• About this humble little website

Football: Wherever it may be

~ Laurence's football travels

Football: Wherever it may be

Daily Archives: May 27, 2013

Would I? You bet I would!

27 Monday May 2013

Posted by laurencereade in S

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

Dan Kelly, Eddie Baki, FC Assyria, gus elen, hackney marshes, lee valley park, Phil Ellerby, Sloane FC, university of north london, world war ii

Saturday 25th May 2013 ko 14.00

Middlesex County League Premier Division

SLOANE 2 (Kelly 2 Ellerby 90)

FC ASSYRIA 1 (E Baki 21)

Att 9

Entry & Programme FREE

When I first started groundhopping I soon got used to the incredulity. I actually went to watch Barking FC when someone commented, “You must be mad,” so I could respond, “Yes, completely Barking, and I’ve done that one too!”

The other accusation I occasionally hear is, “You’d even watch a game on Hackney Marshes!” Well, why shouldn’t I and I do have history with the place! As a highly disappointing right back for the University of North London’s 5th XI I played 2 seasons here in the early 1990’s, and I hadn’t been back since graduation.

Perhaps inevitably a lot had changed, the old clubhouse has been demolished and replaced with an impressive modern affair that used rust as a means of decoration. The café bar served an excellent coffee, and the bar/viewing area upstairs was a far cry from the beer that was lousy but cheap all those years ago. I stood by the pitch and it took a good 10 minutes to align myself with my memories!

I had a little run-in with officialdom too, and it does seem to only happen at local authority run facilities. An employee behind a desk was at great pains to inform me that photography was only allowed with written permission of Hackney Council. So young sir, if you’re reading this, the letter’s in the post-honest!

The marshes lie on the western bank of the River Lea and were incorporated into the Lee Valley Park in 1967. It was originally a true marsh, but was extensively drained from Medieval times, and rubble was dumped here from buildings damaged by air raids during World War II.

The celebrated cockney music hall performer Gus Elen sang a song entitled If It Wasn’t for the ‘Ouses In Between’ which included the following chorus,

Oh it really is a wery pretty garden
And Chingford to the eastward could be seen;
‘Wiv a ladder and some glasses,
You could see to ‘Ackney Marshes,
If it wasn’t for the ‘ouses in between.”

In 1997 Nike used the facility for an advert featuring some greats of the game, and in 2006 got into trouble with Hackney Council over the use of the Council’s logo on their would you believe Hackney Marshes range of sportswear. The range was to celebrate the fields where David Beckham and Terry Venables got their start, “as a symbol of all that is great about amateur football” they said. The escapade cost the firm £300,000 in damages. but here’s the advert, it is superb and this at least offended no one.

 

Today the marshes provide many pleasant walks, in reach of the inner city, but the most famous use of Hackney Marshes is for Sunday league football, with 88 full-size pitches marked out. On a typical Sunday, over 100 matches are played by amateur teams in several local leagues. There are 2 show pitches, the first used by Sporting Hackney, who produced a programme for their fixture against their own reserves, and the second by Sloane.

The big impact on the marshes recently was last year’s Olympics a few hundred yards away in Stratford; the ArcelorMittal Orbit Tower is just about visible above the tree-line and the Eastern Marsh was temporarily tarmacked over for use as a car park.

I’ve watched Sloane before, at their former home of behind the Royal Hospital Chelsea, of Chelsea Pensioners fame. It was a unique location, but they were forced to move as the pitch was too small, but a move is afoot to another of their stamping grounds at Franklin’s Row, opposite the hospital which would provide quite a backdrop!

What I don’t understand is the Middlesex County League’s insistence on programme production. With an attendance of 9, or which I estimate 8 were hoppers, even if the club had charged for the magazine, there is no way it could have been anything other than a loss maker which in these straitened times clubs can ill-afford. Yes, hoppers do love programmes, but hoppers are by their very nature transient customers. Great on an organised event, but irrelevant day-to-day.

The game had all the hallmarks of end of season fayre. Both sides tried hard, the first half saw an exchange of goals, and some common-sense refereeing from Mr Thomas. The second half can best summed up by the end of season conversations including sex-change footballers, and the possibilities of playing snooker with a foam cue! That 45 minutes was at least punctuated by Sloane’s winner, Phil Ellerby slotting home from the left, but in truth this fixture was largely an exercise in completion, a little like the motivation of 8/9ths of the spectators!

I left after looking round the new centre, it all seemed a far cry from student days and flat Toby bitter at 85p a pint, but that’s progress I suppose. I wouldn’t rule out a return though, I’d love to do a game on the pitch I used to play on…. any given Sunday!






51.557000 -0.030000

Badge

27 Monday May 2013

Posted by laurencereade in L

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Chairmans Shield, de Havilland, Loughborough, North Leicestershire League, The Drome, The Luffs, Whitwick United

Thursday 23th May 2013 ko 18.30

North Leicestershire League Chairman’s Shield Final

LOUGHBOROUGH FC 1 (Varnham 64)

WHITWICK UNITED 4 (A Raine 40 Wade-Jones 53 90p Lawrence 80)

Att c80

Entry & Programme £3

I’m well used to trips to Loughborough, my famously unsporting ex-wife did her PhD at the famously sporting university, and I reflected as I passed the institution that this was the only time I’d turned LEFT at the roundabout on Epinal way!

I’d wanted to visit The Luffs for years, and for the most spurious of reasons. I’d visited Nanpantan-based Loughborough Dynamo, and soon after picked up an enamel badge from a dealer, only to notice that it wasn’t quite what I thought it was. I filed it away until I’d ticked off the ground, the trouble is that took 10 years…. Still it was well worth the wait!

The Drome sits on the site of the former Loughborough Aerodrome, on Bishops Meadow. That was originally planned to be a civil aerodrome but when World War II broke out the site was used for aircraft manufacture by Brush Coachworks. Around 335 de Havilland Dragon Rapide (known as de Havilland Dominie when used for military use)  aircraft were built here between March 1943 and March 1946. Several other aircraft were refurbished at the Loughborough Brush factory including Douglas Bostons and Lancasters by the Airwork company. The airfield even made it on to the Luftwaffe’s target list!

The postal address is on the Derby Road, but the ground is accessed through an industrial estate on Cotton Way. It isn’t straightforward to find, and I was not blessed with time to kill.

It became obvious that The Drome is a far better ground than just about every other ground in the North Leicestershire League, which was why the League picked it for their 3 supplementary cup finals. That was not popular with Whitwick who would have preferred a neutral venue, although I suspect their objections dissipated as the evening wore on!

The Drome is well appointed for two reasons, the first being the club’s 1998-2006 stint in the Midland Combination. The second is that the club’s administration is clearly of a standard way above their current station. They have a website, an active Twitter feed, and produce programmes for all home games, including this one, technically a game hosted by the league.

The club are go-ahead despite the limitations placed upon them. There’s no power, so the tea bar is powered by a generator, and solar panels provide part of the power needed for the showers. The club are pondering the installation of a wind turbine to supplement this. There’s no running water either so rainwater is collected, filtered and stored in bowsers. There’s a £38,000 grant application lodged with the Sports Foundation to get electrical power installed, but the local council aren’t easy to deal with and the club are worried as to whether they’ll let them dig the trench from the industrial estate.

The team have had no so such problems winning the First Division with only a solitary draw sullying their record. In fact their only defeat this season came against Shepshed in the county cup, no disgrace since they play 5 divisions higher than the Luffs. It does leave the club with a dilemma, do they go for the NLFL Premier Division, or do they fancy a crack at the Central Midlands League? It’s a quirk of the local football scene that the Leicestershire Senior League’s lower division is only open to them if they win the NLFL’s Premier Division, even though the two divisions are at the same level, 8 promotions from the Football League!

I did wonder though why the League had bothered with 3 supplementary cup competitions? League President Mike Jones, resplendent in his chain of office provided the answer.

” We were way ahead of schedule with our fixtures, at Christmas so we decided to play these as we didn’t want the lads to have nothing to do. Of course as soon as we started to play them it didn’t stop raining!”

What the game added up to for the Luffs, was a game too far for them. The competition is for sides in Divisions 1 and 2 of the NLFL but the opposition could not have been tougher, Whitwick finished second, and the opposition soon worked out they could win the tie if they slowed the game down, harassed the hosts and take their chances. That they did, and restricted the hosts to a handful of chances.

Adam Raine fired home from a corner, before Mitchell Wade-Jones doubled their lead after the break. Ashley Varnham jinked through to reduce the arrears, but Damon Lawrence’s magnificent free-kick settled the tie. Wade-Jones’ late penalty was mere garnish on an excellent win. They enjoyed the presentation, but I walked away impressed by the Luffs organisation in what has been a wonderful season, but also of the league they play in. I’ll keep an on both, they provided me with an excellent evening’s entertainment.



Loughborough FC are looking for supplies of corrugated iron etc…

The League President


Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 6,510 other subscribers

Look for stuff here folks!

Blogroll

  • Damage In The Box Chris Powell’s travels across the UK and Europe. The artist must frequently seen in the pub 0
  • FA Cup Factfile Phil Annets on all things to do with the World’s greatest cup competition 10
  • Football Club History Database Want to know where a club finished in what league and in what year? Richard Rundle’s site is a veritable goldmine! 0
  • Football Hopper “Fast” Eddie McGeown’s erudite perambulations around the nation’s football grounds 0
  • Gibbo's 92 As Atherton Colleries’ programme editor puts it, ” The best trips are random, unplanned and spontaneous.” 0
  • Groundhopping.se Per-Gunnar Nilsson’s trips around his native Sweden, and into Europe 0
  • Grounds for concern The late Mishi Morath’s picture blog. Obviously no longer updated but still a wonderful archive. 0
  • Kate Shrewsday. A thousand thousand stories Not about football, but beautiful writing, Kate can make words dance. 0
  • Modus Hopper Random Graham Yapp’s travels 0
  • Swedish Football History & Statistics Mats Nyström’s curates this site, which does exactly what you’d expect 0
  • The 100 Grounds Club Shaun Smith’s groundhopping football blog. The original internet ground logging website. 0
  • The Football Traveller The bible for every groundhopper. Non-League fixtures magazine delivered weekly. Published and edited by Chris Bedford 0
  • The Intinerant Football Watcher Peter finds the grounds other hoppers cannot reach. Top bloke too! 0
  • The66POW Rob Waite’s travels 0

Your very own calendar!

May 2013
M T W T F S S
 12345
6789101112
13141516171819
20212223242526
2728293031  
« Apr   Jun »

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • Football: Wherever it may be
    • Join 494 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Football: Wherever it may be
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...