Prestwich Heys v Springhead

Adie Moran Park

Manchester League Premier Division

August 22, 2015

Ground No 171

THE new chairman of Prestwich Heys has some work to do if he is to tackle the big issues at the club.

Writing in the programme for today's big first versus second clash in the Manchester League, Neil Gilmore outlines two causes for concern he says should be dealt with "sooner rather than later". One is supporters, mainly the younger ones, going on to the pitch and the other fans bringing dogs with them to the game - both apparently no-nos in the North-West Counties League, to which Heys have genuine aspirations to be.

However as I glanced up from reading the programme before the match I spotted a couple of young kids having a kickabout in  one goal area and four pooches whose afternoon walkies involved a trip to the footy.

None were doing any harm, however, and it's all part of the charm of non-league football for me. Fortunately Mr Gilmore, a retired policeman, chose not to use the strong arm of the law on this occasion to enforce his vision of a dog-free ground and a pitch made out of bounds to anyone but players, officials team personnel.

The programme, incidentally, was well put together and interesting. It's entitled Touchliner, which was the nom de plume used by Alan Proctor Bell, a key figure in the formation of the club and later chairman, who wrote match reports for the local paper.

Another nice touch is that the ground - their home since Bury Council kicked them off their previous Grimshaw's base in 1991 - is named in honour of Adie Moran, who died in a tragic swimming pool accident in 2007 while chairman and manager of the club.



There's a good-sized car park outside the ground and access through the turnstile brings you in at one corner of the pitch.

To the right there is a new, small covered area, and there's hard standing all around the pitch with brick built dug-outs on the far side.

On the near side is a larger expanse of flat concrete standing. Behind the first buildings you come to are the changing rooms, then a homely bar/café with a couple of tellies, beneath one of them a decent collection of trophies, Nice cuppa for 70p too.

On the other side of the bar is a large, flat area which looks tailor-made to house a stand should the club achieve its ambition of climbing the pyramid.

There's no stand (at the moment anyway) but there were plenty of chairs stacked up in front of the changes, which meant you could just pick one up, plonk it where you like and sit down to watch the game.

I suggested to my brother-in-law - a West Ham fan - the Hammers fans would do something similar at the Olympic Stadium and let fans pick up a chair and find a spot on the athletics track to watch the action but he didn't seem all that amused.

The match ended goalless which ensured both sides extended their unbeaten records. Could this be the year that Heys return to the North-West Counties for the first time since 1986? Maybe. Dogs and kids beware.

Hampton & Richmond Borough v East Thurrock Utd

Beveree Stadium

Ryman Premier League

August 15, 2015

Ground No 170

 

A TEAM called Hampton. Nicknamed The Beavers. Oh I know it's schoolboy humour but a club boasting not one but two colloquialisms relating to rude parts of the body marked the Beveree Stadium out as a 'must do' ground.

 

Having got the obvious puns like "Is Dick Advocaat their manager?" and "Does Rod Fanni play for them?" out of the way, we jumped on the train from Wimbledon to the sleepy London suburb of Hampton for this Ryman Premier League clash.

 

When you step off the train at Hampton, it's almost impossible to believe there's a football ground just a few hundred yards down the road because, well, it's a bit quiet and a bit posh! There's even cheese and wine bar on the way, although we chose the more down to earth Worlds End pub where the burger and chips, pint of Surrey Nirvana and Premier League football on the telly went down a treat.

 

The ground is nestled off the main road and surrounded almost entirely by tall trees, as though they are trying to hide it from the rest of the world. I'm sure they're not and, in any case, it's certainly not something that deserves to be hidden away.

 

The Beveree Stadium is an eclectic mix of shapes and structures. Stands old and new sit side by side and face to face.

 

Entrance is through turnstiles acquired when the nearby Hurst Park racecourse closed in 1962 (Mansfield Town bought one of the grandstands) and immediately you get the feel that this a well-run club that likes to do things properly.

 

There's a club shop, a hut selling old programmes, a matchday programme outlet and a fund-raising stall.

 

To the right is Hammonds Bar (Doom Bar on draft - result) and next to it, behind the goal, are a sort of two-tier pavilion, some terracing and the elevated Alan Simpson Stand (named after the club president, better known as the bloke who wrote the scripts for Steptoe and Son with Ray Galton) - a modern, 100-seater structure.

 

Along the side - known as the School End - is a narrow strip of hard standing. There's a covered area looking out over the D of one penalty box and a video gantry, proudly bearing the club crest, level with the halfway line.

 

Behind the other goal are three steps of terracing, with a semi-permanent-looking roof giving a feel of walking through a tunnel as you head for the far side.

 

And the far side is where it's at as far as the Beveree Stadium is concerned.

 

In the middle is the main stand, modest but functional, and to one side is a large covered area of terracing. To the other is another covered stand, closed on the day of our visit. The 'mix and match' feel of 'The Bev' all adds to its charm, but this stand sticks out like a sore thumb - its garish green seats in marked contrast to anything else in the ground.

 

It's said that The Beavers struggle to get big crowds because of its close proximity to Twickenham, marking it out as heartland of the game played by men with odd-shaped balls. But the 303 present for this match all seemed to enjoy themselves, especially as the home side came from behind to win 2-1 and notch their first win of the season.

 

I went home happy too - it was a decent match at a delightful ground.

 

 

 



Brentwood Town v Harlow Town

Brentwood Arena

Pre-season friendly

August 1, 2015

Ground No 169

BRENTWOOD. Present or erstwhile home of Pixie Lott, Frank Bruno, Steve Davis, Frank Lampard, Jodie Marsh and Chantelle Houghton.

 

It's also home of the less famous Brentwood Town FC, although football in the town has a long history - with arguably more to be proud of than at least two of the above.

 

For example the original club bearing the town's name went all the way to the FA Cup quarter-finals in 1886 where they lost to eventual winners Blackburn Rovers.

 

More recently, in the 1970s, their star striker was none other than England legend Jimmy Greaves, though he was unable to keep up his record of scoring on his debut as he had done for Chelsea, AC Milan, Spurs and West Ham.

 

All of that was long before the current Brentwood Town, formed in 1954, moved to their current home in the shadow of the town's leisure centre.

 

They went there in 1993 after a spell of ground-sharing with East Thurrock having been based at Larkin's Playing Field before that and are now looking forward to their first season of Ryman League Premier Division football.

 

Today's opponents were Harlow who finished 18 points above Brentwood last season but, while their hosts went up, they missed out in the play-offs. Football can be a cruel mistress.

 

The stadium lies within the grounds of the Brentwood Centre leisure hub so it's easy to find and there are plenty of parking spaces right outside.

 

Entry is via turnstiles in the corner of the ground. To the left is a spacious covered standing area with shallow terracing behind the goal while to the right you come to a couple of portable buildings (I thought one of them may have been a tea hut but on peering in through the open door I found it contained a lawnmower, the machine they use to mark out the pitch and some tools) and then the main stand.

 

The stand is a wooden structure with around 150 seats with the changing rooms and a homely bar/tea bar which served a lovely cuppa for a quid and offered a good view of the pitch which would come in handy on those cold winter evenings.

 

That's pretty much it as far as the ground goes, with strips of hard standing around the rest of the pitch - ringed by a wooden fence - and two brick-built dug-outs and a video gantry on the other.

 

It's not the most charismatic of grounds, but it certainly does the job. And if I was being critical I could say it doesn't look like a great deal has been done to it since it opened in 1993.

 

But I don't want to do them down. Under the management of former Wimbledon and Bolton striker Dean Holdsworth they're on a roll  and it would be nice to think they can get some decent-sized crowds in next season to get the place rocking.