Nearly

Dunston  1  South Shields  1 (5-6 Pens)

Northern Premier League – League Cup

I’ve never seen Dunston play before, in any of their four guises, be it plain Dunston, or Dunston UTS, or back further than that, Dunston Federation, and of course the best of the lot, Dunston Federation Brewery.

I nearly did though.

It was back in the early Nineties, when they were called Federation Brewery, they drew Belper Town in the FA Vase. I’d gone to watch Derby County play someone or other, only to find it had been called off due to a frozen pitch, and for some reason I decided to head back to Belper to watch the game. Funnily enough, that game had also been called off. It got played the following week, ended in a 1-1 draw and Belper lost the replay 2-0.

On the subject of nearly, I’ve nearly been to Dunston around half a dozen times already this season, but not actually managed to do it. The plan was to venture up midweek after work, but in the early part of the season home games kept getting called off due to Cup replays and the like. Then of course the weather set in, and the pitch at Dunston has not been the best, however, all looked good when they had an FA Trophy replay against Gainsborough Trinity.

Not so, Mrs H’s Mother was unwell so I had to stay close to home (I went to Gresley instead), Dunston could wait a little longer. I was going to go to the South Shields League Cup tie earlier in January and was just about to set off when that too was postponed due to waterlogging.

So, with planets finally aligned, a good spell of weather and no domestic challenges of note, the time had come, the jaunt up the A1 and the completion of the Northern Premier League for another season (until next time when the latest Northern League influx takes place!).

The ground at Dunston is dead easy to get to, albeit a good way from Derbyshire! You get on the A1 and stay on it, passing the likes of Durham, Chester Le Street, the Angel of the North, and then finally exiting just before the Metro Centre. The ground is less than half a mile from the motorway on the main road.

I arrived just after 7pm, to find the car park already full and the street opposite the ground already well populated with cars. In the end I found a space that was a couple of minutes walk from the turnstiles, on a blustery but fine night on Tyneside.

So, the history lesson.

The club were formed in 1975, but they really started to take off in 1987 when under the sponsorship of the Federation Brewery, they joined the Wearside League. This proved to be successful, and having won the league twice in four seasons, they made the leap to the Northern League.

After two seasons they made it into the top flight, where they remained until last season. They won it twice in the mid-Noughties, but that was a time when links between the Northern League and the wider Pyramid were not what they are now, so promotion was not expected, nor taken.

The FA Vase proved to be a highlight for the club, with many good runs over the years, but the 2011-12 season proved to be the crowning glory. A semi-final victory over Staveley Miners Welfare lead to an appearance at Wembley against fellow Northern Leaguers West Auckland Town. A 2-0 victory saw them lift the trophy and add their name to a long list of winners from the North East.

Last season was a huge success, they won the league, suffering just three defeats, while they reached the final qualifying round of the FA Cup, only to lose at home to neighbours Gateshead in front of a record crowd.

Promotion came with it, they were at Step 4 for the first time, but it did come at a slight cost as the club had to drop the sponsors name (UTS) from their title, so that is why they are now just plain Dunston FC.

The game against neighbouring South Shields was sure to be a good test for the hosts, Shields of course are riding high at the top of the Premier Division and look a very good bet to make it into the National League. They are very well supported so it came as no surprise to see a very large number of travelling fans in the crowd of 345.

The ground is very nice. You enter from behind the goal at the car park end, and to your left is an area of covered terracing sat behind the dugouts, whereas to the right is a similar sized seated stand. At the opposite end of the ground are the clubhouse and the changing rooms, complete with adjacent tea bar and club shop. Despite being a very urban location, the fact that the ground is tree lined in the large part does give it a rural feel. The pitch by the way looked fine and played very well, so fingers crossed with a spell of good weather they can catch up some fixtures.

I have to say as well, as is often the case in the North East, the club was incredibly friendly, from the gateman, to the club shop, to the tea bar and to the social club. All really great people with a smile on their faces. I don’t think I’ve been to a club yet in that part of the World where the welcome is any different.

The first half proved to be a tight affair, but it was the hosts who broke the deadlock when Mark Fitzpatrick netted ten minutes into the second period from close range. Shields, who to be fair did field a side with some changes, put Dunston under pressure in the second period but you felt the hosts were organised and resolute and would hold on. However, as the game was well into added time, Sefton Gonzales rose to power home a header to send the game to penalties.

The game went straight to penalties, and after the first five apiece it was 4-4. We went to sudden death and it was the Mariners who went through 6-5 after Myles Boney saved Callum Elliott’s effort. Probably a little harsh on Dunston to be fair, but all credit to them on the performance.

The roads behaved on the way back and I was putting the key in the door at Casa Hatt at around 12.15am. No longer are Dunston the nearly club as far as I’m concerned, despite the fact they very nearly put one over on their illustrious neighbours!

In all seriousness though, they are worth a visit, you won’t be disappointed.

Megabus

Dover Athletic  2  Aldershot Town  0

National League

I suppose when I completed the 92 last season at Portsmouth, and then of course the 90 as it now is (Bury and Coventry City are excluded), at Tottenham Hotspur earlier this season, I needed a new challenge.

The 68, that was going to be it!

68 is the total number of clubs in the National League, if you take the top flight and the two regional feeder leagues into account. However, from a geography point of view, it was going to be slightly 

more difficult, largely due to one club in particular.

With a list of seven, the one that stood out like a beacon of aggravation was Dover Athletic. Thinking it through, if I was to go by car, it meant the M1, the M25, a toll, the M2, the A2 and probably a whole host of lorry related traffic issues as well once into deepest Kent.

Over 200 miles, a couple of changes of clothes, and in all probability I’d no doubt find someone fastened underneath my car hoping to hitch a journey North as I set off to return.

No, it wasn’t a trip that I was looking forward to from a logistics point of view, but then I dropped lucky.

I had thought about the train, but it was looking costly. The usual route I take via Birmingham and the slow rattler to Euston could have done it, but it would have been tight, especially on the way back, to make the connections if anything went wrong or was delayed for any length of time.

But then, someone told me about the Megabus option, now wait a second, we are not talking getting on board a big blue bus with a massive yellow head painted on it, no, we are talking booking a return from Derby to London, only for East Midlands Railways to be owned by Stagecoach, who also own the aforementioned Megabus. Basically you pay a bus fare of a round £25 return, but they put you on the train instead!

So, it was going to be a long day, but in short, taking into account a bus to Derby, a bus in Dover to get to the ground and the train connection into Dover Priory, it was going to cost me a grand total of £46. Cheaper than the petrol, a lot less tiring, and I could have a latch lifter or six while out on the adventure.

The date was set, the final Saturday of January, a home game against Aldershot Town. Yes, the gamble was the weather, but based on the fact I’d be arriving in London before 9am, I could always re-route to a plastic somewhere.

So, the day came, courtesy of a 5am alarm clock and a walk down into Belper to catch the five to six bus into Derby. I was one of two passengers strangely enough, the other being a hospital worker, but once I’d meandered down Siddalls Road to the railway station it was a little bit busier.

The only slight downside to the Megabus tickets are the fact that they don’t scan at the ticket barriers so you need someone to let you through. Although to be fair at no stage did anyone scrutinise the piece of paper I was waving at them, so I could have been holding  set of instructions for an Ikea cabinet for all they cared! Also, no reserved seats, so probably not great for a family day out, but when you are flying solo with a four pack of Carlsberg and some Scotch Eggs, it’s no major issue.

The Sheffield United fans on the train kept me amused with tales of fighting and debauchery, they were going to Millwall, good luck with that one! But the journey passed quickly and with the time just gone 8.40am (we only stopped at Leicester), we were disembarking at St Pancras and the Blades fans were busy Googling pubs to see if they were open yet.

I had a bit of time to kill before heading to the South Eastern Railways platforms on the top of the huge complex that is St Pancras International. You have two types of trains to Dover, fast ones that take around an hour, or slow ones that take nigh on double that. I elected for a fast one, that stopped at Stratford, Ebbsfleet, Ashford and Folkestone, before dumping it’s proverbial load in Dover, and then making it’s way round to Ramsgate and Faversham.

It wasn’t a busy train, but it was a fast train, giving me just enough time to manage some scotch eggs and beef flavour big Hula Hoops. So far I’d abstained on the beer, but as the train trundled through the Port of Dover and into the station, I could smell the Carlsberg round at the Eight Bells…..

So, Dover.

Right, I think when someone coined the phrase ‘Much Maligned’ they were probably thinking of the town. It doesn’t get a good press, which is a shame because it certainly has some features that are attractive to the tourist types. Of course it has a castle, a museum and some white cliffs that were made famous by Dame Vera Lynn if my memory serves me.

Being truthful, the centre isn’t especially nice, but I can honestly say that it wasn’t swarming with immigrants (legal or otherwise), or at least not from what I can tell. The folk didn’t cause me any problems, but then again I didn’t cause them any, and when you spend two hours sat in Wetherspoons you have ample opportunity for things to go wrong!

The Crabble Athletic Ground was too far to walk, uphill, so I did my homework and jumped on a 15 bus from Pencester Street that dropped me a five minute walk from the stadium. The ground is over a mile and a half from the centre of the town, and to be fair it’s set in a nice part of Dover. Built into what seems to be a natural hillside, beneath the stadium is the large cricket field that now looks to be used by rugby. On three sides of the ground it’s surrounded by trees which form a very attractive landscape to Crabble. The Crabble and the town centre could not be further apart in terms of the aesthetics.

What a super ground it is as well. Approaching up the slope, the turnstiles bring you in just to the right hand side of the half way line, and moving anticlockwise you have the social club immediately adjacent. Behind the goal is a smart and atmospheric covered terrace, while on the opposite side of the ground is a shallow seated stand that runs from one end to the other. Straddling the halfway line is what appears to be a corporate area sitting on top of the stand roof, and that is accessed by a path way that leads from the slope at the rear of the stand.

Behind the opposite goal is a similar covered terrace that houses the away fans, while moving back around to the side where the turnstiles are, is a new stand, built with a wooden exterior, that houses the dressing rooms underneath. The stand runs around a third of the length of the pitch.

Dover Athletic’s recent history is not a dull one. Formed on the back of the demise of Dover FC in 1983, they were a lower tier Southern League side until 1988 when they won promotion to the Premier Division. They won the Premier Division twice, the second time in 1993 seeing them promoted to the Conference for the first time.

The Conference years lasted until 2002 when they slipped back to the Southern League and then the Isthmian League. It proved to be a struggle and in 2005 they found themselves inexplicably at Step 4, plying their trade in the Isthmian League First Division South. It took two seasons to get out, but when they did, it lead to back to back promotions and by 2009 they were in the Conference South.

A play-off victory in 2014 saw them promoted back to the Conference Premier, and then they came the closest they’ve ever been to playing in the Football League at the end of the 2015-16 when they lost the play-off semi-final to eventual promoted club Forest Green Rovers.

Now an established club at Step 1 with crowds averaging over 1,000, they are perhaps at a bit of a crossroads. They could push on and be a play-off contender with the right management and investment, or they could be a side that starts each season with the hopes of just staying up. I would put them in the former category, but the National League (as it is now known) is tough and relentless, look at the likes of Chesterfield, Wrexham and AFC Fylde.

From an entertainment perspective it was fine, it would have been better had Aldershot had any kind of threat on goal, but they didn’t, at all! A goal in the first half thanks to a headed effort from skipper Kevin Lokko set Dover on their way, before the brilliantly named Shadrach Ogie scored a really well taken second goal less than ten minutes into the second period.

Kodi Lyons-Foster picked up his second yellow for the Shots shortly afterwards and at that point it was very much game over. Dover march on and start to look up towards the play-off positions, Aldershot go back home again lamenting a poor day at the seaside.

I got the bus back to the centre of town and picked up the first train back to St Pancras. By complete chance, I bumped into a couple of lads I know well from Belper getting off the train, they had been on a corporate session at the West Ham v West Brom game, so we had a natter and a pint before they got an earlier train back to the civilised North.

My train wasn’t too busy and thankfully it was on time, which meant I made the last connection to Belper before the walk back up the hill to Casa Hatt. I set off at 5.15am, and rolled back in at 11pm, with lots of miles, lager and entertainment in between.

It’s good stuff this Megabus lark, next stop Havant & Waterlooville in March, the tickets are already booked. That should complete the 68, might crack a four pack of Carlsberg on the way back to celebrate, complete with scotch egg of course…….

The Safer Option

Brentwood Town  0  Heybridge Swifts  1

Isthmian League – Division One North

Regular blog readers, of which I know there are at least three of you, will recall an aborted trip to Romford FC before Christmas.

Over the past few months the Brentwood Arena pitch that both Romford and Brentwood Town share, has been a cause of many a postponement. Which is fine, the weather has been extraordinary in terms of the levels of rain, but it seems, or it certainly seemed at the time that Town were very good at advising on pitch inspections and such like, whereas Romford it appeared, less so.

The day I went, I paid my money over just as the match referee was inspecting the pitch, and indeed calling it off. Any warning of an inspection? No not a thing. I then noticed a couple of weeks ago the exact same happened to AFC Sudbury, they turned up with no warning of any issues, and guess what.

To be fair to Romford, the guy on the Twitter account was very apologetic to me about what happened, but once bitten twice shy, I made the decision that I would try and visit when it was a Brentwood game, largely because of the lines of communication being that bit better and more reliable.

I’d been working in Milton Keynes, with an overnight stay on the day of the game, so when Brentwood tweeted to say that there was no need for a pitch inspection, I was safe in the knowledge that I could travel down the M1 and round the M25 in confidence.

I got to the Arena a good hour and a half before kick off, the motorways having behaved superbly, and having this time paid my money and been re-assured that the pitch was fine (as it could be), I settled down in the clubhouse and surveyed the scene.

The Brentwood Arena is on the North side of the Essex town, almost underneath the A12 that links the M25 with Chelmsford and beyond. It’s located next door to a large leisure centre and shares the car park, but whether the two are connected in any way in terms of ownership / landlords I really don’t know, but it’s safe to say that it’s a busy place.

Once through the turnstiles, which are behind the goal, you have a seated stand to the left which is of a somewhat temporary nature, while right next to it is an area of covered terracing, both of which are behind the goal. The only other furniture sits on the side to the right of the turnstiles, and that consists of a tea bar, a stand with a clubhouse and changing rooms to the rear, and a further smaller stand joined to it, but seemingly an add on to the original structure.

The pitch looked fine from the side, but you could see two areas that had been a problem, they were much darker than the rest of the pitch and it was plain to see as the players walked on the surface pre-match that it was definitely wetter in those areas. It was fine though, and perfectly playable.

Brentwood Town have not always been known by that name. Prior to 2004 they were known as plain and simple Brentwood, and before that, back in the early Seventies they were known as Brentwood Athletic. Going back even further to the start of the Seventies they were known as Manor Athletic. Another Brentwood Town was around in the late Sixties, but from what I can gather, they are not connected to the current club. I’ve not gone back any further, I fear I may be losing readers, so I’ll start with when they were just Brentwood.

The Essex Senior League, that was it, for all the time they were known as that name, winning it just the once in 2001. The change to Brentwood Town saw them win the league again in their third season under the new name, and with it came a first ever promotion to the Isthmian League, where they were place in Division One North.

It all got very exciting in the 2014-15 season when victories over AFC Sudbury and Thurrock saw them win the play-offs and with it promotion to the Premier Division. It lasted one season, they were punching somewhat, and they are now back from whence they came, and to be fair this season, struggling a bit, sitting fourth from bottom.

The visitors Heybridge Swifts knew that a victory would take them to the top of the table, albeit sides around them do have games in hand, notably cup heroes Maldon & Tiptree. On paper, you would have expected a routine away win, but in reality it doesn’t always work out like that.

The first half finished 0-0 and to be fair it was quite even up to that point. However, while still a close game, in the second period it was the visitors who had the slight edge, and they broke the Brentwood hearts in the 84^th minute when Alexander Teniola fired high into the net from the edge of the six yard box after a low cross from the left hand side.

Brentwood should be fine. Romford sit bottom but with games in hand and Glenn Tamplin’s money, while both Basildon United and Felixstowe are in the next two places but both have played more games that Brentwood. The bottom team only is at risk of relegation, and even then they have to lose in a play-off against someone like Hashtag United!

The journey back was a nightmare. The exit from the M25 onto the M1 was closed so it was a detour via St Albans to get on the motorway at Hemel Hempstead. Then, the M1 was closed just North of Luton, so we all got off at Dunstable and joined a queue of lorries working their way up the A5 towards MK.

Not to worry though, the problematic Brentwood Arena was in the bag, finally.    

Bloody Casuals

Walton Casuals  1  Yate Town  1

Southern Football League – Premier Division South

Many years ago now, when I was a student, I had a thing about books written on the subject of football violence.

One of my favourites was called ‘Bloody Casuals’ by Jay Allan, a book charting the activities of the Aberdeen Soccer Casuals through the Eighties when a huge sub-culture formed around designer clothing, organised fighting and heavy drinking.

As time passes you kind of forget about these things though, as the Casuals did themselves when we moved into the Nineties and Acid House found it’s way into the World. Lager was replaced with Ecstasy, violence with love and Sergio Tacchini with baggy jeans.

A couple of years ago now when I joined a new regional management team with work, I ended up working with a lad who I’ve known for a while, but not known especially well. What with an overnight stay in Glasgow every month nowadays, it’s given a few of us a chance to really get to know each other, and ‘Jock’ as I shall call him for obvious reasons, had a bit of a story.

Jock, it turns out, was basically a key player in the ASC, and the bulk of the stories that Mr Allan talked about, he was party to in some shape or form. Obviously though, that was a long time ago now, and as he says in his Aberdeen accent “I couldnae fight sleep nowadays!”

But, interestingly, even at the age of 48, he’s still massively into the casual clothing culture, and that in itself can bring about problems, as I shall explain. A couple of weeks ago the two of us had a wander into Glasgow and ended up at the famous Horseshoe Bar. He was wearing a very stylish Aquascutum coat, it was subtle, but for those in the know, it made something of a statement.

We were half way down our second pint when he turned to me and suggested we drink up and move on. Once outside he explained that he’d been spotted by some Rangers Casuals and the pair of us were starting to attract attention. Clearly my Next fleece was catching their eye……

It’s not unusual apparently, back in Aberdeen he is quite well known, and it’s got to the stage where he has to be careful where he goes, even with his wife for a quiet drink. Some of the younger element see him as a bit of a trophy, they want to make a name for themselves as the person who took an old stager of the ASC down. It’s the legacy I guess.

Why am I talking about Eighties soccer culture and what’s left of it? Simple, I went to Walton Casuals last Saturday and all I could think about was Jock and his casual mates bouncing around the streets of Edinburgh taking on the Hibs mob with shopping trolleys as weapons. It’s the word casual, and what it conjures up, for those of a certain age of course.

So, disclaimer, Walton Casuals are a family football club and do not condone football violence in any way, shape or form, and any link with that is purely down to their name alone, so please don’t sue me!

Playing on a shiny new plastic pitch, Casuals dropped onto my hopping radar this season as they fell onto my list of the ten Step 1-4 clubs I’d not visited who were nearest to my house. A simple methodology that only goes wrong when you get your Walton in Surrey mixed up with your Walton in Liverpool!

Anyway, on a day when the weather wasn’t a major problem, I travelled with confidence, and despite a problem at the Crooked Billet Roundabout which involved making the fatal error that the right hand exit onto the island takes you left and the left exit takes you right, I was soon queuing up to get over the bridge into Walton on Thames.

The ground sits to the very East end of Walton, close to the River Thames, and forms part of a large sports centre. My mate Dave says the old ground was very close by, I couldn’t say, I never went despite them only leaving it a couple of years ago, and to be frank, I’ve not been that arsed to check it out properly.

The Walton Sports Hub is a tidy venue, but if we are being critical, it’s all about the stand, and that’s pretty much it. You enter in one corner from the large car park, and the stand, with it’s dressing rooms underneath and it’s clubhouse to the rear dominates on the North side. It also has another frontage to the rear that serves the athletics track that sits behind, but otherwise it is very much the focal point. The rest of the ground is hard standing, with no additional cover.

Walton Casuals buggered about in the Surrey County Premier League for a period before joining the Combined Counties League in the mid-nineties. They won the CCL in 2004-05 and found themselves in the Isthmian League second tier, which lasted until the end of the 2017-18 season when they won the play-offs and found themselves in Step 3, albeit they were shifted laterally to the Southern League Premier Division South, where they remain.

If you look back at football in Walton on Thames though, the premier club was always Walton & Hersham, who share the stadium with Casuals, but used to play at the famous Stompond Lane ground. However, in 2015-16, the club dropped into the CCL and were playing at a lower level than Casuals for the first time, and it remains that way now, with the gap being three divisions since they dropped another level to Step 6.

Casuals and visiting Yate Town from the Bristol area both sat in the bottom five pre-match, so it was an important game in terms of the relegation battle. A crowd of around 120 pitched up to watch it, with a fair few having travelled down the M4, and they were treated to a close game of football.

Cole Brown gave the home side the lead, who were being urged on from the dugout by Anthony Gale, the son of Tony Gale, the ex Fulham and West Ham United centre half who is the Casuals Chairman.

The lead, which happened in the fourteenth minute, was cancelled out ten minutes later when Tommy Conway broke through and scored for the visitors.

The game was pretty even thereafter, and in all honesty some of the football was very good, but you could see why both sides are struggling in the table, they didn’t have the quality in the final third to win games. At any level that is key, at Step 3 that is vitally important and indeed costly.

A good day out on the banks of the Thames, but if we turn the full circle and pick up again on the casuals theme. In February, half a dozen of us are going to the Kilmarnock v Rangers game as it coincides with our next meeting. Three of the six are Rangers fans, but we are in the Killie end due to ticket availability, Jock, however, on hearing that just smiled and said, “I’ll be fighting more than sleep that night.”

No matter what they say, it never leaves you……

Skem

Skelmersdale United  2  Congleton Town  1

North West Counties League – Premier Division

I was going to use the word ‘distrust’ when it comes to clubs declaring dates as to when they are going to be moving into new stadiums.

But, on reflection, it’s probably too strong a word, because I don’t believe any clubs sets out to deceive anyone, I just think sometimes they either don’t know, or they are simply over optimistic.

The word I perhaps was looking for was ‘sceptical’, and that’s probably due to the scale and complexity of what is being undertaken. I mean, to sit down with an artist’s impression in August 2019, and then say “we’ll be in for August 2020”, is hugely reliant on an awful lot of things going to plan, which if course, they don’t.

Take York City as the latest example, 2018-19 was to be the last season at Bootham Crescent, we had commemorative programme covers, we had farewell events planned, and then guess what happens? We are now about to enter February in the 2019-20 season and games are still being played round the corner from the Minster. Apparently test events are about to happen and the club hope to be in the new ground at Monks Cross sometime in the next four weeks!

So, I’m on the phone to my mate Dave, and my mate Dave is a bit like me in the sense that he isn’t great bedfellows with the festive season. But to counter that he tries to plan a few trips out to the football, however, Boxing Day was troubling him. As it stood, he couldn’t find a new ground to go to anywhere in the UK on the 26^th, so instead he was looking at doubling up Cammell Laird with Connahs Quay Nomads.

Then he hears on the grapevine, that Skelmersdale United, who to be fair have been pretty quiet about their new home, were making noises about the fact that they thought they might move into the JMO Sports Park for the derby game with Burscough on the day in question.

That conversation with Dave happened around October time, and my words to the Stone resident formerly of Addlestone were, “Don’t hold your breath, we all know what happens in these situations, Easter at best…….”

Dave agreed, we didn’t discuss it again.

Then, all of a sudden, on the Kempster forum, someone connected to Skem announces that it is going to happen, on Boxing Day, subject to the North West Counties League approving the venue, which they did.

Fair play to Skem, but then they were quite sensible in that they didn’t keep shouting from the rooftops about what they were going to do and when, so in that sense they didn’t set themselves up for a fall. Hucknall Town, take note…….

I had a look at the fixtures myself and spotted a couple of midweeks in January and February, and of course with the JMO having an artificial pitch, it was indeed a ‘banker’, so other than snowfall, it was a dead cert.

I’d not actually got Skelmersdale United v Congleton Town as my first choice game today. I was in an all day meeting at Elland Road in Leeds and my Plan A was to be Dunston v South Shields. That went tits up due to the rain in the afternoon, so with my other mate Steve (I only have two mates) going to Skem, it was an obvious choice to simply head across the M62 and meet up with him.

The journey wasn’t the easiest. Leaving Elland Road at 4.30pm and trying to get onto the M62 wasn’t the best of runs, but thanks to the North Manchester area being more helpful than normal and the East Lancs Road also playing ball, I was pulling up into the vast car park at the ground at 6.45pm, in very good time for the 8pm kick off.

Skelmersdale is a town sitting on the M58, with a population of just under 40,000. It was designated as a new town in 1961 so consequently it has an awful lot of roundabouts. Over the years it has become something of a Merseyside overspill, but from a footballing perspective the clubs history has been far from dull.

Traditionally playing out of White Moss Park, the clubs halcyon days came in the late sixties and early seventies. They made a first trip to Wembley in 1967 to play Enfield in the FA Amateur Cup Final. They drew 0-0 in front of 75,000, only to lose the replay at Maine Road 3-0. They had two FA Cup First Round Proper appearances in the period, losing to Scunthorpe United and Chesterfield, and then they also reached Wembley again in 1971, this time beating Dagenham 4-1.

Promotion to the Northern Premier League came, another First Round Proper tie, this time against Tranmere Rovers boosted the coffers, and things were looking up for the club. But, by 1976 the club were in decline, they dropped backed into the Lancashire Combination, and ultimately the North West Counties League.

The club left their home in 2002, and eventually moved to a new purpose built stadium in the town. The Westgate Interactive Stadium as it was known, was the clubs home when they eventually won promotion back to the Northern Premier League in 2006.

I’m not sure what the record is for the number of times a club has appeared in the Play-Off’s and NOT won them, but Skem must be right up with the best. They lost in four successive seasons, 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011.

2012-13 was to be the pivotal season though, under long serving Tommy Lawson they won the league and found themselves in the Premier Division. The club had two top seven finishes in the top flight, before finishing bottom in the 2016-17 season. They had two campaigns in the First Division, both were a struggle and they now find themselves back in the NWCL.

In the 2016-17 season, the club were unable to secure a new lease on their stadium, so with the clubs very existence under threat, they managed to agree a ground share with Prescot Cables. Thankfully, the JMO Sports Park, which was already in existence, was to ultimately prove to be the clubs salvation, subject to getting it fit for Step 5 football.

I never went to White Moss Park, but I did go to the Westgate (or Windy Corner as it became known). It was in the 2004-05 season and I saw them draw 1-1 with Trafford. I can remember the journey up was a nightmare because England were playing Wales at Old Trafford, and the M6 became a car park! Anyway, I remember Skem had a player called Stuart Rudd at the time, and he was simply a goal machine. I think he ended up scoring over 200 goals for the club in a relatively short space of time.

To be fair to Skem, they’ve done a very good job with the JMO. I’ll admit to expecting to be somewhat underwhelmed by what sounded like cage football at a sports centre, but my expectations were without doubt exceeded.

Yes, it is a sports centre, with numerous pitches, and that will never change, but what they have done is tried to turn the pitch that Skem use into a football ground. The clubhouse and changing rooms sit elevated behind the goal, while on the side to the right they’ve created stepped terracing, put in an elevated Atcost and erected a smaller area of cover. The two other sides are hard standing, with only the clubhouse end out of bounds, although technically it isn’t because you can stand outside the building a watch through the fence.

It wasn’t a pleasant night weather wise, it was windy, we had heavy showers and it was cold, but 161 braved it (crowds have been well over 200 so far). The home support was quite vociferous, as it always was wherever they played, and they were treated to some last minute drama that got them the three points.

Dan Cope gave the visitors the lead on the stroke of half time with a penalty, but Emini Adegbenro scored the equaliser in the 69^th minute. The game looked to be heading for a draw until the last minute when Gabriel Ellis found the net, and that was the cue for some joyous celebrations with the young Skem fans who were stood in the shelter nearest the end where the goal was scored.

Skem are on the rise, they are back home, and lets hope after all of the turbulence, the club can finally gain some stability. Oh, and their timing was impeccable!

Chumbawamba & The Soldiers

South Elmsall United Services  1  Swinton Athletic Reserves  2

Sheffield & Hallamshire County Senior League – Division Two

I have to admit to being 'reyt' excited like when I heard a team was going to be playing round the back of Frickley Athletic’s ground this season.

I mean, there can be no more iconic a non-league club in Yorkshire than Frickley Colliery (as they are historically known), the Miners, who in the mid-eighties during one particular season were officially the second best semi-professional club in the country!

They even got a mention in song, courtesy of Chumbawamba, while images of fans stood on the terraces in NCB donkey jackets, launching missiles at the southerners who had the audacity to taunt them over the Miners Strike, are still embedded on many a locals mind.

It might not be high on the list of desirable places to reside in the UK, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s brilliant, South Elmsall is God’s Country epitomised, the home of mining, humour, beer and football.

South Elmsall United Services moved from the Doncaster Senior League at the end of last season and took up a berth in the Sheffield County Senior League. Over the years numerous places have been called ‘home’, but after many years of trying, they were finally granted their wish of playing on Frickley Pit Top.

Anyone who went to Frickley in years gone by will remember the famous old slag heap that sat behind the terracing opposite the main stand. If you don’t remember it, just Google it, but in short, it was effectively a huge black mountain. As the area has changed and developed over the years, it’s been landscaped and now forms part of ‘Frickley Country Park’.

Within this peaceful area of undulating greenery is now a football pitch, and in typical South Elmsall fashion, you don’t play in the ‘Country Park’, you play on the ‘Pit Top’.

Now I’ve been trying all season to get to a game, but every time I had it pencilled in, it kept being postponed due to the weather we’ve had. In fact, a cup tie against Sheffield Reserves got postponed something like six times. The pitch sits on a plateau and while it’s a good surface, it does suffer somewhat from the wet weather.

The manager runs the clubs Facebook account and credit where it’s due, if you ever sent a message you typically got a reply within minutes. I found this extremely helpful as on a Saturday I could always find out by 10am at the latest if a game was going to be on, or not as the case has been pretty much all season! So, when I sent a message on the Friday night to test the water and got an affirmative about the second Saturday in January, I knew I would be safe to travel the following day.

I’ve been to Frickley Athletic several times over the years, but only ever once on a Saturday and that was in the mid-Nineties, so I’d not had the pleasure of South Elmsall in daylight hours for an awful long time.  The journey from blighty is around fifty minutes, and once into the centre of the village (or is it a small town?), and up Westfield Lane, it’s very noticeable just how much regeneration has been taking place.

Where once stood the old pit houses, many of which became derelict, are shiny new builds, many of which sit close to the football ground and the Country Park. The old lane down to the football grounds is as pot-holed and muddy as ever, while the back of the main stand with it’s whitewash and high brick walls, is like something out of the Seventies.

Behind the goal to the left though is a new building and a small car park. The building houses the changing rooms, which serve both the Frickley Athletic pitch, and also the Pit Top pitch. It also contains a cafeteria area that serves a variety of alcoholic options, and chocolate if you fancy something a bit sweeter.

It was in here that I met the lads who run the ‘Soldiers’, and what top fellas they are. Around here, they say it how it is, and it was good to hear how the club were progressing both on and off the pitch, it’s been a successful season so far and promotion is on the cards. Prior to the game they sat in third place.

While I was mid-Carling the referee walked in, he’d been on the pitch, bit heavy in places but fine, although the wind was probably not going to be helpful in terms of it being a good game.

To get to the pitch you walk round the back of the building and out of the confines of the ground down a slope. You then go back up a slope and round the back of some trees that line part of the pitch, where a gate sits that lets you into the playing area. The playing area is enclosed by a green fence, and with the trees lining two sides it does have an enclosed feel to it.

The ref was right, the wind was blowing down the pitch and you felt the side that took advantage of it would be the winners. The hosts had the wind in the first half and didn’t take advantage, with the score line goalless at the break.

However, the league leaders Swinton took the lead in the second half only for South Elmsall to fight back and force an equaliser. The game looked to be ending as a draw until the closing minutes when a sustained spell of pressure from the visitors saw them force home the winner.

South Elmsall will be disappointed, but I felt on the day, with a number of key players out to be fair, they didn’t quite do enough to win the game, although in the conditions it was far from easy to play football.

That was South Elmsall, Frickley, Chumbawamba, Soldiers, the Miners Strike, Pit Top and the Country Park. We cannot stop progress and change has never been as fast as it is today, but some things should never change, and if you could put a preservation order on a village and all that goes with it, then South Elmsall should be it.

Stronger Together

Ossett United  3  Brighouse Town  0

Northern Premier League – League Cup

The date was Saturday 4^th May 1996, and the equation was a simple one.

If Belper Town won at Ossett Town, then they would pip Stocksbridge Park Steels to the runners up position in the Northern Counties East League, and because champions Hatfield Main could not go up, then in turn the Nailers would secure promotion to the Northern Premier League.

The day was all about anticipation, two coaches went North up the M1, but ultimately it was to end in bitter disappointment. Ossett, who had nothing to play for, put on a heroic performance and won the game 1-0. The Stocksbridge fans who attended the game, and they travelled in a reasonable number, celebrated wildly at the final whistle.

I always felt that the game meant more to Ossett in the sense that a victory would simply stop Belper going up. Had it been a dead rubber, then the effort and commitment they put in might not have been quite the same, especially when you saw how Ossett celebrated at the final whistle, you would think it was them that had promotion on the line!

Anyway, that was an awful long time ago now, and the feeling of desolation sat behind the goal after the game ended had gone twelve months later when a runners up spot was this time secured, and with Denaby United not eligible for the move upwards, the Nailers had finally made it to the promised land.

Football in Ossett is an interesting story, and one I will try and summarise as best I can.

Historically it’s been about two teams, Town and Albion. There is another in the form of Common Rovers, but that can wait for another day, in fact, I’m not sure they exist anymore, but they did as a West Yorkshire League side many moons ago. I know that because I went to see them!

Anyway, lets start with Albion.

Playing on the South side of the West Yorkshire town, at the very nice set up that was Dimple Wells, we were regular visitors from the mid-Eighties when they were a NCEL side, right up to when Belper got promotion. They joined us for a season in 2001-02 after earning promotion themselves, but were relegated immediately. A couple more years later and they were back, to stay, and stay they did in the First Division North of the NPL. Life in the NPL was predominantly about survival, and that they managed successfully.

Town however was a slightly different story.

Located in the town centre at a ground that is without doubt worth a quid or two, they too were a NCEL side until 1999 when they won promotion. They then had a spell in the First Division of the NPL that saw them achieve a best place runners-up spot, and courtesy of re-structuring in 2004-05, they found themselves elevated to the Premier Division.

Town were different to Albion in the sense that they had some money behind them, and it was this money that meant they could sustain a seven season spell in the top flight, before relegation eventually befell them.

After that, other than a season where they finished fourth in Division One North, like Albion, they were ultimately survivors in Step 4, not looking like going up, but good enough not to go down.

To put it bluntly, the town arguably wasn’t big enough for the both of them, not if they wanted to see Step 3 football and above. Historically, in instances where you get a town like this that has two clubs, the prospect of a merger of any sorts is always the unthinkable. I look at places like Northwich for example, a car crash of a town when it comes to football, when in hindsight, a merger of some sorts with Witton Albion might have stopped the chaos that has been Northwich Victoria and it’s splinter club 1874.

But, from almost out of the blue, it was announced in the Summer of 2018 that the two Ossett clubs were to merge, to form United, and they would play at the Ingfield ground that Town used. It did seem to be well received to be fair, but I’m an outsider looking in, not a dyed in the wool Town or Albion fan, so maybe I’ve got it wrong, I don’t know. The strapline was ‘Stronger Together’, but how would it manifest?

It started well, crowds were up, significantly up in fact, and on the field the club managed  to attain a fifth placed finish in the Eastern Division of the NPL as it was now known. That saw them enter the play-offs but it came to an abrupt end when they lost to Pontefract Collieries, who in turn lost to Brighouse Town, who in turn weren’t promoted anyway due to the farce that was last season.

This season has been tough, the club have been dealt a severe blow courtesy of an opposition player who decided to take legal action against them for an injury he sustained while playing against Ossett. The case was unprecedented, and somewhat alarmingly, ruled against the club. Ossett United were ordered to pay £135,000 in costs and damages, selling the ground to cover the costs is a real possibility.

I’d not been to Ingfield for many a year, probably eight or nine to be precise, and I’d certainly not been to see the Ossett club in it’s new guise, it was time to nip up from work on a Tuesday night and have a look at what was happening.

Ingfield is a cracking little town centre venue. Parking is limited but I arrived early enough to get in the car park at the ground. Once through the turnstiles, which sit to the corner behind the goal, a large seated stand which is directly behind the goal is the focal part of the ground, now painted in blue, as opposed to the red when I last came.

The clubhouse, offices, shop and dressing rooms are on the East side of the ground, with a small area of cover set below the dressing rooms, while on the opposite side of the ground is another similar style area of cover and a TV gantry.

A further area of cover has been added behind the North goal since my last visit, which means the ground now has cover on all four sides. The atmosphere is good, the welcome is friendly and the clubhouse does look to have had a makeover as well. You sense that off the field, up until the court case, they were ready to make the step up, but what the future holds now is anyone’s guess.

This was a League Cup tie against last season’s un-promoted play-off winners Brighouse Town, and to be fair it was a very decent game.

Brighouse started strongly and had chances, but somewhat against the run of play, James Knowles gave the hosts the lead just before the half hour mark.

The crowd of 199 saw Elliot Harrison net a second ten minutes into the second period, and despite missing a penalty after Brighouse had been reduced to ten men, it was indeed Ossett who finished strongly, scoring a third goal in the final minute courtesy of Aaron Haswell.

199 – had that been a Town or an Albion game you probably would have got half of that. The average at Ingfield this season is 352, a figure both clubs in isolation could only have dreamed of in years gone by.

Has the merger been a success, well I would say it has, notwithstanding the court case. But only when they become a stable and sustainable Step 3 club could you really say it’s achieved it’s objective, assuming of course that is where they want to stop, which I can imagine it isn’t. Time will of course tell.

They might be a different name now, but I still consider them to be the club that stopped us going up, but I don’t hold a grudge, all is fair in love, war and football!