Daily Archives: May 4, 2014

The Long Road Back

04 Sunday May 2014

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Thursday 1st May 2014 ko 18.30

Gloucestershire Northern Senior League Division Two

NEWENT TOWN 4 (Bayliss 7 12 Gibbs 69 74)

LONGFORD AFC 1 (Edwards 16)

Att 31

Entry FREE

No Programme (the club issue for “Big” games)

Tea £1

Around 15 years ago, I was being given a lift to watch an Intertoto Cup game at Newtown AFC, and our driver had decided to avoid the motorways and take the scenic route, just clipping the top of the Forest of Dean. We passed a sign for Newent and he commented that the town’s club used to be in the Gloucestershire County League, but had disappeared off of his radar. I was new to groundhopping, and took a stupidly snobby attitude to the perceived quality of football on show. The simple fact was that I was in no position to judge, and when I saw this fixture on the club’s website, I felt I owed them a visit. It may have taken me far too long, but it was a good choice on my part, the football was excellent.

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The Dun Cow

04 Sunday May 2014

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Tuesday 29th April 2014 ko 18.30

Banbury District & Lord Jersey League Division One

HORNTON 4 (Walton 25 Bedding 27 81 Lee 82)

BLOXHAM 3 (Toule 17 R Gregg 12 35)

Att 11

Entry FREE

No Programme

As a groundhopper it sometimes pays dividends to step out of your comfort zone, and look out a game that chances are you’d never go and see on a Saturday. Early evening kick-offs do mean you get home at a sensible hour too! Hornton is one of those pretty-as-a picture villages in the very northernmost fields of northern Oxfordshire, and in truth you do hardly notice the border in these agricultural lands.

Even now the village shows signs of the area’s turbulent past. During the English civil war Banbury, just 5 miles away was a Puritan stronghold, but Oxford a Cavalier city, Banbury United’s nickname is still the Puritans, and I remember their programme featuring a cartoon of the legend of the locals hanging a cat on a Monday for the killing of a mouse on a Sunday. There’s the frankly gorgeous Church of England church of St John the Baptist, but just down the road is the Methodist Church, to give the stone cottages a choice of prayer on the Sabbath. Between the two the Dun Cow pub satisfies those who choose to ignore part of one of the churches’ doctrine. Continue reading →