Bowl Shaped

01 Friday Jan 2016

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Saturday 28th December 2015 ko 15.00

Eastern Counties League Premier Division

FC CLACTON 2 (Cowden 56p 83)

STANWAY ROVERS 4 (Shaw 12 29 55 Palmer 87)

Att 220

Entry £7

Programme £1

It may have been a case of a 25 minute drive from Felixstowe to a game in the same division and league but the Rush Green Bowl is a step up in quality from Dellwood Avenue, and the sense of occasion was obvious. It wasn’t easy to find a parking spot but once through the turnstile the club’s sense of unconscious competence was impressive. Continue reading →

Poster Boys

30 Wednesday Dec 2015

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Monday 28th December 2015 ko 12.00

Eastern Counties League Premier Division

FELIXSTOWE & WALTON UNITED 2 (Schaar 30 Driver 55)

WHITTON UNITED 0

Att 222

Entry £6

Programme £1

Now very much with my North Berkshire League committeeman hat on I’m going to make a statement that might surprise you. I feel sorry for Felixstowe, yes that’s right! Perhaps I should explain why. Continue reading →

Dos Inglés

26 Saturday Dec 2015

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Sunday 20th December 2015 ko 17.00

Copa Regional de Ceuta- Final

CARMELITAS 1 (Jose 34p) Juande Dios sent off 57 (DOGSO)

RAMON Y CAJAL 4 (Alessandro 24 Cristian 81 Nabil 87 Hamid Oulad 90)

Chakin missed penalty 59

Cristian sent off 90 (violent conduct)

Att c300 at Estadio Alfonso Murube, Ceuta

Entry FREE

Programme NO

The difficulty in planning any football in Spain is that the fixtures aren’t fixed until less than a week beforehand. If it’s league fixture, then you can predict with a reasonable degree of certainty that the game will take place on a given weekend, but that could be any time between Friday and Monday, although the part-time Segunda B, and Tercera divisions are far more likely to play on Saturdays and Sundays. All you can do is cover your options and wait. And there were so many good reasons to visit Ceuta too…. Continue reading →

Clockwork Brocoli

24 Thursday Dec 2015

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Saturday 19th December 2015 ko 17.00

Segunda B Grupo 4

ALGECIRAS CF 2 (Javi Medina 6 Javi Chico 90)

LA HOYA LORCA 1 (Roberto 83)

Att c3,500

Entry (Tribuna- main stand) €15 (£11)

No Programme

If ever there was the very epitomy of a port town it’s Algeciras. If you want to know where your Spanish import said goodbye to it’s mother country, chances are that it was the port the other side of the bay from Gibraltar. The town has always been associated with the sea, firstly from smuggling from North Africa, then via more conventional trading routes. In fact the real surprise for me was just how difficult the Estadio Neuvo Mirador was to reach from a base in Gibraltar. Continue reading →

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 →