Puppetry of the Penistone

Huddersfield Town v Hull City , Under 18 Professional Development League.

St Josephs v Underbank Rangers, Pennine Rugby League - Championship.

Penistone Church v Shirebrook Town, Northern Counties Eastern League - Division 1.

For today I had tickets for the England V Scotland rugby league at Coventry, preceded by Holy Trinity Heath Town v Saint Michael in the West Midlands Christian league and Old Wulfrunians v Hereford Lads Club in the West Mids Regional league.  Being off the drink, means I don't have numerous night time piss breaks to remember I hadn't set my alarm, so instead I was woken by someone banging on the window of my second floor bedroom.  This turned out to be someone affixing Christmas lights to the exterior wall, as I live on the high street.  My delayed impromptu awakening meant I'd missed my intended train by three hours, so instead a more local sojourn was concocted.

My intended train was the 0920 to Brighouse, for a connection to Huddersfield, but this had been caped.  So instead it was to the market place, for a bus into Halifax, amidst the newly installed Christmas lighting.

I'd been lured by the bright sunshine, into thinking it was a nice warm day, and was travelling without coat, hat or gloves, which I instantly regretted as we crested Kings Cross hill, topped by the Wainhouse tower.

A swift change in Halifax took me onto a 503 to Huddersfield.  Football grounds visible from buses - the Shay.

This was diverted from the normal Huddersfield Road route, and instead, there was synchronised ducking by everyone on the top deck as the driver had no qualms in taking this bridge under the railway at Greetland, at a not inconsiderable speed.

Football grounds visible from buses - the Stainland Road home of Halifax Irish.

Instead of the fairly leisurely route the railway takes round the hills, the bus rejoined the Calderdale Way, which goes up to Ainley Top, giving views right down the Calder valley towards Elland and Halifax.

I parted with my ride on the outskirts of Huddersfield.

Starting off on the glories of the Huddersfield canal.

Then down the Leeds Road, past Huddersfield’s ground.  Does anyone ever keep up with what it is called each week?

This is my new pinnacle of optimism.  An ice cream parlour, with no parking or seating, so reliant purely on passing pedestrian trade.  In Huddersfield.  In November.

Eventually I found my intended destination.

This is Huddersfield Towns training complex.  Strangely, stewarding the entrance was the club mascot.

The academy pitches are out the back of the complex, down Huddersfield canal.

Huddersfield Town 6 v Hull City 0, Under 18 Professional Development League.

However, as I got on the towpath, I spied people ambling away from the pitch, the game obviously having finished.

This then became an influx of players and spectators heading down the towpath, one of professional footballs more surreal scenes.

The train delays, allied to a 1000 kick off against the stated 1030, meant I'd missed the game, it finishing 6-0 to the home side.  To counter the "young players don't know they're born" argument of retired players, the reward for the homes side victory, was to dis-assemble the ground, with the goals, dugouts and TV stand, all having to be put away in a secure cage.

I left the complex via the canal, with the groundsmen for some reason mowing a 3G pitch, with the McJohnpharm in the distance.

This took me down a more scenic stretch of the canal than I had been on earlier.

Though there were regular piles of dubious powder along the tow path?

Heading off the canal, the powder was explained as either being some sort of treasure hunt, or the Medellin cartel have relocated to Kirklees.  Either or.

This took me through the Fartown area of Huddersfield, along the old Newton goods railway, which was the LMS branch into the town.

I spent some time trying to date this graffiti.  When would have been the last time someone called Colin would have been of an age that they went around daubing walls with vague messages about their promiscuity?  In fact, has anyone called Colin ever had sex?  Maybe Colin Moynihan, but even then, according to early 1990s red top scandal, it was more about being slapped about by high end prostitutes.

I digress.  With 45 minutes before my next game, and it being absolutely fucking freezing, I headed for a local hostelry.  What I really wanted was a coffee, but my 'hot drinks in pubs is the sign of absolute cuntdom' belief is one that will hold until I am stone cold dead, so it was a pint of Diet Coke.  It was a fairly reasonable pub, in a fairly reasonable area.  Therefore I was surprised that the bin was full of police tape, and that the land lady was giving full details of the previous night’s stabbings, which had happened in two unconnected incidents.

I got out while I could, and headed up to here, Fartown recreation ground.

The first part of the grounds is the cricket pitch.  This was formerly a county standard ground, Yorkshire playing almost eighty county championship games here.  However, the last was in 1955, when they switched to playing one day games here instead, but that too ended in 1982.  It even staged a single international fixture, an ashes game in 1884.

There were signs of the grounds former glory all around.  The terracing amidst the undergrowth.

The mock-Tudor pavilion, now housing the local Muslim association.

Although a cricket strip was in situ, the pitch looks to have been taken over by rugby.

From the main banking, it was a fine view over the Castle Hill, and it must have been a lovely spot on a 1920s summers day.  Except being the 1920s the air would have been acrid with mill smoke.  And the spectators probably had typhoid or mustard gas poisoning.  Anyway, this is what Chester-Le-Street will look like in sixty years.

On the next tier was the rugby ground.

St Josephs 26 v Underbank Rangers 24, Rugby League Pennine Championship.

St Josephs were formed in 1953 by Huddersfield player Billy Gill.  When he retired from playing, he took on the coaching role and the club moved on from their initial Youth status, to fielding men's teams.  By the 1970s, they had risen to become one of the main amateur teams in Yorkshire, culminating in a county cup win in 1973.  However, since then, the club has been in decline, their highest profile being in this Pennine league, which is the highest profile winter competition in Rugby League.

Underbank Rangers I've covered previously.  They ended the summer season seventh in Conference 1, just outside the play offs.

Fartown was formerly the home of Huddersfield RLFC, who had a brief stint as the Barracudas and are now the Giants.  Amidst a woefull financial position, They moved out in 1992, initially to Leeds Road, then to the then McAlpine.  It was at this stage that St Josephs moved in.

The main stand had already been shut due to storm damage.   It has been replaced by portakabins and shipping containers.

This terracing has been left to the wilds.

Whilst the covered terrace behind the goal has also gone.

The scars of the original dug outs with their less permanent replacements behind.

The original ornate pitch surround remained, though these days holding back the undergrowth.

Though not necessarily the spectators, this one patrolling the touchline with a huge dog and a can of Strongbow.

In a fairly even game, it was Underbank who took the lead.

However, St Josephs fought back to take the lead going into half time.

A quick exploration of the former view from the side terrace.

In the second half it was Underbank who retook the lead.

Only for St Josephs to snatch the victory near the end. Underbank got a couple of points back but it ended 26-24 and a thoroughly enjoyable game.

Down the lane the ground is located on, and bearing in mind the previous evenings activity, it wasn’t at all suspicious to see two unmarked vans parked back to back with the rear doors open, whilst blokes in forensic suits moved stuff from one van to another.

Walking back into town, against the hoards who were heading to the McGalsmiths for Towns 1-1 draw with Brum.

I headed back to the station, with the George Hotel, the birthplace of rugby league, on the right.

I headed past the once decent Head of Steam, and on to a Sheffield via Barnsley service.

Departing Huddersfield, we passed over Lockwood viaduct, with Huddersfield Rugby Union club down below, for those that like to see the ball actively in play for ten minutes of each game.

Football grounds just about visible from the railway in Autumn - Berry Brow FC.

The privately preserved station at Brock Holes.

The Kirklees steam railway, at the former Shelley junction.  This was one of the last lines in the country to shut, the branch to Clayton West closing in 1983.

On the horizon was the Emley TV mast, the tallest freestanding structure in the U.K.  Fuck you Shard!  And double fuck you Skelton Transmitting Station, you guy rope needing wanker.

Into Penistone.

The station used to be the junction with the Woodhead route over the Pennines.  This was the Great Central route from Sheffield to Manchester, and was electrified in the 1950s.  However, it's awkward connections at each end meant passenger services were withdrawn in 1970, and it became a freight line, primarily for Yorks and Notts coal to be conveyed to Lancashire power stations.  However, the non standard electric equipment, and the demise of much of the coal traffic, meant the route shut in the early 1980s.  The long since abandoned Woodhead platforms seemed to be going through some sort of reclaim from nature.

Penistone, means 'phallus colour' in Latin.  It is a historic market town, its location high on the Black Peak makes it ideal for sheep farming, including its trademark Whitefaced Woodland.  Its location also makes it second the coldest place on earth, behind only the away end at Turf Moor.  Notable products are leg-breaking uber cunt Chris Morgan, and 'in the current market, even Martin Hicks would have been worth £30 million' comparator, John Stones.  Rolo Tomassi were from here.  They were one of those bands that everyone had the t-shirt, but couldn't name more than three songs.  Like Tim Lovejoy and the Ramones.  The football ground was in a housing estate adjacent to the station.  The main stand paint scheme was obviously devised by the local goths.  Notice the brutal scaffold pole five aside goals in the foreground.

So here we are.

The memorial ground went for quantity over visibility in the entrance signage display. 

My favourite was this memorial rock.  Whilst it was undefinable an impressive set of stone, rather than engrave it, instead an attempt at the club badge had been drawn in permanent marker. Non-league at its best.

Penistone Church 2 v Shirebrook Town 1, Northern Counties Eastern League - Division 1.

Penistone Church FC were founded in 1906, after a merger of teams, including the wonderfully named Penistone Choirboys, who were the pre-medative fans of the thrash metal group.  The club then spent the next hundred odd years pissing about the Sheffield/Pennine/Hackard/Hallam leagues, before some upper end finnishes in the early 2010s saw them progress to the Northern Counties East League, this being their third season in division 1.

Shirebrook is located just north of Mansfield and its history is steeped in the local coalfields.  During the miners dispute, it was viciously split between the striking Yorkshire faction, and the Notts scabs, earning the town the 'Belfast of England' nickname.  Move on thirty years, and with the mines closed, the town is now home to the controversial Sports Direct distribution centre, which has attracted a considerable migrant workforce, and the town now calls itself 'little Poland', with Mr Ashley's warehouse known as 'the gulag'.

Shirebrook started life in 1985, originally with a 'Colliery' suffix, but this was changed to 'Town' when the mine closed in 1993.  They played in the Central Midlands League, which has the only division to be named after both Diana Ross and a Communist Dictator.  Shirebrook won the aforementioned Supreme Division in 2002, and with it came promotion to the NCEL.  They immediately got promoted to the premier division, but relegation soon followed and they have languished in division one ever since.  They have an awesome badge, depicting a multi-racial masonic handshake of dismembered limbs, atop the symbolic tools of a red neck murderer.

Due to Penistone’s rise to senior status being relatively recent, there is pretty much diddly jack about the Memorial Ground in any of the ground guides, such as Tyke Travels or the Mike Floate series. 

The memorial ground looks new, but it was good to see they had swerved the usual Atcost offering, for a very solid construction, probably required for the howling wind in its exposed location, its colour scheme was much cheerier than the austere exterior wall.

My phone was being a complete dick in the first half and kept rebooting so there are no photos. 

Half time and it being so cold, everyone decamped to the club house, and I got my phone back up and running.  A nice touch was a printer churning out team sheets which were issued gratis.

Some great deals on size 5½ footwear.

All too soon the teams re-entered the fray through the beer garden.

The first game since the clocks went back, and Dramatic dusk skies and bespoke fluorescent corner flags.

Penistone took the lead with a horrendously soft goal, as a lumbering centre half tapped in from a corner.

With the sun setting over the eponymous church, Penistone added a second later in the half.  Shirebrook did get one back right at the end, but the game ended 2-1.

I headed back to the station.

My train arrived out of the gloom, across the substantial Penistone viaduct.

We had been spoiled with a rare three coach Pacer, the centre coach being unique to West Yorkshire.

I headed down the hill, across a suspiciously empty M1.

Into Barnsley, for a Leeds bound 158.

This was taken to a desolate Wakefield Kirkgate.

With an interlude to watch fireworks over neighbouring industrial units.  Fireworks are much like Premier League football in that they are horrendously expensive for a few seconds of entertainment, the sensible people just watch it for free, and ultimately they just line the pocket of shadowy Far Eastern businessmen.

Onward move was on a Grand Central 180.

This took me to the splendour of Halifax.

Fireworks over the Quality Street factory.

And back into Sowerby Bridge in time for the second half of England sleep walking to a victory over Scotland in the Four Nations.

Former Glories Times