Saturday 27th June 2015 ko 15.00

Friendly

BEESTON FC 3 (37, 39, 48)

SHERWOOD COLLIERY 8 (19,35,41,68,72,73,83,85)

Att 36 at Trent Vale Road

There’s been a few changes on the Notts side of the border with Derbyshire this close season. One of those has seen Beeston AFC merge with fellow Notts Senior League outfit Boots Athletic, to form Beeston FC. They’ll play most of this coming season, including their hop game at the nearby Hetley Pearson Ground, but the plan is to renovate here at Trent Vale Road, and call this place home.

It certainly needs a fair amount of work done, the clubhouse is overgrown, the players changed at a block beside the River Trent, a short walk from behind the ground, but with a little imagination you can see why the club are keen to base themselves here.

The ground used to be Siemens FC’s base, and Boots have were based themselves here in the past, after they lost their works ground many years ago. There’s banking on one side affording an excellent view and there’s space for a second XI pitch too. With the right people and sufficient finance this could be an excellent ground, just remember where you saw it first!

As for the game, the adage is that you shouldn’t read too much into pre-season friendlies, and that goes double for any club’s first outing. For Beeston (wearing Boots Athletic kit) this game was an open trial, and I suspect Central Midlands League Sherwood Colliery gave the home management plenty to consider. The star of the show for the Mansfield Woodhouse-based team was undoubtedly Tristan Burrell, who notched five highly impressive goals, and looked sharper than just about anyone else there.

The real oddity was the 73rd minute dismissal of Beeston’s Chris Papp for verbals towards the referee. You don’t tend to see cards issued in friendlies, and the whole incident looked like a case of both player and official overreacting in the humidity. Perhaps the paperwork won’t find its way to the local FA. The loss of Papp cost Beeston dearly, and Sherwood rolled in three more goals to give the tie a more lop-sided look than it deserved.