Bother Hythe

Hythe & Dibden v Ringwood Town

Major rail engineering works in the Swindon area meant there was no hope of getting anywhere by in train so I was at the mercy of the local bus network. Chosen move was the 0700 Stagecoach 49 service from Swindon to Trowbridge via Devizes.

Route is quite an interesting one, firstly though the middle of Avebury Stone circle (aka the thinking man’s Stone Henge)

Then the Wadworths brewery in Devizes.

And then the 29 lock flight at Caen Hill.

At Trowbridge, a quick stroll across town to the station where trains were running, pick up the 0853 Portsmouth Harbour service. Dull railway infrastructure fact; the yellow things on the track in front of the train and on the other track, are flange lubricators. These apply grease to the inside of the rail to prevent wheel screech on sharp curves…..

….such as this one departing Trowbridge.

Train was taken on to Southampton, arriving just after ten. Southampton’s guide pubs were conveniently spaced out, opening at half hourly intervals from 1000. First stop was the inevitable Whetherspoons, the Giddy Bridge offering up a Sudwerk, Inbetween, which despite sounding interesting, turned out to be an Everards brew for JDW.

Next stop was the 1030 opening Bitter Virtue. Thas was a bottle shop but with tap as well. If they are guide listed, they usually allow on site drinking, but this one didn’t. It also only sold in four pint cartons so I spent the next half hour wandering around suburbia necking a milk carton of Dark Star – Rock Star.

Next stop was the 1100 opening of the Rockstone. I was taking the picture when some one turned up in an American Highway Patrol sheriff car and parked up, as seen on the right. I had an hour here so it was a Yeovil Ales – Redshift, and Botley’s - Hampshire Bitter.

Next was the strangely named Guide Dog, for a Goodens Gold from Flowerpot in Alresford. A decent back street pub with a huge selection of biltong and jerky.

Next was a longer walk to St Denys, for the unspectacular Junction, which was a Greene King tie so had the inevitable re-badged IPAs, god knows what Southern Pride actually was.

Right next to the station was the South Western Arms, for a Hammerpot HPA from Arundel. Strangely, in the car park was a trailer selling some very exotic pizza slices. I am becoming brutal in my close cropping of pictures of pubs, to the extent that I am now cutting cars in half.

The next pub was over the water so it was convenient to do a two minute hop on the train to Bitterne. St Denys has the most bizarre train service imaginable. It is where the lines from Portsmouth and Winchester converge to head into Southampton. One train per hour on each of these lines stops at the station on its way into Southampton, but how do you reckon these trains are spaced out? It might seem sensible to have them thirty minutes apart, but no. They depart within a minute of each other, so if you are trying to get into the city, there are two trains in a minute and then you have a 58 minute wait for another two.

My destination was in the opposite direction, Bitterne. My only dealings with this place was when I was a Station Manager in Bristol and we had donated some old railway equipment to a steam railway at Bitton in Bristol. I sent two of the fencing gang down in their van to take this stuff to Bitton, approximately 10 minutes from there base at Bristol Parkway. About three hours later they still hadn’t arrived and when I contacted them they cheerfully announced that they were on their way back, just passing through Salisbury, having delivered the stuff to this Bitterne station. I have know idea why the South West Trains ticket office would take delivery of various 1980s signage and timetables from the Bristol area, but they did and nothing more was heard of it.

The walk up to the next pub was accompanied by a succession of prop jets passing extremely low overhead on their approach to the nearby Southampton Airport, in some bizarre river Itchen version of dambusters.

The next pub was the current scourge of the guide; micro pubs being opened by hipsters who then see it as an inconvenience for it to be run as anything other than a meeting place for them and their mates. The Butchers Hook was a perfect example, no signage at all, and a notice on the door saying they were going to be shut today but might open later. Inside, a group sat there helping themselves to drinks at will.

It was decided to head into town for the ferry across to Hythe. There was a convenient bus move from outside the play pub, into town, with sun glistening off the Itchen.

The bus terminated in the centre, but it was a quick walk down through town, to Town Quay. This was home to the next tick, the Platform Tavern, for a Vibrant Forest – Kaleidoscope. Annoyingly, it was only after buying this that I found the adjacent Dancing Man brewery was having a beer festival.

So on to the ferry. The Hythe ferry goes from the Town Quay to Hythe, on the West bank of Southampton Water, cutting off a very lengthy bus journey via Totton. The Town quay is located between the Isle of Wight car ferry…..

…..and the cruise line terminal, with MS Arcadia just arrived in from Lisbon and about to head off to Amsterdam and Zeerbruge

However, disaster. The Hythe ferry showed no sign of life and with everything locked up, a sign declared it was not running due to unspecified ‘technical reasons’.
This meant a mad dash to the shuttle bus to the station where the driver gave an explanation of what has happened.

It appears that the service has been taken over by private operator Red Funnel. Previously, the service operated with a fleet of three ferrys. The new operators have refused to pay for routine repairs to one of the ships, and one has been crashed into the pier and is out of service. This means it is being run with one vessel, so the operators are also now operating with one crew. This means any lunch break sees the service cancelled, although they don’t seem to feel the need to say the next service will be running. Anyway, the council are massively pissed off because they are paying a huge subsidy to the operators, on the basis that there are the costs of three vessels and crews, but there is now only the cost of one vessel and crew, yet the subsidy is still being claimed, with sailings being regularly cancelled.

At the station, I headed for the bus stop for the Hythe services, only to find this, with no alternate stops being offered.

I walked out of town along the bus route and eventually encountered a stop, which I took on to Hythe.

It is perhaps at this point where I should try and explain the absolutely fucked up nature of football on the west bank of the Solent. Basically, it seems the rule that everyone two bit village has a club, which is named jointly with another two bit village, but they then don’t play in either of the two villages. This is the order of places going North to South

Calmore

I

Totton

I

Elling

I

Marchwood

I

Applemore

I

Dibden

I

Hythe

I

Hardley

I

Blackfield

I

Langley

I

Fawley

Now, get yourself a strong drink and let me explain the clubs
1. AFC Totton are the major club but actually play in Calmore
2. Totton and Elling used to be British American Tobacco Sports and played in Totton, however they then moved to Calmore, but re-named themselves Totton and Elling
3. Marchwood used to have a team, but it was called RS Southampton. It is now Southamptons training ground
4. Hythe and Dibden FC play in neither Hythe nor Dibden, actually playing in Applemore
5. Blackfield and Langley play in neither Blackfield nor Langley, instead the excellently named Gang Wearily ground which is on the outskirts of Fawley.
6. Fawley obviously don’t play in Fawley, instead you have to go out of the village, past Blackfield and Langley’s ground, through Blackfield, to Hardley, for the Waterside ground, which is three miles in land.
Got all that?


Anyway, my destination was Hythe and Dibden’s new ground. Firstly, a quick check of their old ground, which was open playing fields shared with the cricket club.

The pitch was still there….

….put the remains of the hard standing showed the dug outs, stands and floodlights had all gone.

The ground involves a walk to the next village, past an extraordinarily on-the-wonk phone box…

…..across the freight only branch to Fawley oil refinery (not required)….

…where an enchanted path…..

…..lead into the new complex.

Mission accomplished.

Predictably, no programmes left, nor any seen around the ground.

Hythe & Dibden 3 v Ringwood Town 2,  Sydenhams Wessex League Division 1.

Hythe have gone through many name changes (best one was Hythe Power) in there hundred and a bit year history. They were in the Hampshire league in the early part of last century, before dropping to the Southampton local leagues. They re-joined the Hampshire league in the 1990s, and onto the Wessex league when it swallowed up the Hants Prem in 2004, generally at the lower end of the league.

Ringwood, who predictably, actually play in Crow, were a force in the Hampshire league in the eighties and nineties before also joining the Wessex in 2004, though with more success, having had a couple of seasons in the premier.

So, finally to the football.  This was 12th v 6th in a league of 18.

Down the far touchline is the stand and dug outs from the old ground.

The near touchline has a series of curios covers. The reason for these is that they too are from the old ground, but had to be portable as they were on the touchline shared with the cricket pitch.

The sociable nature of none league founds meant everyone had chosen to stand on their own in one of the shelters.

The witch was horrendous, being completely sodden and the grass really long as it couldn’t be cut.

Onlu other thing of notice was the continuing trend for giant numbers on shirts, Ringwood being the expedient of them today.

Score was 1-1 at half time, the only player to stand out being the Hythe scorer who immediately paid the price for this by being ruthlessly studded in the knee.


Half time in the small club house, and a programme from the last game at the old ground, signed by all the players and official.

And also a series of pennants from obscure French teams of the 1980s. Warminster need to up the game with their pennant design.

A last look at the ground, from the far end, with the game finishing 3-2 to the home side

I headed back to Hythe to see if the ferry was running from this side, but again, all was locked and the mysterious ‘technical issues’ notice was on display. The final tick of the day was had at Ebenezers bar with a Flack Manor - Double drop, from Romsey.

Bus was had back to Southampton where an unexpected make was had with a north bound voyager, full of pragmatic Saints and Stoke supporters. At Basingstoke, it was onto the stopping unit up to Mortimer to visit the parents to pick up some purchases I had had delivered there.

And so another bus from Reading to Swindon, but I was now occupied by the ViTrains model of and Italian State Railways driving car, the Middleton Press book of narrow gauge railways in Sardinia and Sicilly, and the new book on the Forest European Cups.

Overall, Good times, with the Southampton guide pub offering just about making up for their shambolic water transport.