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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Crook Town v Celtic Nation

Sir Tom Cowie Millfield

Northern League Division One

April 15, 2015

Ground No 168

IT is said that, with the conga having not yet made the transition from traditional Cuban carnival dance to Western party celebration, Crook fans danced the Charleston during a cup win at St Albans in 1927.

It's safe to say there was little chance of any outbreaks of terrace dancing tonight.

And not just because the game - between two already relegated teams - ended 0-0. It was Crook's first clean sheet of the season, though, so that was at least something to celebrate.

It's because Crook, without a doubt one of the great clubs of grassroots football, are in the doldrums these days.

Five times winners of the FA Amateur Cup, they've also played in front of 100,000 crowds on a tour to India, entertained a Manchester City team including Franny Lee, Colin Bell and Mike Summerbee to mark the switching on of their new floodlights and from 1901-1902 were able to call upon the talents of Jack Greenwell who went on to play for and manage Barcelona.

These days Crook are facing up to Northern League Division Two football. The highest attendance of the season at a ground that once attracted around 20,000 fans (they stopped counting after a while by all accounts) has been 186 and they've leaked six goals or more at home on no fewer than seven times.

But this is a ground that positively screams its past glories and history at you. Positioned at the side of the A689 (which makes it easy peasy to find) it looks imposing as you arrive.

After crossing the road from the car park and walking through the turnstiles, you walk up to the top of a row of terracing behind the goal.

And there it unfolds in front of you, a ground that once regularly attracted 10,000 fans for cup games and, according to one report I read, never failed to entice fewer than 4,000 through the gates throughout the 1940s and 1950s.

To the right and in front of you are steep grass banks and it doesn't take much to imagine those areas packed solid with cap-wearing supporters of a bygone age, waving their rattles, cheering on their team - a fug of Woodbines smoke wafting overhead.

Immediately to the left is a covered area of terracing, its roof still bearing the scars of thumping clearances from defenders of days gone by, among them Frank Clark who made his own small alteration to it while playing for the Black and Ambers in the 1960s.

Further on is the main stand, a delightful old-style, 500-seat structure built in 1925. Apparently it was condemned in the late 1980s and cordoned off to spectators but thankfully its been brought back to life since.
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Back in 1898 the club forked out £625 to buy the land formerly occupied by a mill and set about building their new ground. That equates to around £70,000 in today's money - and it was cash well spent.

A couple of years ago 90% of residents polled said they were in favour of a plan to knock the place down, relocate the club to a new ground and build a shop and a petrol station on the land.

This is a gem of a ground and thankfully it all seems to have gone a bit quiet on that front.

You could almost hear the ghosts of the thousands who once packed Millfield's terraces roar their disapproval at such a thought.

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!