to Skinner Lane to watch the local derby against Great Yarmouth based visitors Gorleston, but what happened?

Not a massive amount to be honest, it wasn’t the greatest game you are ever going to see, and as it went on you felt it was going to be decided by the solitary goal, and that goal came on the hour mark for the visitors courtesy of Lewis Johnson. It was goal that was met with delight from the noisy following from Gorleston, who to be fair never stopped singing throughout the game.

Wroxham are going to finish mid-table, never in danger of going down, but at the same time, never likely to trouble the play-off spots. Maybe for a club like Wroxham, considering where they are located, and considering the pool of players they can realistically pick from, maybe going any higher is simply not a reality right now. But you don’t have to always be aspiring to progress, consolidation and sustainability are not a bad thing, especially when you look at what goes on elsewhere.  

I decided to head back via Kings Lynn, Holbeach and Sleaford, it was a pleasant albeit long and somewhat tiring journey, but you know what, I’m glad Mrs H was “Fine” about me going to Wroxham, what a great club, and what a lovely place to watch football.

When are they building that motorway that goes to Norwich…….

Grand Finale

Ivybridge Town  6  Dartmouth  0

South West Peninsula League – Premier East

Admission / Programme - £6 / £1

The final destination on what had been a memorable SWPL Hop, was to be the Erme Valley Playing Fields home of Eastern Division champions elect, Ivybridge Town.

Ivybridge have been the dominant force in the division over the season, and a win over bottom of the table Dartmouth would leave the rest needing snookers, which they were never going to get, so in terms of the hosts, they were not only hosting a Hop game, they were in effect bidding farewell to the league as they will be playing in the Western League next season.

The bus squeezed into the car park, and Steve joined me just afterwards having made the journey from Callington with plenty of time to spare. Ivybridge, like Elburton, did a great job on the food and drinks front, with very nice pasties on offer, but space in the bar area was at a premium, so it was a case of going al-fresco, or, standing room only. We chose to stand, it was dropping cold outside, but, at least it was dry, and the pitch did look in excellent condition.

Ivybridge is a small town thirteen miles to the East of Plymouth, and since becoming a town in 1977 it has grown rapidly and now provides home to over 11,000 inhabitants. The football club was established in 1925 and started life in the Plymouth & District League, thereafter playing in the leagues various guises before becoming founder members in 1992 of the Devon County League.

They won the league in 2005-06, and then the following season when the South West Peninsula League was formed, they again became founder members, being placed in the Premier Division. They remained in the Premier section until 2019 when the league was split into East and West divisions, whereby the club became members of the East Division, a league they are about to bade farewell to as they move upwards.

So all looks good on the field for Ivybridge, but what’s the ground like?

Set a couple of hundred yards from the A38, behind a tennis centre, the ground is in a very rural setting with the River Erme and mature trees running down the West side of the ground, while the narrow road to Ermington runs to the East of the complex. The clubhouse and dressing rooms are set behind the North goal while the only cover at the ground is on the East side where an Atcost style seated stand is located.

Apparently, the pitch did used to be further South on the footprint, and this did cause some debate amongst the fraternity, I mean, was this a new ground or was it not? If we are talking pitch overlap, then it appears there isn’t any, so for some that makes it new, but for others as it’s all part of the same footprint, in which case it isn’t. I’ve never been before so I don’t care, we’ll let those that do care and indeed worry about such things!

Anyway, a nice setting, and again, a good crowd of 388 rocked up to watch a game that was a bit of a slow burner to begin with, but eventually the champions elect got into their stride and the goals started to flow.

It was 1-0 at half time to the hosts but they turned the screw and rolled out with a 6-0 victory. Owen Pritchard got a hat-trick, Connor Rush grabbed a brace while Bailey Mabin netted a solitary effort. The champagne was still on ice, but we’d gone beyond snookers now, it needed a stewards enquiry and some form of heavy punishment from a Financial Fair Play body to deny them of this one, and that ain’t going to happen!

But that was the Hop, it was all over, back on the bus to Exeter for some, while others made their way back to various parts of the UK. It had been superb, the clubs who hosted had done a magnificent job including Honiton who you had to feel desperately sorry for. But, none of it would have been possible without the drive, the organisational skills and the passion of Phil Hiscox who did an absolutely superb job of putting the whole event together.

I said at the very start of the first blog around the event that the thought of an organised Groundhop filled me with dread, well, you know what, next year the South West Peninsula League, thanks to Phil, is heading to Cornwall with the base being in Truro.

I wouldn’t miss it for the World! 

 

Spuds

Elburton Villa  1  Bovey Tracey  2

South West Peninsula League – Premier East

Admission / Programme - £6 / £2

Back at the Holiday Inn, Steve and I enjoyed a couple of overpriced beverages on our return from Holsworthy, it had been a great day, and after the disappointment of Honiton, it was as much of a relief than anything that the day went to plan.

The Saturday involved a trip further West, I was hot footing it to St David’s again while Steve was travelling by car, for he had a somewhat off-piste adventure to contend with in the afternoon. It was a bright morning, and barring a weather related disaster, all was set fair for a good day, which was to start in Kernow, it was Passport’s at the ready!

Liskeard Athletic was the first port of call, the first game on their Lux Park pitch since December, it all went to plan even if we were hit with a rain / hail storm in the first half. Over 500 rocked up to see the local derby against Dobwalls, but the home side ran in 2-0 victors. I won’t blog it as I’ve done Liskeard before, but game two, that was a different matter….

Steve had been to Elburton Villa, so he was off to watch Callington Town Reserves on the plastic, but I boarded the fun bus and we made our merry way back across the Tamar Bridge and to the East of Plymouth. The traffic as we got into Plymouth was a little sticky, but before long we were climbing the hill and turning right into the car park at Villa, a ground that has been on a SWPL Groundhop before, but, when they played on the top pitch, as opposed to the bottom pitch which they play on now.

The sun was shining, and Elburton had got the beer flowing, so knowing that the afternoon game on the Saturday is usually the poorest attended on the Hop (due to alternative options), they clearly worked on the principle that selling beer and food was the best way to make the money!

The bar, at the top of the bank before you enter the ground, while tight space wise, was doing a roaring trade, and before we knew it, the players were about to head down the bank to get the game underway.

What’s the deal with Elburton Villa then?

The club came about in 1982 following on from former guise Elburton Red Triangle, starting out in the Plymouth & District League before becoming founder members of the Devon County League. 

When the Devon County League merged with the South Western League in 2007 they did of course become founder members of the South West Peninsula League, making their debut in the Premier Division.

By 2016 they had been relegated to Division One West, but by 2018 they found themselves back in the top flight again, eventually settling at Step 6 when restructuring saw the Premier Division split across an East and West Division, with the East being their home since then.

They’ve never played in the FA Cup, nor have they ever won the FA Vase, but they do keep trying!

The ground is part of a large expanse, with the car park just off the main road, and the old pitch directly in front. You walk to the right of the old pitch where the bar and the dressing rooms are located, then in front of you, set in something of a bowl is the new pitch. 

Steep grass banking adorns two sides, behind the top goal and down a large part of the South side of the ground. A small area of cover sits right at the top of the bank behind the goal, while at the bottom of the banking on the South side is a small Atcost style seated stand for around fifty spectators. You can stand behind the opposite goal, but the North side of the ground is out of bounds.

A good number of spectators chose to stand on the top of the grass banking, myself included, and it was from that vantage point on a lovely Spring day, that an entertaining spectacle broke out in front of the crowd of 311.

Visiting Bovey Tracey took the lead in the 12th minute through Josh Haynes who controlled and finished well, and then the same player made it 2-0 on the half hour mark. The game took an interesting turn ten minutes into the second period when Mitch Thomas slid across goal to block an Elburton shot, only to be sent off for handball. Turned out that Thomas did not use his hands to stop the ball, it hit him full in the spuds, which video evidence later confirmed, and pleasingly, the red card was overturned on appeal!

Elburton converted the penalty thanks to Bentley Alcantara, and from that point onwards the hosts took the game to the visitors, but it was to no avail, other than in injury time when an on field altercation saw both sides have a player sent off, namely the aforementioned Alcantara for Elburton, and Neil Last for Bovey Tracey. No hard feelings though, they shook hands, had a bit of banter and spent the last few moments watching the game together!

And that was Elburton, it was time for the last episode of Whacky Races to start as the bus and all of those in cars headed back out of Plymouth in an Easterly direction, albeit not far, Ivybridge which was a mere 7 miles away, the show was nearly over, but not quite…..