Saturday 3rd August 2024 ko 15:00

United Counties League Division One

CLAY CROSS TOWN 5 (Macaskill 26 75 Clegg 46 54 63)

Clegg missed penalty 12

CLIFTON ALL WHITES 1 (Jasper 89)

Att 161

Entry £6

Programme £2

I’m a contrary soul, so you would have thought after a weekend watching 5 games in the United Counties League, the very last place you’d expect me to be at is another UCL ground. But there were some extenuating circumstances…

The first was that I knew that sooner or later my wife would both want and need to watch Sheffield FC. Let’s face it any groundhopper needs to visit the world’s oldest football club at some point. We had our friend Chris Garner in tow, so it was simple enough to use Chesterfield as a pivot point, drop the others at the Coach & Horses then double back through Chesterfield and head south to Clay Cross.

You may wonder why I headed for Mill Lane when the club haven’t hosted on a UCL Hop. The answer is that they won’t. They featured on the 2011 Central Midlands League “Bonanza” organised by Rob Hornby when the club was still called Parkhouse. I was honoured to be invited into the hospitality by secretary and programme editor Dave “Nobby” Clarke who showed me the plaque noting the event. I really don’t care who organises these events, so long as they’re done properly, and seeing the results of Rob’s vision and lot of people’s hard work was wonderful to see.

Mind you there was another hopper there who made it crystal clear he didn’t like what we do at GroundhopUK as “I don’t like to do more than one game a day!” It’s a good job I’ve developed a thick skin, and learned to note the types that think purely in terms of their own needs.

Mill Lane has seen massive improvements since that hop game to get to what you see now and those works are ongoing. I love visiting clubs like this, go-ahead, but maintaining that sense of self that does tend to get lost in translation in the full-time game. Add that to the quirks of the home-made ground, and you really do get something special. I mean, you not only get a view of the crooked spire of Chesterfield, but at such as angle that it actually seems straight!

Visitors Clifton All Whites also have a background with the Central Midlands League, they featured on a hop back in 2012, and it does seem slightly odd to have teams from Notts and Derbyshire in the UCL. We got a good game through with the visitors having no way of dealing with winger Reece Clegg, who could and should have scored more than the three goals he got. I headed back towards Chesterfield, utterly content.