Friday 12th January 2024 ko 19:30

Northern League Division One

NORTHALLERTON TOWN 0

REDCAR ATHLETIC 1 (Boyes 37)

Att 403

Entry £7

Programmme £2.50

Hospitality package (entry, programme, 2 course meal) £25

It’s odd how some things work out. Robyn and I had tried to watch Northallerton Town around 4 years ago. We’d travelled up from Oxford, and as we reached the Calvert’s Stadium, the floodlights were switched off; the game had just been postponed due to a frozen pitch. We found a meal locally, then headed back home down the A1(M). As Robyn put it, it was a mighty long way to go for a Chinese!

What pulled us here again was Robyn’s desire to complete her “92” and a groundhopper’s flexible approach to geography. The next day Oxford United were playing at Carlisle United, so why not make Northallerton on the way there? Yes, I am more than aware adding 2 hours to your journey time makes no sense to anyone but a groundhopper. Even our hotel in Carlisle questioned what time we’d be arriving!

Northallerton Town have been restored to their status of the Northern League’s most southerly club, now Pickering Town have been returned to the Northern Counties East. They are the Northern League’s only North Yorkshire representatives, and do listen to the accents, it’ll be just about the only time you won’t hear North-eastern voices, well from the home folks anyway. There was another connection back to Oxford too. John Radcliffe was physician to King William III and Queen Mary; he completed his studies at Oxford University and no end of buildings are named after him, most notably the Radcliffe Camera, and the John Radcliffe Hospital. His background? He was educated at Northallerton Grammar School- a small world!

But what made our visit really interesting was a tweet the club put out in the days before the game offering hospitality. £25 would get you entry, a programme, and a 2-course meal. Given entry is £7, and the programme £2.50 what would our £15.50 get us? We booked wondering what to expect from a club 5 promotions from the EFL? We’d planned to eat in Northallerton before the game, so the thinking was to let the club make the money rather than anywhere else.

I suppose we expected little more than burger and chips, so the beef soup and pork roast we got was an excellent surprise and remarkable value too! But the investment was as much about meeting those involved at the club as it was about food and drink. Put simply it was a pleasure to spend time with people putting heart and soul into their local club, and if that isn’t worth investing in, then what is?

In fact the only real issue from a Northallerton perspective was that they were playing Redcar Athletic at precisely the wrong time. For one, they hadn’t scored for 5 games, and the one before that saw them score, but lose 7-1 at Newcastle Benfield. Then there was the fact that Marske United had resigned from the Northern Premier League, Premier Division with four of their players dropping two divisions to sign for Athletic.

Typically it was one of those players, Adam Boyes that proved to be the difference. Both teams huffed and puffed, but Boyes’s predatory instincts proved to be stronger than anyone else scoring the only goal of the game. I’m sure our hosts would have loved to have played the game a week earlier.

We said our thanks and goodbyes and tackled the fog, and single line convoys on the A66. It wasn’t the most pleasant drive I’ll ever complete, but did give us time to reflect on what a lovely evening we’d had courtesy of a slice of Step 5 hospitality. I highly recommend it!