Blandford United 0 Portland United 4, attendance 90
3’ 0-1
7’ 0-2
12’ 0-3
25’ 0-4
@ The Blandford School, 3G Pitch
Milldown Road
Blandford Forum
DT11 7SQ
No Admission or Programme.
This was Dorset Premier League (Step 7) versus Wessex League Premier Division (Step 5). Portland came flying out of the blocks, scoring three times in the opening twelve minutes. They could have added a couple more too, before making it 0-4 after twenty five minutes. Blandford weathered the storm and credit to them for not totally collapsing. They even had a few chances late on, but Portland had made a number of changes by then.
The game was played at The Blandford School. The usual 3G set up with spectator access along three quarters of one side.
This was between two teams in the Somerset County League. Sporting Weston are new into Division 3, having finished second in Division 1 of the Weston-super-Mare & District League last season, whilst Wrington Redhill are in the Premier Division, having also been promoted, following their runners up place in Division 1 behind Uphill Castle.
Sporting Weston actually play their home league games at King George V Playing Field, Meeting House Lane, Cleeve, where I had seen Yatton & Cleeve United play a home game in April last year. The attraction tonight was that this match was being played at Kewstoke Village Hall, which I never got to when Kewstoke Lions played here in the Somerset County League before dropping out at the end of the 2017/18 season.
Sporting opened the scoring just before the half hour mark, with a close range header following a corner on the left. Wrington levelled three minutes before halftime, shooting past the ‘keeper into the far corner after a neat through ball, but Sporting edged back in front with the last kick of the half to lead 2-1 at the break. Plenty of chances in the second half, but neither side able to convert.
Above : Sporting Weston No.2 heads in the opening goal.
This was Hampshire Premier League Division 1 (Step 8) versus Combined Counties League Premier Division South (Step 5), played at Berrydown Sports Ground, rather than Overtons normal home venue in Bridge Street. The football pitch is furthest from the changing rooms, on the far side of the cricket pitch.
The game itself turned out to be a total mismatch as Tadley were relentless and never eased off, totally outplaying their lower level hosts. 0-6 by halftime and it should have been at least twenty by the end, but it finished with just the thirteen! Three of the goals were quality free kicks. Two from 25 yards right into the top corner and the other from 20 yards into the bottom corner.
The Chagos Islands have two communities in the U.K. one in Manchester and the other in Crawley, hence the choice of Reigate to stage this friendly. The Falkland Islands are from the South Atlantic and had undertaken an 18 hour flight to get here, having driven through snow to reach the airport and then waiting for their plane to be de-iced! They are not here just for this game though. They were using it as a warm up for the up coming Island Games that commence this coming weekend in Guernsey.
The game attracted a very good crowd, albeit with free admission for children. How South Park would love to attract this sort of support. Unsurprisingly, there are no changes to the ground since my last visit here on Boxing Day. It is still soulless. I can’t see that ever changing…
The game was decent to watch. Chagos Islands went ahead early, when a pull back from the right was put in at the near post. Their lead was doubled ten minutes before halftime, when a shot squirmed past the ‘keeper with the aid of a deflection. Two goals in a six minute spell, midway through the second half, rounded off the scoring. A corner on the left was finished with a shot on the turn that went just inside the far post, whilst a long ball was flicked on before being fired across the ‘keeper into the far corner to make it 4-0.
I’m not a lucky charm for the Falkland Islands team. This is the fourth time I’ve now seen them play. The previous three games saw them lose 6-0 twice and 6-1. At least they’re improving!
This was a Step 5 versus Step 6 clash as Wessex League Premier Division (not Wessex Premier League as stated on the club Twitter! It always amazes me how many clubs don’t actually know the name of the league they play in!) hosted Western League Division 1. Again, a standard cage set up with three quarters of one side available for spectator viewing. The changing rooms are at the cricket pavilion, which is a good 350-400 yards away.
Bournemouth went ahead midway through the first half, when a back pass was miss controlled by the ‘keeper, resulting in the ball being rolled into an empty net. Wincanton levelled nine minutes later, with a brilliantly curled shot from 20 yards finding the top corner. It took Bournemouth a matter of seconds into the second half to regain the lead, when a long ball over the top saw the ball poked past the ‘keeper and seven minutes later they made it 3-1, when the ball was cut in from the left hand side and finished unmarked from ten yards.
Considering that there are supposed to be no matches played in June, due to the ‘Close Season’ enforced by the F.A. this was an unusual one as Green Lane is not only home to Bishops Cannings, but also the headquarters of the Wiltshire F.A.! It is a standard cage, with viewing along three quarters of one side. Rather annoyingly for a newish set up, there was a partition wire across the pitch, although the ball only hit it once during the match.
The game was between two sides in the Wiltshire Senior League, Bishops Cannings being new into Division 1, whilst Ludgershall are in the Premier Division, having been promoted at the end of last season. If you had turned up to watch, without knowing it was a friendly, you would have been surprised, as it was played very competitively throughout and I will see a fair number of matches in the coming season that won’t be anywhere near as good as this was to watch.
Bishops Cannings twice led in the first half, but still found themselves 2-3 down at the break. It was 2-4 midway through the second half, but a quick reply brought it back to 3-4 and it wasn’t until the final kick of the match that Ludgershall made it 3-5. A very enjoyable game to watch and worth the effort of battling the usual nightmare Friday traffic, which thankfully eased once clear of the M25.
Estudiantes London 6 Redbridge U23 2, attendance 22
16’ 1-0
22’ 2-0
30’ 3-0
44’ 4-0
53’ 5-0
63’ 6-0
72’ 6-1
86’ 6-2
@ The Latymer School, 3G Pitch
Haslebury Road
Edmonton
London
N9 9TN
No Admission or Programme.
I had a few options for today, all on neutral venue 3G pitches, but with it being during the official F.A. ‘Close Season’, I decided to play it safe and head for this one, as Middlesex County League side Estudiantes are very active on Twitter, so no problem confirming kick off time or venue. It was also the nearest one, so at least if it was called off at short notice, I wouldn’t have wasted too much time driving. The set up here is a typical cage with spectator viewing along three quarters of one side.
The game itself was much closer than the scoreline suggests. The difference was that nearly all the chances for Estudiantes finished with goals being scored. Redbridge could easily have scored six goals themselves, but at least with the two late ones they did manage to give the final score some sort of respectability.
Kulture Club 2 Estudiantes London 6, attendance 17
1’ 0-1
9’ 0-2
19’ 0-3
29’ 0-4
43’ 0-5 (pen)
57’ 1-5
65’ 2-5
82’ 2-6
@ Lea Valley Academy, 3G Pitch
Bullsmoor Lane
Enfield
EN3 6TW
No Admission or Programme.
This was a game between two sides who had played in Division 1 (Central & East) of the Middlesex County League in the season just finished. Estudiantes were excellent on Twitter in confirming both the venue and kick off time for this game. It attracted 12 hoppers, with the main debate appearing to be whether this game counts in season 2022/23 or 2023/24! It is neither for me, as I keep a running total by calendar year!
Estudiantes dominated early on and comfortably built up a five goal lead. Kulture Klub only started with the bare eleven, but a number of additional players arrived during the early stages and the second half was probably a truer reflection of the strength of each side.
It is a standard cage set up, with no problem watching from inside the fence, as there is a solid pathway running around the pitch perimeter which is edged by ‘kickboards’ along the sides.
Atalanta Bergamasca Calcio 5 Associazione Calcio Monza 2, attendance 19,389
12’ 1-0
45’ + 1, 2-0
51’ 2-1
74’ 3-1
78’ 4-1
81’ 4-2
90’ + 2, 5-2
@ Gewiss Stadium
Viale Giulio Cesare 18
24124 Bergamo
€40 Admission + €2.20 booking fee, Print at Home Ticket
2 different Programmes available, both free. A 36 page full colour Magazine and a 40 page Newspaper.
My first trip to see football in Italy was back in November 1994, when I flew out on a day trip to see A.C. Milan draw 1-1 with Internazionale in the Milan derby, played at the Stadio Giuseppe Meazza, more commonly known as the San Siro, which is actually the area of Milan it is in, rather than the name of the stadium. Further trips to Italy saw a 2-1 win for Lazio versus Internazionale (Dec 2003), followed by Torino v Empoli (at the now demolished Stadio delle Alpi (Apr 2005) and the following day Novarra v A.C. Pisa. A month later a trip to Florence resulted in my third consecutive 0-0 draw in Italy, when Fiorentina hosted Atalanta. The lack of goals and what always seemed to be problems sorting out tickets in advance, meant I had pretty much given up with football trips to Italy.
However, a wedding invitation to a ceremony to be held near Milan, meant there was a possibility of perhaps combining the trip to fit in a football match as well. Being late in the season didn’t throw up too many opportunities though. Not knowing exactly what time the wedding reception would finish, meant both Cremonese and Parma would not be possible on the Saturday evening, due to ticket sales ending on the night before the match. This removed the option of making a late decision to head there. Luckily though, there was still a chance to get a game in on the Sunday, in nearby Bergamo. It was only 1 hour 8 minutes by train and cost just €5.80 single….not a return, but more of that later. These days obtaining tickets for games in Italy is far less problematic. All done online and the club website confirmed tickets were available for general sale and that a foreign passport was okay for use as identification. It would also help to confirm we weren’t from Monza!
The Gewiss Stadium is part way through modernisation, with just the Curva Sud now looking out of place compared to the rest of the ground, although they could do with extending the roof along the side, as we got absolutely soaked during the second half, which isn’t great when you are charged €40 for the pleasure! Capacity here is 21,300 and the club were advertising the match as a sell out (I think Monza had sold all bar 145 of their allocation) although there were empty seats dotted about and the official attendance certainly didn’t suggest this.
This was the last match of the season. Monza were safe in tenth place and had nothing to play for. Atalanta, on the other hand, started the day 5th in the table on 61 points. They were in a three way fight with Roma (60 pts) and Juventus (59 pts) to see which two would get the Europa League places and who would end up in the Europa Conference League. All three games involving them would start simultaneously…or at least that was the plan. The game here started a couple of minutes late as the Referee had to wait for the smoke to clear the pitch after flares left thick clouds of smoke swirling across the pitch as we were about to kick off. Security are red hot on stopping you take bottles of water into the ground and there is no way you are allowed to keep the top on any drink purchased once inside, but it seems you can take in as many flares as you like, as well as 4-5 foot long flag poles, which of course, could never be used as a weapon….
As expected, it was a great atmosphere. The home fans in the lower sections of seating behind the goal at the north end of the ground boycotted the opening five minutes or so, not happy in how they perceived they were being treated, but soon filtered into their seats. The noise certainly went up a notch or two as they joined the party. Dutch striker Teun Koopmeiners headed Atalanta in front after twelve minutes and he made it 2-0 in stoppage time at the end of the first half, following in after an initial save by the ‘keeper. A cracking 20 yarder into the top corner saw Monza pull it back to 2-1 early in the second half, but their hopes of getting anything from the match were dealt a blow, when their Brazilian player Marlon received a red card in the seventieth minute, just 60 seconds after coming on as a substitute! Hojlund (assisted by Koopmeiners) made it 3-1, before Koopmeiners completed his hattrick with twelve minutes left to put the hosts 4-1 up. Monza immediately got one back to make it 4-2, before Atalanta added a fifth goal in the second, of what turned out to be ten minutes of stoppage time, rounding off the scoring. So Atalanta had scored the same amount of goals tonight as my previous five games here in Italy had produced in total!
The win saw Atalanta finish fifth and wins for Roma and Juventus meant we finished the night as we started, as far as European qualification went. The 21.00 kick off meant that the last train back to Milan would be long gone, so we had pre-booked a car to pick us up near the ground at 23.15, rather than mess about getting back to Bergamo Airport, from where a shuttle bus runs to Milan Central Station at very regular intervals throughout the night. Another taxi would then have been required from there. No change out of €100, but back in our Milan hotel before midnight, so certainly the correct decision.
This final was played at Llanishen High School 3G pitch, a venue that also hosts the games of Llanishen Rugby Union Club, hence the rugby posts behind the goals. Viewing is along the whole of the near side, where there is also a small kit stand, although standing room only. It was certainly useful today, but not for sheltering from the rain, but the blistering sun, as temperatures hovered around 22-23 degrees throughout.
These two play in Division 1 (the middle of three divisions) of the Cardiff Combination and it was 4th versus 2nd as far as final league placings went. They were evenly matched throughout, although Allstars (how the club spell their name, rather than All Stars as suggested on the programme) could have been out of sight before halftime, had they not wasted the better of the chances produced. A follow in to a shot parried by the ‘keeper saw them break the deadlock and their lead was doubled in stoppage time, when a through ball was coolly taken wide of the ‘keeper and rolled in from a tight angle. When Radyr pulled it back to 2-1 a few minutes into the second half, poking in at the far post following a corner that wasn’t cleared, it kept the game interesting. Three minutes into stoppage time Radyr saw a header come back off the crossbar, but Grange finally killed the game off nine minutes into stoppage time, when they scored from a penalty, which had seen Radyr reduced to ten men following a second yellow card for the foul.
The usual nightmare Bank Holiday traffic meant an arduous four hour drive to Cardiff, where the ‘live traffic’ was certainly earning its keep on the SatNav, diverting off the M4 on various A and B roads before Bristol, then again around Newport. The return journey took 90 minutes less!
