Worcester Park v Bagshot

Skinners Field

Combined Counties League Division One

November 4, 2017

Ground No 200

WHENEVER I think of Worcester Park, my mind races back to my very first job - in a posh West London store - and a particularly dopey casual sales assistant brought in to help with the Christmas rush.

The store offered a free delivery service throughout the London area and said sales assistant - who probably stood to inherit half of Hampshire on completion of his Oxbridge degree in applied bionics but had absolutely no common sense - caused massive panic in the grocery department by marking a huge package to loaded onto the van for free delivery to Worcester. Apparently he hadn't heard of Worcester and thought it was the same as Worcester Park.

Anyway fast forward 30-odd years and I find myself in Worcester Park to visit my 200th football ground.

I'd seen it Skinners Field from the window of a train as it stopped at Worcester Park railway station, slap bang next to the ground, although I decided to drive on this occasion.

The way in isn't obvious (we later found a big Worcester Park FC sign hiding behind a shrub on the other side of the entrance) and there's no on site parking so there's no car park entrance to offer a clue but the ground is hemmed in by roads, the railway and a stream so it doesn't take too much to work out where it could be.

After crossing a small bridge over the stream, you find yourself at the back of a good sized bar/clubhouse and café (two teas and a bag of Maltesers for £1.80 and a great selection of cooked food) - head to the right and you're on your way in.

If you had to envision a ground at the bottom level of the pyramid, you'd probably come up with an image of Skinners Field.

Basic, functional, no floodlights and just a tad quirky, it's unlikely to change and despite being flying high in the league the club have already been told to forget about promotion because their ground doesn't meet the required standards. In fact more than that - they've been told they will be relegated out of the league regardless if where they finish!

Spectators are only permitted on one side of the ground and behind one goal.

A flat hard hard-standing area on the side that's not out of bounds leads to the ground's only stand - a small structure with three shallow steps, leaning against the changing rooms. Built into it are the dugouts.

Beyond that the pitch is just roped off rather than fenced off and the paving slabs through a grassed area towards a wooden building at the back make you feel like you're walking through someone's back garden to the shed rather than strolling along the perimeter of a football pitch.

Behind the goal is the railway line and some cricket nets while on the far side the pitch blends seamlessly into the cricket pitch used during the summer (there's also a bowling green and tennis courts in this  multi-sport facility).

Behind the remaining end is a hard standing area, picnic tables and all, in front of the bar/clubhouse and snack bar.

There's also a sturdy brick wall and a flood gate, complete with strict orders to keep it closed at all times. This is on account of the fact that the Environment Agency were rather too keen to make the pitch a flood plain.

Thankfully a new drainage system, a wall and a gate that must never be opened put an end to those plans.

Corinthian-Casuals v AFC Dunstable

KING GEORGE'S ARENA

FA TROPHY PRELIMINARY ROUND

OCTOBER 7, 2017

GROUND NO 198

IF an alien parked his spaceship next to the A3 in Tolworth and popped into King George's Arena, he'd be forgiven for thinking the home team were just another non-league team playing in front of far fewer people than they really deserve to. Albeit in a rather unusual pink and brown kit.

But Corinthian-Casuals have a proud history.

The club we know today, plying its trade in the Bostik League, is the merger of Corinthian FC and Casuals FC in 1939.

Prior to that Corinthan and Casuals were two of the powerhouses of the amateur game in the days when the bloke who sold you your state-of-the-art Bakelite-framed wireless earned more than the Wayne Rooney of his time so carried on doing his day job despite being the greatest inside left of his generation.

In fact Corinthian are responsible for Manchester United's biggest ever defeat (an 11-3 tonking in 1904); they are the only club to have provided an entire England side (against Wales in 1894 and again 1895); they provided the inspiration for clubs and players all over the world through their legendary overseas football missionary work (their visit to Brazil in 1910 led to the formation of Corinthians, one of the football-daft nation's biggest clubs); they fielded the man believed to be the world's first black player (Andrew Watson); and Charles Wreford-Brown, who played in both those games against the Welsh, is said to be man who first coined the word 'soccer' (a fellow Oxford University student is reputed to have asked him if he fancied a game of rugger - sensing the need to find a short form for association football in the way his pal had done for rugby football, he replied that he'd sooner play soccer).

So if you want history, this is a club that has it in bucketloads. And they remain strictly amateur to this day.

It's all a bit more humdrum these days though. The club retains links with its South American brothers but while the Brazilians pack them in at the 49,000-capacity Arena Corinthians, the originals are based at the modest King George's Arena where the 2,500 limit is never tested.

After exiting the art deco Tolworth railway station, stumbling across a football ground seems as likely as finding an amateur club showing its waged rivals how it's done so far up the pyramid. Yet both can quickly be found.

After strolling between a seemingly endless row of suburban houses and the busy A3 dual carriageway, an opening suddenly appears and, after passing under the railway bridge, you're at your destination.

After passing through the turnstiles you're faced with the sizable clubhouse building (plenty of room inside, a big TV screen showing Sky Sports and a decent pint of Wolf Rock red IPA), with the pitch on the left.

The main stand, a small low affair which runs a good way down that side of the ground, houses terracing at the end closest to the entrance and seats acquired variously from Wimbledon's old Plough Lane ground, Dulwich Hamlet's Champion Hill mark one and Havant and Waterlooville's Westleigh Park.

The entrance at the back of this stand, near the tea bar and clubhouse entrance is flanked by two small bushes. With a pink panel either side and a brass plaque (telling us the stand is named after CCFC stalwart Tiny Liddle), it looks like the entrance to a West End private members' club. I kept looking around for tuxedo-clad doorman.

Go past that and you'll find a TV gantry (today's game was being filmed on a mobile phone rather than a camera) and then a portable building that comprises the committee room.

At either end of the ground are simple covered areas - shallow terracing underneath corrugated iron and scaffold pole structures - while flags flutter from the flagpoles behind the hard standing on the far side. One, inevitably, features the crest of Corinthians and another that of Real Madrid, who were inspired to wear an all-white strip by Corinthian who did likewise in their early days.

King George's Arena has only been home to the club since 1988 - Corinthian and Casuals played here, there and everywhere before and after the merger - when they took over Tolworth FC's ground. There was an athletics track around the pitch at the time but you'd never know it now.

The name, the flags and the plethora of banners around the ground ensure this club's rich history is not forgotten, but you have to say it's unlikely that anything to match it will be achieved here.

Dulwich Hamlet v Leatherhead

CHAMPION HILL

BOSTIK LEAGUE PREMIER DIVISION

SEPTEMBER 23, 2017

GROUND NO 197

NON-LEAGUE football outside the National League has, let's face it, earned a bit of a reputation for being a bit one man and his dog.

You know - pokey little grounds, empty terraces and the bloke in the anorak who doesn't count a ground as a tick unless he's seen a goal at both ends, bought a programme and touched every corner flag. And frankly in my opinion there's nothing wrong with that!

But then there's Dulwich Hamlet where non-league football is cool again.

Champion Hill has gained a bit of a reputation for being Hipster Central with its passionate all-inclusive social policies, community outreach projects and terraces brimming with trendy young things you'd expect to see in an artisan cereal café rather than a non-league ground.

The stickers and stencilled artwork around the ground, the craft ales at the bar and the Asian street food stall where food is served with chopsticks does little to play down the reputation. I genuinely expected to see an advert for beard oil in the programme.

But it's easy to be flippant about Dulwich Hamlet's rampantly lefty principles and uber trendy following.

The bottom line is that this is a proud old football club supported by fans who genuinely care about the team and who want to enjoy a game played in a vibrant and colourful atmosphere - and surely that's what we all want as football fans, isn't it?

And for all it's pink and blue trend-bucking quirks, Dulwich Hamlet is very much a football club not a freak show.

To illustrate - after we'd walked through the turnstiles (keep your eyes open before you enter or you'll get a soaking from the car wash slap bang outside the gates) there stood a programme seller, someone selling 50-50 draw tickets and another guy asking regulars to sign a get well soon card for a committee member who had been taken ill. How much more non-league can you get?

And the hardcore fan base known as The Rabble, many of them decked out in the imaginative apparel from the well-stocked club shop (I particularly like the T-shirts based on the Ramones tops worn by legions of trendies who wouldn't know a track from Road to Ruin if it bit them on the bum) were right behind the team all afternoon.

There were more than 1,700 in for this game. That's an amazing turnout for a game and this level and I've been at Football League games where fewer people have parted with their hard-earned cash on the gate.

Apparently the fans have a song based on Duchess by The Stranglers - one of the greatest songs ever recorded - although sadly I didn't hear it on this occasion. There were, however, plenty of roars of approval for the Pink and Blue Army as they marched to a 4-0 win.

Champion Hill in its current guise has only stood since 1992. Its predecessor on the same site was one of the most imposing stadia in non-league football - it even staged the FA Amateur Cup final in the 1930s and an international clash between South Korea and Mexico as part of the 1948 Olympics. A non-league ground as an Olympic venue - imagine that!

But with the club going through a bit of a hard time and the ground falling into a state of disrepair, an unlikely saviour arrived in the form of Sainsbury's. The supermarket giant got out the chequebook to secure land for their newest superstore - but part of the deal was that Dulwich Hamlet could build a new ground on the site of the old one. Result.

And a fine ground it is too. Though much smaller than its predecessor, it can still accommodate 3,000 fans including 500 in its defining feature, the Tommy Jover Stand, named after the club legend who spent seven decades at Champion Hill as a player, official and president.

Built into the brick-built structure, the top storey rising above the stand's roof is the clubhouse, changing room and a commercial gym. With its pale brickwork and small towers rising at either end it looks like something in between a castle and a shopping centre.

Perched up top in the middle is a clock, but don't bother checking it to see how long is left to play. Word has it that it's not worked since being struck by lightning in 1956 but whether or not that's an urban myth created by someone who's watched Back To The Future too many times, I can't be sure.

Beyond the stand towards the far end is an open tarmacked area with a goal painted on the perimeter wall and a couple of small basketball nets. Along with the chopsticks, another football first for me...

Behind the goal is a bank of terracing, smaller than the modest section at the opposite end, while midway down the side facing the main stand is a covered standing area.

If you've enjoyed a can or two of Beavertown from the bar and need to answer nature's call but aren't sure where to head, help is at hand. For painted in letters of unprecedented size at the top of the structure are the words 'toilets opposite'. This area is now commonly known as the Toilets Opposite Stand.

Yes, going to Dulwich Hamlet is no run of the mill non-league football experience. And non-league football is all the better for it.

Maldon & Tiptree v Hayes & Yeading

Park Drive

FA Cup 1st qualifying round

September 2, 2017

Ground No 196

WHAT are the chances of Sergio Aguero popping up as a manager in the Bostik League First Division North in a few years?

Pretty slim, you'd have to say, but then the Argentinian hitman has racked up 183 appearances for Manchester City... some 23 fewer tan current Maldon and Tiptree gaffer Kevin Horlock made for the Sky Blues during his playing career,

City were different club back then, mind: No moneybags Emirati owner and down as low as the third tier during Horlock's time there.

It's been all change for the Jammers too over the last couple of decades. In 1997, when Horlock joined City, they were plain old Maldon Town, played in the Eastern Counties League and had been at Park Drive for just three years. A merger with Tiptree United came in 2010.

Being a relatively new ground, Park Drive has a  modern feel. A fellow blogger described it as being "hard to love" on a wintry midweek night. On a hot summer afternoon? Well I'd be in no rush to take it behind the bikesheds but, yes, it was certainly worthy of a bit of affection.

As you enter the ground, the pitch is on the left and a brick-built building ccontaining the clubhouse, committee room, tea bar and changing rooms is on the right.

Between the two is a grass area containing picnic tables and parasols. First impressions are that it looks more like a motorway service station than a football ground.

I half-expected to see a family of five from Luton next to a Vauxhall Zafira complaining in equal measure at the traffic on the M1 and the price of a ham sandwich in the cafeteria instead of a football pitch.

Closer to the far end is a split level hard standing area and in the middle is the tunnel - a covered and fenced walkway from the changing rooms to a quirky brick structure which straddles the halfway line.

This has covered areas for the  fans either side of the pitch entrance - the team line-ups handily pinned up inside one - and the dugouts on the other side of the metal fence that rings the pitch.

Behind the goal at the far end is hard standing while opposite is another small stand, containing 93 seats while on the opposite side of the pitch to the dugouts is the main stand, a 250-seat structure flanked by hard standing.

Behind is a big grass bank - out of bounds for spectators - which had me guessing what might be on the other side.

For some reason I had a vison of a huge reservoir where rare breeds of mallard fluttered to their hearts' content, or maybe a flotilla of yachts sailing along the glistening blue water of the Heybridge Basin.

I was rather disappointed to see on Google Earth that nothing more than a big, green field lay on the other side.