Tuesday 1st September 2026 ko 19:45

Spartan South Midlands League Division Two

REDBOURN 1 (Bowyer 55)

De Beer sent off 58 (2nd booking)

ASTON CLINTON 2 (Elsey 29 Kiff 87)

Att 51

Entry £5

Life on the road is tough but the chance to meet people you’d never have got to know otherwise is a real bonus. We met geologist Ben on the 2019 Swedish Hop that rather counter-intuitively started and ended in Denmark, and even more counter-intuitively, he’d flown in from Norway to be there. He soon moved back to England and he was kind enough to find Robyn and I tickets for Walsall’s biggest game in many-a-year before showing us the sights/pubs of his native town.

But being the talented chap that he is, he got a job in Brazil, for an initial one year and was leaving in a few days. I found a nearby game to his UK base that came with a programme influenced by Tony Incenzo. We arrived, and found we were a week early! On one level it meant a change of opposition, and no programme but the game a week later got postponed for reasons unknown!

Redbourn are a little unusual in that they are new club, founded in 2026 and at an entirely new ground. They’re based at the Redbourn Leisure Centre, and that is so new the centre itself hasn’t been finished. Also unusually the club have been accepted straight into the Spartan South Midlands League, the advantage the league has in having a third division. And while the 3G cage is well, a 3G cage you can view the game from all four sides (why do so many fail to have this?) and there are plans afoot to add a stand.

And once I’d caught up with the throng that seemed to be at least half groundhoppers we all enjoyed an excellent game, with the red card turning the game Aston Clinton’s way. As for me, I got the best of all worlds; the chance of a rare midweek tick, and far more importantly the means to say au revoir to a good friend. All the best in Rio Ben, and I must check the cost of flights to Brazil…