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.