Saturday 29th June 2024 ko 14:00

Pre-season friendly

BISHOPS CANNINGS 3 (Rascek 20 37, 77og)

WROUGHTON 7 (Peachey-Score 12secs 32 45, Herbert 4 36, Barbeto 62, Whitham 71)

Att c25 at Wiltshire FA Ground, Green Lane, Devizes

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What I love about my footballing life is that its hard to pigeonhole. Take the end of the season, I was variously at Wembley Stadium, a small town in Sweden and an FA Ground that hitherto I didn’t know existed!

Variety is of course the spice of life, so when my eye was drawn to the Wiltshire FA Ground my first thought was that I didn’t know the Wiltshire FA had a ground! My defence is that until 2020 they didn’t. A joint partnership between Devizes Town Council and the Football Foundation saw the £1.8M conversation of the Green Lane Playing Fields, with anchor tenants Devizes Youth and Bishops Cannings forming a joint partnershop. Bishops Cannings now play Wiltshire League games here too. For all concerned the place is massive upgrade, to such an extent that Cannings now have 4 adult male teams, a women’s team, a disability team and 21 youth teams!

But it being an FA Ground did come with a certain dilemma. Normally speaking club friendlies are verboten in June, with those that do take place doing so with the express permission of the County FA. SO what chance of a June friendly at an FA ground then? Perhaps the trick was to not mention it, and both clubs were notably cooperative in confirming the fixture’s details.

It really wasn’t a game to turn up a late to with a goal in 12 secs, and another in 4 minutes, courtesy of a corner flying in directly, at the back post. After that goals came at regular intervals as the game went by status- Cannings play in Division One, Wroughton the Premier as those who braved the sweltering conditions were royally entertained.

In a sense I hope the adage of not reading too much into friendlies holds true here. I suspect that Wroughton will have a successful season, but I do hope and expect Bishops Cannings won’t have to suffer any more reverses like this. All the best to both teams for the season.