Knaresborough Town v Campion
A weekend of on-call and a major signalling re-control of Huddersfield panel meant a complete block of the core Trans Pennine route, so a definite requirement for me to stay local in case anything goes awry. So a day out in West Yorkshire, though predictably this coincided with heavy rainfall and freezing temperatures, so perfect conditions for a lot of late notice postponements.
The day started off from Sowerby, heading into Leeds via the only route to Manchester that was open. This time Northern had risen to the challenge and had four car trains on the Calder Valley.
My original intention had been to get on a Preston-York service to Garforth for the bus to Great Preston for a morning game in the Yorkshire Christian league. However, the service over from Preston had managed to run someone over at Huncoat Crossing so hadn't made it past Burnley. I'd taken a later train which wouldn't have made my bus connection so instead I alighted at Bramley, with an alternate plan for some churches league action.
This is my move when I go to Headingley for rugby or cricket, as it saves going into Leeds and then back out, this being a walk that cuts off the corner. It takes you through the streets of North West Leeds.
Through a cemetery.
Before dropping down into the Aire valley, with the cityscape of Leeds on the horizon.
Passing the rickety newsagents with the advert for seamless gutters. Does anyone worry that their gutters have seams?
But instead of heading across the river and up to Headingley, it was off to find the 'Church at Amen Corner', or more importantly, their football team.
Who apparently play at the intriguingly named West Leeds Activity Centre.
This turned out to be a load of rope swings for kids.
But at the back of the complex is the football pitch, which was distinctly unoccupied. Bugger. On further investigation I found at the hometeam, Armley CC, instead of standing for community church like every over cc does, instead was short for Conservative Club. I have no idea why they play in a churches league. Strong and steady.
So it was back out into the suburbs and the opportunity to question an estate agent's perception of what a 'Modern Industrial Unit' might look like.
And to wonder what 'Macro Cuisine' is. Makes seamless guttering seam a relatively simple concept.
I rejoined my normal cricket attending route, which lead me to Headingley station.
But instead of the spartan Leeds bound platform, this was my first venture onto the extravagant down platform.
Venturing out to await my train and in the distance there were signs of times gone by.
Namely a loco stop marker for when there used to be a duff and a rake of Mk1s on rugby specials heading from far flung parts of Lancashire and Humberside.
Instead, my bird to freedom was an altogether more mundane Northern class 155.
The route from Leeds to Harrogate is not the original main line, which shut in the 1960s. The current one originally went to Knaresborough, and had a very awkward connection to join the main line to get to Harrogate. The map below shows the route that is still open in yellow, and how it is about four other routes connected together, giving the most circuitousness route possible.
So on departing Pannal, the very impressive Crimple viaduct is spotted perpendicular to the train, crossing the valley.
At which point a wheel screeching 90 degree bend is negotiated.
And then across the snow covered Crimple valley. For those interested, this hosts a large ICI Fibres works at Hornbeam Park. There, they developed a revolutionary new clothing textile, which they named after the locality, and so Crimplene was born, and mod culture was never the same again.
Into Harrogate and the station maintenance person was heading up the stairs with a bucket of grit. Not very clear in the picture is the large Carillion logo on his back, as that is who Northern sub contract the work out to. Except all their petrol cards have been stopped for the company vans, so god knows what is powering the vehicles now.
Knaresborough took me a bit by surprise so here is a rushed shot of the stone turreted viaduct through a dirty window, looking down to the River Nidd.
The train terminated here.
It is a very twee station, with fine stone buildings...
...and also accomodation for the insect fraternity. Everyone else will be thinking, 'ah, that's nice'. Those that have ever managed a station will just be thinking 'TRANSEC nightmare'.
The station is still controlled by semaphore signals, from the stone cabin built on the end of the house in the centre of the photo. The unit has to shunt between platforms to head back to Leeds, I take it because there are no facing point locks on the turnout so they can't be used by a train in passenger service?
Knaresborough was an ideal site for an early settlement as it was on the river Nidd, but its high location made it an excellent defence fortification. A castle was built as well as the town becoming an important market. Various battles have seen the castle be gradually destroyed with most of the stone being plundered to construct the town centre dwellings. I went into the centre where town crier was trying to drum up business for the pantomime that was still being performed by the local am-dram society until the end of the month.
I went to Wetherspoons to get a black coffee, only to find myself embroiled in the great 2018 haggis award scandal.
So instead I went to the Market Tavern for a diet coke. What I wasn't expecting was to hear a Nick Berry album being played in full. And not the Heartbeat covers album he did. No, this is the one of his own stuff he released whilst in Eastenders. Here is a video of the tale end of 'Every Loser Wins', which also has two old blokes in very strong local dialect bemoaning something about minimum wage at a conference centre in Harrogate.
Wandering on and passing the bus station with a rival town trying to establish a very niche transport claim.
So on to my third attempt at getting a game in. It was a wander away from the centre, down to the river.
Over the river on a quaint stone bridge.
I knew the ground was the outskirts of town, but didn't realise quite how far, as twenty minutes later I was at the very fringes of habitation.
However, I was saved from any further 'B-Road grass verge walk of shame' action when I came upon the required Thistle Hill Park.
Except the rolling green gardens actually belonged to Thistle Hill Care Home, not a football club.
So it was back to the main road where I was eventually successful. I have another blurred shot which includes, in the pen on the right, a cow humping the arse off another one, like they normally only do behind oblivious news reporters on clips from It Will Be Alright on the Night. PM me if you want a copy.
This has to be one of the most obscure entrances to a ground. The club website did say that the gate must be kept closed.
However, arriving at the ground, and yet again, completely deserted. This was meant to be a 1330 kick off in the Harrogate and District Cup, but it was apparent that there would be no such game.
Knaresborough Celtic are a large boys club who have recently added open age sides to their set up. In the last few years they have moved to this rather obscure location, a hillside in the middle of a farm, half a mile outside the town limits. It has a number of pitches and this very well protected changing room complex.
Bowled out again. This time I wasn't taking any chances and thankfully the main game was confirmed as on.
So, back into town and a walk down the river.
Then up the cliff sides.
Where the entrance road to the club suggested the ground had acquired a rubbish name, but it was actually giving directions to an industrial estate. And no, I didn't know Co-Op had petrol stations either. Seamless Guttering, Macro Cuisine, Crimplene and now UK co-operative fuel suppliers; we are learning today.
Approach any non-league ground and there is a fifty percent chance that you will encounter a pensioner struggling to complete a fifty point turn in a narrow lane as they haven't believed that the car park full signs are telling the truth, so have gone and chanced it, only to find that it is indeed the case and they don't trust themselves to reverse down the lane. I'm quite sure the manoeuvre is responsible for fifty percent of replacement clutches sold in the UK.
Knaresborough Town 0 v Campion 0, Toolstation Northern Counties East League - Division 1
(The programme editor appears to have my photo cropping skills with a quarter of one player, another player sticking his arse in the air, and the goalkeeper largely obscuring himself. I would add that the programme was a very comprehensive read, just a bit of an odd cover.)
Knaresborough were formed in 1902, initially playing in the York League where threee successive league titles saw them step up to become a southernly outpost of the Northern League for a season, before becoming founder members of the Yorkshire Combination. Post WW1 saw a return to the York league where they stayed until 1956 when they joined the West Yorkshire League, which started a long period of swapping between that competition and the Harrogate & District League. However, decent new millennium finishes in the higher level league meant in 2012 the club were promoted to Division One of the Northern Counties East League.
Campion formed formed in 1963 in Bradford from a youth club named after Edmund Campion, a catholic priest who was hung for treason. By 1975 the players had reached senior age and the club switched over to firstly the Bradford Sunday League, and then the Red Triangle League, which despite sounding like a pan European communist terrorist co-operative movement, was actually for Yorkshire youth hostels. In 1981 it was further progress as Campion moved up to the West Riding County Amateur League. There they stayed for the next 35 years, until they moved up to the Northern Counties East league last season.
There isn't too much info about Knaresborough's grounds, though they have been playing at Manse Lane for as long as I can remember. It was previously just a pitch with post and rail surround, and a wooden hut serving as changing rooms and social club. It was all upgraded from 2010, with a new brick building, a turnstile block, floodlights, hard standing and a couple of covers.
Unfortunately the new stands are pre-fabs, a seated one on the far touch line, right behind a floodlight pylon.
And a standing cover right in the corner of the near goaline, adjacent to the club house.
With the suppliers taunting us with their presence. You can rename yourselves from Atcost, split out from the agricultural barn part of the business, but don't think we don't know who you are.
The far end was out of bounds, the hard standing not yet having made it round there.
A somewhat unique feature was on the far touchline, with there being a secondary woodern rail a couple of feet distant from the original railings.
Pre-match and the players were being kept off the pitch. It looked in decent enough condition, which is credit to the club as most of the other local games were called off, including conference level matches at Halifax, Guiseley and Bradford Park Avenue.
The teams banished to the expanse behind the far touchline.
The teams entered the fray.
Did their hand shakes.
The sign of a well run and entusiastic club; the hand written team board. Daniel seems to be the new Josh. The Campion substitutes first names sound like the options you would give to a focus group when choosing a name for a B&M Bargains own brand aftershave. The raffle prizes have a suspicion of being what was leftover from Christmas.
The game got underway.
Both teams put the effort in, but conditions were against them and if I'm honest, it wasn't the greatest spectacle of football, though was still entertaining. Someone headed a ball.
I got to go and fetch the ball from the warm up area and took a photo whilst I was there.
A goalkeeper made a spectacular leap, despite the ball clearing the adjacent factory.
The Campion centre half had the biggest pair of tits I have seen on a footballer in the last five years. And bearing in mind that includes at least ten ladies games I've been to.
This bloke checked his phone rather than watching a one on one with the keeper. I can learn from him.
This defender heroically three himself infront of a shot that was going quite wide, quite slowly.
Campion were coming into the game on the back of a 10-1 victory over Bolsover. I can deduce that either a completely different forward line played or Bolsover aren't that good.
A free kick.
I watched the last ten minutes of the half from the club house. I have never seen the BT Sports version of Soccer Saturday before, and it had the slightly surprising main feature of Jade Goodie's ex-husband giving regular updates from Hartlepool. I won't be rushing to subscribe.
The second half started with a couple of hefty challenges in succession, with everyone offering an opinion about who was at fault and who should be sent off.
In the end it was the visiting team's coach who was ordered off, to envious looks from a lot of freezing cold supporters.
More of the same on the pitch, to the extent that I'll show you a picture of a goal kick.
Probably the closes to a goal with a bit of a scramble in the visitors goalmouth.
This corner summed it up for me as it flew directly past the back of the goal. It was one of those days for all concerned; freezing cold, a bit of a heavy pitch and nothing seeming to come off, although far from being dreary.
It was back to the station.
Where a single class 150 was waiting to whisk me back to Leeds.
The police trying to hoard returning Millwall supporters at Leeds, was interfering with the dispatch of a Manchester Victoria servcie, so I was able to make a minus connection at Leeds, though at the expense of any pictures. So it is instead a farewell shot of Sowerby Bridge, with home being reached before the start of 606, so I could not listen to it there, instead of not listening to it on my travels like I normally don't.
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