Tag Archives: Rob Hornby

The Mission

21 Sunday Apr 2013

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Friday 17th April 2013 ko 18.30

Notts Senior League Senior Division

MAGDALA AMATEURS 2 (Sutton 10 48)

BILBOROUGH TOWN 1 (Lucas 22og)

Att 245

Entry £3

Programme £1

Badges sold out

If there’s one thing I like more than a groundhop weekend, its a groundhop I’m not involved in organising! Rob Hornby, apart from being a good friend, is a wizard of organising events in and around his home in Mansfield. He organised the sadly finished Central Midlands League Groundhops, but has now switched to the parallel status Notts Senior League for his annual Bonanza. The format was one game on the Friday, followed by 4 on the Saturday, and with none of the clubs having floodlights it was set to be a busy weekend!

My mistake, in retrospect was not taking half a day off work; Friday night traffic meant I missed the first few minutes of the game, that apparently kicked off a touch early. Never mind, that’s my fault, especially as the Stuart Clarke influence in me likes to get to a ground early and soak the place up.

The club play behind the ROKO Health Club, in West Bridgford, in South Nottingham, and their unusual name takes a little explanation! They were formed in 1895 by the Rev. Gwynne as the side of the St Emmanuel Sunday School based on Magdala Road nearby. They took the name as Notts Magdala, but when a reserve side was added they promptly broke away and became the Magdala Amateurs of today! The first XI carried on, and eventually changed their name to Nottinghamshire FC and also play in the Notts Senior League, just north of the city.

For a club less than 2 miles from a major city’s centre, the ROKO centre’s pitch is quite arboreal in location! It made for an attractive meeting point, in the setting sun, although I did feel sorry for the owner of the car wash in the car park, who must have thought his Christmases had come at once as 10 times Magdala’s attendance arrived only to drive straight past him!

Rob had clearly got the club working along the correct lines, as everyone looked busy. The catering was contracted out to a local sandwich bar, and the merchandise stall did a roaring trade. I found Rob, and donated a bag of programmes towards his charity stall. Then I actually managed to relax and watch the game!

It didn’t take long to work out that Magdala were clearly the stronger team, and they took the lead through Lee Sutton. Only poor finishing and the woodwork stopped them adding to the score and the profligacy was punished when Bilborough equalised when a cross spun off Magdala defender Richard Lucas for a bizarre own goal.

Sutton doubled his tally just after the break and that was to be the end of the scoring, although both sides had chances, the majority falling to Magdala. I watched Rob as the final whistle blew. The first game is always the most nerve-wracking as organiser but his smile spoke volumes. I gave another hopper a lift into the centre of Nottingham, then disappeared into the night.

Here we go again!

08 Sunday Apr 2012

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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.

Unhappy Glappy

18 Sunday Mar 2012

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Saturday 17th March 2012 ko 7.30pm

Central Midlands League North Division

GLAPWELL 0

PARKHOUSE 2 (Clay 23 Wain 73)

Att 201

Entry & Programme Hop Ticket

Badge £2.50

The final game saw the hop at a club returning to the CMFL after rising as far as the Northern Premier League.

Still in North Derbyshire Glapwell is most famous for its colliery which closed in the 1970’s. Its most famous employee was current Bolsover (around 3 miles away) MP Dennis Skinner. Apparently he often tells the story of turning up back at the pit to work his shift after being elected as an MP as he still considered himself a miner, and being an MP not a proper job.

The village is listed in the Domesday Book. In 1086, the book notes that Serb holds this for William Peverall, “In Clapwell, Liefric had one carucate of land to the geld. There is land for as two ploughs. There eight villans have 6 ploughs… Serb now holds it.”

I found it hard to see the place as a colliery village, as there’s something rather quiet and rural about the place. Hall Corner was easily the best appointed of the grounds on the Bonanza, a testament to the club’s rise and fall. The club won the CMFL in 1994 and won their way through both divisions of the Northern Counties East to reach the Northern Premier League. That’s reflected in cover on 2 sides and 137 seats at the ground plus a club shop and burger bar. Despite this, Hall Corner was not deemed suitable for the NPL and for the 2010–11 season, the club had an agreement with Mansfield Town F.C. which allowed the club to play their home games at Mansfield’s ground, Field Mill. Disaster struck in December as Mansfield were locked out of the ground by their landlord Keith Haslam, and so the Glapwell reluctantly returned to Hall Corner. At the end of the season the club resigned from the NPL over ground grading issues and returned to the CMFL, opting not to enter the higher status Northern Counties East.

There was a little nugget of news about the opposition too. Clay Cross based Parkhouse are set to change their name to Clay Cross Town so as to better reflect the suburb of Chesterfield in which they play. Perhaps I should have bought one of their badges, I’d have a little piece of history.

In a scrappy game of few chances it was the visitors’ quality in the final third that was the difference with Glapwell struggling to register a meaningful shot on target.
After a cagey opening where Parkhouse went close on a couple of occasions, they took the lead on 23 minutes in fortuitous circumstances.  Ant Lynam’s through ball was headed back into the middle of the box by Michael Wain. Lee Clay’s shot was blocked by keeper Jamie Davies, but the rebound hit Clay and agonisingly the ball trickled in.
Glapwell were guilty of gifting away possession and they created very few clear-cut chances throughout the game. Parkhouse could have doubled their lead just after the break but full back Luke Beatson headed over the bar when it looked a good deal easier to score.
Glapwell had a half chance just before the hour when Jordan Johnson’s free kick was headed over by Jay Whalley. Thet followed that up when Kye Martey controlled well, before playing in Callum Green, whose low effort just slid past the post from around 18 yards out.
Alex Marsh then volleyed into the side netting for Glapwell, but the game was won for the visitors on 72 minutes when Wain beat Davies with a powerful effort from an acute angle from the right.
Clay then netted again for Parkhouse, but it was disallowed for offside while the closest Glapwell were to scoring in then remainder of the game was when Adam Jones curled a free-kick just over the bar from the edge of the area. It all looked rather laboured for Glapwell, who now find themselves second from bottom of the table, with just the unfortunate Welbeck Welfare (22 games ,0 points) below them. Hopefully this will be the nadir for this hard-working club’s fortunes, as a further relegation would I fear be fatal to them.

And so another hop finished, with goodbyes and best wishes. I finally caught up with Margerete and Jens from Germany, and made sure I found Rob Hornby to both thank him and congratulate him on another wonderful Bonanza. So now its on to the next one!

Real Football

18 Sunday Mar 2012

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18th March 2012 ko 10.10am

Central Midlands League South Division

CLIFTON 3 (Atkins 52 C Anderson 61 Richardson 90)

REAL UNITED 0

Att 267

Entry & Programme Hop Ticket

Badge £3

Team sheet 20p

This was the 9th, and sadly the last Central Midlands League Bonanza, where games are staggered so as to attract the groundhoppers. It’s hop that I was involved in for a short time until GroundhopUK and the League mutually agreed that the League would take over the running of the hop wholly themselves. The face of the CMFL, of course is Rob Hornby, one of life’s unsung heroes who works both tirelessly and with a huge smile for grassroots football despite serious ill health. Rob’s retired from the CMFL committee but continues to run the Bonanza, and will shift the hop to the Notts Senior League for next season. We at GroundhopUK were pleased to donate a stuffed carrier bag of programmes for Rob and wife Hazel’s charity programme stall and attend a hop where all we had to do was watch the game. Mind, you it didn’t stop me being stopped regularly to be asked whether I’d done the crowd count!

I wonder how many people who seeing Clifton would immediately think Bristol. In fact this Clifton is in Nottingham.  The Clifton family trace their lineage back to Alvaredus de Clifton, a Norman knight who was appointed Warden of Nottingham Castle in the time of William the Conquerer, and who took his name from this Nottinghamshire village, now a city suburb, in which he settled. Sir Gervase de Clifton purchased the manors of Clifton and Wilford from the de Rodes family in the late 13th century, and held Clifton Manor until the 1950’s.

Clifton is also a well known area in Nottingham for sporting talent, with Olympic Ice Skater Jayne Torvill growing up here, as did former Boxing Champion brothers Tony and Kirkland Laing. Jermaine Pennant, Jermaine Jenas, and Darren Huckerby all played as youngsters for Clifton (Formerly Clifton All Whites).

The Norman Archer Memorial ground is more than adequate for the club’s needs, playing 7 promotions from the football league. There’s a small stand, with no seats, plus hard standing. I can imagine the place being fairly bleak when its cold and windy. Not a problem on a warm day like this, the programme sold out, and club officials were kept busy printing out teamsheets for the throng. There also seemed to be a roaring trade in bacon rolls!

The opposition were even more intriguing. Real (pronounced the Spanish way-“Ray-Ahl”) play at the nearby Gresham Sports Centre, but started life in 1998 as a means of reducing drug use and associated crime in the area.

With the CMFL altering its constitution from a top and second division to North and South divisions I was interested to see how the standard would have fitted in the old set up.  The visitors pronunciation of Real was unfortunate as this game was real football, in the English language sense, two amateur sides slugging in out in what was at times more enthusiastic than skillful. The game needed a goal and a spectacle it was a little dull until Clifton opened the scoring, after that it was one way traffic.

It was a pleasure to catch-up with friends, especially those who couldn’t be on last week’s Welsh hop-up, and the promise of another 3 games kept me more than interested. That said it did seem strange for it to be midday and I still had 4 and a half hours of football to watch!