Woolston Rovers A v Culcheth Eagles
Wilmslow Albion v Atherton Town
Styal v FC St Helens
The summer means covering various spells of covering on-call for colleagues who waste their lives with trivialities like families and want to go on holiday with them, and I'd somehow found myself with three consecutive weekends of being on-call and therefore restricted to the TransPennine Network.
With the Saturday morning churches league yet to start, the opportunity for early games was either league teams youth alliance, or else the rugby league where first and reserve teams share a pitch and have to stagger kick-offs. It was the latter which was my chosen option and could combine with the different afternoon kick off times in the Manchester and Cheshire leagues, which takes into account the massive difference in when the sun goes down in the thirty miles to Chester.
So off Sowerby, still in bloom.
The squalor of a two car class 150/2 vice the usual three car 158 being taken through to Victoria.
A wander across Manchester took me across to Oxford Road, which is meant to be a wodden version of Sydney Opera House.
Over to the bay platform with my office window looking down in the background.
I was taking one of the half-hourly Northern all-shacks services that head to Liverpool via Warrington; the CLC or Cheshire Lines Comittee in rail speak. These follow out the East Midlands Norwich-Liverpool trains which are fast to Birchwood, Warrington and Widnes; ie the places that anyone is going to. This means the only people on it it are those travelling to Humphrey Park, Urmston, Chassen Road, Irlam, Glazebrook, Padgate, Sankey for Penketh, Hough Green, West Allerton, Mossley Hill. Don't worry if you have never heard of these places is because, with the exception of Irlam, no one has. These trains just carry fresh air, getting in the way of fast trains. We departed Oxford Road with just me on board.
By the time I left the train at Padgate, we'd picked up two people at Urmston and one at Irlam. This area is a collection of Lancastrian villages that are slowly merging together and being consumed by Warrington. So a short walk saw Padgate give way to Woolston, who's location next to the M6 has seen it become a major centre for warehousing, so is inhabited by people in yellow hi-viz cycling down pavements.
My walk took in the sights of the Warrington Cat Protection League, and then a derelict borstal. Now the reason borstals close down is either:-
a) All the youngsters in the area have learned the error of their ways and juvenile crime has been eradicated.
or
b) the borstal wasn't big enough.
I'll let you decided which of these two scenarios exists on the fringes of modern day Merseyside.
Whilst searching for directions to the ground, I looked up the country park it was located in. I was intrigued by the honesty of the highlighted section of its Wikipedia entry.
Although the above states 'it was created to provide a valuable refuge for people and wildlife amongst the rapidly expanding local community' this is complete cack. This park was undoubtedly created to meet the every need of sexual deviants and recreational drug users.
A number of raised covers for the local dogging community.
A selection of secluded spots for the consumption of legal highs and heavily cut MDMA powder.
A calming haven for sales reps to rest in after burying the remains of the latest hitch hiker they have just murdered.
But also, some sports pitches.
The entrance is back on the main road.
A wander through the varying security of the bowls club and social club...
...takes you out onto the sports pitches.
This was the first joint touchline of the day, and as ever, Northerners feel the need to build everything back to back, in this case the dugouts.
These are the rugby pitch of Woolston Rovers, and also the football pitch of Monk Sports.
Monk Sports play in the the Warrington and District League, and have rather a traumatic badge, seemingly depicting someone off to a fancy dress party in a dressing gown and Reebok Classics.
The pitch is railed and has dugouts. I'm convinced it is Greenalls Padgate St Oswalds Reserves who I'd seen play here as the home team so I'm not sure if that was ever the case.
Though the current residents had made their presence marked with none other than embroidered corner flags. Anyway, they weren't playing until the afternoon so I was heading to the adjacent pitch.
Woolston Rovers A 38 v Culcheth Eagles 22, North West Men's League Shield semi-final/Division 4
Woolston were formed in 1959 but didn't actually start playing until 1960. They developed a structure of junior teams and became one of the strongest set ups in the amateur game, so much so that not only were they were one of the clubs that formed the inaugural BARLA conference in the late eighties, they won the first three titles. The club then had an early foray into summer rugby, with a separate side competing in the national league and eventually becoming a separate side altogether, playing as the Warrington Wizards.
This was a local derby as Culcheth is a nearby Lancashire village/suburb of Warrington. The rugby team were founded in 1940 and became part of the Warrington and District Amatuer League when it reformed after the war. They had spells in the Wigan league before the step up to the north west structure.
After initially playing all games away from home, Woolston first played in Victoria Park before moving on to Bennetts Recreation Ground, Padgate. This they developed, building the Jubilee Pavillion. However, being a Sports ground near Merseyside, it is inevitable that it will get burnt down at some point and for Woolston, this happened in 2003, from which the club have been trying to recover since.
As well as the Coronation Street style terraced dugouts, the away team one was opposite, adjacent to these weird contraptions that seem to reside at NWML grounds.
Every time I see one I convince myself they serve a different purpose. At times this has been a TV gantry, climbing frame or chin-up bar. Yesterday's guess was a display cabinet for local examples of scrimshawing.
With the away team and officials in situ, there was no sign of the home team at kick off time. After a few minutes someone went and got them. Exactly how long can a team talk last at step 11 rugby league?
But eventually the game got underway.
It is often talked about the rivalry between Lancashire and Yorkshire. However, since moving up here I've found it not really to exist. There is however, one thing that the two counties cannot agree on; the weather. If it is raining when I leave home in Yorkshire, passing through Summit tunnel and into Lancashire and it will be beating sunshine. Today was the opposite, where it was shorts and t-shirts when I left heavy wool territory, but over in cotton land, it was pissing it down with rain, so I hid under the trees.
Something else to add to the non-league I-spy booklet which I'll definitely get round to this season; vertical joins of pitchside railings, a new favourite of mine.
Anyway, it was Culcheth who took an early lead with a converted try.
However, Woolston soon equalised when their winger was first to this up and under on the last tackle.
Which was then very well kicked.
Rugby teams are much better at having matching kit, but for some reason two of the players were sporting bright pink socks. They did have one of their players collapse and die at a game last month, so I wasn't sure if it was some sort of tribute.
The home side then took the initiative, scoring right under the posts.
The simple kick was then missed.
At which point the coach marched up the pitch to bollock the scoreboard operator as they had already put the points up under the expectation the simple kick would be scored.
Halftime and the opportunity to take in the club house, which appeared to be modelled on the day room of an old peoples home.
Most of the clubs memorabilia was lost when the original clubhouse burned down when two joyriders drove a car into it and then set fire to it. In quite an eventful life, one of the joyriders subsequently became a transvestite who got buggered to death by someone who in the court case, tried to blame his dog for doing it.
Thirty odd Great Britain appearances for Woolston alumni. Mark Forster is probably the best known, with over five hundred appearances for Warrington.
The game continued with Culcheth pulling one back.
But Woolston carried on the scoring.
The game ended 38-22 which being a double header, meant the home side progressed to the shield final.
Doggers always give themselves an escape route for inevitable police raids, and the adjacent woodland car park meant the rugby club was a likely escape route and so a breached fence gave a simple exit for my onward move.
This took me out of the woods, and alongside the railway, with a passing Scarborough-Liverpool service.
Graffiti from the more thought provoking end of the spectrum.
The path took me on to Birchwood station, which opened in the 1980s to serve a business park and shopping centre.
In rolled my Liverpool - Scarborough TransPennine service.
Which was taken through to Piccadilly.
I was heading for Wilmslow but strangely, this was on a Pembroke Dock bound Arriva Trains Wales service. Pre-departure, the obviously Manchester bound guard gave a stern lecture about ticket validity, but then lost all authority by trying to pronounce the South Wales stops. The relatively easy Baglan had become Balgan, Llansamlet was just an undetermined mumble, and by the time it got to Kilgetty, Manorbier and Lamphey, these were just lumped together as 'local stations after Whitland'.
Off at Wilmslow.
Where it was a wander to the front of the station.
And my onward bus move.
Wilmslow town centre seems to exists solely for drivers of white 4x4s to park on pavements. The bus links the town with the airport, because otherwise people would have to use the half hourly train service going to exactly the same places.
Both the bus and the train go via the footballers village of Styal.
I exited on a grass verge on the outskirts.
One thing I didn't expect to find in a prison was a public restaurant, even if it did have the now seemingly mandatory punning name.
It thought I'd avoided being afflicted with a B-road grass verge walk of shame, but the pavement was so overgrown, I took to the grass.
Through the hedge I could players lining up for what I hoped was my next game. I'll be honest, I was hoping for a better shot than this one which could just be a hedge anywhere.
The next turning confirmed my hopes. Despite being in Styal, this is actually a sports club for clubs from Wilmslow, as land prices are so high their, and they affluent residents don't want floodlights anywhere near them.
And here we were.
Wilmslow Albion 2 v Atherton Town 2, Manchester Football League - Division 1
Wilmslow Albion were formed in 1919 in the South East Lancashire league. They moved up to the Mid-Cheshire league in the 1950s but dropped down to the Manchester League under the name Wilmslow Town in the 1960s. However, a breakaway from that set up in the 1970s formed a new Wilmslow Albion, and they rose up the Lancs and Cheshire Amateur League, and by 1988, were back in the Mid Cheshire League. The rise in status of the Manchester League saw this a more convenient competition, and they switched across to this in 1998. Last season saw them finish bottom of the league's premier division.
Atherton is located between Wigan and Manchester and its policy for football is rather than focusing on one reasonable club, is to gather as many oddly named sides as possible at step 10. So there is Atherton Laburnum Rovers (seen in April at St Helens though actually played at Prescot Cables) Atherton Collieries (seen a couple of weeks ago at Conwy) and today was the more conventionally named Atherton Town. This is the town's club I know least about, other than the picture of the club name on the sign above the entrance that adorns every article about them. They joined the Manchester league in the late eighties and have played their since, though joined their hosts in relegation from the premier division last season.
Wilmslow previously played at the Old Carnival Field on Water Lane, which sounds like the sort of place the gang in Scooby Doo would get a tip off to make a midnight visit to. However, in reality it was actually prime real estate int he centre of the town, and in 1986 was built on to become no less than the head office of the Information Commissioner, who sounds like the sort of person who looks forward to organised ground hops. Albion therefore moved out of town to this site at Oakwood Farm.
I'm still very confused about whether it is this ground or the adjacent home of Styal FC I'd visited before, so wasn't wholy sure what facilities were here previous. However, the dugouts and tiny cover are definitely new constructions. It was very good to see that the stand is of a bespoke construction, rather than the easy option of just plonking down an Atcost prefab. Fifty years of continuous panel beating and I can see this little collection staring to look like Winchester Castle.
The other structure was the changing rooms and social club behind the goal.
For some reason a string of multi-national sports brands had decided to concentrate their advertising resource on step 11 football in Greater Manchester.
Although behind the goal was the sort of instructional 'eat chips' and 'smoke tabs' adverts that used to be in Billy the Fish and Dave Squires is now doing excellent work with. Further research revealed that Bank is actually a self-proclaimed 'fashion outlet' though the fact that they have a branch in Huddersfield would make me question their pretensions.
The game started. The ball got kicked high.
The fat full back on the right tried a long range shot.
Here is the keeper retrieving it from the corner flag.
My memory of a previous visit to a game in the village was that the pitch was three sided as it was shared with the cricket club and sure enough, concurrent shrieks from the sidelines revealed a game in progress. Although somehow a row of mature saplings had grown up in the intervening years. Probably GM or something like that.
Wilmslow attacked but didn't score.
I had a discussion with the Atherton full back about tactics after he got a second chance after his first corner was sliced out by a defender.
- Me; "Not another short one mate, they're wank".
- Him; "These cunts couldn't score wherever I put them"
He promptly put one in that didn't bounce until it landed beyond the far side of the penalty area, which I thought was an extreme way of him proving his point.
However, a fortunate ricochet saw the ball fall for an Atherton forward and he tucked away the chance.
Which alerted me to the presence of an @keepers_towel.
A wander around the pitch saw one corner out of bounds to spectators.
Instead, to carry on round, it was through a hedge.
Down the main road.
And back over a style into the ground. This obstacle course is an absolutely brilliant innovation and one I'd incorporate in my dream non-league ground. The only issue is that the club haven't made enough of the Styal/style opportunity.
It was now half time so I had a look around the rest of the site, which consisted randomly of a children's merry go round in an otherwise deserted car park.
A hockey pitch.
Halle-fucking-lujah. At last someone making use of the gift of homonyms.
Further around and the cricket was in sight, though with some unusual team buses.
Obviously being spoilt by the wealth of spectacular settings and facilities of cricket clubs in the Yorkshire Dales that surround my home, so I don't take that much interest in local clubs elsewhere unless they're is something special. In this case, there wasn't much, so after watching a couple of overs, I continued on my ways.
Walking around the boundary, and despite it being August, there had been quite a bit of rain, the ground was waterlogged.
From previous experience, the Manchester League is one of the worst for short to no notice postponements for the most tenuous of reasons, so when choosing this game, I was glad to see that the home side shared my ethos after some recent cancellations of friendlies with Stockport Georgians.
Heading back to the football ground across what I thought was grass cuttings, but actually turned out to be a huge pile of manure.
Once I'd scaled that I steadied myself across some barbed wire, only to instantly find I was holding onto an electric fence. So the neighbouring prison I could have walked right into and had a meal, yet here I was just transferring between a cricket and football pitch, and the lower half of one trouser leg was drenched in horse shit, and I was still twitching from being fried with low ampage electricity. May's Britiain.
There was some irony as the groundsman's clutter consisted mostly of the walls of a compound which had been constructed to contain the groundsman's clutter.
And the long since abandoned remains of a raised flower bed.
The pitch itself seemed to be suffering from the rain which had been seen earlier.
However, the Groundsman was primed for action with his mower lined up like calendar shot.
Seemingly, one of the home team had his dog tied up by the bench, sporadically running over to give him a pat.
I was shocked to see one well behaved @nonleague_dog at a game, so to find two was astonishing. Maybe there is such a thing as a considerate dog owner.
The home side had equalised from a corner just before half time.
I went for some refreshments and got a bucket of coffee for a very reasonable pound, and watched much of the second half from the patio area behind the goal, being given a very detailed run down of the remaining races of the British superbikes season, by someone who's knowledge of Ducattis was much greater than their ability to determine whether someone is interested in what they are saying.
I was getting some weird looks for taking photos, but this bloke was also filming the whole game.
The home side took the lead midway through the first half.
However, with the last kick of the game, Atherton equalised with this strike.
There was just enough time to kick off before the game ended 2-2.
Moving on to my next game and I decided that I'd do the most middle-class Tory activity imaginable in the most middle-class Tory area imaginable; so here is a visit to a National Trust property in Mid-Cheshire.
Except the distant stench of travel sweets and sound of tutting put me off, so I took a short cut through the village, which wasn't the average neighbourhood for a Manchester League club. Certainly no to be confused with the walk to Cheetham Hill.
At the end of the stone flagstone drive could be heard the familiar shouts of a football game about to start.
Across the road and the ground was located.
Styal 2 v FC St Helens 0, Hallmark Security Cheshire Football League - Division 1
FC are the reserve team of North West Counties side St Helens Town. I've covered the main team previously, but the reserves switched over from the Liverpool County league five years ago. The Cheshire league then created a seperate reserve division, prohibiting second teams from the main divisions, thus reserve teams of sides in other competitions have to show a degree of autonomy. The usual thing is to just stick 'FC' or the club nickname somewhere in the title and to claim it is a stand alone club. As FC St Helens they have had successive promotions from the West Cheshire League, across to the Cheshire league, up from division two to division one where they are now.
Styal orginally used the Lower Village Hall as changing facilities, but in the 1950s, they joined forces with the cricket club to build a joint ground. There are lots of joint football/cricket sites, but undoubtedly this is the one with the closest pitches that don't actually overlap. The presence of the cricket pitch also confirmed it is the ground in Styal I had previously visited.
The football pitch is fully railed, and has had a lot of money spent on the previously poor drainage which seems to plague the Manchester and Cheshire leagues.
On my previous visit, there were dugouts and a lean-to shelter on the clubhouse side.
The cover has been replaced by a more purpose made stand.
The dugouts have been relocated to the far touchline.
It was a fairly active start to the game, with the home side having most of the play.
There was also a cricket game competing for attention.
The second XI were in action, a local derby versus Wilmslow, in the labyrinth of divisions that make up the Cheshire cricket league. This is Division C North East, which sits below the five normal divisions, and then division A, and then the two B divisions, and then alongside three C divisions. Anyway, the home side were all out for 83.
This view shows how close the two pitches are, along with the rather innovative way of incorporating trees into the boundary. The benches face the cricket pitch but were used by people watching the football, who had to either sit side saddle, or else hang over the back of the seat like a step 11 Christine Keeler.
The dual use of the ground brought an outstanding array of groundsman's machinery.
None more so than this evil looking item of medieval torture, menacingly patrolling the far goal line.
I thought the most emotionally challenging piece of debris might be the child's sandpit that had exited someones garden and been blown into the ground.
But then I found this, and felt more genuine sadness than for any world tradegy of my life time. This is the visible result of non-league relegation, as all the hand painted inserts for the 'next game' signage, had been unceremoniously dumped on the firewood stack, surplus to needs as they listed the clubs in the premier division. It does somewhat reflect the clubs hopes for the forthcoming season that they don' think they will be required any time soon. I liberated the Linotype Cheadle Heath Nomads sign, as the noxious smoke that would have been emitted from burning that many letters could have potentially shut the adjacent airport.
Perhaps in prepeartion for the buring of the Greenalls Padgate St Oswalds sign that I'd left, there were huge fire assembly point notices all across the ground. How much imminent fire related danger there were to the seventeen attendees on this open field I don't know. Political correctness gone mad.
I suppose I'd better show some of the game. Here's a bloke who was both bald and ginger, slicing a cross.
The rain started again and everyone retreated to the cover of the clubhouse, the tree, or the cover itself.
I'm not sure if it is a new season directive, but there was a full on water break the same as there had been in Marseille last week.
The home side then took the league. I don't think skinny jeans and hooded tops are official linesman wear for the new season.
St Helens did have a few chances.
A group of kids turned up, all in those school leaver hooded tops that they seem to wear these days. I couldn't give two fucks about 95% of the people who I went to school with, and the other 5% couldn't give a fuck about me, so I can't get my head around why having their names plastered on your back is so popular. I also don't understand Minecraft or vaping; who'd have thought a childless 41 year old would be so out of touch with the yoof.
It was the home side who added a second.
And so the game ended 2-0, with the players trudging off.
Though having to hurdle the perimeter railaings on their journey back to the dressing rooms.
I had a less obstacle ridden walk back to the station.
For a relatively populated area, the station only has a handful of trains a day, though the one back into Manchester was conveniently timed for the end of the game.
Despite only averaging ten passengers a day, the station is in good order, including some retro-British Railways signage, though for some reason in Western Region brown.
My unit rolled in ten down.
However, a generous seventeen minute allowance for the reversal at the Airport gave ample time to get back on time but then be delayed by a Cross Country service into Piccadilly.
A walk across to Victoria mas mistakenly made through the back streets of the Northern quarter, which were full of the sorts of people who spend the afternoon drinking in the Northern quarter. Walking past one establishment, I overheard the phases 'fail' and 'epic' being used in all seriousness by two separate parties. Any time spent with these people must be as enjoyable as waking up in the middle of an operation. At Victoria, the fast Leeds service was twenty late, and left right infront of my semi-fast service, which as it only stops additionally at Mytholroyd and Sowerby, was deserted whilst the late one went out full and standing.
Annoyingly, this was the same 150/2 vice 158 diagram that I'd had earlier, but as there were only ten of us on it, I could live with the squalor for the leap back to Sowerby.
So, hopefully an omen for the season, as the huge risk of planning a day involving the two most postponed leagues in football, actually produces two games, and adding in the earlier rugby, a very pleasant day in the locality.
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