Tag Archives: England

Melksham Without

15 Thursday Feb 2018

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Monday 12th February 2018 ko 19.30

Western League Premier Division

MELKSHAM TOWN 4 (Higdon 14p 42 Sibbick 28 47)

LONGWELL GREEN SPORTS 1 (Pruett 90)

Att 349

Entry £6

Programme £1

It was an evening of mistakes. Missing our turn-off from the M4 saw us arrived uncomfortably close to kick off, and on a day when parts of the country had seen snow, ice and heavy rain I’d consoled myself that since Melksham’s new ground featured a 3G pitch the game was more likely to be on. You can imagine my mixed emotions when I saw the grass pitch… Continue reading →

Ambivalence

06 Wednesday Dec 2017

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Wednesday 29th November 2017 ko 19.45

United Counties League Division One

BUCKINGHAM TOWN 3 (Osei-Addo 26p Wreh 67 79)

POTTON UNITED 2 (Murrell 38 Webb 74)

Att 77

Entry £4

Programme £1

It’s been over 4 years since Buckingham Town moved into the Irish Centre in Bletchley and over 6 since they were evicted from their spiritual home, Ford Meadow back in Buckingham a rather distant 14 miles away. My reader might remember my surprise when I visited here 2 years ago at just how much the place had been improved since the club had taken on the pitch following the demise of Bletchley Town. Home in Buckingham Town’s case though, isn’t necessarily where the heart is. Continue reading →

Micawber

30 Thursday Nov 2017

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Wednesday 22nd November 2017 ko 19.45

Southern Counties East League Premier Division

ROCHESTER UNITED 1 (McGeeham 88)

DEAL TOWN 4 (Miller 39 Coyne 42 Smith 68 Paxman 78)

Att 52

Entry £7

Programme £1.50

Committee commitments had seen be unavailable since the Forgeside game and Wednesday is seldom a good day to find a game at a ground that I haven’t previously visited, and can get to after work. But in the spirit of Wilkins Micawber, something did turn up, and in Charles Dickens’ home town too! We’ll artfully ignore the fact that Rochester actually play in Strood… Continue reading →

Old School

23 Wednesday Aug 2017

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Tuesday 15th August 2017 ko 19.45

Championship

BRENTFORD 2 (Watkins 56 Maupay 77)

BRISTOL CITY 2 (Brownhill 5 Reid 90)

Att 9,811 (1,650 away)

Entry £24

Programme £3.50

There aren’t many grounds like this left. Grounds tucked away in amongst the houses in the communities they represent with only the floodlights to beckon you in from afield. Grounds built to tessellate with the footprint of the land available, and grounds that positively ooze with history and tradition. 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 →

Ticking almost every box

15 Sunday Feb 2015

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Friday 13th February 2015 ko 20.06

Women’s International Friendly

ENGLAND 0

UNITED STATES 1 (Morgan 25)

Att 14,369 at StadiumMK, Bletchley (MK Dons FC)

Entry- Comp’

Programme £3

The groundhopping purist tends to have a long list of what they won’t go to see. Amongst that list is friendlies, women’s fixtures, games at a stadium that aren’t the home club’s home fixture, and of course there’s always the vexed question of the MK Dons. There’s few who would try to defend the uprooting of the old Wimbledon to Buckinghamshire, but the club that built StadiumMK is certainly flourishing, and the stadium is by anyone’s standards a fantastic edifice, designed as it is by HOK, who also were behind Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium. Nevertheless, there are still plenty who would fall into the “Never forgive, never forget,” camp so short of there being no programme, the teams being reserves, and the game finishing goalless this was a close as you can get to the ultimate “Irk the purist” game!

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Another Octave

24 Monday Nov 2014

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Sunday 23rd November 2014 ko 15.00

Women’s International Friendly

ENGLAND 0

GERMANY 3 (A Scott 6og Sasic 12 45)

Att 45,619 at Wembley Stadium

Entry- Complimentary

Programme £5

It’s a fact of my footballing life that I don’t watch nearly enough women’s football. My cause in that respect was aided when a league I work with offered two Club Wembley seats, and I pondered how to get to the national stadium with the Jubilee, and Metropolitan tube lines closed for planned engineering work.

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Which

17 Sunday Aug 2014

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Saturday 16th August 2014 ko 15.10

FA Cup Extra Preliminary Round

WINSFORD UNITED 0

ATHERSLEY RECREATION 1 (Bennett 56)

Att 107

Entry £6

Programme £1.50

 

There are two great motorways heading north in England, the M1 and M6 but it does pay to have a series of back-up plans if you decide to take either of them on! For that the best modus operandi is the The Football Traveller, in fact I’m sure there’s been many a hopper stuck in a tail-back on the M6 that, frustrated at it all, grabs the little magazine for somewhere to go.

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Victor

29 Wednesday Jan 2014

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Tuesday 21st January 2014

18.00 Malta FA Trophy 4th Round

LUXOL ST ANDREWS 0

BIRKIRKARA 4 (Camenzuli 12 86 Bissi 32 Benites 74)

Att c400

20.00 Malta FA Trophy 4th Round

QORMI 0 Bajada missed penalty 120

TARXIEN RAINBOWS 0

AET Qormi won 6-5 on penalties

Att c200

Both games at Victor Tedescu Stadium (Hamrun Spartans), Hamrun

Entry €6

No Programme

Teamsheets FREE

Coffee 60c

With the change in locale it was high time for Andy and I to explore Malta’s capital, Valletta. It’s one of the world’s smallest capitals, being just 0.8 km2 in size. It was named after Jean Parisot de Valette, who succeeded in defending the island from an Ottoman invasion in 1565, and is one of the world’s first examples of a city designed along the grid system.

It’s the defences though that grab the attention, the huge walls were constructed in the 15th century and proved to be a bastion against German and Italian attack during the Axis powers attempts to invade the strategically important island in World War II. The legend has it that the island was defended by 3 Gloster Gladiator aircroft named Faith, Hope and Charity. Continue reading →

Dereliction

26 Sunday Jan 2014

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Monday 20th January 2014

Empire Stadium, Gżira

Monday morning saw us swap the north-east of Malta for Sliema just over the bay from the capital Valletta. It was altogether more urbane than the zoo-like hotel with the nervous pensioners we’d left behind.

The real bonus was the views over the bay of Valletta, and the proximity of so much of interest to visit, but our first destination was a site that has been derelict for over 30 years, and it was just a few stops on the bus along the bay. Continue reading →