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Football: Wherever it may be

~ Laurence's football travels

Football: Wherever it may be

Tag Archives: Spartan South Midlands

Idiosyncratic

21 Thursday May 2020

Posted by laurencereade in B

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Bedfordshire, Brache Sparta, Foxdell Recreation Ground, Harpenden Town, Luton, M1, Non League, Spartan South Midlands

With the football season over prematurely due to the Coronavirus Pandemic I’m in the unusual position of actually having this blog up to date! So to keep the content coming, and for something to do, I’ll do some old grounds and games where there’s a story to tell.

Tuesday April 14th 2008 ko 19.30
Spartan South Midlands League Division One

BRACHE SPARTA 0

HARPENDEN TOWN 1 (Gregory 84)

Att 11

Entry & Programme £2

There are some times when you embark on the endless road that is groundhopping, that you find a club that somehow doesn’t quite fit in. That shouldn’t be seen as pejorative in any sense, but when you arrive at a ground and you know what level of the game you’re going to see you soon get a rough idea of what to expect. This short story is about one of those exceptions to the rule.

Continue reading →

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The Beacon

13 Sunday Apr 2014

Posted by laurencereade in P

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Aston Clinton, Beacon, Ivinghoe, Ivinghoe Beacon, Memorial Hall, Pavillion, Pitstone and Ivinghoe, Spartan South Midlands, Spartan South Midlands League, Windmill

Tuesday 8th April 2014 ko 18.30

Spartan South Midlands League Division Two

PITSTONE & IVINGHOE 4 (Elliott 19 Doughty 32 38 45p)

ASTON CLINTON 0

Att 61

Entry FREE

Programme NO (Old copy FREE)

If you’re on the A41 east of Aylesbury just before Aston Clinton and spot a windmill, why not turn off and aim for it? You’ll be in the borderlands of Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire, and here the canals and railways are king. The Grand Union canal cuts through the pretty village of Marsworth, and the West Coast Main Line blasts past, slightly diverted as the major landowners in Victorian times refused to have the railway on their property. Legend has it that Lord Rothschild was the major culprit, but that’s an argument that doesn’t quite stack up, he was born 3 years after Tring Station was opened!

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The Rubicon and the Sahara

07 Monday Apr 2014

Posted by laurencereade in H

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Aylesbury, Fairford Football Pitches, Fairford Leys, Hale Leys, Hale Leys United, Milton Keynes Sunday League, Spartan South Midlands, Spartan South Midlands League Division 2 HALE LEYS UNITED, Willen

Wednesday 2nd April 2014 ko 18.20

Spartan South Midlands League Division 2

HALE LEYS UNITED 6 (Woodfine 7 18 Castello 25 Kew 30 65 Williams 80)

WILLEN 0

Att 22

Entry FREE

No Programme

Tea £1

Continue reading →

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Thinking About The Lions

15 Thursday Aug 2013

Posted by laurencereade in B

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Borough, Broxbourne, Cheshunt, Goffs Lane, Kerem Bashkal, Sheldon Hussey, Spartan South Midlands, Welwyn Garden City

Tuesday 13th August 2013 ko 19.45

Spartan South Midlands League Division One

FC BROXBOURNE BOROUGH 1 (Hussey 6) Bashkal sent off 90 (2nd booking)

WELWYN GARDEN CITY 0

Att 76

Entry FREE

Programme £1

Whilst I enjoyed my Saturday in Cumbria, I’d found it slightly bruising. I like to see all of these events go off as flawlessly as possible, so after digesting the lessons learned, it was good to get back to simple, solo groundhopping, and a nice easy one at that.

The Borough of Broxbourne is probably best known as being where Tesco’s head office is based, in Cheshunt, but there’s News International’s Park Plaza, Waltham Cross to consider also. It’s the world’s largest printing plant, printing the English editions of The Sun and The Times amongst others. It can produce 86,000 newspapers per hour on each of its twelve printing presses. It cost £350 million and replaced the News International press in Wapping, the scene of a strike and civil disobedience when it closed in 1986.

The club play on the outskirts of Cheshunt, and that’s where the fun starts. Continue reading →

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The Coal Post

31 Wednesday Oct 2012

Posted by laurencereade in C

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Aaron Clarke, Coal tax posts, Colney Heath, groundhopping, Hadley, League, Matt Thompson, Paul Armstrong, Recreation Ground, Spartan South Midlands

Tuesday 30th October 2012 ko 19.45

Spartan South Midlands League Premier Division

COLNEY HEATH 3 (Thompson 10 Clarke 69 Armstrong 82)

HADLEY 0

Att 61

Entry & Programme £6

Tea 70

Cheese & Onion Roll £1.40

Anyone who’s travelled around the northern curve of the M25 will have been within a mile of the Recreation Ground, and this pretty village would be fairly unremarkable but for one historical detail.

The first essay I was asked to write at university in London, was seemingly simple – define London’s boundaries. You could use famous square mile of the city, or perhaps the man-made moat of the M25. I think I plumped for the M25, an imperfect solution, but I couldn’t think of a better boundary, but the discussion made for an interesting lecture slot when our marked papers were returned!

There was in fact another boundary, still further out and these are the coal posts, used to mark where a tax on coal entering London would be levied. The series of around 280, all from 12 to 18 miles out, were of various types, but formed an irregular loop around the capital from medieval times to the tax’s abolition in 1890. The remarkable thing about Colney Heath is that there were 4 posts for the village alone, and all are still standing, the one I’ve photographed is on the small green opposite the “Cock” Pub. It must have been an important point on the route into the capital, from the north.

The Recreation Ground is a classic example of a ground being adapted to suite grading requirements. I would imagine that in the past cricket was played, but now the extra space is used as a training pitch. Floodlights have been added, and the clubhouse roof extended forward to keep the requisite 50 or so seats from getting wet. The clubhouse, large and warm was the best facility, and plenty there desisted from watching this game, but who can blame them when Reading 5 Arsenal 7 is being televised in the warm?

Out in the cold, this was a game that entertained without ever catching fire. The script suggested that Hadley would steal a point, despite Colney Heath having by far the greater possession and taking the lead early on through Matt Thompson. As ever the script wasn’t followed, but it took Aaron Clarke’s goal was late as the 69th minute to put the tie beyond doubt. Paul Armstrong’s tap in afterwards was mere icing on the cake.

As I left, my friend James commented that I couldn’t have many clubs in this league left to do. I really hadn’t thought about it, but when I checked this morning he was correct. Just 4 grounds without lights in the bottom division. Knowing me, I’ll end up completing those without realising, such is life!!




 

Maggie’s Farm

29 Thursday Dec 2011

Posted by laurencereade in S, Uncategorized

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Tags

Anstead, Aulsberry, Donnelly, Football, groundhopping, Recreation Ground, Spartan South Midlands, St Margaretsbury, Stotfold

Monday 27th December 2011 ko 3.00pm

Spartan South Midlands League Premier Division

ST MARGARETSBURY 2 (Anstead 6 79)

STOTFOLD 2 (Aulsberry 51 Donnelly 89p)

Att 46

Entry £6

Programme £1.50

Tea £1

Bacon Roll £2

After the Kings Langley game it was straightforward to drive round a few exits of the M25 then onto the A10 through Cheshunt, towards Stanstead Abbotts. Or was I? The team used to be called Stanstead Abbotts, but changed names when they moved to the Recreation ground. I was told that despite the fact that the postal address is in Stanstead Abbotts, the ground itself is, in fact in adjacent St Margarets. The “Bury” bit refers to the fact that the ground lies in the former grounds of the Bury, or Manor House. The Manor house was the property of Anne Boleyn, second wife of Henry VIII, but reverted to the crown after her execution in 1536. Continue reading →

A sense of Dacorum

29 Thursday Dec 2011

Posted by laurencereade in K

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chiltern hills, Football, Gaywood Park, groundhopping, Kings Langley, London Colney, ovaltine factory, plantagenet kings, Spartan South Midlands

Tuesday 27th December 2011 ko 12.00pm

Spartan South Midlands League Division One

KINGS LANGLEY 4 (Noonan 24 90 Warrell 26 Armstrong 90)

LONDON COLNEY 0

Att 130 (record gate receipts of £340)

Entry & Programme £4

Tea-in-a-mug 70p

The village lies on the Southern Edge of the Chiltern Hills, and its western portion lies in Dacorum. The borough includes the towns of Hemel Hempstead, Berkhamsted, and Tring. It was once the location of Kings Langley Palace, a royal palace of the Plantagenet kings of England. The village is perhaps best known for being the location of the Ovaltine factory, now long since closed and converted to flats.

If the film “Field of Dreams,” espoused the comment “Build it and they will come,” then this fixture suggested a comment of “Set and stick to an unusual kick off time and they will come.” Continue reading →

Menagerie

25 Friday Nov 2011

Posted by laurencereade in H

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Football, goals, groundhopping, Harefield United, League, London Tigers, Spartan South Midlands

Tuesday 22nd November 2011 ko 7.45pm

Spartan South Midlands League Premier Cup 2nd Round

HAREFIELD UNITED 2 (Reader 42 Majeed 51)

LONDON TIGERS 0

Att 40

Entry & Programme £6

Tea £1

Back in May the move from Banbury to Oxford, involved a distance of a mere 31 miles, but it did alter massively my potential destinations for midweek gamea. This fixture is now only 40 miles from home!

Harefield is sometimes described as the nearest village to London, and it has an odd mix of village and suburbia about it. Its most famous for the hospital where Professor Sir Magdi Yacoub FRS, consultant cardiothoracic surgeon carried out the first live lobe lung transplant and went on to perform more transplants than any other surgeon in the world. By the end of the 1980s Harefield Hospital was the world’s leading transplant centre. A lesser known fact is that three Victoria Cross winners hail from the village.

Preston Park is on the right as you enter the village from Hillingdon, and is a good example of a lower division Isthmian ground. There’s a low seated stand, and opposite is a quirky covered enclosure; perhaps the reason why the club left the Isthmian on ground grading issues is because there’s no cover behind either goal.

It was a pleasant surprise to catch up with Pinner-based hopper Les Bull, and we both enjoyed the announcer trying to add razzmatazz to a cold damp game in front of 40 patrons. The visitors are a real “United Nations” team, having started out as a charity project to help disadvantaged children in Paddington. From there they entered the Middlesex League playing out of Kingsbury Town. When that club folded Tigers were allowed to take their place in the Spartan South Midlands League and became Kingsbury London Tigers. Now they’ve moved to the old Viking Greenford ground, and dropped the Kingsbury prefix although pitch problems have meant that as I write they’ve yet to play a home game!

While off the field the Tigers have problems, on this occasion they had a far simpler one, namely that in 90 minutes of play they failed to muster even one shot on target! Just one decent shot that hit the crossbar, during the second half, so it was left to the Hares’ striker Jack Reader to score one and set up Aban Majeed for the second, to settle a fairly forgetable game.

Some pretty pointless signage!

What happens when you ride a bike through wet concrete!


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