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Football: Wherever it may be

~ Laurence's football travels

Football: Wherever it may be

Daily Archives: April 2, 2012

Dilemna at Junction 30

02 Monday Apr 2012

Posted by laurencereade in T

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Billy Rouse, Clyst Valley, Coronation Park, Danny Hine, David Hood, Devon and Exeter League, Dominic Gibbons, Football, groundhopping, Mitchell Ward, Sam Cooper, South West Peninsula League, Topsham Town, university of exeter

Sunday 1st April 2012 ko 12.00pm

Golesworthy Cup Quarter Final

TOPSHAM TOWN 3RDS 3 (Gibbons 35 Rouse 38 Ward 45)

CLYST VALLEY 3RDS 3 (Hine 6 Hood 73 Cooper 90)

AET Clyst Valley won 4-3 on pens

Att 22 (h/c)

Entry FREE

No Programme

The pretty Devon town of Topsham is often described as a suburb of Exeter, but does retain its own distinct identity. Part of it is that there are many Dutch style houses in Topsham dating from the time when the town was an important cotton port. Many of Topsham’s houses are built using Dutch bricks, which were brought over as ballast from Holland – to where the wool and cotton from South-West England had been exported. There is an excellent antique centre on the Quayside, where once I picked up a rather impressive cheese grater!

The genteel feel does not extend to the Exeter Road based Coronation Field. Leaving town you pass by the University of Exeter ground, under the M5 and Topsham’s home is the next thing you see on your right. A huge sign for Junction 30 of the M5 is visible from the far goal. The club have played in the South-West Peninsula League, but following relegation, now ply their trade in the top flight of the Devon & Exeter League. The ground is well appointed, and would have no difficulties in gaining SWPL grading. In fact tucked away at the far side is a set of floodlights, bought as salvage from the sadly demolished Clyst Rovers ground.

Things are looking up for Topsham. They’re third in the table some distance behind leaders Seaton Town, but with doubts on Seaton’s rather narrow pitch, there’s all to play for. Except of course that Mike and I weren’t there to watch the 1st XI! With this game kicking off at midday and another at Sidmouth straight afterwards this wasn’t a day to worry about semantics! An unexpected bonus was that another hopper thought the same. I hadn’t seen Taunton-based Martin Bamforth for 2 years, which was a real pity. Martin has a long line of groundhopping mishaps which he’s not embarrassed to recount. A favourite was driving to Edinburgh to watch Hibernian in a European fixture only to discover on arrival that it was Hibernians of MALTA that were at home that evening!

The Golesworthy Cup is primarily for teams who play in the 6th, 7th and 8th divisions of the Devon and Exeter League, although some Perry Street and District League teams do enter. With criteria like that it’s inevitable that there’s very few first XI’s in the draw, and with these two sides 4th and 6th respectively in Division 6 the fixture did look competitive. I was told that Topsham’s 4th XI had won the trophy last season.

The trouble was it that the game found new ways to be a poor spectacle. Firstly Topsham conceded a daft goal, keeper John Parkes fumbling Danny Hine’s hopeful lob, before racing into a 3-1 lead, and looking completely dominant. Trouble is, after half time they stopped the neat passing that had given them the advantage. David Hood came on for Clyst and despite suffering the after-effects of a Saturday night curry, he finished well to get his team back in the game. With time tight for the Sidmouth we really didn’t want extra time, but of course that’s what we got, after a poor clearance was knocked in by Sam Cooper with seconds left.

Of course extra time produced nothing, as the both teams had ran themselves into the dust. That delayed the inevitable penalties by half an hour, and in this case Clyst knocked in all 4 they took to win. Except it wasn’t quite as straightforward as that. Barlow took the 4th for Clyst which was saved. Unfortunately for Topsham he hadn’t waited for the whistle and he scored with his retaken kick

At the end the Topsham players bemoaned that one incident, but if they’d kept doing what they’d started they’d have won this one easily.





Misses with the first attempt…….
But scores with the second

50.692242 -3.479016

Jurassic Park

02 Monday Apr 2012

Posted by laurencereade in L

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Football, groundhopping, Ilminster Town, Joel Gosling, Julian Simier, League, Louis Gilman, Lyme Regis, mary anning, Perry Street and District League

Saturday 31st March 2012 ko 2.30pm

Perry Street & District League Premier Division

LYME REGIS AFC 2 (Simier 52 Gosling 90)

ILMINSTER TOWN RESERVES 1 (Gilman 41)

Att 44 (h/c)

Entry by donation

No programme

125 years of LRFC brochure £2

Tea-in-a-mug 50p

It was a full 18 months since I’d last visited the Dorset town of Lyme Regis, and with me finally getting round to visiting friends Mike and Christine, in footballing terms the number one priority was a visit to the Davey Fort.

Lyme Regis is known primarily for one thing, palaeontology as the coast, a World Heritage site, stretches over a distance of 153 kilometres from Exmouth, in the west, to Old Harry Rocks in the east.The coastal exposures along the coastline provide a continuous sequence of Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous rock formations spanning approximately 185 million years of the Earth’s history. The localities along the Jurassic Coast include a large range of important fossil zones. The Blue Lias rock is host to a multitude of remains from the early Jurassic period.  Many of the remains are well preserved, with complete specimens of several important species. Many of the earliest discoveries of dinosaur and other prehistoric reptile remains were made in this area  notably those discovered by Mary Anning (1799–1847).

The Davey Fort sits on the hill as you enter the town from the north. There’s a clubhouse with an overhang behind the near goal, and a rail on one side. There simply isn’t room for much else as the ground is on a ledge cut out of the hill, and despite the obvious attempts to widen it, the pitch is too narrow to allow the club to progress upwards into the Dorset Premier League.

And that’s the tragedy of the piece. Here is a wonderful, charming club, who’ve won the league at a canter, and are clearly a big fish in a small pond, but the biggest problem lies in finding a large enough piece of flat land, in a hilly town that’s fashionably expensive! I chatted to club stalwart Graham “Percy” Vere (529 goals in 20 years), who told me that the club had found a suitable site further north, only to be turned down by the local authorities, as ONE PERSON had complained that he might have been able to have seen a floodlight! And people wonder why this country has an obesity problem!

With Lyme having the title all wrapped up, this game had the incentive of the club maintaining its 100% home record for the season. They made a confident start but the visitors, one of whose subsitutes had no idea in which league his first eleven play(Somerset County League), soon found their feet. Ilminster surprised everyone, including themselves, by scoring just before half time, when a beautifully flighted free kick from the left was turned in by Louis Gilman.

Regis didn’t seem unduly worried and soon after the restart a perfectly flighted cross from the right was expertly headed home by subsitute Julian Simien. Its was one way traffic by now and only a series of baffling off-sides given by the Ilminster club linesman kept the champions out. It was, of course only a matter of time, and in the final minute a perfect cross-cum-shot from the right by Joel Gosling nestled in the corner of the net. When you’re this good, you need no other opportunity.

A great achievement, but tinged with the regret that through no fault of their own, they’ll be having no other challenge next season but to try to repeat the feat.






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