XXX action

07 Sunday Apr 2013

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Sunday 31st March 2013 ko 13.00

Oxfordshire Football Association Sam Waters Sunday Cup Final

OXFORD SPORTS & SOCIAL 2 (McGlynn 45 McMahon 48)

KIDLINGTON ROYALS 3 (Curtin 8 66 Odhiambo 78)

Att c300

Entry & Programme £2

At Court Place Farm Stadium (Oxford City FC)

To be honest, I didn’t really fancy watching any football. I know regular readers of these articles will find that hard to believe, but 8 games in just over 2 days is hard going! In fact my reason for going was straightforward, Kidlington Royals asked me! In the days leading up to the game Royals came up with a novel way of advertising the game and its one I don’t think I’ll see again! They used Twitter to get British Continue reading →

Breweriana

07 Sunday Apr 2013

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Saturday 30th March 2013 ko 19.30

Northern Counties East Premier Division

TADCASTER ALBION 5 (Taylor 39 65 Rice 78 Winn 84og Youldon 88) Jeff missed penalty 2, Ward sent off (violent conduct) 61

BARTON TOWN OLD BOYS 1 (Dexter 20)

Att 288

Entry £5

Programme £1

The North Yorkshire town of Tadcaster was founded by the Romans, who named it Calcaria from the Latin word for lime, reflecting the importance of the area’s limestone geology as a natural resource for quarrying, an industry which continues today and has contributed to many notable buildings including York Minster. The limestone affects the chemistry of the water, which has given rise to the brewing industry here, as the water is similar to that at Burton-on-Trent, another centre of the brewing trade.

There are three breweries here, John Smith’s, Sam Smith’s and Continue reading →

Peredurus

07 Sunday Apr 2013

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Saturday 30th March 2013 ko 15.30

Northern Counties East Premier Division

PICKERING TOWN 3 (Shepherd 30 Heads 41 Taylor 82)

WORKSOP PARRAMORE 0

Att 302

Entry £5

Programme £1.50

As we headed north from Bridlington the scene gradually changed. We’d already moved from industrial Wakefield to tripperish Bridlington, but now we moved into the North Yorkshire Moors and the pretty market town of Pickering.

According to legend the town gets its name from King Peredurus around 270BC. It states that the King lost his ring and accused a young maiden of stealing it. Later that day the ring was found in a pike caught that day in the River Costa for his dinner. The king was so happy to find his ring he married the young maiden. The name Pike-ring became corrupted over the years to the present name. Continue reading →

The Hair of the Widow

05 Friday Apr 2013

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Saturday 30th March 2013 ko 11.30

Northern Counties East League Premier Division

BRIDLINGTON TOWN 3 (Phillips 20 Cook 35 Greening 56) Fleming sent off 82 (2nd booking)

SCARBOROUGH ATHLETIC 3 (Miller 19 Beadle 45 Blott 48)

Attendance 1,569

Entry £6

Programme £1.50

What better way to spend a Saturday morning than a trip to the seaside? Winding our way from Wakefield, near Driffield, and Wetwang, the weather was bright and sunny, completely removed from the freezing conditions of the previous day. Bridlington is a seaside resort and minor fishing port on the Holderness Coast of the North Sea. It is an area which is said to have the highest coastal erosion rate in Europe, and the fine sand is kept in place by thick groynes, which I remember clambering over as a small child during a summer holiday here.

I had a little trepidation over this fixture. Queensgate is a wonderful place to watch a game, full of the quirks I love in a ground, but the opposition would give the tie a completely different Continue reading →

Football on High

04 Thursday Apr 2013

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Friday 25th March 2013 ko 19.45

Northern Counties League Division One

ATHERSLEY RECREATION 8 (Bennett 15 45 80 85 Harban 40p Thornton 70 Bentley 72 86)

ASKERN VILLA 1 (Brown 45)

Att 507

Entry £5

Programme £1.50

On the face of it, Athersley is a fairly unremarkable estate in the northern suburbs of Barnsley. Sheerian Park is easy to miss too, tucked away as it is between the houses. Even the welcome sign is attached to a house, and I suspect that if I’d have turned up on a typical Saturday afternoon I’d have written the place off as a Continue reading →

To the Moon and back

03 Wednesday Apr 2013

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Friday 29th March 2013 ko 16.30

Northern Counties East League Division One

HEMSWORTH MINERS WELFARE 0

KNARESBOROUGH TOWN 4 (Bromley 11p 17p Freeston 21 34)

Att 415

Entry £5

Programme £1

If ever a town suffered from the demise of the coal mines it was Hemsworth. Together with other one industry towns such as South Elmsall the levels of unemployment seen here topped 50% in the late 1980’s and despite repeated government interventions the town has never quite recovered. The Hemsworth constituency is famous for being the place where Labour votes were said to be “weighed rather than counted” during the 1960s and 1970s, but even the local Labour vote isn’t quite as strong is it was in the past. In fact the one place that seemed entirely immune from the malaise was Continue reading →

Ponte Carlo

02 Tuesday Apr 2013

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Friday 29th March 2013 ko 13.45

Northern Counties East League Division One

PONTEFRACT COLLIERIES 2 (Durham 30 Catton 83p)

SELBY TOWN 2 (Gray 2 28p)

Att 424

Entry £5

Programme £1.20

My mate Eddie comes from Pontefract, and its due to him that I’ve wanted to visit for a number of years. He posts on an internet forum as Ponte Carlo, so thanks for your moniker Eddie, you’ve given me a title! That name is self-deprecating, along with the glammed-up names for other towns in the area, Cas-Vegas (Castleford) and Featherly-Hills (Featherstone). There’s nothing wrong with living in an industrial town, the former coal mining industry is obvious, but its clear Eddie has mixed feelings about Pontefract.

Yes, its famous for the Pontefract cake, a liquorice based sweet produced because the local sandy soil is one of the few places in the UK perfect for growing the herbaceous perennial, and there’s Pontefract Castle, famous as where Richard II was murdered, but what does the “Welcome to Pontefract,” sign say at the edge of town? Continue reading →

Viva Cas-Vegas

01 Monday Apr 2013

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Friday 29th March 2013 ko 11.00

Northern Counties East League Premier Division

GLASSHOUGHTON WELFARE 2 (Ball 66og Woollard 90) Young missed penalty 79

NOSTELL MINERS WELFARE 0

Att 307

Entry £5

Programme £1.50

Tucked up snuggly as I was at the hotel, when the alarm went off I dashed to the window to judge the scene outside. It looked cold, but was it cold enough to freeze a pitch? At breakfast one of the coach party tried the classic acid-test all hoppers use. He went outside and found Continue reading →

Scene Shifting

31 Sunday Mar 2013

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Thursday 28th March 2013 ko 19.45

North West Counties League Division One

ATHERTON COLLIERIES 0

ROCHDALE TOWN 0

Att 133

Entry £5

Programme £1

The burgundy jacket hung inertly from its hook at the back of the car, so yes it was groundhop time again. I don’t think I’ve ever explained exactly what Chris Berezai and I actually do with regard to organising football tours, or groundhops as they get called.

We liaise with a particular league to get kickoffs staggered over one or more days. That attracts the groundhoppers, so from there we organise advance tickets, to allow clubs some idea of numbers attending, programme production, merchandise, catering, transport and accommodation. We’ve been doing a long time, and its a fairly well oiled machine, but just occasionally you do get a glitch!

This Easter’s hop was on behalf of the Northern Counties East League, and with an excellent base at the Cedar Court Hotel, just off the M1 near Wakefield, and Stringers Coaches providing the transport we were good to go, but then the weather intervened! The area saw significant snow during the week, and by Tuesday it looked increasingly unlikely our scheduled game at AFC Emley could go ahead. I called Atherton Collieries’ secretary Emil Anderson that night, and I will always be grateful to him and his club for more than Continue reading →

Banned!

27 Wednesday Mar 2013

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Tuesday 26th March 2013 ko 19.45

Wessex League Premier Division

ROMSEY TOWN 2 (Phillips 41 Harry 90)

FAREHAM TOWN 0

Att 32 (head count)

Entry £5

No Programme

Until I researched this I had no idea why the small Hampshire town of Romsey resonated with me. It’s notable for fly-fishing on the River Test but I prefer my fish in batter with chips so it wasn’t that, but when I saw that Wilbert Awdry was born nearby the pieces began to fall into place. The Rev W Awdry wrote the Thomas the Tank Engine books, and is was him that got me to learn to read as a child. I remember meeting him as a small boy at a model railway exhibition at Oxford Town Hall, and being star-struck for the first time in my short life. You can blame him for what you’re reading now!

The Broadlands Country House is in the outskirts of Romsey too. Variously home to the inventor of Gunboat Diplomacy Lord Palmerston, and Lord Louis Mountbatten of Burma, it was designed by Lancelot “Capability” Brown, and was where Prince Charles and Princess Diana spent their wedding night. I’m not sure whether that last fact is necessarily a selling point!

The factor that influenced this tie for me was the opposition. Fareham Town secretary Paul “Splodge” Proctor is a Continue reading →