Betty Turpin

Mayfield  4  Teversal  1

Central Midlands Alliance – Premier Division South

Admission / Programme – No / £2

Ashbourne is very much Mrs H’s former stomping ground.

Back in her post University days she landed a job running the Ex-Servicemens Club on the Market Place in the town, and as a result she became something of a pillar of the community, and in turn a font of all knowledge when it came to all things Ashbourne related.

Yes, Mrs H knows her way around Ashbourne, the bars, the clubs and clearly some of the local characters, some of whom I’m sure she’s had run in’s with in her publican days. So, when I go to a game in the vicinity, it often alerts her interest, she likes to know what’s going on you see!

Ashbourne and football aren’t two things that you would immediately put together, apart from of course the Shrovetide shenanigan that takes place under the national gaze, which as far as I can see is a legalised fight while under the serious influence courtesy of the town’s pubs!

Hang on, you may be thinking, what about the Ashbourne Summer League, Derbyshire Summer League as it’s now known? Well, yes, you’ve got that, but we’ll park that for a future blog because that’s worthy of it’s own piece, however, in terms of the normal Saturday stuff, it’s been somewhat spartan.

Ashbourne FC played on the Recreation Ground for many years, in the Staffordshire County Senior League, but they chose to move in with Rocester, with progression in mind. There was talk of a new sporting facility in Ashbourne that would have allowed the club to progress but to be honest, even though the place is just down the road from where we live, I have no idea where it was planned to be located.

But then, a couple of years back, a club called Mayfield joined the Central Midlands League. I’d heard of Mayfield, only because they did indeed have a side in the Summer League themselves, but it turned out that this variant was indeed going to be rocking up to play on the Recreation Ground.

I’ve been to the Recreation Ground before, for an Ashbourne FC game one midweek at the end of a season. It’s only a short walk from the town centre, so I popped in for a pint, giving Mrs H’s former establishment a swerve, only I wasn’t sure how fondly she was remembered!

But, I found out earlier this season from my old mate Pete that they’d built a sparkling new pavilion at the Recreation Ground, complete with bar and an outdoor seating area that overlooked the pitch. It was a Tuesday night in May, a 6.30pm kick off, the sun was out, and you know what, I decided I was having some of it!

Mayfield have made their way into the Premier Division South of what is now the Central Midlands Alliance League, competing against sides such as Arnold Town, Pinxton, South Normanton Athletic, and indeed the visitors for the game on the night, Teversal. Ok, they are struggling this season and probably need a few wins to keep them safe, but to have got to the level they have is a credit to them, Levels wise, they are now on a par with Ashbourne FC.

The ground is easy to find, coming in from Belper you turn right at the lights, follow the road round and then the car park to the Recreation Ground is on your right hand side. The pavilion is smack bang in front of you, and then down the grass bank below is the pitch, running width ways to the pavilion, with a small stand located on the Western touchline. It’s a public park so anyone can wander in and out, so no admission can be taken but the club makes up for it by selling programmes at the bar.

It's a busy place, a running club were doing their bit on the adjacent pitch, while the cricket nets behind the stand were in usage as well, Ashbourne Rec does feel like a real hive of sporting activity.

Visiting Teversal have fallen on some hard time of late and it was the kind of fixture Mayfield would have perhaps targeted to gain three points from in the battle to avoid the drop. To be fair to the hosts they took the game to the visitors and in the end they were deserving of the victory. 

A James Moore hat-trick and a further effort from William Harrison were the Mayfield goalscorers, with the Tevie Boys getting the consolation through Connor Bower

The game itself attracted a good number of the travelling fraternity, in fact I spent the second half talking to Martyn from Winterton who was bemoaning the financial dominance of the North Eastern clubs in the Northern Premier League Eastern Division this season. I understood completely, Belper Town have been on the wrong end of that dominance, but I don’t see it coming to an end any time soon.

But that was Ashbourne Rec, that was Mayfield FC, and as far as Mrs H is concerned, all is good in the town, since her departure everything appears to be ship shape. What her legacy is, well that’s a different matter altogether!

Cinque

Brightlingsea Regent  0  Gorleston  1

Isthmian League – Division One North

Admission / Programme - £11 / £2

I do like the last day of the regular non-league season in the top four steps, lots to play for, championships, promotions, play-off spots, relegations to avoid, oh yes, it all happens on that last day!

So why not pick a game 200 miles away with absolutely nothing on it!

That’s what I did, and to be fair, I’d earmarked it a few weeks earlier, because I really did quite fancy a trip to Brightlingsea Regent, but, I had method in my madness.

I remember some years ago now when Steve went to Brightlingsea, he had to pick his moment carefully, because, as he pointed out to me, “Once you go to Brightlingsea, you are going to Brightlingsea, if you have a problem, you aren’t going anywhere else!”

And that was the issue, if I took a gamble on Brightlingsea, and it went wrong, I was pretty much stuffed for getting to a game at the levels I cover, anywhere near to the place, so, it had to be a good weather day when I went for it.

April 27th really ought to be a good weather day didn’t it? And so it proved to be, it wasn’t exactly scorchio, but it wasn’t wazzing it down either. Bearing in mind the last time I was in the vicinity it was Ipswich Wanderers back in November and that was a gamble that paid off, just!

For those unfamiliar then, let me explain where Brightlingsea is. If you imagine that Colchester is in the middle of a clock face, well Brightlingsea is at about 4 o’clock, where the River Colne estuary meets the sea, and the Brightlingsea Creek merges with it. To the West is Mersea Island, just over the water from the beach. Put simply, it’s very much out on a limb where the Essex and Suffolk borders converge.

The journey down was pretty painless despite the remoteness of the place, my mind was a little elsewhere though, you see it was a big day for Derby County, a point at home to Carlisle United in the 12.30 kick off would guarantee promotion back to the Championship, so from about Kettering on the A14, all the way down past Ipswich and across country, I had that on the radio for company.

I got to Brightlingsea during the half time interval in the Rams game, and quickly realised as I drove in that this was a pretty little town, a Cinque Port Town if you will. I asked Steve what a Cinque Port was, he said it was something to do with France, I left it at that to be honest.

The ground is hemmed in by housing, and the road to the car park is a tight one, but being relatively early I was in and parked with no problems. It was time to have a look at what the place was all about.

It’s a tidy ground to be fair, characterised by a plethora of structures. You enter just to the right of the halfway line, and immediately on your right is a small area of cover. To your left is a seated stand and then just beyond that is the clubhouse building with a further overhang of cover in front of it.

The dressing rooms conjoin the clubhouse with the entrance to the pitch being almost in the corner, while then moving round behind the goal you have a further area of covered terracing that runs the width of the pitch. If you then move to the side opposite the clubhouse you have a tall but thin seated stand of the temporary variety (but it now looks pretty permanent), and then another area of cover sits beyond the dugouts up towards the area behind the goal. Again, another area of cover, which looks pretty new, sits behind the goal. All in all seven different areas of cover / seats, and according to the Chairman’s notes in the programme, another one is due to be erected during the close season, albeit I’m not sure where they’ll put it!

The clubhouse was busy pre-match, someone had the bright idea of putting the West Ham United v Liverpool game on the big screen, which was clearly not the biggest game of the day by any means, that was of course at Pride Park and showing live on the other channel. I did think about asking but as we were in Essex, I thought better of it!

By kick off around 300 spectators had rocked up to watch the game but who exactly are Brightlingsea Regent?

Brightlingsea United were formed in 1928 playing in the Essex & Suffolk Border League, with decent success, but then in 1972 they opted to join the Essex Senior League, which was won in 1989 and 1990 before they moved to the Eastern Counties League.

They moved between the two divisions of the ECL until the start of the 2002-03 season when they quit having lost the manager and the players. They took the place of their reserve team back in the Essex & Suffolk Border League, laboured for a couple of seasons, before merging with Regent Park Rangers to form the club that they are today.

By 2011 they were back in the ECL, and by 2014 they had finished runners-up in the top flight and with it earned a promotion to Division One North of the Isthmian League. A runners up spot in 2016-17 saw them promoted to the Premier Division, it was heady days indeed for Regent.

They lasted in the top flight until the 2022-23 season, and now this season they find themselves comfortably mid-table back in Division One North again.

I tend to find final games of the season with nothing on them go one of two ways, they are absolute thunderbastards that end up 5-5, with four red cards and a fight in the crowd, or they are dull as dishwater and absolutely nothing of note happens at all. Sadly, this one leaned more towards the dishwater than the thunderbastard category, however the one goal we did get came in the first half thanks to a Gorleston penalty that was awarded after the home goalkeeper did his best Bruce Lee impression when coming out to claim a ball. It was one of those where the ref could have said the ‘coming together’ was all part an parcel of what a goalkeeper does, but this ref decided it was not only a penalty, but also a red card!

Backed by a noisy and passionate home following, albeit Gorleston did make a bit of noise themselves, the home side went for it in the second period but an equaliser was not forthcoming and they had to console themselves with a presentation evening piss up in the bar afterwards!

The journey back was straightforward but long, however it mattered not, “they docked us 21 points, but we are going up…………. “

Tuesday On Tyneside

Boldon Community Association  2  Ryton & Crawcrook Albion  5

Northern Football League – Division Two

Admission / Programme - £5 / £1

I can’t day as I was filled with joy when we got summoned to do a presentation in Gosforth on a Tuesday afternoon.

The MD said we’d be done by 5pm, and bearing in mind Gosforth sits on the North side of Newcastle, as much as it was a ball ache, it did give me an opportunity to get to a new ground that ordinarily wouldn’t be on the radar.

Redcar Athletic, that ticked the boxes, it was on the way home (with a bit of a detour), and in terms of getting to it from North Newcastle, that didn’t look to be a major obstacle.

Wrong! It was almost 6pm by the time we were set loose, and when I finally got back into the car my sat nav was telling me I’d got something like twenty minutes to spare to make the 7.30pm kick off. It was just too tight for comfort, it wouldn’t have taken much to mess it up, so I elected for Plan B, and that was a much shorter journey with far less stress involved.

It seems Boldon Community Association have had pitch problems at their home ground, and since the New Year they’ve been playing on the plastic at the Ford Hub in Sunderland, a venue that ordinarily is used by fellow Northern League Division Two side Sunderland West End.

I could make it to the Ford Hub, or Ford Quarry as it was formerly known, in about half an hour from Gosforth, so that made more sense, Sunderland here we come!

The A1 behaved itself and then as we cut across to Sunderland and the A19, all was good in the World. The ground is not far from the A19 in the South Hylton area of Sunderland, with the railway line running to the rear, and the River Wear just beyond.

Obviously with the game being a very late Plan B, I wasn’t too sure what to expect in the sense that I’d not done any research whatsoever, but what I did find was a smart facility very much like many of the football hubs that are springing up around the Country.

You enter into a good sized car park, and alongside are three pitches, all floodlight, all of the plastic variety, however the pitch nearest to the main building was complete with a couple of small Atcost style stands and a pay booth. The main building, or the only building, depending on which way you look at it, was complete with the dressing rooms, and a good sized cafeteria area that served pies and cider in equal measures.

So what’s the deal with Boldon Community Association then?

The club was founded as Boldon Villa in 1892, becoming inaugural members of the Wearside League. The club waited until 1976 to take it’s current name, a year after they won their third Wearside League title, with it then being won again for a fourth time in 1997.

The Northern League was only joined in 2022, this after the 2021-22 season was curtailed due to Covid with the club fifteen points clear at the top. In the clubs first campaign, last season, they reached the play-offs in the second tier but lost out to Tow Law Town.

Ordinarily, the club would play home games at the Boldon Colliery Welfare Ground, which sits almost equidistant between the current temporary home at South Hylton, and the Tyne Tunnel at Jarrow. Are they Sunderland or Newcastle, well, on the basis that they are South of the Tyne I will go with Sunderland, but I will happily be corrected on that critical point!

It turned out to be an interesting game, not least for the Ryton & Crawcrook Albion centre forward Aaron Costello. After seventeen minutes he’d netted a hat-trick to put the visitors 3-0 up, but then less than ten minutes before half time he saw red, for presumably something he said to one of the officials. At this stage Boldon had pulled a goal back from Desejado Da Silva, so what was the second half going to give us?

Robbi Gateshill narrowed the deficit to just the one goal, but two quick fire strikes from Lucas Lowery-Matondo and Rhys McLeod with just over twenty minutes remaining pretty much killed the contest and secured the 5-2 victory for Ryton.

72 people paid to watch it, and I bet no one had the journey home I had to suffer!

An A19 closure at Easington meant a journey that pretty much took me to the seafront at Hartlepool, and then once back on track we had to leave the M1 at Aberford and take a detour round the back way to the next junction down!

Throw in the umpteen miles of speed restrictions between Sheffield and Chesterfield, and you’ve engineered yourself an arrival back at base for 12.45am.

I’ll think carefully before getting too excited about a meeting in Newcastle in future……

Bluebells & Flares

Ballymacash Rangers  7  PSNI  1

Northern Ireland Premier Intermediate League  

Admission / Programme – £8 / No

I’ll be honest, the six monthly trip to Northern Ireland crept up on me a little bit.

I think because of the Easter exertions in Devon and then in Pompey, I’d kind of dropped it down the list of priorities, but with the trip looming, something had to become a priority, and pretty quickly!

You see the plan was to follow the normal routine, a flight to Belfast, a run up to Derry combined with the Derry City game, before heading back to a game on the Saturday somewhere in the Northern Irish League.

Derry City v Shamrock Rovers was the planned game, but it posed a bit of a logistical challenge. Due to ground development works at the Brandywell Stadium, the capacity had been reduced and very few tickets were going on general sale. Those that did, got snapped up almost instantly, so I had to speak nicely to my mate Simon…..

The tickets went on sale at 9am the previous Saturday, by ten past nine I’d got a message, the boys had done good. You see to get a ticket you have to head to one of the outlets in the City and hope you are at the front of the queue. The outlets tend to be newsagents and small shops, but thankfully, someone was kind enough to get out of bed early for me!

It was an early start on the Friday followed by a drive down to Birmingham and the Mackadown Lane offsite parking facility. This is a fifteen minute courtesy bus run away from the terminal, but to be fair, as it’s half the price of the onsite parking, I can live with that. The airport was manic, the queues for security were significant and I reckon it took me 45 minutes from start to the bar, so it was a good job I set off that bit earlier than I would ordinarily need to.

Belfast International was cleared pretty quickly, the City Centre arrived in promptly, and within ten minutes I’d turned around at Europa Bus Station and was on the trusty 212 and the two hour journey to the North West.

I do enjoy the bus journey up to Derry, it’s when I can start to relax and look forward to the weekend, while at the same time maybe get a little bit of shut eye combined with taking in the Sperrin Mountain scenery. The bus landed in Derry just before 1pm, and I was to pay my regular visit to catch up with someone.

Tony runs Jacks Bar in Derry, and for a few years now I’ve always made a point of going in for my lunch and having a catch up with him. Football is always the topic of conversation, and this time around it was all about the problem with tickets at Derry City, and of course, the fact that Derby County were on the brink of promotion! I bade farewell, called in the Derby Bar (for good luck) and then made my way up the hill to my B&B in Rosemount.

I first went to Rosemount in May 2005, it was where my Grandad was raised, I wanted to go and see his house on Epworth Street. This time around, before checking in, I once again made my way to Epworth Street, almost nineteen years since the first time I hunted it down. Time does indeed fly, that first trip still feels so recent, the years may have passed, but the feelings are just the same.

A meal with John and Lyndon preceded the game, and then it was off to the Brandywell for the action. I won’t dwell too much on it, they got well beaten (3-1) but the real talking point was the incidents off the pitch. I’ve never seen any trouble at the Brandywell before now, but sadly, over the course of this season, it has started to become a problem. The away fans had a flare launched at them when some of the young Derry headbangers left the ground early to launch their attack. The flare missed them, landed on the pitch, and we then had the bizarre sight of a small child leg it onto the pitch and freely run around with the said flare in his hand! 

After a delay the game re-started, but at the final whistle the away fans were asked to make their way to the centre circle to keep them safe from the barrage of missiles that were coming in from outside the ground. This of course, was all being played out on live television!

As I left the ground, the younger Derry fans who are clearly an unwanted problem, were getting rounded on by the older Derry fans, it all got very tasty. As sirens could be heard heading towards the ground, I decided to make my way back to Rosemount. To be honest, this isn’t the Derry I know and love, hopefully by the time I next visit they’ll have solved the problem.

So, it was Saturday, and my plan was a fairly simple one. Get the bus down to Belfast, and then the train to Lisburn, for my game of choice was Ballymacash Rangers v PSNI, a game in the third tier of Northern Ireland.

It was a lovely day, and the timings were perfect, within ten minutes of alighting the 212 I had wandered round the corner to Great Victoria Street and was sat on the fast train to Portadown, with the first stop being Lisburn.

I’ve never set foot in Lisburn before, so I was looking forward to a little exploration. The Carden Bar was a good starting point right opposite the station, before moving into the City Centre and a nice little place called Fifteen. The old Wetherspoons has gone, but a new establishment has opened at what was the same venue and a final pint was had in The Lark. I liked the look of Lisburn, it had a nice feel about it, and at the same time it was clean, and seemingly prosperous. The linen industry, for what Lisburn was famed for, looks to have served the place well over the years!

Ballymacash Rangers play at the Bluebell Stadium, which is a fifteen minute walk from the centre of Lisburn. Heading in a North Westerly direction you head back under the railway line, along Prince William Road, and then drop through a housing estate where the ground is located. Bluebell Stadium is a 3G pitch, with a clubhouse and dressing rooms on the North side of the complex, although a smart new two story building is mid-construction on the half way line and it looks like that might be a replacement for the existing structures.

Furniture wise, a small seated stand sits in one corner, while an area of cover with tables beneath sits to the left just as you go through the turnstiles. You can access all four sides of the ground, and while my initial thoughts were of a municipal complex, this very much feels like it’s the home of Ballymacash Rangers and the many teams that sit under the clubs umbrella. Development work started on the site in 2019 when the club announced it’s plans to move into the Northern Ireland Football League, and via community funding, they’ve developed it into what it is today, with work clearly still ongoing.

Pre-match I took to the bar and watched out of the window as the teams warmed up, and lucky old me, I only went and bought a half time draw ticket, which ended up being the winner! 

The club were formed in 1984, and in more recent years have competed in the Mid-Ulster League, a competition that they won in 2021-22 season which allowed them to compete in a play-off against St James’ Swifts who were champions of the Ballymena & Provincial Football League. A two legged victory saw them promoted to the Premier Intermediate League. 

This season (I’m writing this a couple of weeks after visiting), the club ended up finishing in third place, missing out on a Play-Off spot by three points to Armagh City, whereas visiting PSNI (the local plod), finished rock bottom, with their future uncertain, but I would assume they will be duly relegated?

The game itself followed the pattern you would expect given the league placings, an own goal from Ben Mitchell gave the hosts a first half lead, but then as we moved into the second half they ran riot. Braces for Carl McComb, Dylan Sinnerton and Michael Moore saw them find the net seven times, with the solitary reply coming from Henry Capper. Moore’s second goal, Ballymacash’s seventh, was an absolute belter by the way, the highlights are on You Tube!

So it was back to Lisburn Railway Station, a short journey back to Belfast and some tea in Bedford Street Wetherspoons before checking into my lodgings just off the Falls Road. All had gone to plan, all was good in the World, roll on the Autumn cos I’m coming back.

I do hope Derry will have cleaned up their act by then…..

The Unforgotten

Maghull  1  FC Bootle  1

West Cheshire League – Division One

Admission / Programme – Donation / No

Maghull Football Club, now there’s a blast from the past!

I can recall my days at University, sat in my room in the house that I shared in the former mining village of Silverdale in Staffordshire. I wasn’t big on study of the academic kind, no, I was more of a student of non-league football, after what had been a few years where my attentions had been taken elsewhere.

When I say elsewhere, I was a non-league obsessive right through school, but then as I moved into Sixth Form, got a car, a girlfriend, a job and all that, I had become a regular watching Derby County home and away. It was all about the Rams, and stuff like watching Belper Town, and checking the league tables in the Mail on Sunday fell by the wayside somewhat.

But University kind of changed things, the season ticket at the Baseball Ground lapsed, the away games stopped, the job came to an end and the girlfriend also moved on…..I had time on my hands. I started to buy ‘Team Talk’ magazine again, I started to check out the results and the tables, and then before long I felt I was back up to speed with all that was happening, particularly in the North of England.

The North West Counties League became a source of interest, largely because I was now based in the Potteries, and it was the competition in which the Potteries sides played. Eastwood Hanley, Kidsgrove Athletic, Newcastle Town, Nantwich Town, and another name that won’t be overly familiar to many people, K Chell were names that spring to mind, but other names such as Burnley Bank Hall, Stantondale and Haslingden were clubs that you simply don’t hear about anymore.

One club who’s name was prominent at that time was Maghull, a team based on the Northern edges of Liverpool not far from Aintree. Maghull were founder members of the North West Counties League, joining in the 1982-83 season having previously been members of the Cheshire County League. They remained in the competition until 1999 when they stepped back into the West Cheshire League, a move that came about from what I recall, because the club was unable to secure floodlighting which was to become mandatory in the NWCL.

So Maghull, they came, they had a good few years, and then they dropped back into more local football, and from my own perspective, they fell off the radar. When I say fell off the radar, on the occasional trip to Southport I’ve seen a sign for the place as we passed, and it would make me wonder what may have happened to them, but other than that, nope, they’d been forgotten.

But then as we moved into 2024 and the lists of Regional Feeder League clubs who had applied for promotion to Step 6 came out, they re-appeared, they’d applied, they were rocking along very nicely in the West Cheshire League and now was the time to look to get back to where they once came from.

I’ve had my eye on it since, always planning on venturing over for an early evening midweek kick off as the season drew to a close. After a weather related postponement the previous week, that time had come.

The M62 behaved pretty well, and the ground itself is easy to get to from the motorway network. You head up the M57 to it’s conclusion at Aintree and then carry on for a very short while along the A59 dual carriageway before entering into Maghull. The ground is off to the right, located between the dual carriageway and the Leeds / Liverpool Canal.

I must admit to being a bit surprised to find out that the venue the club use on Hall Lane is in fact the very same ground the club used back in the North West Counties League days. It’s a large expanse and as you drive in the cricket ground is immediately in front of you, with the football ground off to the right. The football ground is separated from the cricket pitch by some green fencing, while the pitch itself is surrounded by a modern looking barrier. The clubhouse and dressing rooms is a single story building set back from the half way line, while in front of it, slightly to the right is a small area of covered terracing of the metal construction type that arrives pre-built.

Floodlights haven’t landed yet, but having spoken to a club official (who was very helpful and welcoming), they are due shortly after what has not been an especially straightforward planning process, in terms of objections etc.

It’s very tidy in terms of a venue, and while the area itself is very urban, it does have a bit of a rural feel to it, probably due to the size of the expanse and the proximity of the tree lined canal and perimeter. 

Maghull need to finish top five to get promoted, and that was as a good as in the bag. The league is going to be won by Mossley Hill Athletic, but second place is very much up for grabs and the visitors, FC Bootle, were also in contention for that spot.

On a very pleasant evening, a decent crowd approaching three figures rocked up for a game that was evenly matched and tense out on the park. The visitors took a first half lead through Jacob Jones, and it did look as if the three points were heading West, but, as the game moved into added time the hosts grabbed an equaliser through Darren Brannigan. It was probably about right on the balance of play.

So, Maghull Football Club, a real community club with numerous teams and players under it’s umbrella, look like they are back, not that they ever went away of course. But they are back into prominence in terms of the National League System, and recent history tells us that clubs from the North West feeder leagues typically do well when they step up to the NWCL, and I see no reason why they can’t do the same.

Maghull are finally unforgotten.