Wednesday 26th April 2023 ko 18:30

Oxfordshire Senior League Premier Division

ASHTON FOLLY 5 (Laver 5 24 35 65 Benjamin 68)

Baker sent off (foul & abusive)

HALSE UNITED 0

Att 15 at Brill Sports and Social Club

For a small village on the westernmost tip of Buckinghamshire, the village of Brill seems to punch above its weight. Brill used to have a palace as the centre of the Forest of Bernwood, owned by the crown, so the likes of Henry II, King John, and Henry III all stayed here. Charles I used the palace as a garrison during the English Civil War, which is probably why the place was destroyed during the Commonwealth!

Then there’s the windmill, visible for miles around, that used to be used by a local baker but now longer can turn to face the wind, but the real oddity its that the village used to be on the London Underground!

A tramway had been built from Brill to Quainton Road in 1871 mainly to transport goods from the Duke of Buckingham’s lands to the mainline. It was upgraded to allow for passenger transport in 1893, but in 1894 was taken over by the Metropolitan Railway. In his 1973 documentary Metro-Land Poet Laureate John Betjeman described a visit to the tramway’s terminus at Quainton Road,

“The steam ready to take two or three passengers through oil-lit halts and over level crossings, a rather bumpy journey”

In 1933 the Metropolitan Railway became the Metropolitan Line under nationalisation, so despite being steam hauled, and 50 miles from central London Brill station became an outpost of the London Underground. It didn’t last long, the line was closed in 1935, with Brill tramway shut altogether, and passenger services cut back to Aylesbury, and now to Amersham. The site of Brill Station is now occupied by Vale Brewery, thus giving the vast majority of groundhoppers a real incentive to visit!

You may remember Brill United who played here in the Banbury and Lord Jersey League, before rather abruptly folding in January 2022. You may remember me watching them play, yes Ashton Folly, at Whitelands Farm in Bicester in 2020. For this season Folly have moved to Brill, citing pitch availability issues back in Bicester. I can confirm that Ashton Folly will become Brill United for next season.

Then there’s Halse United who I saw at Halse Grange Farm but moved to Syresham in order to progress to the Oxfordshire Senior. Or putting it another way, I watched a side from Oxfordshire, but based in Buckinghamshire, play a side from Northamptonshire, in a league for Oxfordshire! 

But to fret about nomenclature and county boundaries is to miss the point of watching a game here, or even visiting Brill. The fact of the matter is that the ground is stunningly beautiful with the highlight being the way Otmoor shelves away to show a vista north. I didn’t have my longest lens, but you can see Ardley United’s floodlights from here!

The game was as one-sided as the score would suggest, but I suspect that may have had a lot to do with Halse struggling for players in the midst of a three games a week end of their season. They I suspect were content to get the game played. I however. was content to reverse out of the car park successfully. The approach road is narrow and twisty. You would be well advised to park in the village itself and walk in.