Monthly Archives: March 2013

Scene Shifting

31 Sunday Mar 2013

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Thursday 28th March 2013 ko 19.45

North West Counties League Division One

ATHERTON COLLIERIES 0

ROCHDALE TOWN 0

Att 133

Entry £5

Programme £1

The burgundy jacket hung inertly from its hook at the back of the car, so yes it was groundhop time again. I don’t think I’ve ever explained exactly what Chris Berezai and I actually do with regard to organising football tours, or groundhops as they get called.

We liaise with a particular league to get kickoffs staggered over one or more days. That attracts the groundhoppers, so from there we organise advance tickets, to allow clubs some idea of numbers attending, programme production, merchandise, catering, transport and accommodation. We’ve been doing a long time, and its a fairly well oiled machine, but just occasionally you do get a glitch!

This Easter’s hop was on behalf of the Northern Counties East League, and with an excellent base at the Cedar Court Hotel, just off the M1 near Wakefield, and Stringers Coaches providing the transport we were good to go, but then the weather intervened! The area saw significant snow during the week, and by Tuesday it looked increasingly unlikely our scheduled game at AFC Emley could go ahead. I called Atherton Collieries’ secretary Emil Anderson that night, and I will always be grateful to him and his club for more than Continue reading →

Banned!

27 Wednesday Mar 2013

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Tuesday 26th March 2013 ko 19.45

Wessex League Premier Division

ROMSEY TOWN 2 (Phillips 41 Harry 90)

FAREHAM TOWN 0

Att 32 (head count)

Entry £5

No Programme

Until I researched this I had no idea why the small Hampshire town of Romsey resonated with me. It’s notable for fly-fishing on the River Test but I prefer my fish in batter with chips so it wasn’t that, but when I saw that Wilbert Awdry was born nearby the pieces began to fall into place. The Rev W Awdry wrote the Thomas the Tank Engine books, and is was him that got me to learn to read as a child. I remember meeting him as a small boy at a model railway exhibition at Oxford Town Hall, and being star-struck for the first time in my short life. You can blame him for what you’re reading now!

The Broadlands Country House is in the outskirts of Romsey too. Variously home to the inventor of Gunboat Diplomacy Lord Palmerston, and Lord Louis Mountbatten of Burma, it was designed by Lancelot “Capability” Brown, and was where Prince Charles and Princess Diana spent their wedding night. I’m not sure whether that last fact is necessarily a selling point!

The factor that influenced this tie for me was the opposition. Fareham Town secretary Paul “Splodge” Proctor is a Continue reading →

Seeds

25 Monday Mar 2013

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Saturday 23rd March 2013 ko 14.30

North Berkshire League Division One

CROWMARSH GIFFORD 1 (Lee 80)

LONG WITTENHAM ATHLETIC 3 (Saunders 33 Bowler 51 Sheppard 58)

Att 23 (h/c)

Entry FREE

No Programme

With Mum still in Wallingford Hospital, I decided to stay local as I wanted to make sure I spent as much time with her as I could. That immediately placed me four-square in the territory of my favourite league, the North Berkshire. What I didn’t realise early in the morning that this game was going to be my only option, the snow meant that everything else in the league was postponed, and I got the chance to sound out a potential future groundhop host club. Continue reading →

The Backlog

24 Sunday Mar 2013

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Thursday 21st March 2013 ko 7.45pm

Isthmian League Division One North

BRENTWOOD TOWN 1 (Butterworth 43)

WROXHAM 1 (Harrop 58)

Att 41

Entry £8

Programme 50p (reissue with insert) 50p

Badge £3

Bacon sarnie £2

It would be easy to write off Brentwood as an unlovely Essex town, after all it is the birthplace of people like Jodie Marsh, Amy Childs, Louise Redknapp and Noel Edmonds. Scratch at the surface a little and there’s far more than fake tan, and silicone. The town was the birthplace of the 1381 Peasants Revolt, instigators John Ball and Jack Straw met regularly in local pubs and inns. The first event of the Peasants’ Revolt occurred in Brentwood, when men from Fobbing, Corringham and Stanford were summoned by the commissioner Thomas Bampton to Brentwood to answer as to who had avoided paying the poll tax. Bampton insisted that the peasants pay what was demanded of them. They refused to pay and a riot ensued as Bampton attempted to arrest them.

The town was a stopping point for pilgrims en route to Canterbury, and a chapel is still dedicated to St Thomas à Becket to this day. Brentwood has a huge Premier Inn, whose former use was as Amstrad’s head office, and businesses such as LV and Ford have bases here.

The football club have their base tucked neatly at the back of the leisure centre. Its typical of a club that graduated from county grade football with the clubhouse extended forward to provide requisite seating, and there’s a covered terrace constructed behind one goal. What makes the Brentwood Centre Arena unique is the details. From the sofas behind the goal, the picnic table behind a dugout to the cinema seats for HOME directors, there’s something to make you smile at every turn. The cafe is well worth a visit too, my bacon sarnie was excellent.

Of course it isn’t the fixtures and fittings that make a club, and Brentwood’s band of volunteers are a credit to their town and club. They are the first Isthmian League club I’ve visited recently to print me off a team sheet without grumbling, and the gateman and stadium announcer were happy to talk about the club and their plans for future. If I moved to Brentwood, it would be a pleasure to follow a club with people like these at the helm.

The problem the club have is a massive fixture backlog, with one corner of the pitch prone to waterlogging. For a hopper, Thursday fixtures are a bonus, for everyone else its a major bind with players getting more and more tired. Tonight Brentwood looked as if the season was getting to them as Wroxham on the back of a quite horrible journey from the Norfolk Broads, belied their lowly league position and really should have travelled home with 3 points.

Against the run of play Brentwood took the lead, as a run on goal down the right was only half-blocked, and Steve Butterworth was on hand to dink the loose ball into the net. The lead lasted a mere 9 minutes, as Angelo Harrop superbly curled his shot from just outside the area into the top corner. A point was the least Wroxham deserved and they had chances to win it, Brentwood keeper Richard Wray making a fantastic triple save to deny Jamie Spellar. You just got the impression that with all players fit, Brentwood would probably have won the game.

That of course is the kind of luck you see week in, week out in football, but nevertheless I still left this gallant friendly club feeling slightly sad for them. Their band of volunteers deserved to have witnessed a win on a cold Thursday evening.

 

 

The Rouncil House

24 Sunday Mar 2013

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Tuesday 13th March 2013 ko 19.45

Midland Combination Division Two

KENILWORTH TOWN KH 0

COVENTRY SPIRES 2 (Mwackukwo 3 74)

Att 13 (h/c)

Entry FREE

No Programme

Can of Coke 70p

The Warwickshire town of Kenilworth is probably best known for its 12th century castle, once owned by Simon de Montford. Its genteel market town air seems light years from the urbanised sprawl of Coventry, a mere 6 miles away. Its very much a commuter town these days with the smart rows of semi-detached houses give an unsubtle view of the wealth here.

As is ever the case, a genteel town leads to a football team that struggles to make much of an impact. You turn left from Rouncil Road, into Gypsy Lane and the whole feel changes. The wide tarmacked avenue changes to a potholed track, with a group of allotments at its end, who take exception to football traffic parking there. The ground is just before, with parking at a premium even with the tiny attendance present, but the welcome was fulsome.

Its not often I wax lyrical about a ground that features two sets of prefabricated stands, but there’s so much more to the place than that. The jewel is undoubtedly the clubhouse which manages to bow both at the roof and bulge at the walls. It has the feel of a village hall, but with photos of successful Kenilworth Town sides of the past and a huge tin trophy in one window. The other window has been broken, but fixed in a way you’ll only find in non-league- with the tactics board! The committee were keen to tell me about the history of the club, and I look forward to reading the leaflet they’ll be posting to me. It’s clear that the club has fallen to a low ebb, but having regained league membership, they’re looking to progress again. Incidentally the KH stands for Kings Heath who the club swallowed up in 2005, and whose influence has been completely lost.

A new set of changing rooms have been built, and a new clubhouse next door to the current one. That clubhouse isn’t ready yet, but when time and finances allow, that will be fitted out, the memorabilia will move and a quirkly part of the club will be demolished. I do wonder when this can happen though. The club don’t charge for entry, and there’s little or nothing in the way of sponsorship. I saw how much it cost for the referee and two linesmen, and its clear that expenditure must exceed income, and I do wonder why linesmen are necessary at such a low level (level 8 of non-league).

The game was entertaining on a cold evening. There wasn’t much to seperate the two sides, both teams at the margins of Midland Combination membership. Ultimately two good strikes from Jhoe Mwakchukwo was enough to swing the tie in Spires’ favour but the home officials didn’t seem too concerned. Perhaps when you’ve been to hell and back small things like home defeats don’t matter too much.

Didcot Snow

24 Sunday Mar 2013

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At 2pm on Friday 22nd March they shut Didcot Power Station. An icon of the Oxfordshire countryside became a mausoleum at the flick of a switch, and a mausoleum that won’t be around for long either. With land prices high and a railway line nearby, once decommissioning has finished in around 18 months, the demolition will start. Inevitably the story is slightly more complicated, as there are two Didcot Power Stations. It’s the Coal and Oil fired Didcot A that’s closed, as it can’t meet EU emissions targets but the smaller Combined Cycle Didcot B is still in use, but the huge cooling towers and the vast majority of the skyline will disappear.

Many will be pleased to see it go, the plant was voted Britain’s third ugliest building by readers of Country Life magazine in 2003, and many times I’ve driven past and wondered how on earth it got planning permission! It’s visible for miles, from the M40 at Stokenchurch, and from the A34 at West Ilsley. The ecologists hated the place, in 2006, 30 Greenpeace volunteers invaded and a group chained themselves to a broken coal-carrying conveyor belt. A second group scaled the 200 metre high chimney, and set up a ‘climate camp’. They proceeded to paint “Blair’s Legacy” on the side of the chimney overlooking the town, claiming it was the second most polluting in Britain after Drax in Yorkshire. Friends of the Earth describe it as the ninth worst in the UK, so these groups will doubtless be celebrating.

The locals take a completely different view. For Friday’s light show finale, artists were seen sketching the towers, and descriptions comparing the towers to Antony Gormley’s Angel of the North were recorded. As far as I know, no-one went quite as far as Kelly Green who had the towers tattooed on her shin, but it’s clear that Didcot’s identity and the power station have become intertwined since its opening in 1968. Before then, Didcot was a Garrison town, with the Great Western Railway running through, itself only there because Lord Wantage objected to the line going through the more logical Abingdon to the north. I sat in the pub in Oxford last night and we talked about the station. I was surprised at how as children, we all used the place as a landmark to place when we were close to home after a long journey.

I visited the site after the celebrations had finished, the cameramen had packed up and gone, the artists nowhere to be seen. The cooling waters still flowed from the bottoms of the towers, as the snow began to fall gently. I smiled, Didcot got snow sometimes when nowhere else did, due to the cooling tower’s steam condensing and freezing. I contemplated the curves of the towers designed by Sir Frederick Gibberd, who also designed Liverpool’s Metropolitan Cathedral. It’s obvious he was massively influenced by the likes of Le Corbusier and the entire Bauhaus movement. Those designs, noted for functionality rather than form, think of 1950’s tower blocks, were seldom easy on the eye but I do think the Didcot residents have a point. There is a sense of “So ugly its beautiful,” about the station, and on that level alone I’ll be sad to see them demolished.

And deduct the number you first thought of

23 Saturday Mar 2013

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Saturday 16th March 2013 ko 15.00

League 2

OXFORD UNITED 0

CHESTERFIELD 1 (Richards 5)

Att 6,003 (385 away)

 

Entry S/T

Programme £3 (inc Oxford Mail)

A few Oxford United games ago, I commented that the rest of the season would consist of a series of meaningless games, with no possibility of promotion or relegation. Yes, the league table suggests still the possibility of both but take Tuesday’s last-minute win in tandem with this, and what do you get? Two goals in five minutes that utterly cancel out both each other and the two results.

It was the same old story too, one defensive slip, and an excellent finish by Marc Richards and that was it. You could have spared yourself the cold and scuttled home. United huffed and puffed and did easily enough to warrant a victory but as ever the Achilles heel was the finishing. If Alfie Potter could shoot straight both he and OUFC would be playing in League 1, and the proved goalscorer James Constable has developed an annoying habit of trying to smash the leather from the ball ever time he gets a chance. Tom Craddock, ever the mystery wrapped up in an enigma suffered the indignity of being replaced by someone who can’t even claim his goalscoring touch has deserted him, Deane Smalley, as its never been there during his two-season stint here.

Smalley did at least endear himself to himself to the home fans by picking up an unusual booking. Chesterfield left-back Nathan Smith picked up an knock, and received treatment. He carried on but realised he couldn’t carry on, so waited for a throw in. He limped off the pitch to the ball, kicked it away, then walked back onto the pitch and then fell over. With referee Darren Bond not understanding how his authority was being mocked, Smalley forcibly removed Smith from the pitch, and picked up the most popular yellow card I’ll see for a while!

Another game and another inconsistant performance. Soon the season will end, the departures will start and the rebuilding will begin. I suspect many fans are just counting down the hours.

 

 

Driving On The Left

20 Wednesday Mar 2013

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With Mum ensconced in Wallingford Community Hospital, I’ve been making regular trips from Oxford to see her. There’s a number of routes you can use to cover the 15 or so miles, but the most interesting takes you via Littlemore, via Berinsfield, then past the Wittenham Clumps to the little village of Shillingford. From there you cross the Thames and make for the castle town of Wallingford. There’s much to like about Wallingford, not least the care Mum’s receiving at their hospital, but the bridge over the Thames is what has caught my eye. Prior to 1974 the bridge spanned Oxfordshire to Berkshire but the little structure has a story to tell.

On the face of it, its little more than a single track bridge built in stone, but the location is stunning, with the boats moored up by the hotel, and mock-tudor boathouse downstream heading towards Benson Reach. This is the third bridge here, the first lost in the mists of time, but was thought to have existed in the 14th century. What is certain is that the trip across the Thames was made by boat from 1379 to 1767 when a timber bridge was built. That Shillingford ferry was operated by Roger Hurst, Porter of Wallingford Castle and remained a free perk to the Castle’s porters until 1530.  It was then leased to Roger Hacheman who also leased a small dwelling on what was then the Berkshire (south) bank in 1545. That dwelling was expanded several times, becoming Swan Inn by 1608 and is now the Shillingford Bridge Hotel.

In 1749 lawyer William Blackstone, Recorder of Wallingford travelled to Oxford regularly using the ferry. He quickly tired of having to take the longer route over Wallingford Bridge in times of flood, so petitioned to Parliament to get a bridge built. An Act of Parliament was granted royal assent in 1763 for, “For repairing and widening the Road from Shillingford in the County of Oxford, through Wallingford and Pangbourne to Reading in the County of Berks and for building of a Bridge over the River Thames at or near Shillingford Ferry.” The wooden bridge was opened on 25th April 1767, with the Turnpike Trust taking out a loan of £7,700 which covered both the host of purchasing the ferry rights, and the construction of the bridge.

By 1826 the bridge was in poor repair and was closed, and the ferry reinstated whilst the current stone bridge was built. That required an act of Parliament to renew the trustees’ powers, and its in the act’s wording that the bridge’s little footnote in history lies. It states that a fine of 20 to 40 shillings would be levied on, “Any person who shall not keep his carriage on the left hand side of the road.” This is one of the first mentions anywhere of the convention of driving on the left in the UK!

When the Reading to Oxford Railway opened in 1844 bridge traffic declined and in 1874 the last toll was levied as the trustees handed the bridge over to the two counties. The toll keeper’s house was demolished in 1937, but otherwise the bridge is untouched save for one small, but vital detail. The road is now single track, so the 1826 Act’s potential fine is now irrelevant. That seems almost a pity given its place in motoring history!

Nights of Mystery

18 Monday Mar 2013

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Tuesday 12th March 2013 ko 19.45

League 2

OXFORD UNITED 1 (Raynes 90)

BARNET 0

Att 5,027 (165 away)

Entry S/T

Programme £3 (inc Oxford Mail)

1,400 or so grounds in, and I dread to think how many games, this game is still a complete mystery to me. Why was Scotland manager Gordon Strachan watching this? There are only 3 Scots in the two squads, Peter Leven for Oxford, Craig Beattie and George Sykes for Barnet. With Leven injured long term the most likely candidate was Sykes as he’s a member of Ricky Sbragia’s Scotland U19 squad. Trouble is none of the 3 Scots actually made an appearance.

What parallel universe do I live in when Dutch legend Edgar Davids plays for a struggling League 2 outfit? For many the second most noteworthy incident of the game was journeyman pro Andy Whing’s crunching tackle on him. The song from behind the goal, ” All we want is a team of Andy Whings,” was as erudite as it was heartfelt. And while I’m thinking of it why did Barnet play in a frankly ugly shade of lilac? With Oxford playing in all yellow this season, amber and black is no great clash.

Why oh why do a series of Oxford United managers reject good strikers and sign mediocre ones? Both Alfie Potter and James Constable smashed enough shots over the bar to convince me to stop parking my car in the car park at the open end of the ground. Just when you thought the striking options couldn’t get worse, Oxford United introduced Deane Smalley (44 appearances, 4 goals). He worked hard, as he always does, but does anyone think he’ll get you a goal?

Speaking of goals when will Firoka employ stadium staff that can purchase a half-decent set of goals, and get them to last for the duration of a football match? Watching the goal at the western end of the ground collapse twice is embarrassing, even if the added time gave enough time for United to score.

Did anyone visiting the stadium bookie put a pound on centre half Michael Raynes to score the only goal? His screaming header from all of an inch was just reward for a solid display in defence, but the headed ball back to the box from Scott Davies free kick came from Tom Craddock. When I watched Oxford United’s FA Cup tie at Barnet he was extremely conspicious by his absence. Now he looks destined to depart at the end of the campaign, lost and unloved by management, but why?

From a Barnet perspective what was goalkeeper Graham Stack doing collecting a booking for a foul on his opposite number? Yes, there were seconds left, but it was pointless, and silly bookings often have a habit of punishing struggling teams later on. I have connections to Barner and have no desire to see them back in the Conference.

Still a win is welcome even if it is against a struggling team, Davids or not. Where you place it in the season’s context? Don’t ask me I’ve no idea, it was another night of mystery!

Calan Hen

17 Sunday Mar 2013

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Sunday 10th March 2013 ko 13.30

Ceredigion League Division Two

LLANDYSUL 4 (S Davies 39 51 D Jones 71 83p)

SARON 3 (G Davies 17 77 85)

Att 206

Entry & Programme by Hop Ticket

Badge £3

Even as organiser groundhops always seem to fly by, and I felt slightly melancholy as the coach pulled into the public car park by Llandysul Memorial Park. The club gave an immediate good impression as they’d placed a steward by the “Pay and display,” machine to make such the coach didn’t have to pay the £1.20 to park there. It was unnecessary, but appreciated, and was a good indication of how much thought the club had put into their day. Like St Dogmaels the previous day, the club got the local populace involved making a bumper crowd. Continue reading →