Wednesday 6th April 2016 ko 18.15

North Bucks & District League Premier Division

SILVERSTONE  1 (Henshaw 75)

TOWCESTER TOWN 0

Att 41

Entry FREE

No Programme

Let me let you into a secret, in Silverstone there’s a car racing circuit…Shhh, don’t tell anyone, let’s just keep that fact to ourselves. Okay, yes I am joking yes this is the Northamptonshire village with the Formula One circuit next door, but there used to another circuit next door to the football pitch at the Sports & Social Club. And the beauty of it was that just about anyone could claim to have driven round Silverstone!

The circuit in question was one for radio-controlled cars and the drivers stood on top of a converted shipping container. Sadly the circuit has been ploughed up, and the astroturf the cars drove on piled up, utterly useless.

The village’s football team plays at the back of the Sports & Social club, on a rather bumpy looking pitch with no rail, or on night when it both rained and hailed- any nearby cover. When the rains came, and the light disappeared, many sheltered 100 metres away in the little shelter positioned neatly for the cricket.

It was a shame the weather turned for the worse, as this was quite a local derby. Towcester Town had a long stint in the Spartan and United Counties Leagues (exiting the UCL in 1993), and although that ground is now derelict and this Towcester is an entirely different club, they are still a big name in local football.

The North Bucks League feeds the United Counties League, so this game was nominally at Step 7, but players at this level often appear because of the limited travelling involved, so often the quality of football isn’t massively inferior to the division above.

That said this was a game of endeavour over finesse. The pitch didn’t help, and the occasion suited a game geared to total committment. Silverstone won it through Ian Henshaw’s second half strike just before the rains came and the darkness descended. I’m sure Lewis Hamilton never had that problem.