Gritstone

19 Friday Jul 2013

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Thursday 18th July 2013 ko 19.30

Pre-Season Friendly

DRONFIELD TOWN 2 (Bradwell 63 Whitehead 80)

STAVELEY MINERS WELFARE 3 (Damms 35 Digiralamo 39 Gurnhill 87)

Att 42 at Gosforth Fields 3G, Bubnell Road, Dronfield Woodhouse, Derbys.

Entry Free

No Programme

I think groundhoppers can be separated into 2 broad categories, the ones that are aware how daft the hobby can be and those who aren’t! Becalmed in M1 traffic half-way through a 130 mile drive to the northern-most tip of Derbyshire to watch a friendly on a plastic pitch in a cage, yes I did question my sanity! I’m sure fellow hopper Lee thought exactly the same thing, as he interrogated the traffic app on his iPhone to supplement the sat-nav’s directions.

The trouble is I quite like this part of the world, despite Notts-born Lee’s immediate prejudices against the county in general. I like the Church of St Mary and All Saints, Chesterfield famous for its crooked spire, caused apparently caused by the lead that covers the spire, which was added 300 years after it was built in 1362. When the sun shines the south side of the tower heats up, causing the lead there to expand at a greater rate than that of the north side, resulting in unequal expansion and contraction. This was compounded by the weight of the lead (approx. 33 tons) which the spire’s bracing was not originally designed to bear.

The scene changes when you reach Dronfield, the topography becomes more undulating as you reach the beginnings of the Pennines, and the characteristics of the town seem as much South Yorkshire as Derbyshire. That feeling is heightened when you pass the Coach and Horses ground of Sheffield FC, the oldest football club in the world.

These are exciting times for Dronfield FC. They won last season’s Central Midlands League North Division, and have been accepted into the Northern Counties East League. That means ground improvements, and as I write this the floodlights are being erected. Many groundhoppers will remember Stonelow Road from the excellent Central Midlands Hop game the club hosted http://wp.me/p1PehW-zz, although so far organiser Rob Hornby has not managed to convince me to try the local “Delicacy” Pork dripping sandwiches!

This game was played at the Gosforth Fields facility which is used by Dronfield’s reserves, AFC Dronfield, and Dronfield Rugby Club. Around the location there’s been a spate of house building which is proving to be something of a boon for the place as the bar area serves as a pub for the new community! And there are far worse things you can do on a warm Thursday evening than sit on a balcony with a beer and watch two decent sides play football.

I know Staveley from the Northern Counties East hop which I help organise. They were, and are a joy to deal with http://wp.me/p1PehW-EU and above all else I will remember my trip to Gosforth Fields as being the visit where both clubs and officials were notably friendly and willing to help with fripperies as line-ups.

And despite the fact that at half time there were 21 substitutions, it was a good game to watch. Staveley wore Chesterfield FC change kit in the first half and Spireites home kit in the second, and seemed to have a far stronger first half team. They were good value for their half time lead, but Dronfield took control in the second half, and when Steve Whitehead danced through the Staveley defence to equalise it was a fair reflection on the balance of play. That roused Staveley and Tony Gurnhill won the game with a well-taken strike from the right-hand side of the 18-yard box.

It not often I enjoy a trip to such a ground, maybe it was the company, Lee and I got to meet Sheffield-based hopper Mark Hartley, but this was a hugely enjoyable evening out. Maybe it would be a different story on a wet November Saturday?

Itinerant Football

17 Wednesday Jul 2013

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Wednesday 17th July 2013 ko 19.00

Pre-Season Friendly

BUCKINGHAM TOWN 3 (Schembre 11 Riley 66 Murrell 80)

GRENDON RANGERS 1 (Lewis 14)

Att 24

80 minute game

Played at Medbourne Pavilion, Pascal Road, Shenley, Milton Keynes

Entry FREE

Football Card £2

It’s fair to say I have a mixed relationship with Milton Keynes. I’m no fan of the New, or Expanded Town, and Milton Keynes is the epitome of the entire genre. The facilities in the town are first class, and there’s no denying that everything was planned logically. It’s that last point that rankles with me, I don’t like things to be too planned, sterile even. I approached MK this evening on the A421 and once again winced at the name of the first of the multiplicity of roundabouts. Its called the Bottledump Roundabout; could the authorities have dreamt up a less romantic name to introduce the visitor to their town?

The planners did make one gift though to the collector of football grounds, there are many well-appointed sports grounds, so many in fact that there are more grounds than there are adult football teams! Judging by the last couple of years I seem destined to visit one of them each pre-season! Medbourne gets used for the occasional Sunday morning fixture, but as far as anyone could tell the venue has never seen an adult Saturday side settle here.

Buckingham Town have led an itinerant existence since losing Ford Meadow in 2010. They’ve had a temporary base in Winslow which was less than ideal, http://wp.me/s1PehW-solace before taking on the former Bletchley Town ground, Manor Fields. It isn’t Buckingham nor is it close to it, but at least its a base, and one that can be improved too. Perhaps now they can improve on the 15th place (out of 18) in the United Counties League they achieved last season. For a club that’s won the lower division of the Southern League, UCL Premier football should be within their grasp. Whatever the club do manage in the future, they will have the UCL management to thank for helping the club massively in their time of need. In another league they could have folded.

Grendon from Grendon Underwood are approaching this season from the other perspective. They’ve moved from the North Bucks & District which is off-pyramid, into the second division of the Spartan South Midlands League. It’s a move to Step 7 football, nominally one notch lower than Buckingham, but at this level of the game there often isn’t much difference in quality.

And so it came to pass this evening. Given the heat wave, a decision was made to pay the fixture as two halves of 40 minutes each split in half with a short water break. That and regular rolling substitutions made, a little counter-intuitively for a better spectacle and fresh legs were always available. It was clear who the step 6 side was, Buckingham were just that little bit more crisp, and the 3-1 was a fair result in the end.

Big Les

16 Tuesday Jul 2013

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Monday 15th July 2013 ko 19.45

Bedfordshire Premier Cup Final

BIGGLESWADE TOWN 1 (Witham 52)

LUTON TOWN 1 (Banton 60)

Att c130

Entry £5

Teamsheet FREE

For once I was rather spoilt for choice for a Monday night game. I could have visited AFC Totton, as the club still looks in danger of folding, or head north-east for a competitive game. It wasn’t a difficult decision and despite a flat tyre on the way, I parked up at the Carlsberg Stadium in good time.

The town is mentioned in the diaries of Samuel Pepys. On 22nd July 1661, he  stopped off in Biggleswade (called ‘Bigglesworth’ by Pepys) to buy a pair of warm woollen stockings, hardly suprising as the town was a centre was centre for the trade at the time.

In 2001 a gold coin bearing the name Coenwulf was discovered at Biggleswade beside the River Ivel.  The 4.33 g (0.15 oz) mancus, worth about 30 silver pennies, is only the eighth known Anglo-Saxon gold coin dating to the mid to late Anglo-Saxon period. it was initially sold to an American collector for £230,000 at auction the British Government placed an export ban in the hope of saving it for the nation. In February 2006 the coin was bought by the British Museum for £357,832 making it the most expensive British coin purchased to date.

Biggleswade is also the base of the Jordan’s cereals business, so you now know where your muesli comes from!

Biggleswade Town used to be based adjacent to local rivals Biggleswade United, at Fairfield Road, but after a groundshare at Bedford FC, moved into their purpose built ground on the Langford Road, in 2008. It holds 3,000 has turnstiles from Sheffield United’s Bramall Lane, and has a grandstand that seats 300.

My worry about so many developments like this is its location on the outskirts of town. I watched a club local to me move out of a central location to the outskirts and, in time it killed them. Witney Town like so many, saw the improved facilities, but forgot the non-football trade completely. The small clubhouse in constant use is often more lucrative than the superbly appointed sports bar that you have to drive to get to. I hope Town can make it work for them as the ground design is perfect for their needs.

Those needs are of course entirely different from those of the groundhopper! We like unusual and quirky and there’s nothing remotely of either here. It simply does its job, in an unassuming manner. The people are friendly, the sightlines good, and there’s plenty of scope for expansion should it be needed.

I was a little intrigued by the opposition. Luton Town are very-much a League club in waiting, only being relegated out of the Football League in 2009 after a total of 30 points were deducted as the League tired of repeated insolvency events, and financial mismanagement. With average attendances of 6,000 plus, way more than most Conference clubs each season they are always amongst the favourites for promotion each season. And each season they fall short, there can’t be many clubs who’ve made the play-offs for the 3 out of the last 4 seasons and failed to get promoted.

This game didn’t attract as many Luton fans as I expected, perhaps due to them only sending a reserve side. The first half vindicated the absentees’ decision, as there was only one notable chance, Luton’s Jake Woolley producing a smart save from Sam Wyer. It wasn’t that there was a lack of effort, the tackles flew in from both sides, it was just that the end product was missing.

It opened up a little more in the second half, the Waders taking the lead though Alex Witham’s improvised finish at the back post from a right-wing cross. Luton soon equalised, JJ O’Donnell’s cross was volleyed home by Zane Banton.

Both sides had the chance to win the tie, but the Bedfordshire FA sensibly decided to eschew any thought of extra time, and Luton prevailed 3-2 on penalties. The presentation swiftly followed and those remaining were treated to Luton captain Alex Lacey’s perfunctory lifting of the trophy and non-celebration. I trust more senior brains at the club will remind him that others involved in football are not paid full-time wages, and that one day he may value winning a trophy a little more. After all it could easily be the only one he will ever win.

Quintessentially English

16 Tuesday Jul 2013

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Sunday 14th July 2013

Tiddington Fete, Oxfordshire

Is there anything more English than the village fete? The stalls selling their wares on the village green, the Pims, beer and tea, with the games to win a small prize. It had been decades since my last fete. That had been organised my local Catholic Church, and since my Scout troop used the church hall, I with the other Scouts manned the throw a wet sponge at the Scoutmaster stall. That fete in my eyes was notable for a bloke greeting Parish Priest with a cheery but slightly inappropriate,

“Well hello vicar, how the devil are you?!”

Tiddington is one of those pretty little villages destined to be driven though but not often stopped at. If you live in the south of England chances are you’ve been close by as the M40 runs about half a mile south, and the A418 runs from Oxford to Thame through the village.

Despite the passing traffic the village hasn’t been immune to the ravages of time. The railway station closed in 1963, a victim of the Beeching axe, and the local pub, The Fox became an Indian restaurant, but that’s now closed and the villagers are hoping to buy back the pub and run it as a co-operative. For more than 50 years an annual tug-of-war with the neighbouring Buckinghamshire village of Ickford has been held each summer across the River Thame (not to be confused with the Thames), which forms the boundary between both the two parishes and counties.

I walked around, and took in my surroundings. I listened for the accents; around these parts you may only be 5 miles out of Oxford, but the voices are very different. In Oxford itself there are two accents, the famous drawl of the academics called Oxford Gown, and the locals’ accent which is more estuary, Oxford Town, influenced by London to the east. Once outside you hear Oxford agricultural, the burr a result of the woollen industry to the west.

I loved eating an ice cream whilst listening to the Silver Band, and bought two books for a measly 75p from the book stall. I watched the games on offer, all seeming to be based around the skill of aim, including the pub game of Aunt Sally that you only see in Oxfordshire.

It was all rather too warm, so I retreated to the Village Hall for a drink, but got dragged out once again for a Tiddington village tradition, egg throwing! I didn’t win, but then I was just pleased that neither my partner or I got egg on our faces, both literally or figuratively! I’d like to thank Kim for taking the last two pictures, one of which I couldn’t have possibly taken!

Football Played On Paper

15 Monday Jul 2013

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Saturday 13th July 2013 ko 15.00

Pre-Season Friendly

ERITH TOWN 1 (Quartey 21)

THURROCK 3 (Griffin 25 Grimaldi 67 Perkins 90)

Att 62

Entry £5

Programme None

Played at Badgers Sports & Social Club, Eltham (Cray Valley Paper Mills FC)

If my first game had a tough of the agricultural about it, then the second was definitely suburban! A quick blast along the A20 changed the locale completely, although there’s no lack of open spaces, the Civil Service Sports Ground is the other side of the road after all.

Its been a few years since I saw Erith at their home ground, The Erith Stadium. It’s not ideal, being first and foremost an athletics stadium, so the uncovered seats were a long way from the action, and the necessity to have a players tunnel made ground grading difficult. The seats did get covered, but nevertheless the club decided to move and groundshare at Cray Valley for this coming season. Continue reading →

Progress

15 Monday Jul 2013

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Saturday 13th July 2013 ko 13.00 (approx’ !)

Pre-Season Friendly

SUTTON ATHLETIC 1 (Desanges 84)

V.C.D. ATHLETIC 3 (Duckworth 4 Ramsamy 35 Greaves 45p)

Att 47

Entry £3

Programme- None (old copy free)

Bacon & Egg baguette £3.50

I suppose the first question for me to answer is which Sutton?  Its Sutton-at-Hone, a village 2 miles (3 km) south of Dartford in Kent, and should not be confused with the London borough of Sutton of Sutton United fame far to the west. This is the Sutton of the Knights Hospitaller of the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem. The humanitarian order was set up in the Middle Ages to provide assistance for sick of injured pilgrims in the Holy Land. The base in Sutton was established in 1199 and the building is now a National Trust property.

Except, at no point was I actually in Sutton! With the introduction of the Kent Invicta League the club realised that their home at The Roaches Recreation Ground, was never going to fulfil ground grading requirements so the club moved 2 and a half miles across the M25 to Lower Road, Hextable, a village I managed to misspell twice as Huxtable! Clearly the Cosby Show was more of an influence than I thought!

Its tucked away near the end of the lane, so much so I could have easily turned round, thinking I’d missed the place. It’s a work in progress, but a lot’s happened just to get this far. Tonnes of earth and rubble were moved to level the pitch, and the clubhouse and changing-rooms provide the club with an income, and a sense of home too. Future plans include floodlights on 6 pylons, two prefabricated stands on the mound side, a perimeter fence and fully-tarmacked car park. Its ambitious, but at no point did I feel that any of these plans wont come to fruition. One little money spinner that is well worth a mention is their baguettes, mine was excellent, well worth not stopping elsewhere for.

The game was always going to be tough for Sutton, with the opposition playing 2 notches higher in the Isthmian League Division One North. That small fact created a smile when I confirmed this with one of Vickers Crayford Dartford’s (to use their full name once!) officials. Her response was

” Nah mate, we play in the Ryman League!” Ryman of course are the sponsors of the Isthmian League… Oh well!

In sweltering heat, it wasn’t easy to watch a game, let alone play in one! VCD controlled the game, and the wide men Enoch Adeji and Damian Ramsamy were at the start of most good things the visitors did. They rattled in three goals before half time, changed half the team for the second half, declaring in the process. With a few minutes I began to edge towards the car, as the time was against me to get to the next game. The final whistle went, I started the engine and drove away, glancing behind at the dust cloud as I went.

The Long Game

12 Friday Jul 2013

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Friday 12th July 2013

The Old Berkley Golf Course, Boars Hill

If you leave Oxford, heading due south and cross over the A34 and head towards Abingdon, you’ll soon see the turn-off for Boars Hill. There are many reasons to visit, the perpendicular tower of Ripon Hall, once an Anglican theological college, but now rebadged Foxcombe Hall, and now used by the Open University.

There’s also Lord Berkley’s Gold Course, Abraham Wood, and Chilswell Fields, fine examples of acid grassland, immortalised by Matthew Arnold in his poem Thyrsis. Here’s the excerpt I have in mind.

Runs it not here, the track by Childsworth Farm,
Up past the wood, to where the elm-tree crowns
The hill behind whose ridge the sunset flames?
The signal-elm, that looks on Ilsley Downs,
This winter-eve is warm,
Humid the air; leafless, yet soft as spring,

The tender purple spray on copse and briers;
And that sweet City with her dreaming spires,
She needs not June for beauty’s heightening,

And it’s those dreaming spires that is the reason I’ve wanted to come up here with a camera for years! The view is spectacular, although the elm tree is , in fact an oak! The view is often obscured by cloud, or haze, and all too often I was in the wrong place at the right time. The more eagle-eyed amongst you will note that the compact camera has made a reappearance, as I wanted a wide-angle view that I can’t get with the SLR.

But let’s not get too worried about the technicalities, just enjoy the view. It’s quite something isn’t it?

 

Alfred the Victor

12 Friday Jul 2013

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Wednesday 10th July 2013 ko 19.45

Kevin Sinton & Colin Blunsden Memorial Match

WANTAGE TOWN 2 (Odhiambo 33 Lachacz 54)

OXFORD UNITED XI 1 (Ashby 61)

Att c150

Entry £6

No programme

It’s impossible to think of Wantage without thing of Alfred the Great. The famous king of Wessex was born here in 849 AD and was king from 871 until his death in 899. He is the only English monarch to be accorded the epithet “the Great.”  Alfred’s reputation has been that of a learned and merciful man who encouraged education and improved his kingdom’s legal system and military structure. His statue dominates the town’s square.

The town’s other famous son was born a little later, 1935 to be exact! Lester Piggott was born conveniently for the stables at Ardington, Lockinge and Lambourn nearby. The whole area is notably affluent, even down to the entrance to Alfredian Park being down an easy-to-miss tree-lined lane.

I’ve been to Alfredian Park a lot over the years, Oxford United often send sides here, the welcome is fulsome and the football good, and the North Berkshire League uses the ground for some of its cup finals. In fact my most recent visit was Continue reading →

The Devil Queues For Prada

08 Monday Jul 2013

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Sunday 7th July 2013

Bicester Village, Oxfordshire

There’s nothing new about the outlet shopping centre, where the designer brands sell off their end-line-stock at discount prices. The Bicester Village centre sits on the edge of the pretty Oxfordshire town, and was first opened in 1992. Few could have predicted the colossus that its become, being the biggest tourist attraction in the county.

Continue reading →

An Eye To The Future

07 Sunday Jul 2013

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Saturday 6th July 2013 ko 15.00

Pre-Season Friendly

ARDLEY UNITED 1 (Brooks 74p)

OXFORD UNITED 2 (Potter 48 Smalley 90)

Att 670

Entry £5

Programme £1.50

There are several strands these days to my football watching, its long since stopped being just about the game alone, in fact I suspect that’s the case with many groundhoppers who’ve graduated from the easy-to-reach local grounds. Sometimes I want to travel, sometimes I’m looking for a location, others its the Vulture Job, visiting a ground before the bulldozers move in.

I am of course an Oxford United fan, and a fan also of the local football scene, and Ardley playing fields are just the one exit north of Oxford on the M40, lying virtually adjacent to Junction 10. With Oxford United sending the first-team squad to the Hellenic League Premier outfit for the both club’s first pre-season friendly, it gave me quite a few good reasons to attend. For one, my girlfriend and I were to visit Ash, my Uni pal in Twickenham in the evening so a long distance jaunt was out of the question. With the weather scorching I also knew Dad would fancy a trip out, so I threw a collapsible chair in the back of the car, my mind was made up.

Apart from being the other side of the motorway from Cherwell Valley Services the village of Ardley is now more or less fused with the village of Fewcott (they had a Oxon Senior League side until recently). The conjoined twins sit on a bed of Jurassic limestone, which apart from hosting a colony of Greater Crested Newts, also provided a good base on to build Ardley Castle. The edifice was a motte-and-bailey affair which is believed to have been built during during the civil war of the Anarchy between 1139 and 1154, fought between Empress Matilda and King Stephen.

Intriguingly these castles were Adulterine, or built without Royal consent, this one would have been built by Matilda, and perhaps its unsurprising that very little of it is now left, just some earth banking and ditches.

On arrival at the football club a few strands of my football watching were in evidence. Ardley’s normally attendances are the tens, not hundreds, and even getting everyone parked was going to be an issue. When I’m organising groundhops I dream of clubs like Ardley, who approached their day with a clear head, and so reaped the reward. It was in marked contrast to my first visit here, when I watched Ardley play Adderbury Park. The players changed in the cricket pavilion, and the only other “Facilties” were the pitchside rail and a set of dugouts. The club won Groundtastic’s “Most Improved Ground” award in 2005.

Cars were parked on the cricket field, at no charge so few opted to annoy the neighbours by parking on the road. The welcome at the pay booth was as warm as the ambient temperature, and I wondered if the club had used their experience in hosting a Hellenic League Groundhop game back in 2005. Mind you the crowd that day was 278; this was on another scale altogether. A temporary bar was set up to sell soft drinks, and somehow the burger bar kept pace with the huge demand.

Ardley chairman Norman Stacey managed to combine hospitality with stadium announcements and the needs of Radio Oxford broadcasting live commentary. That created a minor issue when it was discovered that the socket they were using for power was the one the club normally uses for the PA… It summed the afternoon up nicely that the plugs were rearranged, and everything worked perfectly.

For a pre-season friendly at a lower league to work well from a League club’s perspective two things need to happen. Ardley staged the game beautifully, but the team has play passing football without resorting to any rough play.

In the latter respect Ardley won the plaudits on the pitch on the pitch as much as they did off of it. They passed and moved well, and were good value for the goalless score line at half time. A complete change of team for the visitors saw Dave Kitson, a man who once commanded a £5.5 million transfer make his first Oxford United appearance. His impact was almost immediate, chasing a lost cause on the left flank and finding Alfie Potter for him to slot home for the first goal.

Ardley’s equaliser was rather fortuitous. Tom Newey’s contact with Jason Castello looked minimal and outside of the box, but former OUFC youth teamer Ryan Brooks put the penalty away well sending Max Crocombe the wrong way. But with seconds left Deane Smalley’s shot was brilliantly pushed away by Jack Harding. Danny Rose took the resulting corner and his curling effort found Smalley’s head perfectly to give the visitors the win.

Not of course anything much need be read into the result. This was about players getting to know each other, and the management to try new tactics and see who works best with who. For everyone else it was a hugely enjoyable afternoon out and one I trust will be repeated. If that does happen, I fully expect Oxford United to be re-visiting a Southern League club.