BRAINTREE TOWN v SALFORD CITY

Cressing Road Stadium

National League

February 9, 2019

Ground No 214

AND so I found myself in the away end at Braintree on a Saturday afternoon when Britain's most high profile non-league team rolled into town.

My 16-year-old Mancunian nephew is a Salford season ticket holder you see and, full of youthful exuberance, he'd headed south for a weekend with his handily-placed groundhopping uncle, hoping to see the Ammies take another step towards the Football League.

I think he's bored of me telling him how, the first time I saw Salford play at home, the crowd was barely into three figures - in the days well before some lads with a few bob who played for a team up the road took them over.

So any how, an hour before kick-off we were driving into a small close made up entirely of strange, flat-roofed houses, and parking up ahead of the game. 

Nineteen quid in and three quid for a not especially substantial programme was a bit steep for this level in my opinion but on the plus side, the bacon roll was very nice.

Cressing Road has been Braintree's home since 1923. Much of the way it looks now is down to work carried out since the 1990s, but it still retains a homely and traditional feel. 

Its orange barriers and blue fences - reflecting the team's colours - give it a bright look too.

The away end is a small terraced area at the far end, just the other side of the man stand, which contains around 500 seats. There's a similar area of terracing on the other side too.

A long, mostly covered, terraces extends along the side opposite the main stain while there are identical banks of terracing behind the goal - one left uninhabited, giving the brightly coloured barriers even more prominence on this gloomy February day, and the other home to the Braintree faithful.

Those fans haven't had much to cheer this season, but went home the happiest thanks to an injury time winner.

"The Football League is waiting for us," sang the City fans around me. They'll be waiting a little longer at this rate.

HEYBRIDGE SWIFTS v WEST ESSEX

ASPEN WAITE ARENA

FA CUP PLEMINARY ROUND

AUGUST 26, 2018

GROUND NO 211

AAAH, the magic of the cup.

It was the FA Cup that first awakened my interest in non-league football. Tuning in on a Saturday night  to watch first round highlights on telly and being introduced to teams I'd never heard of from places I never knew existed take on the relative big guns from the lofty heights of the Football League at tiny, ramshackle grounds was something to savour every year.

Tales of the left-back being a postman who was up at 4am to do his round before heading to the ground or the painter and decorator who pulled on the No 6 shirt in the very dressing room he'd given a lick of paint to no more than a week earlier... Magical stuff.

I fancied a bit of that and started checking out non-league grounds for myself.

It would take the most ambitious - or foolish - of gamblers to have a wager on any club making it all the way to Wembley after appearing at the preliminary round stage. You'd probably get better odds on Lord Lucan singing the National Anthem while sitting on Shergar before the final kicks off.

But the FA Cup is nonetheless a 'thing' at this level. Dreams of making it all the way to the first round proper and playing Sunderland or Swindon at home live on the box are very much alive and kicking.

And there's the cash too. Today's winners picked up £2,890 in prize money for clearing the preliminary round hurdle. That's more than Heybridge Swifts banked from attracting a crowd of 206 for their first ever fixture against West Essex.

Deal with their first qualifying round opponents and they'll have a bumper cheque for six grand to pay into the Heybridge branch of the HSBC.

So extra preliminary round day seemed to be an appropriate way to collect my first tick of the season.

Situated just outside Maldon, the Aspen Waite Arena is a neat little ground and has been the Swifts' home since 1966 after a troubled period in which their original ground became hardcore for a new shopping centre and they nearly went under. Prior to that it was a carrot field.

Entry is via turnstiles behind one goal, the changing rooms immediately to the left, a tea bar a little further on and a sizable Union Flag fluttering proudly atop its pole.

Midway down one side is the main stand, a breeze block and steel structure built in the mid-90s with possibly one or two more supporting poles than what any spectator sitting there would want for ideal viewing.

Opposite is an older, wooden stand containing wo rows wooden slats arranged in such a way that I was left confused as to whether both were for sitting on or whether the bottom row was for putting your feet on if you were sitting on the upper level. Or both. In the end I avoided the potential for making myself look silly by walking past it to take up a standing position in the covered end beyond it.

The Swifts are flying high this season and a 3-0 win put them into the pot for the next FA Cup draw. It's two early for replica cups made out of tinfoil on the terraces or songs about going to Wemberleeee, but it's a few quid in the bank and a step closer to potentially earning the 'plucky minnows' tag in tie against someone much higher up the pyramid.

Tamil Eelam v Cascadia

ST PAUL'S SPORTS GROUND

CONIFA WORLD CUP

JUNE 3, 2018

GROUND NO 209

IF St Paul's Sports Ground were a pair of trousers, you'd have to squeeze them on, breathe in for at least a minute while you're doing your top button up and the most pleasurable experience you'll have all day is undoing it again before you go to bed and letting your belly flop out.

Tightly packed into a plot surrounded by homes, trees, a road and a school, there's just enough space to fit in the bare essentials needed for a football ground.

That it's there at all. of course, is something to be hugely grateful for.

Fisher Athletic thought they were only groundsharing with Dulwich Hamlet while the Surrey Docks Stadium - which stood some 200 yards from St Paul's - was being done up. But the debts were piling up and Athletic became a former football club without ever returning home.

From the fans' point of view it was like moving in with a mate while the builders were in, staying until you'd finished the last jar of peanut butter in the cupboard and then finding your own gaff had been bulldozed when you popped in to see how the new kitchen was coming along.

Quick as a flash, though, the supporters founded Fisher FC, a phoenix club, and in 2016 they moved into their new ground.

The dark green turnstile blocks are a little uninviting, to be honest, and the compact little ground ins functional rather than homely.

With very little space between the plastic pitch and the perimeter wall, it's as though someone has picked the ground up and pushed and prodded it into a hole that's barely big enough to fit it in.

A simple, small prefabricated stand sits on the other side of the Salter Road perimeter wall, with the changing rooms and modest clubhouse - don't ask for a beer, it's not licensed.

There's a small covered stand behind one goal - offering a great view of Canary Wharf rising up impressively behind the far goal - and dugouts on the side opposite side to the stand and that's that really.

The ground is managed by Millwall's Community Trust so the branding around the pitch is almost exclusively for the Lionesses, who play their Women's Super League matches there.

But it was neither Fisher nor Millwall Ladies who were playing on this occasion - the match pitched Cascadia against Tamil Eelam in the CONIFA World Cup, a sort of non-league World Cup.

CONIFA is the voluntary body which brings together non-recognised states, regions, cultural entities and peoples and gives them a platform on which to play international football - and the result is a glorious carnival of culture, a sporting tournament and a geography lesson all rolled into one,

I decided to support Cascadia because they sounded like a stage at Glastonbury (it's actually an area of the USA and Canada) and the free stickers given out by their merch dude only reinforced that view.

The locals threw their support behind them too, with songs like "Cascadia is wonderful, it's got weed, coffee and Frasier" ringing out around the ground.

And the boys on the pitch responded, banging in six goals without reply despite finishing with ten men, to progress to the quarter-finals on goal difference.

Football in the sun, nations you've never heard of and a club back from the dead - what's not to like?

Thurrock v Kingstonian

Ship Lane

(Thurrock's final home match before folding)

Bostik League Premier Division

April 21, 2018

Ground No 207

IT was rather appropriate that one of the large advertisements displayed at Ship Lane was for Saint Francis Hospice.

Because here we were, gathered together to led our support to a terminally ill patient before it slipped away, leaving us with nothing but memories.

Formed as Purfleet in 1985, Thurrock soon rose up from the Essex Senior League to Isthmian League level.

There, save for a flirtation even higher up the pyramid with the Conference South, they became a permanent fixture until, with no buyer coming forward, owner and chairman Tommy South - who had been with the club throughout their journey - was forced to consign them to the history books having announced he was stepping down to ill health.

It's hard to comprehend that Thurrock are no more. On paper they're a club that did everything right.

When they first started out the changing rooms were in the adjacent Thurrock Hotel, which looms up behind the main stand like a parent looking over a child.

But they showed ambition on and off the pitch, swivelled the playing surface 90 degrees and built up the ground into a stadium any club at Isthmian League level would be proud to call home.

Opened in 1988, the 300-seat grandstand is the main feature of Ship Lane. With its gable roof and seats in Thurrock club colours, it has a traditional rather than modern look. One in the eye for those who think new stands should be bland and boring, for sure.

To the right are the neat brick-built changing rooms which stand adjacent to a covered terrace.

Opposite is a long covered area, running the length of the pitch. This mainly houses terracing but there are 200 seats at the end closest to the M25, which runs behind the ground.

There's more covered terracing in the remaining end with an ample sized bar and function room in the corner.

But all of that is kind of irrelevant now. Thurrock were never able to attract particularly large crowds - the fact that fewer that 200 turned out to say goodbye demonstrates that - and with no-one willing or able to take them over, Ship Lane will become an ex football ground once a Thurock XI v Purfleeet XI match has taken place in June.

RIP Thurrock FC.

Darlington v Boston Utd

Blackwell Meadows

National League North

April 7, 2018

Ground No 206

"It is starting to look a lot more like a football ground," Darlington director John Tempest told the Northern Echo after Blackwell Meadows' extended main stand was opened a few weeks earlier.

It's true, it does. But right now Blackwell Meadows still looks very much like a rugby ground too, and a long way from being the home of a Football League club - which of course is what the Quakers aspire to be once more.

The Quakers' ride has been a rocky one in recent years. Moved out of their homely and perfectly adequate Feethams ground by a former safecracker chairman who was, let's say, unrealistic, they found themselves plonked in a new 25,500-capacity stadium that usually attracted crowds of less than a tenth of that and as a result there was more atmosphere on the moon than there was there on matchday.

Financial problems resulted in them being relegated all the way down to the Northern League and groundsharing with Bishop Auckland before a long-awaited upturn in fortunes saw them steamroller through the leagues and back 'home' to Darlington in December 2016.

So the fact that Blackwell Meadows looks like a rugby ground is no surprise because up until just over a year earlier, that's exactly what it was.

It's still home to Darlington RUFC who moved there in 1994, of course, and it's still very much a work in progress as far as the round ball code is concerned and to come this far is to be applauded rather than derided.

The rugby club branding is more predominant and on arrival before you've shelled out a fiver to park your car (I always find this a bit steep for an out-of-town location) you're met with is the big brick-built pavilion/clubhouse.

Once inside it's this building that screams 'oval balls' at you, with it's clock tower, first floor balcony and windows from the clubhouse overlooking the pitch. It couldn't be more 'rugby' if it sprinkled chilli power on your nether regions and challenged you to drink a barrel of beer without taking a breath.

In front of the adjoining changing rooms are three rows of seats - the main seated area before the soccer lads moved in - although some of those seats are as much use as a soft drink in a rugby clubhouse due to the placement of one of the big Perspex dug-outs.

Part-way along the opposite side is the new main stand, now housing just under 600 seats. It currently runs around two thirds of the length of the pitch, but it's a fair bet it'll be extended further to reach the other corner in due course.

Behind the goal at the west end is a flat standing area for away fans and a small out-of-bounds grass bank although there are plans to put up terracing.

Opposite, however, is a 1,000-capacity covered standing area, just like the Tin Shed at Feethams where the Qaukers die-hards would stand, cheer and sign derogatory things about Hartlepool United. In fact some of the steelwork used to make the structure was rescued from the old ground when the bulldozers moved in.

Those halcyon days seem a lifetime ago but bit by bit, Darlo are getting there. I'll drink to that in the rugby club.