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Football: Wherever it may be

~ Laurence's football travels

Football: Wherever it may be

Tag Archives: Ryan Williams

The Path Less Trodden

15 Wednesday Jul 2015

Posted by laurencereade in C

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Blackrock, Cabinteely, Drumcondra, Dublin, Dylan McGlade, Ireland, McGlade, oxford united., Premier League, Ryan Williams, Shelbourne

Friday 10th July 2015 ko 19.45

League of Ireland First Division

CABINTEELY 0

SHELBOURNE 1 (English 55)

Att 620

Entry €10

Programme €3

The previous day I’d spent a faintly boring few minutes strolling round the bookshop at the airport. These days the sport section is full of Premier League players’ ghost-written “auto”-biographies, and for the most part they follow a similar pattern. Usually a child is discovered by a club, then quickly graduates through the ranks, makes his first team debut, then fame and fortune follow. But what happens to those who for one reason or another don’t make it? Continue reading →

53.290003 -6.160802

Shelled

24 Sunday Nov 2013

Posted by laurencereade in O

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Tags

Dave Kitson, Dylan McGlade, James Constable, Kevin Ellison, Morecambe, oxford united., Ryan Williams, sean rigg

Saturday 23rd November 2013 ko 15.00

League 2

OXFORD UNITED 3 (Constable 15 Rigg 24 Williams 31)

MORECAMBE 0

Att 4,871 (92 away)

Entry S/T

Programme £3 (inc Oxford Mail)

For the first time this season you could feel the chill wind at Grenoble Road. Obviously the weather was the major quotient, but a sparse crowd, and poor home form were factors. In fact, with a growing injury list too it was easy to forget that Oxford United were and are top of League 2. Nothing I saw from 3pm onwards made me think that statistic was likely to change. Continue reading →

51.715617 -1.207788

Thunder & Lightenings

24 Thursday Oct 2013

Posted by laurencereade in O

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Tags

Callum O'Dowda, chris wilder, Dave Kitson, David Kitson, Exeter City, Football, Keith Stroud, Kitson, League 2, off, oxford mail, oxford united., Ryan Williams, Scott Davies, Sent

Tuesday 22nd October 2013 ko 19.45

League 2

OXFORD UNITED 0 Kitson sent off 90 (2nd Booking)

EXETER CITY 0

Att 5,083 (362 away)

Entry S/T

Programme (including Oxford Mail) £3

It is a footballing maxim that when a game matters, it normally ends up being a draw. Although this goal-less draw wasn’t the stereotypical bore draw, in fact in was a fine spectacle, it was just as frustrating as one.

With City 3rd and United 4th the game was set-up beautifully, and despite a spectacular thunderstorm throughout the first half the pitch held up perfectly. Thankfully the itinerant Welsh rugby enthusiasts haven’t managed to chew up the pitch as yet this season. A good job too as both sides played good passing football, just without any tangible end product.

The major talking point will inevitably be the dismissal of Dave Kitson. Whilst its clear he’s Continue reading →

51.715113 -1.206196

Here we go again!

08 Sunday Apr 2012

Posted by laurencereade in Y

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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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  • Football Club History Database Want to know where a club finished in what league and in what year? Richard Rundle’s site is a veritable goldmine! 0
  • Football Hopper “Fast” Eddie McGeown’s erudite perambulations around the nation’s football grounds 0
  • Gibbo's 92 As Atherton Colleries’ programme editor puts it, ” The best trips are random, unplanned and spontaneous.” 0
  • Groundhopping.se Per-Gunnar Nilsson’s trips around his native Sweden, and into Europe 0
  • Grounds for concern The late Mishi Morath’s picture blog. Obviously no longer updated but still a wonderful archive. 0
  • Kate Shrewsday. A thousand thousand stories Not about football, but beautiful writing, Kate can make words dance. 0
  • Los Boyos Matt is Welsh, a teacher, and lives in Malaga. His old “Lost Boyos” blog was essential reading. Here’s the Spanish Sequel!! 0
  • Modus Hopper Random Graham Yapp’s travels 0
  • The 100 Grounds Club Shaun Smith’s groundhopping football blog. The original internet ground logging website. 0
  • The Football Traveller The bible for every groundhopper. Non-League fixtures magazine delivered weekly. Published and edited by Chris Bedford 0
  • The Intinerant Football Watcher Peter finds the grounds other hoppers cannot reach. Top bloke too! 0
  • The66POW Rob Waite’s travels 0

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