Plymouth & West Devon Combination League
Supplementary League Cup Final
Saturday 31st May 2025
Kick Off 14.00 Actual 13.56!
Tamar View 1 The Lugger 4, attendance 85
7’ 0-1
31’ 1-1
58’ 1-2
77’ 1-3
86’ 1-4
@ Lee Moor Recreation Ground
Recreation Way
Lee Moor
PL7 5JH
No Admission or Programme.
It was an easy drive of just under two hours from my overnight stay in South Wales, arriving here in the village of Lee Moor, just inside the southern boundary of Dartmoor National Park, about an hour before kick off. It was good to see both teams beginning their warm ups and that the game was going ahead okay. Even cup finals are no guarantee of games definitely taking place these days, such is the apathy involved in many leagues/clubs in today’s society.
The ground has hosted step 7 football in the past, most recently as home to Plympton Athletic in the Devon League. The pitch is mostly railed off and has a couple of large wooden dugouts on the side nearest the entrance, whilst the far side has a stand with three rows of bench seating, with the changing rooms at the rear and there was a tea bar set up, selling hot and cold food/drinks. The pitch was in decent condition, with the surface best described as undulating, noticeably dipping away towards the corners. Tamar View play their home games on the 3G pitch at Devonport High School, but their reserves play here at Lee Moor, which still technically made this a neutral venue I suppose.
As far as final league positions go, it was 4th versus 6th in the table. Tamar View won 7-4 when they met in the league last Saturday and the reverse fixture at The Lugger had finished 5-5, so it certainly looked like there’d be a goal or two. They’d already met twice in cup matches too, with Tamar View coming out 2-1 winners in both games.
A diagonal cross from the right was volleyed in at the far post to give the Lugger a seventh minute lead, with Tamar View equalising just after the half hour mark, when a ball over the top was latched onto and smashed past the ‘keeper at his near post. Just before the hour mark The Lugger were back in front, hammering in a shot from close range after a corner wasn’t properly cleared. They made it 1-3 with thirteen minutes left, after a misplaced clearance from the Tamar View ‘keeper was returned with a first time shot from 30 yards that found the bottom corner. They added a fourth goal late on, with a 25 yarder that went in via a deflection and almost got a fifth goal in stoppage time, but it came back off the crossbar.
An excellent game to round off the ‘Winter’ season with. Even the drive home wasn’t too bad, although I did lose around half an hour, despite the SatNav diverting me off the A303 approaching the usual Stonehenge bottleneck, but that’s pretty much standard on that route these days.
