Redcar Athletic v Horden CW

Green Lane

Wearside League

March 28, 2015

Ground No 139 revisited (total 167)

 

IT'S never usually in any way beneficial for humans to try and engage in conversation with electronic gadgetry - but I had a firm post-match word with the device in my car that confidently informed me the outside temperature was 18 degrees Celsius.
 

Yes, it was a warm sun and the skies were blue, but boy was it windy! Eighteen degrees? No chance.
 

Green Lane is situated slap bang on the seafront, with only the Coast Road and The Stray separating it from the North Sea. So on a blustery day like this, you're going to know all about it.
 

I had grand plans for today with all manner of options being considered to get a new tick. But after a ridiculously busy and stressful week I decided to stay close to home and pay another visit to my local Wearside League team.
 

I've always enjoyed going there. Kev Fryett, the club secretary, is a top bloke and one of the hardest-working guys you'll ever meet; there's always a programme and a half-time draw; the café - situated outside the confines of the ground and within the building that also contains the changing rooms as it also serves the surrounding junior pitches - offers a lovely cuppa and a selection of tasty hot food. In short they're a club that wants to do things right.
 

They certainly got it right on the pitch today too, beating a Horden CW team three places above them in the table 3-0.
 

As you walk into the ground there's a modest new covered area immediately to your right with some wooden benches at the back, and some portable buildings to the left. Save for some recently added brick dug-outs to the right of the covered area, that's pretty much it to speak of inside the confines of the wooden fence that rings the ground.
 

But in the distance are the North Yorkshire Moors, providing a backdrop to a surrounding area that includes Errington Woods, quarried in the Stone Age, a resting spot for chieftains in the Bronze Age, and now populated by larch, spruce and pine trees, planted on the old spoil heaps planted by out-of-work miners after the world's largest ironstone mine shut down.
 

St Mark's Church in Marske, constructed in the 1860s, is also clearly visible along with the imposing cliffs that jut out from south of Saltburn. You'd see none of that if the ground was built up.
 

Redcar Athletic have made good progress since taking the plunge and forming a senior side to compliment their successful junior operation, then known as Teesside Athletic, and moving on up to the Northern League remains the aim.
 

Bit by bit they're getting there.

 



Brandon United v Chester-le-Street

Welfare Ground

Northern League Division Two

March 7, 2015

Ground No 167

I DELIBERATED for much of the week over which new tick I should get today and, after whittling down a list of possibles to three, I chose Brandon purely on the basis that they had the lowest attendance figures in the Northern League. They could do with my support, I figured.

And the reason they struggle for numbers through the turnstiles may actually have less to do with the fact that they are rooted to the foot of Northern League Division Two and more to the fact that the Welfare Ground is so blooming difficult to find!

For satnav purposes I used the postcode given on the website and although it got me somewhere close, once the words "you have reached your destination" echoed from my speakers I was, in all honesty, still none the wiser.

The map on the website was minus a few roads too, so although I eventually spotted some floodlights, reaching them proved more problematic. Up and down a labyrinth of quiet residential streets I drove, the floodlights in view but still out of reach.

There wasn't even a soul about to ask - if they'd filmed Treasure Hunt here, Anneka Rice would still be wandering around, lost.

After dumping the car on a side street I walked up past some allotments and retirement bungalows to a back lane which thankfully led me to the ground. Phew!

The game had kicked off a couple of minutes earlier while I was still on my impromptu tour of Brandon and the turnstile steward had gone to retrieve a stray ball when I arrived.

On his return I discovered he'd sold out of programmes but, sensing the pain, trauma and anguish this devastating news had clearly caused me, a kindly club official came to the rescue with a spare. Phew again.

The programme incidentally was worth its £1 price tag for the anagrams column alone, Did you know that Leeds United rearranged makes 'I need slut'? Or that an anagram of Charlton Athletic is 'clitoral chat then'? No, I didn't either. And how about 'urine detachments' for Manchester United?

Access to pitchside is up a slight of steps and the ground's lofty geographical position means that when you turn around you peer over the surrounding hills, Durham coast and even Durham Cathedral.

As a result it gets quite exposed up there too and on a blustery day like this the tall, spindly floodlight pylons had a right wobble on.

The steps lead you up to the dug-outs with hard standing all along that side and to the left, behind the goal is more hard standing, but also a row of benches.

The changing rooms in the corner reminded me of an Alpine lodge. I expected a portly Austrian to emerge at any moment wearing nothing but a towel, red-faced and glowing after a hot sauna.

In contrast to the right are the committee room and tea hut, both housed in what were once shipping containers. Still, the tea was lovely, served in a proper mug too, and I'd have sampled a pie or some home-made cake too had I not had a date with my favourite takeaway shortly after my arrival back home.

To the right of those, and dominating the ground, is the West Stand. A basic concave breeze block and corrugated iron structure, it houses breeze block and wooden plank bench seats, with terracing in front.

There's a grass bank on the other side of that, but the plastic chain link fence which rings the standing areas rules that out of bounds, along with the small row of breeze block and wooden plank bench seating in the end behind the other goal.

The steel fence that surrounds the ground has thankfully put a halt to the vandalism that had blighted it and the club are clearly doing their best to smarten the place up and keep it that way.

It's been an up and down ride for them - they weren't even formed when I was born; began as a Sunday League works team when I was still in short trousers and cuddling my teddy; switched to Saturday action and dominated the Durham Alliance around the time I became a teenage punk rocker; won the Northern League Division One title as I clung on to my 40s by my fingertips; and declined steadily as my waist spread and grey hairs started to increase at an alarming rate.

It turned out I picked the right day to visit, however. A competitive and eagerly-fought derby clash with plenty of goals, it was all that makes the Northern League so enjoyable.

"As Gus Poyet once said, miracles do happen," beamed the guy selling half-time draw tickets as his beleaguered Brandon side went 2-0 up with less than 10 minutes gone. They went on to win 5-3 - only their second victory in their last 11 attempts and he was even more gleeful by the end.

Without doubt I was a good omen and my visit had brought them good luck. "You can come again," he said with a grin as wide as the mouth of the River Wear. I enjoyed the visit, maybe I will.

Metropolitan Police v Grays Athletic

IMBER COURT

RYMAN LEAGUE PREMIER DIVISION

FEBRUARY 28, 2015

GROUND No 166

 

 

 

 

I GUESS it was inevitable that "I fought the law, and the law won..." should blast out from the speakers as Metropolitan Police FC and their rivals walked onto the pitch for the start of the game.

 

Considerably more of a surprise were the tall, imposing, old school floodlight pylons that marked the corners of the Imber Court ground (three of them, anyway - there's a new-style skinny one, added 20 years after the others, on one corner). 

 

I really wasn't expecting them, but that's the first glimpse of the ground you get as you walk from Thames Ditton station along the well-to-do Embercourt Road, with its £1m houses, gravel driveways and pristine Porsche Cayennes.

 

With such luxuries to protect, I bet the locals are particularly reassured to have a sizeable local presence from the boys in blue in the form of the Metropolitan Police Sports and Social club, within which the ground is situated.

 

Though the floodlight pylons dominate the skyline, finding the entrance to the ground wasn't especially easy. What looked like the way in was actually a route to the Met's police horse training facility - the original purpose of Imber Court before the sports and social side was developed.

 

In the event we walked through the entrance of the sports and social club and came out the other side which, it transpired, brought us out to an indoor swimming pool which was close to the ground entrance.

 

The bar was back inside the building we'd just exited so, after buying programmes to peruse over a pint from a steward on the other side of the surrounding wall of the ground, we headed back indoors and enjoyed a delightful pint of Old Golden Hen. A special offer meant we could enjoy a second pint for £1.50 which struck me as A) an offer I couldn't refuse and B) rather ironic that we were being encouraged to drink more alcohol by the Police.

 

On entering the ground you find yourself in the covered terrace behind one goal. To the left and straight ahead are shallow standing areas while to the right is a modern grandstand - built in the 1990s and housing around 300 seats - plus a tea bar (at 80p for a cuppa, the cops are definitely not robbers) and loos.

 

In the last decade or so the club has relaxed its policy of only fielding serving bobbies, to the extent that players with jobs outside the force are in the vast majority. They're still true to their law-enforcing principles however - players with a criminal record need not apply.

 

But the team is still the Met's representative on the football pitch - and maybe that's the reason they struggle to attract more than a few hardy die-hards through the turnstiles. It must be difficult to sell the club to the local community when you're effectively the Police Force's works team rather than a team representing a town, village or area. Today's attendance was 108, which was quite decent by their standards.

 

The programme is glossy and a reasonable read, the ground is neat, tidy and well proportioned and the bar, with its comfy seats, Sky TV and real ale, is a delight. A set-up like this definitely deserves greater support.

 

Looking back at the covered terrace, the well-groomed trees peeking out over the top look at first glance like a grass covering, and it reminds you of the way they covered air raid shelters with grass during the War to disguise them from enemy bombers. So perhaps they're trying to hide it and that's the real reason they don't get bigger crowds!