Tividale v Hanley Town
Every time I go to football in the West Midlands, I tend to have the same experience. Cracking pubs, ramshackle grounds in dreary conurbations, oppressed staff and comittee members who look like they have had the life sucked out of them, clubhouses taken over by groups of cropped hair middle aged blokes who don’t take a moments notice of the game.
This means that once a season I’ll convince myself I am being unfair, and will make my way to Brum, only to have exactly the same experience and promise I’ll never come back again.
This season, todays rail strike in the west meant there were no late trains locally, so I thought, hey, why don’t I try the West Midlands, it can’t always be like that.
And so, just over six hours after arriving back from Wantage, I was at the bus station amongst the early turn workers and the road sweepers, for the bus to Oxford, for a non-striking Cross Country service to Birmingham.
A good run on the bus, made an earlier than hoped connection at Oxford, so I was in Brum earlier than the planned 10am opening time for the Wellington. This meant I was able to visit the Ian Allan bookshop, where the latest copies of Coastal Shipping and Miniature Railway were obtained. It was noticed that the gay sex shop next door had closed, so it is no longer possible to browse the adjoining windows for both the updated edition of Britain's Last Municipal Bus Operators, and also rubber Fred Perry’s.
Wellington was the first GBG of the day, where they now have train style beer information screens. A bit of a cliche but a Kendrick’s – Back of the Net was had.
Next stop was the Great Western Arcade…
…for an early cheese stop at Anderson and Hill. Cheese details later.
Then on to the delights of the UK station most like a multi-storey car park; Birmingham Snow Hill.
Here we embarked on what was to be the transport for the early part of the day, the Midland Metro tram, doing pubs up to Wolverhampton. We bought joint bus/tram tickets, but the thieving conductor only gave us one adult one, the rest being child tickets, despite taking the money for adult tickets. Fortunately this was noticed before we got off and the worried looking conductor replaced our tickets.
First stop was Jewellery Quarter…
….for the Lord Clifden. This had all the signs for concern; a shop conversion and marketing itself as an ‘Urban Art Bar’. In the event, a very decent Nethergate – Lemon Head was had.
Back on the tram to Soho Benson Road…
….for the Black Eagle, which is a brilliant pub, surrounded by cut and shut garages.
Beer board was as good as ever, though the Light Railway had just gone, so a Beowulf – Wiglaf was had, a local beer from Chasewater.
Back on the tram to the tree lined Kenrick Park stop…
…for the short walk to the Vine. This looks like a small corner pub, but goes back for miles. The Holden’s seasonal Shag Boss was had.
Back on the tram to journeys end, the strange terminus at Wolverhampton St Georges, which is on a dual carriage way tantalisingly close to a shopping precinct.
We were now on the second route, this being pubs along the 126 bus route back to Birmingham. The first hop was about 15 minutes. At the first stop, a teenager got on and was immediately summoned to the back by another kid in a silver puffa jacket. For the next ten minutes, the following dialogue took place; “Fam, you been chattin me?”, “its nuttin”, “Fam, you been chattin me?”, “its nuttin”, “Fam, you been chattin me?”, “its nuttin” repeat to oblivion. It was only stopped when a woman in a rain coat got up and announced “I’ve now got a headache”, and stormed off to the lower deck.
Next stop was he Park Inn which is the tap for the adjacent Holden’s.
A Golden Glow and a house packet of scratchings were had, but only after I’d knocked the table, spilt the head off the beer, and been called a ‘clumsy cunt’ by a prescriptive stranger at the bar.
Tividale is a suburb of Dudley, which conjures up visions of all sorts of horror, except the approach to the ground was via a gentile suburban crescent…
….somewhat spoiled by the entrance to the ground looking like a second hand car lot.
Some homely touches with hanging baskets.
Tividale 1 v Hanley Town 0 - The Emirates FA Cup; Preliminary Round
Tividale were formed in 1954 and played in the Handsworth and District League, before moving on to the Warwickshire & West Midlands Alliance. In 1966 they joined the newly formed West Midlands (Regional) League and remained there for nearly 20 years. In 2011, they won the league, moving up to the Midland Football Alliance, which was won three years later, along with promotion to, strangely, the Northern Premier League.
Hanley is one of the six towns of Stoke, and had a number of previous clubs before the current side were formed in 1966. They played in the Mid Cheshire League, before transferring to the Midland League in 1998. When it merged with the Staffordshire County to become the Staffordshire County Senior League, Hanley Town won a second league title. In 2013, they joined the North West Counties League.
Tividale moved to the Beeches in 1974. which had previously belonged to British Waterways. The ground is cut into the side of a hill…
….but it still leaves a fierce side-to-side slope.
Down one side is a long, narrow cover, with two rows of bench seating…
….then the Directors seating (four kids in West Brom shell suits), and beyond that, empty terracing.
Behind the far goal, attempts to keep spectators had been overcome.
Firstly the crumbling concrete made it apparent why the end was shut.
Then the likely offender was identified. His companion cheerfully advised us that he had already drunk one and knocked one over.
When I first saw this, I thought it was tongue in cheek….
….until I saw the medical room….
….and the mysterious ‘quarantine area’.
An explanation for the latter may be that whilst every other bin in the ground had a lid…
…the one that was expertly marked as having hazardous substances…
….was freely open for anyone to drink/bathe/dispose of bodies in.
In a twist on the usual rusting pile of discarded agricultural equipment, instead the only item of machinery, anywhere in non-league football, bought in the last fifty years, was at the bottom of a pile of junk.
However, it was back to form with the ubiquitous pile of unused seating.
Now the fun started, with trying to get a drink. Just a soft drink or water. Stupidly, I tried the refreshment hut, only to be told that no, they don’t sell them there, ‘only tea and maltesers’, even though I’d never expressed any desire for chocolate. I was told that drinks were only available in the club house, and was directed to a door. The doorway was blocked by a club official, going out of his way to be unhelpful, told me that I couldn’t go through that door, which led straight into the club house and bar, instead I would have to go out of the ground and go through the main entrance. So I went to the exit gate, where uber unhelpful club official number 2 refused to open the gate, referring me to the door I had just been turned away from. For reasons he wouldn’t divulge, the gate remained locked, and instead he made me climb over this turn style.
By now I was starting to think if this was some sort of gameshow that should be narrated by the shrill one from Top Gear, as I then had to navigate through broken paving slabs, moss covered mud, crumbling steps and beer kegs.
Finally I reached the entrance and felt like phoning for a taxi, then just paying him to sit there with his horn sounding. Whilst the entrance looked OK…
…inside they had gone for the novelty theme of crack den sheikh.
With the unhelpful staff part of midlands football now ticked off, I immediately got to add another as the club house was full of a group of shaven haired blokes (who to be fair, were fine when we chatted with them)…
….who were watching the Stoke v West Brom on the myriad of channels that the advanced satellite set up offered.
Back to the ground and a permanent fixture on the bank behind the fence was a bloke who appeared to be hosting a non-league radio show. He had a clip board, a microphone, large earphones and was commentating on the game whilst sporadically giving out scores (over now to Aquaforce Barnsley).
As can be seen on the far side, he was joined by a guest summariser, who seemed to be a Tividale player, who spent a lot of time smoking, or chewing a pen (look on the xtreme right of the very first ground picture). All in all, it seemed he had very little equipment to be doing a live broadcast, didn’t seem concerned that he was directly behind the two benches who were never more than a refereeing decision away from a profanity. But it did seem a lot of effort to go to to blag free entry (maybe it was just to get a drink without having to enlist in the paras).
Any words of wisdom from the benches, went right over my head as the Hanley manager sported a great pair of fresh looking leg tattoos. Firstly an England badge…
…..but on the other leg a Staffordshire (or just Stafford) knot. There was some writing round it which I couldn’t read. Ideas welcome.
The match assessor had no excuses for confusing any of the officials with each other.
We arrived slightly late to the game, and Tividale had already scored. There was then 75 more minutes of football, which if I’m honest, I didn’t watch that closely. All the pictures I took show how much the pitch slopes.
Hanley attack.
Tividale have a free kick.
Tividale attack again.
And Again. There was a nasty moment in the second half when a Hanley attack resulted in the Tividale centre back and goalkeeper colliding, and both going to hospital. Checking twitter, it seems both are now out.
Back on the 126 into town, thankfully this time not accompanied by Blazin’ Squad. Decided to do the Guide pubs south of New Street so first of all the Craven Arms, which was better than its Welsh namesake.
Stayed true to the locality here.
Next was the Old Fox which as ever, was just about passable, although I didn’t mark what I’d had, as we were distracted by…
…..the poor mans Ivan Brackenbury, Bramble FM roadshow, which I don’t think a lot of people realised was a spoof as they blew up balloons to Nena.
Next headed slightly out of town to the Lamp Tavern.
This is a lovely regulars pub, mostly for elderly Irish. In homage to the absent Mad Dai, we went for the Brew Springsteen.
To finish the day, the next port of call was the Anchor.
Two pints of the Kelham Island - 5.8% Blondie Atomic pretty much did finish the evening.
As ever, the day was interspersed with rounds of questions from 2005 WH Smith football cards. These have some of the most wildly inaccurate questions and answers. However, whilst todays started off true to form with question 2…
….question 6 from this card found the surprising answer to this to actually be correct. I’ll leave it open for guesses …
So a Voyager back from Brum to Oxford, where a slick connection…
….meant I could get the last train back to Swindon rather than a bus.
Cheese was as such. The last three were eaten during the day so didn’t make it to the photo. The Wyngaard was exceptional, definitely making it into my festive 50 this year.
- Staffordshire Organic Cheese - Fordhall Farm
- Picos Blue Valdeon
- Reypenaer
- Brie de Meaux
- Sparkenhoe – Red Leicester
- Wyngaard goat gouda
