Who Kicked Cock Robin
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Not I said the owl
Gazing down sleepy eyed
I’m not that kind of fowl
And we’re on the same side
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Not I said the bee
Buzzing back to his hive
Cock Robin kicked me
And then took a dive.
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Not I said the grub
My excuse is complete
I was only a sub
And – I ain’t got no feet.
(by Allan Ahlberg 1937 – )
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Friday 2nd February 2018
Chromasport & Trophies United Counties League
Division 1
Burton Park Wanderers 1
Mark Forbes 35,
Thrapston Town 2
Danny Wells,
Luke Cummins 55,
Referee:- Jakob Gierczyk. Attendance:- 60
Admission :- £5.00. Programme:- £1.00
Burton PW now share their ground with Kettering Town and it is the senior club who seem to hold sway. It is not a pretty venue and I doubt that it is good enough for The Vanarama Nationwide. Tonight, it was very cold and a largely insipid match was won by the visitors because they wanted it more! Good to see Brian Buck and Terry there, I went with son Mike and grandson Freddie.
The club house was a tiny shack set in one corner of the ground where hot drinks (and bottled beer) could be had. The original club house is just outside the ground, but that has been taken over by the tenants, Kettering Town who are better able to pay the substantially increased rent! Park Wanderers have always struggled and one wonders for how much longer they can hold out!
Saturday 3rd February 2018
West Midlands (Regional) League Premier Division
Hereford Lads Club 3
Adam Hockey 19,
Rory Worthing 69,
Kiea Cowley 79
Dudley Town 1
Jordan Davies 21,
Referee:- Joshua Brockland Attendance:- 46
Admission:- OMGDS £3.00 (£5) Programme:- £1.00
Not an easy ground to find despite it being right next to Westfields FC and within sight of the floodlights at Edgar Street. It was a miserable day and the precipitation barely relented. The ground was sparse – but bright and cheerful – with only one stand with seating for perhaps fifty spectators and two dug-out type shelters for standing out of the rain! Despite being in a lowly 12th place, the hosts were some twenty-three points better off that Dudley Town who occupied last but one place in the division. The Lads Club won a fairly innocuous encounter. With the sides level at 1-1 at half-time, two second half goals and a sending off for the visitors, settled the match for The Lads Club! Widemarsh Common is also the county ground for The Herefordshire FA.
One of the temporary covered standing areas at a corner of the ground.
Monday 5th February 2018
Bigfreebet.com Southern League Cup Quarter-final
Hitchin Town 2
Brett Donnelly 14,
Connor Vincent 89,
Kempston Rovers 0
Referee:- A. Rayment Attendance:- 105
Admission:- OMGDS £6.00 (£10) Programme:- £1.00
Another regulation Monday night visit to Top Field in Hitchin. This was my thirty-eighth visit since 1979 and not all of them were on Monday evenings! Having had several crowds recently (though not the results to go with them) of four and five hundred, the attendance for tonight’s league cup match was pitifully thin! Kempston Rovers, who are a division below Hitchin, provided stern resistance and, after going behind before the break, produced several good chances to equalise in the second half. None of them materialised and in the 89th minute, the hosts scored a second and stole the match and the tie to move into the semi-finals!
Tuesday 6th February 2018
Chromasport & Trophies United Counties League
Premier division
Oadby Town 1
Amiyah King 70,
Kirby Muxloe 1
Aaron Black 81,
Referee:- Shaun Gregory Attendance:- 61
Admission:- OMGDS £3.00 (£6) Programme:- £1.00
With a light dusting of snow falling throughout and matches called off to the weather elsewhere in the local vicinity, it was good to get this match in, despite the cold! Sadly, it was not a good advert for UCL football. In a match littered with unenforced errors, mid-table Kirby Muxloe looked to be going down to bottom placed Oadby, until an 81st minute equaliser saved their blushes, although a draw was probably a fair result!
Friday 9th February 2018
Welsh Premier League
Aberystwyth Town 3
John Owen 5,
Declan walker 27 (pen)
Craig Hobson 90+2
Llandudno Town 1
Sam Hart missed penalty 22,
Mark Williams 49,
Referee:- Bryn Markham-Jones Attendance:- 286
Admission:- £7.00. Programme:- £2.00
This was a battle in the lower half of the Welsh Premier League when, in the past, Llandudno had held sway. The ground reputedly holds 3,000 and tonight’s attendance, gleaned from officials, seemed much smaller than the number of people actually in the ground – counted by Andy English and myself!! The hosts were 1-0 ahead when a penalty was awarded against them. The spot kick was badly missed and minutes later a converted penalty at the opposite end doubled the hosts advantage. Right at the start of the second period, the visitors reduced the arrears, but a goal in added time gave the hosts a worthy advantage and they took the game and the points!
Saturday 24th February 2018
Sky-Bet EFL Championship
Preston North End 0
Ipswich Town 1
Mustapha Carayol 21,
Referee:- S. Duncan Attendance:- 11,511
Admission:- OMGDS£16.00 (£24) Programme:- £3.00
This was my first game for two weeks! I’ve had a pretty rotten chest infection, but I took the opportunity of my sister’s 65th birthday celebrations, to nip out with my grandson, Freddie, for his first visit to Deepdale. It was a bitterly cold day, but I was pleasantly surprised on several counts. Firstly, my grandson’s ticket cost only £1.00, secondly, they actually had butter potato pies available in the snack bars and thirdly, the car park (a small Primary School playground close by the stadium) cost only £3.00 compared with the £10 regularly charged elsewhere!
Deepdale has changed considerably since my first visit there on 5th January 1963 for an FA Cup 3rd Round tie against Sunderland (which Sunderland won 4-1). It is no longer the Victorian relic that it once was, but is now a fully enclosed, fully seated stadium with quite spectacular floodlights.
Today’s match was not a thriller by any stretch of the imagination! Preston North End were awful. They have enjoyed a pretty successful season, but today, they were no match for a competent, well drilled opposition who snatched a goal in the first half and clung to it tenaciously. Preston were so poor that their manager made TWO first half substitutions!
Young Freddie braves the cold conditions!
Monday 26th February 2018
Premier League 2 Cup – Group Stage
Leicester City U-23 2
Khanya Leshabela 86,
Hamza Choudhury 89 (pen),
Everton U-23 1
Alex Denny 71,
Referee:- Daniel Middleton Attendance:- 286
Admission:- OMGDS £1.00 (£3) Free Teamsheet
It was a very cold evening at Holmes Park and flurries of snow drifted across the pitch and right into our faces. The match wasn’t particularly brilliant, either. I counted only one shot on target in the first half and, as Graeme remarked, “my grandmother could have saved that”. The second half was a little better, but all the action was crowded into the final twenty minutes. Everton scored first and an equaliser from the hosts seemed to have settled the match as a draw until a handball in the last minute swung the game Leicester’s way – perhaps a little fortuitously. A draw would have been a fairer result!
Seven matches in February is a wretched haul, but I have to admit that for most of the month I had a pretty rotten chest infection. In fact, I went fifteen days (from 9th – 24th) without seeing a match at all! Then the “Beast from The East” arrived and the last two days of the month were wiped out by snow! Let’s hope that next month brings better fortune!
Matches:-
This month:- Matches:- 7 New Grounds:- 2
This season:- Matches:- 160 New Grounds:- 76
TOTAL:- Matches:- 3,857 New Grounds:- 1,416
