Author Archives: laurencereade

The Rock

22 Tuesday Dec 2015

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Friday 18th December 2015 ko 20.30

Gibraltar League Division One

LIONS GIBRALTAR 2 (Santos 45 Narvaez 53)

ANGELS FC 0 Larouia sent off 87 (foul & abusive language)

Att 65 at Victoria Stadium

Entry FREE

No Programme

I do wonder whether the Gibraltar FA have fixed their kick-off times around flights arriving at the airport more or less adjacent to the ground. My flight from Luton landed at around 7.15pm, and there was plenty of time to clear customs and complete a first, walking back across the runway I’d just landed on, to get to the ground. But then Gibraltar is unusual. Continue reading →

Old For New, or New For Old?

22 Tuesday Dec 2015

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Tuesday 15th December 2015 ko 19.45

Wessex League Cup 2nd Round

ALTON TOWN 4 (Fox 3 Gray 7 Peck 73 Latimer 81)

FAREHAM TOWN 2 (Jackson 11 Laycock 85)

Att 96

Entry £6

Teamsheet FREE

I suspect when Coors started procedures to move Alton Town from their historic Bass Ground noone, least of all the club would have expected an outcome this good. Let’s face it, non-league football is littered with tales of homeless clubs groundsharing for a while, then slowly dying. What makes this all the more interesting is that the club have moved less than 400 yards, just across and along the main road, and in the process have gone home. Continue reading →

No Names, No Pack Drill

08 Tuesday Dec 2015

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Monday 7th December 2015 ko 19.00

Army FA Woolwich Cup Quarter-Final

ARMY AIR CORPS 8 (13secs 3 55 60 71 75 84 90)

ARMY INTELLIGENCE CORPS 1 (87p)

Att 22 at Tidworth Oval

Entry FREE

No Programme

I have a theory that when groundhoppers look for interesting stadia and games to visit, the Army FA is a blind spot for many. In a sense that is odd, the Army FA is treated as a county by the FA in exactly the same way as, say Wiltshire is, and the Military Stadium in Aldershot should be on everyone’s to-visit list.  However there are a few factors to consider before attending games.
Continue reading →

Straight Outta Compton

06 Sunday Dec 2015

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Saturday 5th December 2015 ko 14.00

North Berkshire League Division 3

COMPTON 2 (Butler 25 Sosnowy 82)

HARWELL VILLAGE 5 (Robins 16 Fisher 79 Fenton 31 73 89)

Att 19

Entry FREE

No Programme

For the avoidance of any doubt this Compton is a village near Newbury in Berkshire and not south-central Los Angeles! As far as I know no gangsta rappers hail from here either! Until recently the firm Pirbright had an animal health testing facility here, that’s gradually being turned into houses, but every time I saw the signpost for Compton on the A34 I always had the same thought, that the club would be perfect for the North Berkshire League. Continue reading →

Parallel Lives

03 Thursday Dec 2015

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Tuesday 1st December 2015 ko 17.45

Midland League Premier Division

LOUGHBOROUGH UNIVERSITY 2 (Webb 45 82)

HEANOR TOWN 2 (Debrouwer 39 del Genio 90)

Att 114

Entry FREE (Normally £5)

Programme FREE (Normally £1)

Every so often I see footage of collegiate football in the USA, and compare it to what happens here in the UK. Now I’ll ignore the obvious change of code, although there was an NFL-rules training session on a far pitch, but the differences between college sport in the US are still massive. Continue reading →

Timeless

29 Sunday Nov 2015

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Saturday 28th November 2015 ko 14.00

Southern Combination League Division Two

COWFOLD 1 (Mitchell-Harris 16)

MONTPELIER VILLA 0

Att 7

Entry FREE

Programme £1

There’s something that timeless about the West Sussex village of Cowfold. Lying in the Sussex Weald between Haywards Heath and Billingshurst, the village is built around the crossroads of the A272 and A281. There’s the Parish Church of St Peter, a village hall and a pub, and life looks like its carried on at its own pace here, for time immemorial. Continue reading →

Unitary

29 Sunday Nov 2015

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Friday 27th November 2015 ko 19.30

Welsh League Division One

ABERBARGOED BUDS 4 (Haggett 21 Shaw 37 Meacham 48 K Thomas 82) K Thomas missed penalty 37

RISCA UNITED 3 (Williams 16 32 Thomas 68)

Att 113 at Centre for Sporting Excellence, Caerphilly Road, Ystrad Mynach

Entry £5

Programme £1

Badge £3

It’s all change in the footballing world of Caerphilly for this season, with the opening of the Centre for Sporting Excellence in nearby Ystrad Mynach. The facility was built in 2014 by the local county council on the site of the former hospital and close to Penallta RUFC’s Ystrad Fawr ground. It’s an unusual, but highly impressive facility with two international-grade artificial pitches each with a 500-seat stand. One is for rugby, and one for football. It’s hardly surprising with a facility this good, that two sides have moved in, and since those two sides, Aberbargoed and Risca were playing each other, it was the obvious time to visit. Continue reading →

The Zone Of Opportunity

27 Friday Nov 2015

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Wednesday 25th November 2015 ko 19.30

Western League Premier Division

WILLAND ROVERS 5 (Wilson 36 Shepherd 53 75 Tasker 68 Blake 81)

LONGWELL GREEN SPORTS 1 (A Summers 83)

Att 54

Entry & Programme £6.50

Let’s face it, you really do have to love the road to be a serious groundhopper. The hold-ups, the roadworks and the faceless service stations all add up to a high price for visiting a football ground that the vast majority of your friends won’t have even heard of.

Then there’s the planning, especially for midweek games. Everyone has what I’ll call the “Zone of opportunity,” which translates to how far you can travel. For some it’s how far you can travel starting from what time you leave work, or how late you are prepared to arrive back home. For some it’s how long they’re prepared to be cooped up in a car or on public transport, and for some it’s on economic terms. But as you start clocking up the grounds, you start running out of floodlit grounds, and you start stretching that zone of opportunity. For me travelling from Oxford to Willand was doing precisely that. Continue reading →

Eastbound Train

22 Sunday Nov 2015

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Saturday 21st November 2015 ko 15.00

FA Vase 2nd Round

KIRKLEY & PAKEFIELD 1 (Smith 50)

EDGWARE TOWN 2 (Butt 60 Ali 86)

Att 60

Entry £6

Programme £1

As a committeeman at the North Berkshire League, you’d have reason to think I dislike the Eastern Counties League, but I’ll let you dear reader into a little secret- I do like visiting their clubs, and this visit proved why. Like all the other clubs in the ECL I’ve visited, they were an absolute joy to meet and spend some time with. Continue reading →

Blackwater

11 Wednesday Nov 2015

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Tuesday 10th November 2015 ko 19.45

Isthmian League North Division

HEYBRIDGE SWIFTS 1 (Morrison 76)

BRIGHTLINGSEA REGENT 5 (Malton 4 Kelly 9 15 Gould 55 Read 90)

Att 134

Entry £10

Programme £2

Badge £3

Looks can be deceiving sometimes. You pull into the car park at Scraley Road and the ground immediately impresses. There’s a large main stand, with its little brother opposite, and there’s the friendly club shop too. I enjoyed having a chin-wag at the burger bar, and the clubhouse is spacious and well-appointed. It is the kind of place where I could sit back before the game, and watch the club being unconsciously competent. The problem was that one of my footballing bad habits was to bite me somewhat. Continue reading →