Erith are in the Southern Counties East League Premier Division, whilst Rochester play in Division 1 of the same league. This was as one sided as the score line suggests. Rochester were well on top, especially in the second half, and they could easily have doubled their amount of goals scored.
Frimley Green 1 Metropolitan Police 4, attendance 33
10’ 0-1
19’ 0-2
59’ 1-2
63’ 1-3
82’ 1-4
@ Frimley Lodge Park, 3G Pitch
Sturt Road
Frimley Green
GU16 6HY
No Admission or Programme.
Frimley Green are newly promoted into the Combined Counties League Premier Division, whilst Met Police are in the Southern League, Premier Division South.
Met Police were far superior, although at 0-2 Frimley Green started to create some chances and make a game of it. At halftime Met Police changed their entire outfield team, as well as playing in a totally different coloured kit to the first half. Oddly, the second half was played with both teams playing in the same direction as they had done in the first half. I can’t recall seeing this in a match before. Frimley Green did pull it back to 1-2 just before the hour mark, but the young Police team added two more goals for a deserved 1-4 win.
Sporting Club Thamesmead 2 Welling Park 2, attendance 52
7’ 1-0
41’ 1-1
47’ 2-1
87’ 2-2
@ Bayliss Avenue, 3G Pitch
Thamesmead
London
SE28 8NJ
No Admission or Programme.
I had visited Bayliss Avenue back on 2nd May 1994 when I saw Thamesmead Town beat Chatham Town 4-1 in a Kent League match. The concept of artificial pitches hadn’t really took off then, but there is now a 3G Pitch built behind the main ground that runs parallel. There is no spectator access inside the cage, but there is a good view from the balcony of the clubhouse.
S.C. Thamesmead play in the Southern Counties East League Division 1, whilst Welling Park are in Division 1 West of the Kent County League, some two levels lower. The game was end to end and although Thamesmead scored early in each half, it was Welling who finished the stronger, scoring late goals in each half to get a deserved 2-2 draw.
Today’s match was at Rugby Lions R.U.F.C. which is situated in Webb Ellis Road, named after the alleged inventor of rugby football, William Webb Ellis, who back in 1823, whilst as a pupil at Rugby School, picked the ball up and began running with it during a school match and the new game of ‘rugby’ was invented.
This was the third home venue for Coventry this season, due to pitch works taking place at their normal home at Butts Arena. It was only two weeks ago that I saw them play the last of three matches staged at Broadstreet R.U.F.C. and today would begin a run of their final four league matches being played here in Rugby.
I had visited Rugby Lions R.U.F.C. previously, as Rugby Town F.C. played here during the 2000/01 season. My visit was for a Midland Combination League Division 2 match, which was a 0-0 draw versus Lichfield Enots on Wednesday 21st February 2001. The ground today is pretty much unchanged.
Coventry started off well today and led 8-0 after twenty minutes, but Hunslet came back into it and took a 8-16 lead. Both teams added another converted try to give a 14-22 halftime score. Bears then scored another try early in the second half, which was converted, to make it 20-22, but unfortunately were unable to add another point during the next 37 minutes and Hunslet dominated them from here in for a comfortable 20-48 win.
This was formerly known as The Met Police Sports Ground and was one I had missed when Metpol Chigwell NE played here in the Essex Olympian League until the end of the 2008/09 season.
I arrived at the ground at 14.10 and was surprised to see the teams getting ready to start, as the match wasn’t supposed to be kicking off until 15.00, which was what time both clubs had tweeted this morning. Anyway, they kicked off as I was walking across the cricket pitch, with the football pitch on the far side from here. I can’t understand why clubs hire these venues for friendlies, as the pitch was in dreadful condition and bone hard in places and tufts of grass in other parts. There was an end to end and side to side slope on the pitch, which didn’t help, and one 6 yard box had very little grass on it, rather like a pitch in a public park, where the goals have been left up by the council and kids have worn out the pitch through constant use.
These two are both in the Eastern Counties League Division 1 South, but they seemed miles apart as far as standard of players went. Barkingside were 4-0 up at the break and it could easily have been 10. The slope had obviously had a huge effect, as when Newbury Forest kicked down the hill, they looked a completely different team. Unfortunately, they had a penalty saved within five minutes of the restart, but having gone close on numerous occasions, they did manage a consolation goal with eleven minutes left.
Accrington Stanley 2 Olympique de Marseille 1, attendance 1,266
28’ 1-0 McConville
37’ 2-0 Zanzala (pen)
77’ 2-1 Thauvin
@ AJ Bell Stadium
1 Stadium Way
Eccles
Manchester
M30 7EY
£10 Admission
£1.50 Programme, 16 pages.
The attraction of this match was that it was being played at the AJ Bell Stadium, home of Salford Red Devils R.L.F.C. (also shared by Sale Sharks R.U.F.C. who moved in after the stadium had been built for Salford). The stadium was opened in 2012, then known as Salford City Stadium and has a capacity of around 12,000, of which 7,500 is seated and each goal end has a standing capacity of 2,500. The record attendance here is 11,247 for Sale Sharks versus Leicester Tigers on 27th December 2014. The record crowd here for Salford is 7,102.
The ground actually hosted football previously, when England women’s team played The Netherlands in a Euro 2013 Qualifying match on 17 June 2012. In 2013/14 season (whilst I was living in Belgium) Manchester United played their under 21 matches here. I certainly wouldn’t have watched the women’s match and could think of far better ways to spend my time than watching any Manchester United team, even if it is at a previously unvisited stadium. In 2014 Manchester Titans American Football team also played here.
This was a very strange fixture, to say the least. Apparently, someone on the staff at Accrington Stanley noticed that Marseille were staying in the Manchester area for a pre-season training base, so made contact with them to see if there was any chance of them playing a match against them during their stay and lo and behold, it worked!
OM, as they are widely known, are arguably the biggest club in France, along with Olympique Lyonnaise and moneybags Paris Saint-Germain, although the latter were only formed in 1970 and did very little before the big money was invested. OM have been French champions 9 times, Coupe de France winners 10 times and Coupe de la Ligue winners 3 times. They also won the 1992/93 U.E.F.A. Champions League (European Cup in those days) beating A.C. Milan 1-0 in the final.
Last season OM finished fifth in Ligue 1, but their squad is certainly not full of any household names, especially outside France. In fact, the only player I had heard of was Dimitri Payet, formerly of West Ham United. At least I had heard of their manager, as Andre Villas-Boas (ex Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur boss) had taken over in late May.
OM looked really good early on, but always seemed to try to play one extra pass, rather than attempting a shot. Stanley scored against the run of play and then went 2-0 up with a penalty. OM changed their entire outfield team for the second half and although they were still nothing special, they did pull a goal back late on.
The journey up to Salford was a shocker, taking 5 hours 15 minutes. It wasn’t helped by the fact that our incompetent police force had closed the M25 between Junction 8 and 10 (it was closed for 13 hours!) due to an accident. Wherever the accident was, it surely didn’t require the closure of two sections of motorway. The accident would have been between J8 and J9 or J9 and J10, so why close Off two junctions? It also meant that I travelled on my own as my planned passenger was stuck on the M25 coming from Kent and didn’t make the meet point in time. At least the M25 was clear, and very quiet, when I joined the motorway at Junction 11, although those other jokers, The Highways Agency, still had the 50 m.p.h. speed limit in place and were even slowing traffic to 40 m.p.h. at one stage due to ‘fog patches’. It was sunny and 25 degrees! You just couldn’t make it up.
The SatNav worked overtime and with arrival time edging further back, I had to bite the bullet and take the M6 Toll Road around Birmingham, which is only the third time I have used it since it opened in 2004. At a rip off £6.40 (it rises to £6.70 from tomorrow) then it may be a while before I use it again. At least the car park at the stadium was free, which I believe is £6 for Salford home games, so it evens things out a bit.
The lateness theme continued when it was announced at 17.50 that the match had been put back fifteen minutes, to 18.15, due to ‘crowd congestion’. Come on, with an attendance of 1,266. Pathetic. And they still managed to kick off a minute late after that!
Above : The West Stand (on the left) was the only section of the ground opened for the match.
Tadley Calleva 5 Hungerford Town Academy 0, attendance 68
17’ 1-0
20’ 2-0
27’ 3-0
32’ 4-0
67’ 5-0
@ The Vyne Community School, 3G Pitch
Vyne Road
Basingstoke
RG21 5PB
No Admission or Programme.
For the second successive night I had a match kicking off earlier than the advertised time, but only by ten minutes tonight. Rather oddly, the game was also only played as 2 x 40 minute halves.
The match itself was very one sided for the first half, but with both teams making their substitutions early in the second half it became more of a contest and Calleva only managed to add one goal to their first half tally.
Littlehampton Town 4 Littlehampton United 1, attendance 20
24’ 1-0
27’ 2-0
40’ 3-0
66’ 3-1
81’ 4-1
@ The Arena Sports Centre, 3G Pitch
Westloats Lane
Bognor Regis
PO21 5JD
No Admission or Programme.
These two both play in the Southern Combination League, Town in Division 1 and United in Division 2. They both play home games at The Sportsfield, in St. Flora’s Road, which is the ground of Town.
Despite the game being advertised as a 19.45 kick off, it actually kicked off 15 minutes earlier, which I thought might have been to avoid having to use the floodlights, but they were turned on seven minutes into the second half, so that wasn’t the case. I suppose it was a case of ‘we are all here, so let’s get started’. It caught a lot of the ‘crowd’ out though, as there were only two of us present as we got underway.
Town looked the better team, which should be expected as they are one division higher than United, but it was a decent game, helped by each team only having a 16 man squad, rather than a different team for each half. United scored the best goal of the match, with a well worked ‘one-two’ back heeled pass on the edge of the 18 yard box, that was finished off with a shot into the far corner of the net.
Above : A Town player, hidden by the Number 9, sends a 20 yard shot into the top corner of the net to make it 3-0.
