Saturday 7th April 2012 ko 1.30pm

Northern Counties East League Premier Division

STAVELEY MINERS WELFARE 0

PICKERING TOWN 1 (Parker 74)

Att 270

For our next game we travelled south on the M1 to Derbyshire, and Staveley in the borough of Chesterfield, famous for its crooked church spire. If Maltby was a typical colliery town, stark in its industry, then Staveley with a similar background seems to have moved away from its heritage. We passed the site of the Markham Colliery now a country park with lake, the only clue to its past being the pit wheel mounted in concrete.

There’s obvious regeneration going on at Staveley MW’s ground Inkersall Road. I visited for a NCEL Division 1 game about 5 years ago and liked the place. When I’d gone back two days previously to collect the programmes, I barely recognised the stadium. The Baris group, who specialise in facades and linings, and their chairman Terry Damms sponsor the League and club, and have been responsible for an almost complete rebuild of the ground. The idea was to bring the ground up to Northern Premier League standards, but such has been the progress that by my reckoning its close to Conference standards! Its worth commenting that Baris were kind enough to sponsor this year’s NCEL hop.

There was never any doubt that the club would be able to cope with a crowd. In fact the previous week they’d attracted a crowd of 1,050 for their FA Vase semi-final second leg vs Dunston UTS. In charge of catering is Ele Reaney, who’d impressed Chris with her food at the Dunston game, and once again the club pulled out all the stops, and I have to say the chicken curry and chips were delicious. There was the biggest programme stall I have ever seen, you could could get your picture taken with replicas of the World, European, Premiership and FA Cups, and a wide range of clothing (even in “Hopper” size) was on sale.

The problem was that Staveley had lost that FA Vase tie in heartbreaking circumstances, and they were having a massive hangover about it. What for all the world looked like a home banker proved to be  a turgid game of few chances. It looked for all the world to be a nil-nil draw until subsitute Russell Parker popped up for the Pikes to fire home as the clock ran down. Staveley huffed but they looked a tired and toothless team. Promotion on this showing looks unlikely, despite the efforts of Staveley’s many volunteers and supporters.

That said the hoppers climbed back on the coach marvelling at how such a well appointed ground could be hosting step 5 football.