Capital Counties Feeder Leagues Trophy
Quarter Final
Saturday 29th February 2020
Kick Off 14.00 Actual 14.02
Buckhurst Hill 5 Rayleigh Town 2, attendance 41
13’ 1-0 (pen)
22’ 2-0
27’ 3-0
31’ 4-0
44’ 5-0
79’ 5-1
85’ 5-2
@ Roding Valley High School, 3G Pitch No.2
Alderton Hill
Loughton
IG10 3JA
No Admission
Programme free, 8 pages.
Today was quite an unusual day for watching football, as it was the first time since 1992 that it has been possible to watch games on five Saturdays in the month of February. I wasn’t even born when it occurred the time before that and when it next occurs is 28 years away……..
Back in 1992 I was still very new to ground hopping, which certainly shows from the games I attended on the Saturdays that month….Buckingham Town, Grantham Town, Gainsborough Trinity, Newport (I.O.W.) and West Midlands Police. I can’t believe how many grounds I visited on Saturdays back then that were floodlit, although working until 17.30 did make it harder to do as many midweek matches as I do now. Only WMP on that list hadn’t got lights at that time, and were reachable for me for an early evening kick off, but as it was an F.A. Vase Quarter Final tie versus Sudbury Town, which attracted their record crowd at the time of 1,072, I obviously decided to stay much more local that day!
More notably, perhaps, is the fact that all the games were played on grass! With climate change really kicking in now and the fact that it tends to rain every Friday and Saturday, most games this month have been on 3G pitches. Today, the theme continued. Rather than travel in the hope a game would actually take place on grass, I settled on a handful of options, deciding on this match when I was informed it had been confirmed as on, as well as the change of venue. I wasn’t aware that there were two 3G pitches here at Roding Valley High School though. I arrived at where I thought the match was, but discovered that the game I wanted was actually being played on a second 3G pitch that was accessed via Roding Road, being on the south side of the railway line, the pitch running parallel to Loughton Underground Station. At least there was spectator access, along most of one side of the pitch, but we had the usual other coloured pitch markings and a wire above the halfway line. One thing that was lacking though, were floodlights! There aren’t too many caged pitches built without them these days.
The competition is known by the sponsor name ‘Anagram Records Trophy’ these days, this match being between two teams who are in the Essex Olympian League Premier Division. It was 3rd versus 7th as far as positions in the league table go, but it soon became obvious this wasn’t going to be much of a contest. Buckhurst Hill were just far too good and they scored at will, in a first half that saw them coast into a 5-0 lead. In the first half we had hail and rain, but the sun came out as the afternoon wore on. Rayleigh also improved in the second half, but it was too little, too late. A couple of goals for the visitors, in the last eleven minutes, made the score line look much closer than it was.
