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.
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.
It is seven years since I last watched a game in this league and it was six years before that when I saw my previous one. I had watched seven games at one time, but got fed up with the poor standard of football on offer and couldn’t believe that many of the grounds were nothing more than a very poorly cut piece of grass, out in the middle of nowhere, where players got changed next to their cars as there were not even changing rooms on site. It is certainly not worth making a special journey for, but as I had been in Coventry during the afternoon for the rugby league, and the fact that it was only an hour and a quarter drive from there, then it made sense to do tonight’s match. The village of ‘Mappleton’ (which is what the signpost says when entering the village) is a couple of miles north west of Ashbourne, although Google Maps and my SatNav spell it ‘Mapleton’, which is also what the sign post said when leaving Ashbourne.
The match was like watching ‘attack versus defence’, as Red Lion looked to take the game to penalties, as they had obviously decided that was their best, or only, chance of winning the match. They defended brilliantly, keeping it scoreless until halftime, but having conceded a goal just six minutes into the second half meant their plan had failed. They conceded a second goal on the hour mark, which made little difference to the outcome, as they would never have scored anyway.
@ The College of Haringey, Enfield & North East London (Enfield)
73 Hertford Road
(Enter via The Ride)
Enfield
EN3 5HA
No Admission or Programme.
Enfield Borough play in Division 1 of the Spartan South Midlands League, whilst Rising Ballers are a Sunday League team. Rising Ballers were the better team from the off and they could have easily been ahead by more than the 1-4 lead they had at halftime. The second half saw a number of changes and the game never reached the quality of the first half. A late goal for Enfield made it look closer than it was.
I had decided earlier in the day that if the host club G.N.G. Leicester were playing in the Premier 2 Division Semi Final, then I would stay on for one last match. It should never have been in doubt, and it wasn’t, as they had won all their matches in the Walsall and Birmingham tournaments and comfortably won their opening match this morning as well, judging by their winning margin. My decision was also swayed by the fact that the match was being played on the Riverside Football Ground main pitch, which is home to F.C. G.N.G. who play in the Leicestershire Senior League, Premier Division. It was also the only ground in that league that I hadn’t visited as the 2018/19 season came to a close. Despite being floodlit, it made more sense to do a match whilst I was here, rather than make a special journey, and anyway, they don’t tend to play many midweek matches due to the small size of the league, so perfect.
G.S.A. took an early lead, but decided to ‘shut up shop’ and just sit back and see if G.N.G. could break them down. They relied on the blistering pace of their Number 9, who had opened the scoring, as a real weapon. Ten minutes into the second half G.N.G. had a man red carded for a foul and shortly afterwards G.S.A. broke away to make it 0-2. It looked to be all over, but the ten men replied with a 20 yarder that the ‘keeper really should have saved, to make it 1-2, but the two goal margin was quickly restored as G.S.A. scored a penalty, completing a hattrick for their Number 9. G.N.G. did reduce it to 2-3, when they scored a penalty of their own in stoppage time, but it was too late to alter the outcome.
@ Leicester City Council Employees Sports Ground, Pitch 4
Braunstone Lane East
Leicester
LE3 2 FW
No Admission
Tournament Programme, free, 68 pages.
Despite this being the highest level match so far, it was easily the least entertaining. Derby took an early lead and Smethwick levelled it up just two minutes into the second half. Both teams cancelled each other out and there were very few chances for either side to win it, so we headed to penalties to decide the winners. Smethwick only scored one of their three taken, but Derby scored all four of theirs to go through.
Having watched three matches back to back, with no time in between for food or drink, I decided to take a break and have a sit down, before doing match number four of the day, scheduled for 16.45, which would be a match involving the host club G.N.G. Leicester.
@ Leicester City Council Employees Sports Ground, Pitch 3
Braunstone Lane East
Leicester
LE3 2FW
No Admission
Tournament Programme, free, 68 pages.
As we waited for our scheduled 11.15 match to start, the trouble brewing following the Panjab Sandwell versus G.S.A. Youth match now turned into a mass brawl, which involved between 50 and 100 people, including one of the teams from our match, G.S.A. Reserves, who went to add numbers to members of their club involved in the fighting. For a good five minutes or so the fighting moved from one side of the pitch to the other and just as it looked like it had quietened down, another fight broke out on the fringes, and off it went again. The Police arrived just as it was calming down and some sort of order was restored.
There seemed to be a dispute going on between various sections of the G.S.A. committee and players as to whether they would actually play on, or withdraw from the tournament as some sort of protest, but eventually it was decided that they would carry on. Having kicked off 33 minutes late, it meant the match was reduced to 2 x 40 minute halves to try and get back some of the lost time and keep the rest of the day on schedule.
It didn’t appear to affect G.S.A. too much, as they came out and attacked from the off, going two goals up early on, but a superb free kick pulled Coventry Lions a goal back, but G.S.A. soon restored their two goal lead. The second half was a non event. This match didn’t finish until 13.17, which could have been a problem, as our next match was due to start at 13.00. Thankfully, the game beforehand went to penalties, so our next match was going to start late and it meant we had a minute gap between our match finishing and the next one starting. It was a good job it was only about 25 yards between the two pitches.
Above : G.S.A. have a penalty saved, but it has to be retaken and they score the second kick to go 0-2 up.Above : G.S.A. score their third goal from close range.
