Category Archives: P

The Old Yew Tree

01 Saturday Dec 2012

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Saturday 1st December 2012 ko 14.00

Bedfordshire County League Division One

PAVENHAM 3 (J Owen 20p 66 73)

SHILLINGTON 4 (Slough 1 32 37 Bright 25)

Att 10 (h/c)

Entry FREE

Nothing for sale

Transitions fascinate me. As a child I remember standing on the German/Austrian border, and kidding myself I had a foot in each country. The TV series Doctor Who didn’t interest me, but when one Doctor regenerated into the next, that was not to be missed. For years I could never see what attracted me, but I suppose its that feeling of boundary where a place has characteristics of more than one identity.

Bedfordshire has a touch of that, I was only around 30 miles of Milton Keynes, and the narrow roads suggested the Home Counties, but the flattening of the topography suggests the canals and reclaimed land of East Anglia. I’d discovered that the village of Pavenham is rather proud of its Continue reading →

Reverlation!

15 Monday Oct 2012

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Sunday 14th October 2012 at 20.00

Paul Morris and the Reverlators

At The Bullingdon Arms, Cowley Road, Oxford

Entry £5

 

I’ve got used to seeing a steady succession of covers bands at Sunday Blues nights at local venues. Entertaining enough, but the lack of originality means I seldom head back after the interval.

Paul Morris’  trio offer something different, after all anyone who’s prepared to try out a Diddley Bow mid-set is nothing if not brave! This band specialise in slide blues, with a touch of gospel, their version of “When the saints go marching in,” needs to be heard to be believed! The influences are all correct too, the set was closed with a version of “Shake Your Hips” that started off as close to its relative, ZZ Top’s “La Grange,” but ended more like the classic Rolling Stones’ version of the Slim Harpo classic. Another highlight was a faithnful reproduction of Muddy Waters’ “I can’t be satisfied.”

It’s a tough business to be in, and even more so if you play the blues, but there’s something endearing about Paul and his band. Mind you there’s real fire in that slide guitar, and there was plenty of the band’s own material to keep the crowd involved.

Here’s the websites, go and see them, I promise you’ll love them.

http://www.reverbnation.com/c./poni/144982152

http://www.facebook.com/#!/paulmorrisandtherevelators

 

 

My £12 drainpipes

14 Friday Sep 2012

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Monday 10th September 2012 ko 6.00pm

Cheltenham Association Football League Third Division

PRESTBURY ROVERS 2 (Jones 25 Davis 77)

ANDOVERSFORD 3 (A Cleal 19 B Wright 24 70)

Att 3 (h/c)

Entry FREE

Nothing for sale

So why this one? Well it was on, and I could get to it. The Cheltenham League played on a Monday for no reason anyone could fathom, so I simply picked the game nearest to work, and I’ve no regrets on that decision.

The Gloucestershire village of Prestbury sits on the outskirts of Cheltenham, and the Playing Fields are tucked away off of New Barn Mews. The village is best known for Prestbury Park, known also as Cheltenham Racecourse, and the Horse Racing festival there represents a major annual boost to the local economy. According to The Penguin Book of Ghosts: Haunted England, Prestbury is the most haunted village in England.

Ghosts however isn’t what I’ll remember Prestbury for, no that will be the rain. I usually wear hiking trousers for hopping, as they dry quickly if it rains. A few months ago I bought a pair of blue drainpipe trousers from a supermarket for £12. They’re comfortable, they fit well, but when they get wet, they stay wet. So which trousers was I wearing when I parked in the middle of a rainstorm. No prizes I’m afraid!

My lack of comfort excepted, this was a hugely enjoyable visit. Andoversford took the lead direct from Ashley Cleal’s inswinging corner. Prestbury failed to learn that lesson and were two down when another inswinging corner was headed home unopposed by Ben Wright. This roused Prestbury and a minute later Chris Jones’ lofted drive from 20 yards was worthy of a far grander stage. Sadly it was to be his last meaningful contribution as he soon limped off with a thigh strain.

At 2-1 the game was highly competitive, taking into account this is the 12th tier of the non-league pyramid, and the winner when it came was of the highest quality. Ben Wright found himself on the right-hand touchline 25 yards out, looked up and his scorching shot whistled past Sonny Martin into the top left corner. That’s nothing against Martin, it would have beaten a far better keeper.

Of course Prestbury had to make the last few minutes interesting so as to make me forget my cold wet legs, Luke Davis notching for 2-3, but that was to be mere consolation. Mention too for referee Keith Iles who officiated with both common sense and humour; he and both teams made for a great evening’s entertainment and I wish all concerned good luck for the rest of the season.

There was to be a postscript though. As I drove back through Cheltenham I wanted to get to Oxford as quickly as possible to dry out. That of course is when my phone rang; it turned out it was someone wanting information, and a ticket for the North Berkshire League Hop. I found a lay-by, pulled in and got the enquiry sorted out satisfactorily, and 20 minutes later still with my £12 blue drainpipes soaking wet, I headed for home.

Festival

02 Sunday Sep 2012

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Saturday 25th August 2012 ko 4.30pm

Mid-Wales League Division 2

PRESTEIGNE ST ANDREWS 5 (Crow 7 Girolami 9 Roberts 18 56 D Evans 65)

RHOSGOCH RANGERS 5 (T Lloyd 24 Doman 45 L Davies 50 McQueen 78 L Jones 90)

Att 260

Entry/Programme Hop Ticket

Badge £1

Pint Glass £2

The small town of Presteigne is close to the border with England, and these days is very much a gateway to the Principality. Its name in Welsh is Llanandras which gives the ground its name, and the most notable building is the local church of St Andrew, which contains Anglo-Saxon elements. It’s the church that spawned the club, and gives it its suffix. Land owned by Captain Lewis RN was used to hold first Italian and then German POW’s during the Second World War and this land is now Llanandras Park.

It’s a set-up clearly capable of staging football at far higher level than the club’s lowly position. In fact Presteigne were scheduled to be on the very Mid-Wales hop, but an away draw at Ammanford in the Welsh cup put paid to any notion Continue reading →

Canter

30 Thursday Aug 2012

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Saturday 25th August 2012 ko 11am

Mid Wales South League

PENYBONT 8 (Ruell 5 J Bufton 12 Stephens 21 29 Farmer 21 25 K Bufton 76 79)

ST HARMON 1 (Martin 45)

Att 257

Entry/ Programme by Hop Ticket

Badge £3

When my alarm sounded at the Dolforwyn Hotel , I made a beeline for the window, I really didn’t want rain! Avoiding Martin Bamforth’s gaze, he was out having an early cigarette, I was pleased and relieved to see a glorious sunny day. That changed at Penybont, but fortunately there was enough cover for everyone to shelter.

The first two games today saw the hop dip down into one of the Mid-Wales feeders for the first time. This was due to the club we were due to visit, Knighton deciding 2 months earlier that the town’s annual carnival taking place on their pitch over August Bank Holiday would mean that football couldn’t be played on it! In the end it all worked out in the hop’s favour, as we got two grounds in place of one, and still have Knighton to visit on a “Hop-up” at a later date.

The Powys village is the source of the A488, but it was the A44 which also runs though the village which was the key to the day’s hopping, all the grounds were on the road, allowing a straightforward 4 games in a day. The village used to be a centre for sheep and cattle sales, but it now best known for its trotting Continue reading →

Patchwork

12 Sunday Aug 2012

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Wednesday 8th August 2012 ko 6.30pm

Gloucestershire County League Les James League Cup First Round

PATCHWAY TOWN 2 (Davies 39 Purdy 65)

ELLWOOD 0

Att 37 (h/c)

Entry FREE

Programme 50p

Tea 50p

My trip to Scott Park, was at best a marginal one. With Lee’s car at the garage, he was going to have a night off but he met me at work and we both knew that we’d need a fair rub of the green to make kick off. So why put the effort in? Continue reading →

Reinventing the cliché

11 Monday Jun 2012

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Sunday 3rd June 2012 ko 11.00

Kriesliga A Essen Sud-Ost

SV PREUSSEN EIBERG 1 (Tüker 75)

SuS NIEDERBONSFELD 1 (Angerstein 42)

Att 67 (h/c)

Entry FREE

No Programme

Coffee €1

With it being Lee’s stag weekend, its fair to say we’d had more than a few beers on Saturday night. In fact, at breakfast one of our number had a receipt from the hotel bar with 2.20am on it. Yet for all of that, we weren’t stupidly hungover, just a little bleary-eyed; perhaps that’s due to Germany’s strict beer purity rules, no nasty chemicals here!

We took a train 35 km west to Essen, a city based on the Ruhr industries of coal and steel. I was a little surprised therefore that when we left the train at Essen-Eiberg station, the scene was one of leafy suburbia! Still not everywhere has to be a post-industrial hell-hole does it? It was a pleasant enough stroll to the Bezirkssportanlage Oststadt, or to be more accurate it would have been bad it not been hammering down with rain! Worse still Lee had looked up the ground on Google Maps and reported that there didn’t seem to be any cover. Brave faces were in evidence as we walked past the clay reserve pitch and into the main complex.

And from that point things looked up. There was a buzz about the place with beer being sold, and sausages were being grilled. For some reason I discovered that there was strong coffee being sold in the clubhouse! Better still, we discovered that there was cover in the form of two railway shelters, perched above a terrace with seats bolted on. We immediately made a bee-line for one and reserved our seats, rather reminiscent of the cliché about Germans and sun-loungers!

At pitchside there’s a shale running track between the terrace and the pitch. It seemed all rather municipal when compared to the club’s building efforts behind. But we had a decent vantage point, the game was on and we were dry!

It wasn’t the easiest game to watch. Maybe I was more hung over than I thought, but this was a game that for long periods failed to spark (maybe it was the rain!). Neiderbonsfeld were clearly that better side, but failed to capitalise on their possession, and will have been disappointed to have reached half time with only Jonas Angerstein’s effort to show for their efforts. They were made to pay when substitute Sebastian Tüker tucked away a well-taken equaliser, and in all honesty I thought that would be the final score at that point.

Of course I was right, but only after a fashion. I made the mistake of commenting how well referee Adam Schneider had done, when Niederbonsfeld forward Özay Gökesil went down in installments in the box, and to the crowd’s consternation Schneider gave a last-minute penalty. Up stepped Angerstein, and his shot went wide of the left post, to give justice for a poor decision, but not in terms of the visitors’ possession and general superiority.

Pig Sick

07 Thursday Jun 2012

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Friday 1st June 2012 ko 18.45

Kreisliga A Mönchengladbach-Viersen

POLIZEI SV MÖNCHENGLADBACH 1 (Souren 72)

Krapp sent off 90 (2nd booking)

Schmitt sent off 90 (2nd booking)

Alatas sent off 90 (foul and abusive language)

1FC MÖNCHENGLADBACH II 2 (von der Burg 82 Kisolo 85)

Att 120

Entry €2.50

No Programme

Beer & Bratwurst €3

This weekend was as a stag weekend for my friend and fellow hopper Lee West. Lee studied in Germany, and is fluent in German, so he set up this 4 game weekend. Six of us flew out in the early hours of Friday from Luton, landing in Dortmund an hour later. That’s where the benefits of Lee’s knowledge of Germany started in earnest. He bought a group day ticket on the railway that allowed us unlimited travel in the region for around €10 each, a real bargain. We decamped to Dortmund, had a few beers then dumped our bags at our hotel before heading back to the main station.

The next bit was entirely my fault. I spotted that there was an earlier train heading to Mönchengladbach so on we jumped only to find it was an S-Bahn service stopping at all (around 47 stations) along the way. We were passed by the later train en-route and it all looked in vain when we arrived at the ground to find it locked up. Lee checked the ground address,  and found it had been switched to another ground. I looked that up on my Google Maps App, and discovered it was only 500 metres away. A quick dash, and I turned right, and there was the ground. I actually turned round to the others, grinned and gave them the thumbs up!

In truth the first ground was nothing special, a railed off clay pitch by a leisure centre. The Sportanlage Radrennbahn, is a different animal all together. Once upon a time it was a velodrome, but the track has gone, and the ends have been surrendered to the trees and shrubbery. There’s no lack of graffiti, but the place has a real atmosphere, rather like Glasgow’s Cathkin Park, another gloriously derelict ground.

We were pleased to make the game for footballing reasons too. With 1FC’s second string needing a win to take the title, there was a decent crowd, in good voice. It did seem odd to see a group of young people cheering on the local Police, but they added to a cracking atmosphere, and a pretty good local game.

In fact all that was lacking was a goal! There was no lack of endeavour on either side, it was just that when it came to shooting, well you knew then you were watching Kreisliga action! Kreis, by the way means district, or county, and the Kreisliga is by no means the base of the German pyramid; try the Kreisklasse! Deo Kissolo for 1FC was worst culprit, missing a string of chances for 1FC, but I was noticing more the challenges going in from the Polizei players. They were two footed, and late, and eventually the ref started booking players….

What changed everything was Polizei taking the lead. Richard Souren stabbed home, and the old stand fairly rocked. We waited for a 1FC reaction, which we got, but we didn’t quite expect the Polizei reaction too! Björn von der Berg equalised which on its own meant nothing, but when Kissolo fired home from 6 yards out, atoning for previous misses, the place, and Polizei erupted. A crate of beer arrived for the away fans just as the unfortunately named Guido Krapp collected his second booking for a quite dreadful challenge. He was followed by Marvin Schmitt for an even worse challenge, his time on the pitch a mere 4 minutes. It was all too much for Görkhan Alatas whose stream of invective earned a 3rd red card for his team, and chortles of “Police Brutality” from the foreign contingent.

At the end of it all 1FC celebrated, Polizei sulked and Alatas continued to berate the ref, as we headed off for a Chinese meal, remembering to collect a takeaway menu for one of our number Graeme. He collects them you see…..

This is England Innit?

08 Sunday Apr 2012

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Wednesday 4th April 2012 ko 6.15pm

Midland Regional Alliance Division 1

PASTURES 1 (Bridge 21)

PUNJAB UNITED 5 (K Aujla 16 Pattern 27 Breer 38 Lawrence 58 Webster 70)

Att 9 (h/c)

Entry FREE

Nothing for sale

I headed up to Long Eaton after work to meet Chris Berezai, as the next day would see the start of the Northern Counties East League groundhop we are organising, and that necessitated an early start the next day. When in the area the only logical thing to do of course is to take in a game!

Pastures play in Mickleover, near Derby and have the Mickleover Country Park as their base. There’s quite a backdrop with the the countryside and the Toyota plant to one side, but at the back of a terraced grass bank, there’s a church and a glasshouse, but what dominates is a huge building containing well-to-do flats. I asked what it was and was rather taken aback. It turns out that it used to be the Pastures Mental Hospital! It was built to a design by architect Henry Duesbury in the years 1848 to 1851 and opened in 1851. Above the doorway of the main entrance you will see the Roman Numerals MDCCCXLIX, meaning 1849. If you weren’t confused when you walked in…

For train buffs Mickleover was the site of a test track which was used by the research department of British Rail to test model trains for the future Channel Tunnel. It’s located near the old Mickleover railway station but is now disused.

I took time out to speak to both managers. Pastures were happy to get their excuses in early, “If I had my full team out we could win this,” but the Punjab bench seemed more upbeat. I joked with subsitute Simeon Lawrence how could the weather be so cold and wet when just a few days earlier I’d watched games in my shirtsleeves? “Because this is England innit!” he replied, and he was totally correct.

We were joined by the bard of Newhall United Dan Bishop, and watched as my first impressions proved to be correct. Punjab barely broke sweat in their Derby County strip (mind you it WAS cold!) as they tore their hosts to shreds. A goalkeeping error gave Pastures some consolation, but my new friend Simeon came on to score before a stunning strike from Courtney Webster ended the tie as a spectacle.

Easy tickings, albeit at a low level, and we were back in Long Eaton early for the lengthy day ahead.

North of Warwick

08 Sunday Apr 2012

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Tuesday 3rd April 2012 ko 6.10pm

Midland Combination Division 2

POLESWORTH 1 (L Haddock 67)

ASTON 0

Att 26 (h/c)

Entry FREE

No Programme

There’s aren’t many advantages to an earlier than usual finish at work in Banbury, but an early kick off in the Midland Combination is one! The club used to be known as Polesworth North Warwick, and while the town is in Warwickshire, its a long way north of Warwick, being close to Tamworth! The name was in fact a reference to the North Warwick (open cast) Colliery that dominated the landscape to the extent that the river Ankert was diverted to accomodate it. Those days are long gone, and Polesworth is little more than a dormitory suburb.

Boudicca, queen of the Iceni tribe, is thought by some to have been buried somewhere at Polesworth following the defeat of her army by the Romans in battle near Manuessendum (modern day Mancetter) in A.D. 60. One theory suggests that, after taking poison, her body was placed on a raft and set adrift on the River Anker, eventually coming to rest in Polesworth, where her body is thought to haven been buried.

Hermitage Hill has a suburban feel, with its multi-sports set up, and the M42 rumbling away in the background. The basics are here, cover courtesy of an “add on” roof to the changing room block, and a rail on three sides. I did wonder whether in the past the pitch ran at right-angles to be current arrangements. A flat stretch of concrete did make me wonder.

The game pitched Polesworth struggling at the bottom of the bottom divsion, but under new management, against high flying Aston, second in the table. They had everything to play for being two points behind Greenhill, but with this game in hand.

The game had none of of the tension you’d have expected. It meandered pleasingly enough, but with no real edge until Leon Haddock fired home for Polesworth, in the 67th minute. After that the tackles flew in and there was a minor scuffle, that saw 3 booked. One more followed in the final minute, but it it all felt rather inconsequential.

Still a decent tick, on an unlit ground on a midweek, which is no bad thing.