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Football: Wherever it may be

~ Laurence's football travels

Football: Wherever it may be

Tag Archives: Hemsworth Miners Welfare

The Compromise

06 Saturday May 2017

Posted by laurencereade in A

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Armthorpe, Chris Berezai, Easter Hop, groundhop, GroundhopUK, Hemsworth Miners Welfare, League, northern counties east, Welfare

Saturday 15th April 2017 ko 15.00

Northern Counties East League Premier Division

ARMTHORPE WELFARE 1 (Pearce 88)

HEMSWORTH MINERS WELFARE 6 (Connolly 4 Law 31 Collier 34 63 82 90)

Att 231

Entry £5

Programme £1.50

I’d started worrying the week before, and those worries were accentuated when counting the crowd at Rossington Main. We’d set this hop up on a “3 games in a day” basis, as we’d thought that 13 games in 4 and a bit days was enough football even for me! That format does come with a risk though and we’d just encountered the perfect storm as an organiser.

Continue reading →

53.534563 -1.056694

See Emley Play

10 Friday Apr 2015

Posted by laurencereade in E

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

AFC Emley, Ashley Flynn, Emley, Emley Moor, Hemsworth Miners Welfare, northern counties east, Penalty, Welfare Ground

Saturday 4th April 2015 ko 10.30

Northern Counties East League-Division One

AFC EMLEY 0 Jerome sent off (dangerous play) 57 Flynn missed penalty 90

HEMSWORTH MINERS WELFARE 3 (Connolly 45 Blair 51 Guest 60)

Att 463

Entry £5

Programme £1.50

My regular reader will now be aware that the first thing I do on any day of any hop I’m organising is to dash to the nearest window to check on the weather. Except on this occasion I checked for snow, yes that’s right snow! Two years ago Emley were due to be the first game on the Easter Hop, but 6 feet of drifting snow put paid to that idea, and we at GroundhopUK were grateful to Atherton Colleries for taking on the game. The postponement came in no small part to Emley’s altitude so it was fitting that as a coach party we paid a visit to the Emley Moor transmission tower. Its 330 metres tall, weighes 11,200 tonnes, is taller than the Eiffel Tower, and is Britain’s tallest free-standing structure. Continue reading →

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To the Moon and back

03 Wednesday Apr 2013

Posted by laurencereade in H

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Hemsworth Miners Welfare, Knaresborough Town, Mike Amos, Northern Counties East Groundhop, northern counties east league, soccer

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 →

Here we go again!

08 Sunday Apr 2012

Posted by laurencereade in Y

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Baris, Football, groundhop, Hemsworth Miners Welfare, Hop, northern counties east, northern counties east league, Rob Hornby, Ryan Williams, Yorkshire Amateur

Thursday 5th April 2012 ko 7.45pm

Northern Counties East League Division One

YORKSHIRE AMATEUR 1 (Craig Heard 45)

HEMSWORTH MINERS WELFARE 3 (Crapper 11 Williams 19 48)

Att 179

Entry & Programme Hop Ticket

Badge £3

“Leeds Pale” Bitter £2.50/pint

This was a long day! From Long Eaton, Chris and I set off for Staveley Miners Welfare to pick up 3 sets of programmes for the inaugural NCEL hop. From there it was further up the M1 to the Cedar Court Hotel in Wakefield, our HQ for the weekend. There we were joined by League Committee member Karl Blackburn with the other sets of programmes. It took around 90 minutes to put together the 100 or so programme packs for those who’d pre booked their tickets.

By that time it was around 1.30, so Chris and I started the shuttle runs to the various rail stations of Wakefield to pick up the public transport using hoppers. Included in that throng was the towering presence of Ari, the chairman of the Scarborough FC Norwegian supporters club, which has 60 members!

After a strong coffee, it was soon 5.45 and our coach, driven by Godfrey arrived. It took around an hour to reach Leeds and Bracken Edge, home of our first club Yorkshire Amateur. On the way we had a phone call from Central Midlands League Bonanza organiser Rob Hornby to wish us luck. Considering that there’s friction between the CMFL and the NCEL it was a wonderful gesture from a class act.

From there on in it was a bit of a blur for an hour, as programme packs were distributed, friends reaquainted and officials met. It was a bit of a relief when we could all go and watch some football!

The “Ammers” are club with real history. They were founded in November 1918 but only began playing matches in 1919. In those early days, the club’s fixtures largely consisted of playing friendlies at Elland Road following the demise of Leeds City FC, on the orders of the Football Association, after irregularities were discovered in their accounts. However, in 1920 the club decided that the ground was not suitable for their needs and sold the lease to the newly formed Leeds United AFC for the sum of £250! They moved to their present headquarters at Bracken Edge in 1922 after using several other grounds, including sharing with Harrogate Town.  in 1932 a record crowd of 3,569 paid gate receipts of £160 to see the 5-2 Amateur Cup Quarter Final replay victory over Wimbledon. This was after a 2-2 draw at Plough Lane before a crowd of 12,000. The “Ammers” had demolished the holders, Wycombe Wanderers, 4-0 in the previous round but lost to Marine in the semi final.

Since then life has been a struggle, living in the shadow of the far bigger professional clubs in the area, but is a remarkably spick and span ground that sadly these days sees gates in the teens. For all that, the clubhouse has been refurbished and the club worked incredibly hard serving up hot food and specially purchased real ale to the hoppers.

On the pitch sad to say, Amateur were no match for their visitors from mid-way between Barnsley and Pontefract proved to be far too strong for their hosts. Ryan Williams was the pick of the players on show collecting a brace, but the scoreline could easily have been crueller on the hosts.

As organiser, I’d have liked to have seen a few more at the game, but given the appalling traffic on the M1 and on a working day, I’m probably just being hard to please. On the way out of the first ground on each hop, I’ve got into the habit of quietly listening to hoppers’ impressions of what they’ve just seen. They were all positive, so I allowed myself to breathe, and after returning to the hotel, we found a local boozer, with acting Fareham Town FC secretary Paul “Splodge” Proctor, and relaxed.





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