Monthly Archives: July 2013

The Ministry Of All The Talents

31 Wednesday Jul 2013

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Sunday 28th July 2013 ko 16.00

Beker van België (Belgian Cup) 1st Round

K LYRA TSV 2 (Wauman 27 Jacobs 65)

SK RAPID LEEST 1 (Rucquoy 90p)

Att 192

Entry €10

Teamsheet FREE

Centenary Yearbook Complimentary

If you look back to most of my foreign jaunts there’s always a common factor; the thing was it took me until half way across the English Channel to realise what it was.

The roots of this trip lie with Fareham Town secretary Paul “Splodge” Proctor, and his liking for a particular brand of Belgian beer. That necessitated a trip over or under the Channel, and ever the hopper he found two games to take in too! He soon roped me in and with Peter Miles ( The Itinerant Football Watcher) and Lee West (Adventures In Football) we had a full car, and as the midnight ferry left Dover for a bargain £67 return, it dawned on me what we’d created. As far as I’m concerned Lee is the best groundhopping photographer out there, and Peter the best writer. Splodge is one of the most popular and knowledgeable people in Non-League, which just left little old me to make up the numbers! Sat here now typing away, I’m not completely sure why I’m doing this, look at the links to your left, it’s all there already!

From Dunkirk it takes no time at all to reach Belgium, and after a little rest, we found a boulangerie in the beautiful town of Veurne for breakfast, before calling in at it’s not so beautiful twin Adinkerke. That town exists it seems, to sell all those passing through the products you shouldn’t buy such as tobacco, porn, chocolates, and yes Splodge’s beer!

From there the Splodgemobile (his term, not mine!) blasted north-west around Antwerp to the town of Lier. The town has around 34,000 inhabitants, and is the base of the coachbuilder Van Hool. The great Belgian footballer Jan Ceulemans was born here.

What we always had on this trip was time, which allowed us the time to sample that most Belgian of cuisines, the Frituur. These Friteries offer several fried and grilled dishes served with frites, such as hamburgers, brochette, meatballs, merguez and fried chicken. The portions tend to be large, to the extent that all 4 of us had food left over!

But let’s be honest here, we were all we just waiting for the gates to be opened! We’d had a mosey around before we went to eat, and the reports we’d heard were being borne out before our eyes!

Lyra have played at the Lyra Stadion since 1912, and the history is there for all to see. The most obvious is the main stand, originally a small wooden affair, but extended both forwards and lengthways, but with the original features still there. There’s also the terrace and tunnel behind the goal with, to the groundhopper’s eye, an almost indecent curve at the corner.

And folks, if this appeals, then take heed, this is the last season of this wonderful edifice. Already the narrow terrace opposite the stand has been demolished, to make way for, would you believe, a new Police Station! Here’s what the terrace used to look like.

The club will groundshare for around 2 years, while a new ground is built, but the stalwarts aren’t happy. One said “Our President…..” and made the throttling gesticulation. And if the Lyra stadion isn’t sufficient to convince you to pay the club a visit, the club officials will well and truly convince you. We were standing open-mouthed on the terrace when an official tapped us on the shoulder, and presented us with copies of the club’s centenary brochure, and when we decamped to the raised bar area, despite the fact that the key to the club shop couldn’t be found, merchandise was found including copies of the club anthem, “Lyralied,” on 7″ single no less. I hope they enjoyed they enjoyed our company as much as we enjoyed theirs.

With no badges available on the day, the club found a young lady that spoke excellent English to organise posting them over to us. She said she’d email us when she’d sent them, which she did, and her surname proved to be interesting! She is Jan Ceulemans’ niece! It’s a small world isn’t it? The great man sometimes comes to watch Lyra but at the moment he’s coaching 3rd division outfit R. Cappellen FC.

Which left the vexed question of the game! After all that has preceded it, it had to be an anti-climax didn’t it? Well, actually it wasn’t, with Lyra in the 4th tier Promotion League Group C, having just that little bit too much for their visitors plying their trade in the 6th tier Antwerpen Provincial League 2nd Division.

The game kept us all royally entertained, and it was with genuine regret that the final whistle went, and it was time to bid this magnificent ground, and its gallant officials goodbye. They are great, and please use these words and pictures as a reason to pay them a visit, the 4 of us owe them that for a quite wonderful afternoon.

The Rustics

30 Tuesday Jul 2013

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Saturday 27th July 2013 ko 15.00

Pre-Season Friendly

RUSTHALL 1 (Parsons 94)

HILDENBOROUGH ATHLETIC 4 (Spenceley 16 Ashmore 39 Davies 45 Chandler 90)

Att 59

Entry FREE

Programme NONE

So dear reader, imagine its the 17th century and you are a Puritan. You’re in Kent and fancy some curative baths. Where do you go, Tunbridge Wells? Continue reading →

The Doyen of Dulwich

26 Friday Jul 2013

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Wednesday 24yh July 2013 ko 19.00

Pre-Season Friendly

DULWICH HAMLET 1 (Walker 33)

GUILDFORD CITY 1 (Blake 41)

Att 22 at Rutland Walk Sportsfield, Catford

Entry FREE

Programme No

One of the downsides of the “Do everywhere but once,” culture is that you don’t get to spend nearly enough time with the stalwarts who both run, and are devoted to a particular club. There’s Splodge at Fareham, who these days dreads my presence at his club’s games, http://wp.me/s1PehW-banned but another is Continue reading →

The O.C.

25 Thursday Jul 2013

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Tuesday 23rd July 2013 ko0 19.45 (delayed to 20.00 due to crowd congestion)

Pre-Season Friendly

OXFORD CITY 5 (Skendi 26 34 Benjamin 33 Winters 39 Green 76)

OXFORD UNITED 1 (Hall 3p)

Att 1,005

Entry £5

Programme £1.50

Often in the City of Dreaming Spires its United that get all the press coverage. It wasn’t always the case, in the 1930’s and 40’s Isthmian League City were top dogs, with Headington United, the Boys From Up The Hill playing in the inferior Oxon Senior, and then the Spartan Leagues. The balance of power shifted in 1949, when United turned semi-professional and entered the Southern League, eventually being Continue reading →

The Red-Wud Kilburnie Blastie

22 Monday Jul 2013

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Sunday 21st July 2013 ko 13.00

James Glen Memorial Trophy 3rd Place Play-Off

RUTHERGLEN GLENCAIRN 4 (Terry 10og McAlpine 25 Sullivan 37 Mackay 85)

ASHFIELD 3 (Flannery 32 Marshall 41 Barclay 66)

Att 107

At Valeside Park, Kilbirnie (Kilbirnie Ladeside JFC)

Entry £5 (but see below!)

No Programme

Badge £3

Raffle £1

Football Card £1

Kilbirnie is a small town of around 7,000 inhabitants situated in North Ayrshire around 20 miles south-west of Glasgow. The area was built up around the flax and weaving industries before iron and steelmaking took over in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

The Glengarnock Steel Works opened its blast furnaces around 1841 which caused a massive influx of people seeking work. Initially these works were owned by Merry & Cunninghame before being taken over by David Colville & Sons and eventually were Continue reading →

The Castle

22 Monday Jul 2013

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Saturday 20th July 2013 ko 15.00

Scottish Challenge Cup Preliminary Round 2nd Leg

THREAVE ROVERS 1 (Fyfe 74)

THE SPARTANS 0

The Spartans won 4-3 on aggregate

Att 258

Entry £4

Programme £1

There’s signs of life in the lower reaches of the Scottish game for this season. There’s never been a functioning pyramid below Division 3, in the north if a club wins the Highland League there’s no way up, and in the south there’s the East of Scotland and South of Scotland Leagues, the former far stronger. And parallel to it all are the Juniors, ploughing their own furrow, a few only meeting their nominally senior compatriots in the Scottish Cup. The clubs at the bottom of Division 3 simply have carried on being uncompetitive knowing that there’s no automatic means of their removal.

For this season though, Continue reading →

Gritstone

19 Friday Jul 2013

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Thursday 18th July 2013 ko 19.30

Pre-Season Friendly

DRONFIELD TOWN 2 (Bradwell 63 Whitehead 80)

STAVELEY MINERS WELFARE 3 (Damms 35 Digiralamo 39 Gurnhill 87)

Att 42 at Gosforth Fields 3G, Bubnell Road, Dronfield Woodhouse, Derbys.

Entry Free

No Programme

I think groundhoppers can be separated into 2 broad categories, the ones that are aware how daft the hobby can be and those who aren’t! Becalmed in M1 traffic half-way through a 130 mile drive to the northern-most tip of Derbyshire to watch a friendly on a plastic pitch in a cage, yes I did question my sanity! I’m sure fellow hopper Lee thought exactly the same thing, as he interrogated the traffic app on his iPhone to supplement the sat-nav’s directions.

The trouble is I quite like this part of the world, despite Notts-born Lee’s immediate prejudices against the county in general. I like the Church of St Mary and All Saints, Chesterfield famous for its crooked spire, caused apparently caused by the lead that covers the spire, which was added 300 years after it was built in 1362. When the sun shines the south side of the tower heats up, causing the lead there to expand at a greater rate than that of the north side, resulting in unequal expansion and contraction. This was compounded by the weight of the lead (approx. 33 tons) which the spire’s bracing was not originally designed to bear.

The scene changes when you reach Dronfield, the topography becomes more undulating as you reach the beginnings of the Pennines, and the characteristics of the town seem as much South Yorkshire as Derbyshire. That feeling is heightened when you pass the Coach and Horses ground of Sheffield FC, the oldest football club in the world.

These are exciting times for Dronfield FC. They won last season’s Central Midlands League North Division, and have been accepted into the Northern Counties East League. That means ground improvements, and as I write this the floodlights are being erected. Many groundhoppers will remember Stonelow Road from the excellent Central Midlands Hop game the club hosted http://wp.me/p1PehW-zz, although so far organiser Rob Hornby has not managed to convince me to try the local “Delicacy” Pork dripping sandwiches!

This game was played at the Gosforth Fields facility which is used by Dronfield’s reserves, AFC Dronfield, and Dronfield Rugby Club. Around the location there’s been a spate of house building which is proving to be something of a boon for the place as the bar area serves as a pub for the new community! And there are far worse things you can do on a warm Thursday evening than sit on a balcony with a beer and watch two decent sides play football.

I know Staveley from the Northern Counties East hop which I help organise. They were, and are a joy to deal with http://wp.me/p1PehW-EU and above all else I will remember my trip to Gosforth Fields as being the visit where both clubs and officials were notably friendly and willing to help with fripperies as line-ups.

And despite the fact that at half time there were 21 substitutions, it was a good game to watch. Staveley wore Chesterfield FC change kit in the first half and Spireites home kit in the second, and seemed to have a far stronger first half team. They were good value for their half time lead, but Dronfield took control in the second half, and when Steve Whitehead danced through the Staveley defence to equalise it was a fair reflection on the balance of play. That roused Staveley and Tony Gurnhill won the game with a well-taken strike from the right-hand side of the 18-yard box.

It not often I enjoy a trip to such a ground, maybe it was the company, Lee and I got to meet Sheffield-based hopper Mark Hartley, but this was a hugely enjoyable evening out. Maybe it would be a different story on a wet November Saturday?

Itinerant Football

17 Wednesday Jul 2013

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Wednesday 17th July 2013 ko 19.00

Pre-Season Friendly

BUCKINGHAM TOWN 3 (Schembre 11 Riley 66 Murrell 80)

GRENDON RANGERS 1 (Lewis 14)

Att 24

80 minute game

Played at Medbourne Pavilion, Pascal Road, Shenley, Milton Keynes

Entry FREE

Football Card £2

It’s fair to say I have a mixed relationship with Milton Keynes. I’m no fan of the New, or Expanded Town, and Milton Keynes is the epitome of the entire genre. The facilities in the town are first class, and there’s no denying that everything was planned logically. It’s that last point that rankles with me, I don’t like things to be too planned, sterile even. I approached MK this evening on the A421 and once again winced at the name of the first of the multiplicity of roundabouts. Its called the Bottledump Roundabout; could the authorities have dreamt up a less romantic name to introduce the visitor to their town?

The planners did make one gift though to the collector of football grounds, there are many well-appointed sports grounds, so many in fact that there are more grounds than there are adult football teams! Judging by the last couple of years I seem destined to visit one of them each pre-season! Medbourne gets used for the occasional Sunday morning fixture, but as far as anyone could tell the venue has never seen an adult Saturday side settle here.

Buckingham Town have led an itinerant existence since losing Ford Meadow in 2010. They’ve had a temporary base in Winslow which was less than ideal, http://wp.me/s1PehW-solace before taking on the former Bletchley Town ground, Manor Fields. It isn’t Buckingham nor is it close to it, but at least its a base, and one that can be improved too. Perhaps now they can improve on the 15th place (out of 18) in the United Counties League they achieved last season. For a club that’s won the lower division of the Southern League, UCL Premier football should be within their grasp. Whatever the club do manage in the future, they will have the UCL management to thank for helping the club massively in their time of need. In another league they could have folded.

Grendon from Grendon Underwood are approaching this season from the other perspective. They’ve moved from the North Bucks & District which is off-pyramid, into the second division of the Spartan South Midlands League. It’s a move to Step 7 football, nominally one notch lower than Buckingham, but at this level of the game there often isn’t much difference in quality.

And so it came to pass this evening. Given the heat wave, a decision was made to pay the fixture as two halves of 40 minutes each split in half with a short water break. That and regular rolling substitutions made, a little counter-intuitively for a better spectacle and fresh legs were always available. It was clear who the step 6 side was, Buckingham were just that little bit more crisp, and the 3-1 was a fair result in the end.

Big Les

16 Tuesday Jul 2013

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Monday 15th July 2013 ko 19.45

Bedfordshire Premier Cup Final

BIGGLESWADE TOWN 1 (Witham 52)

LUTON TOWN 1 (Banton 60)

Att c130

Entry £5

Teamsheet FREE

For once I was rather spoilt for choice for a Monday night game. I could have visited AFC Totton, as the club still looks in danger of folding, or head north-east for a competitive game. It wasn’t a difficult decision and despite a flat tyre on the way, I parked up at the Carlsberg Stadium in good time.

The town is mentioned in the diaries of Samuel Pepys. On 22nd July 1661, he  stopped off in Biggleswade (called ‘Bigglesworth’ by Pepys) to buy a pair of warm woollen stockings, hardly suprising as the town was a centre was centre for the trade at the time.

In 2001 a gold coin bearing the name Coenwulf was discovered at Biggleswade beside the River Ivel.  The 4.33 g (0.15 oz) mancus, worth about 30 silver pennies, is only the eighth known Anglo-Saxon gold coin dating to the mid to late Anglo-Saxon period. it was initially sold to an American collector for £230,000 at auction the British Government placed an export ban in the hope of saving it for the nation. In February 2006 the coin was bought by the British Museum for £357,832 making it the most expensive British coin purchased to date.

Biggleswade is also the base of the Jordan’s cereals business, so you now know where your muesli comes from!

Biggleswade Town used to be based adjacent to local rivals Biggleswade United, at Fairfield Road, but after a groundshare at Bedford FC, moved into their purpose built ground on the Langford Road, in 2008. It holds 3,000 has turnstiles from Sheffield United’s Bramall Lane, and has a grandstand that seats 300.

My worry about so many developments like this is its location on the outskirts of town. I watched a club local to me move out of a central location to the outskirts and, in time it killed them. Witney Town like so many, saw the improved facilities, but forgot the non-football trade completely. The small clubhouse in constant use is often more lucrative than the superbly appointed sports bar that you have to drive to get to. I hope Town can make it work for them as the ground design is perfect for their needs.

Those needs are of course entirely different from those of the groundhopper! We like unusual and quirky and there’s nothing remotely of either here. It simply does its job, in an unassuming manner. The people are friendly, the sightlines good, and there’s plenty of scope for expansion should it be needed.

I was a little intrigued by the opposition. Luton Town are very-much a League club in waiting, only being relegated out of the Football League in 2009 after a total of 30 points were deducted as the League tired of repeated insolvency events, and financial mismanagement. With average attendances of 6,000 plus, way more than most Conference clubs each season they are always amongst the favourites for promotion each season. And each season they fall short, there can’t be many clubs who’ve made the play-offs for the 3 out of the last 4 seasons and failed to get promoted.

This game didn’t attract as many Luton fans as I expected, perhaps due to them only sending a reserve side. The first half vindicated the absentees’ decision, as there was only one notable chance, Luton’s Jake Woolley producing a smart save from Sam Wyer. It wasn’t that there was a lack of effort, the tackles flew in from both sides, it was just that the end product was missing.

It opened up a little more in the second half, the Waders taking the lead though Alex Witham’s improvised finish at the back post from a right-wing cross. Luton soon equalised, JJ O’Donnell’s cross was volleyed home by Zane Banton.

Both sides had the chance to win the tie, but the Bedfordshire FA sensibly decided to eschew any thought of extra time, and Luton prevailed 3-2 on penalties. The presentation swiftly followed and those remaining were treated to Luton captain Alex Lacey’s perfunctory lifting of the trophy and non-celebration. I trust more senior brains at the club will remind him that others involved in football are not paid full-time wages, and that one day he may value winning a trophy a little more. After all it could easily be the only one he will ever win.

Quintessentially English

16 Tuesday Jul 2013

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Sunday 14th July 2013

Tiddington Fete, Oxfordshire

Is there anything more English than the village fete? The stalls selling their wares on the village green, the Pims, beer and tea, with the games to win a small prize. It had been decades since my last fete. That had been organised my local Catholic Church, and since my Scout troop used the church hall, I with the other Scouts manned the throw a wet sponge at the Scoutmaster stall. That fete in my eyes was notable for a bloke greeting Parish Priest with a cheery but slightly inappropriate,

“Well hello vicar, how the devil are you?!”

Tiddington is one of those pretty little villages destined to be driven though but not often stopped at. If you live in the south of England chances are you’ve been close by as the M40 runs about half a mile south, and the A418 runs from Oxford to Thame through the village.

Despite the passing traffic the village hasn’t been immune to the ravages of time. The railway station closed in 1963, a victim of the Beeching axe, and the local pub, The Fox became an Indian restaurant, but that’s now closed and the villagers are hoping to buy back the pub and run it as a co-operative. For more than 50 years an annual tug-of-war with the neighbouring Buckinghamshire village of Ickford has been held each summer across the River Thame (not to be confused with the Thames), which forms the boundary between both the two parishes and counties.

I walked around, and took in my surroundings. I listened for the accents; around these parts you may only be 5 miles out of Oxford, but the voices are very different. In Oxford itself there are two accents, the famous drawl of the academics called Oxford Gown, and the locals’ accent which is more estuary, Oxford Town, influenced by London to the east. Once outside you hear Oxford agricultural, the burr a result of the woollen industry to the west.

I loved eating an ice cream whilst listening to the Silver Band, and bought two books for a measly 75p from the book stall. I watched the games on offer, all seeming to be based around the skill of aim, including the pub game of Aunt Sally that you only see in Oxfordshire.

It was all rather too warm, so I retreated to the Village Hall for a drink, but got dragged out once again for a Tiddington village tradition, egg throwing! I didn’t win, but then I was just pleased that neither my partner or I got egg on our faces, both literally or figuratively! I’d like to thank Kim for taking the last two pictures, one of which I couldn’t have possibly taken!