Northern League

Division 2

Saturday 25th July 2026

Kick Off 15.00 Actual 14.58

Seaton Carew 0 A.F.C. Newbiggin 3, attendance 135

23’ 0-1

37’ 0-2

90’ + 2, 0-3

@ The Phoenix 2 Retail Arena

Hornby Park

Elizabeth Way

Seaton Carew

TS25 2AZ

£6 Admission

No Programme (Apparently problems with the printing. They were accepting payment/addresses with promise of sending copies on, not that I bothered).

So, with my penultimate ground in the Northern League visited last night at Darlington Town, today would tick off the final one. It was a drive of just under half an hour from my overnight hotel in Darlington to the coastal town of Seaton Carew, just south of Hartlepool. Entering the town from the south, the ground is the first thing you come to on the left hand side as you come along the A178, opposite the golf course, with the seafront a few hundred yards further on.

Seaton Carew were making their debut at Step 6 today, having won the Wearside League last season and the ground is slowly being brought up to the required standard. You head from the car park past the cricket pitch and pavilion (there was a game on today), where a newly laid concrete path takes you a good two hundred yards down to the football ground. The entrance is in the near corner/behind the goal, where the pitch runs lengthways away from you, parallel to the main road. There’s a tea bar adjacent to the pay box and a small area of cover just beyond here. The pitch is fully railed and has hard standing on all four sides, with a pair of dugouts to the left. The changing rooms/toilets and a second tea bar are behind the far goal end. No sign of any seats or floodlights yet, both of which are mandatory at this level and no evidence of any preparation work for them either.

Seaton Carew’s debut was against a team who’d finished twelfth last season, in what was their first season in the league, having been promoted from the Northern Alliance last May. The hosts started brightly, hitting the crossbar two minutes in and could have fallen behind minutes later, when a Newbiggin free kick came back off the crossbar. Midway through the half the visitors did break the deadlock though, when a diagonal ball into the box was touched in at the near post. They doubled their lead eight minutes before halftime, when another diagonal ball into the box, this time from a free kick, was poked in from three yards out, right in the centre of the goal. The hosts rarely threatened and both teams seemed to struggle with the dry/hard pitch and windy conditions. Newbiggin should have scored a third goal just before the hour mark, but having been played through the ball was clipped over the ‘keeper, but hit the top of the crossbar. They did eventually get a third though, two minutes into stoppage time, breaking down the left and squaring a pass which saw the first shot saved by the ‘keeper, but followed in by a supporting player to wrap up a comfortable win.

It was a ninety minute dry back south to my overnight accommodation in South Yorkshire, with the intention of taking in a rugby league match at Sheffield Eagles tomorrow.