Bitter Sweet Synthony

Hartlepool United U18s v Rotherham United U18s, EFL Youth Alliance

Billingham Town Reserves v Guisborough Three Fiddles, Teesside League

Billingham Synthonia v Brandon United, Northern League – Division 2

Norton & Stockton Ancients v Heaton Stannington, Northern League – Division 2

North Teesside hosts a number of non-league clubs within easy reach of one another.  Add to that some staggered kick off times including a morning youth game for Hartlepool, and all of a sudden the mid-November Durham coast, has never been so appealing.

The 0641 off T’Bridge, was my first ride on one of Northern’s refurbed 158s.

I’ll give a review once I’ve replaced my burnt out retinas.

With Children in Need the previous night, this was sunrise over the original Pudsey, not the Declan Swan alike, ambulance chasing, perma-bandaged, cartoon bear.

Football grounds visible from the railway – Elland Road, with the only ray of light Leeds United have seen in the last 15 years.

A change at Leeds, onto one of the reliveried TransPennine 185s.

Some classic traction on show, but at the opposite end of the station to the kettle-fest NRM.

My onward steed was a Birmingham – Newcastle service, departing from the less scenic platforms.

Hopefully optimistic football grounds built with proceeds of crime and untimately bankrupting the club, visible from the railway – No.1 in a series of, well who knows; the Darlington Arena

Into Durham, with the sun breaking through the cold skies.

This view probably demonstrates that better than one of a XC Voyager in a station platform.

Durham is an excellent place for pubs, cheese and biltong.  Well, also cathedrals if anyone is dull enough to be interested in them.   But my late year temperance means the opportunity was passed.  Instead it was straight to this myriad of chaos.  The Bus Station is the most annoying thing associated with Durham, apart from maybe Adrian, the nauseating cock-end namesake from Talk Sport.  Basically, the bus will be advertised to depart from one stop, a bus with the required number will be parked at another stop, whilst the driver waits at a third stop.  This turns into the Benny Hill show approaching departure time, as lines of pensioners trail around after the driver.  My bus was a textbook example.  It is advertised at the stop on the right, it is actually the bus on the left, people are quing for it at its normal stop on the far right, and the driver is sat on the far left.  It may surprise you to know that this bus is actually operated by the German State railway, Arriva being owned by DB, who bought them wanting their continental train access rights, but were lumbered with their UK bus operation as well.

We did eventually depart.  This youth caught my eye, travelling in skinny jeans, a cowboy hat, but with a portable coffee-dispenser backpack.  Like Crocodile Dundee v Ghostbusters v the Cure.  I’d happily single-handedly crowdsource that film.

The journey took me across the former Durham coalfields.  Back in my day this was all acrid smoke and precariously balanced slag heaps.  Bloody Thatcher.

Due to the driver doing a fair impression of Colin McCrae, by Shotton, we waiting time.  

Through Shotton, home of one of my favourite evocatively named non-league clubs; Shotton Comrades.  Non-league in this whole area is covered in the absolutely wonderful ‘Far Corner’ written by Harry Pearson, before he felt the need to include lines from obscure 1950s art-house films, in every other sentence.  Still one of the best football writers though.

The bus journey from Durham to Blackhall was booked to take 65 minutes.  What I hadn’t realised was that 63 of these were going down EVERY FUCKING ROAD IN PETERLEE.  I had no real idea of the town’s existence until then, now I feel like I could qualify for residency.  It was built as a post-war new town for miners, but rather than going for the garden feel of the others, decided to go a bit post modern.  So here are my highlights of the mobile incarceration.

Firstly, one of the many grim estate pubs. 

The bus station

A middle aged adult on a BMX

The shopping centre.  Basically and Argos and a Sports direct.

The pavilion.  Actually, I’m sure it looked good once.

Club 3000 bingo and the Wetherpoons.

The poshest houses in the whole town.  The status coming from them being the only ones with pitched roofs.

Finally out of the town as we hit the coast.  Normally I’d use the word ‘uninviting’ to describe the North Sea in November, but after what had seemed a lifetime of touring round the estates of Peterlee, a -20 dip in chemical polluted coal dust, didn’t seem too bad an option.

I was off at Blackhall.  Blackhall grew up around its colliery.  It is most notable for it being the setting in Get Carter, where Michael Cane chases the bloke from the Avengers along the beach, which rather novelly, is made of coal.  The mine closed in 1981, since when, the residents have had to rely on Hartlepool and Peterlee for employment opportunities, which is this week’s example of hopeless optimism.

Welfare Park is immaculately maintained.  It has a Russian Doll approach to its sports facilities.  Within the ornate gates….

….is contained a bowls complex….

…which in turn contains a cricket club….

….and finally, the solid little doll that kids choke on, is the football pitch.

Hartlepool United U18s v Rotherham United U18s, EFL Youth Alliance

 

This was originally the ground of Blackhall Colliery Welfare FC.  They were formed in 1927 and competed in the Wearside League and North Eastern League.  They had multiple title wins in these leagues, but the closure of the colliery saw them struggle on until 1992, when they disbanded.  It is now used by the village Sunday league team

The only spectator facility of note is a shelf of terracing on one touchline.

This used to house a cover, but has been long since removed, the stubs of the supports still being evident.

Behind the far goal, is an open view from the housing.

The rest of the ground is narrow hard standing, with a pre-fab concrete fence.

Back in the day, Youth team matches would have a reluctant trainer and a shivering sub.  Now there are an army of personnel.  This strong focus on giving structure to youth development in English football, is one of the cornerstones of the national teams complete domination of world football.  Ok, it means we can get three uncontested goals against Malta.

The ground was too frozen to get the corner flag into.

Reserve and Youth team games are now most entertaining for the camera envy that takes place amongst the clubs sport science departments.  Here, the unpaid Hartlepool intern had set up his straight from Dixons offering.  Then fancy pants from Rotherham turned up with a battery pack and a monitor for immediate reviews.  So the Hartlepool bloke moved right in front of him.  Checkmate.

It was that time of year when pink balls were making an appearance.  I no longer have a calendar, scrutiny of Channel 5 on a Saturday evening and the ball colours on Goal Rush tell me all I need to know.

Hartlepool were 1-0 up at half time.  Rotherham had a chance early in the second half, when their lanky striker broke away to have a one on one with the keeper.  His delicate chip can be seen bouncing off the bungalow on the left.

This gave the comedy moment when his manager, in mid bollocking of his strikers efforts, went to kick the replacement ball to the keeper, only to see his effort exactly replicate the initial shot, sailing over the palisade fence.

It didn’t help when Hartlepool went up the other end and scored.  The game finished 3-1 to the home side.

On the way out, it was good to see two textbook youth team minibuses in the car park.

Although just before the end of the game, a coach party arrived to watch the game.  The bus was from Hull, but god knows what they were doing here.  Perhaps just celebrating making it out of Peterlee.

With not much to do in Blackhall….

….I jumped on the next bus, heading down the coast to Hartlepool.

The buses destination was Hartlepool Marina.  I like nothing better than a destination oxymoron, so went through to journeys end.

The marina contained this….

….and this.  Four words that in normal parlance, are relatively innocuous, but put together, well, a thing of beauty.  Unfortunately, it was shut.

Outside, it was noticeable that the naval guns were all pointed back on the town, rather than out to sea.

In the UNESCO list of the top 10 views of world heritage sites, nestling between Chichen Itza and Machu Picchu, is the long distance shot of the Victoria Ground from across the Asda petrol station.  I took my turn amongst the myriad of tourists, but got my photo.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to stay, so it was to the station.

Before my train arrived, a north bound service arrived, a two car 142 straining under the demand of Geordies that had come to Hartlepool to shop.  Or maybe Monkey Hangers going to the Metro Centre.  I’m undecided.

Sure enough, half of them were left behind.

The station contains an absolute gem of a micro-pub, the Rat Race.

The pub has the most exceptional opening times.  The train in from the south arrives at two minutes past the hour, and departs at 15 minutes past, giving these very accurate hours of business.

The station has one of the wonderful old tiled maps of the North East Railways historic network, giving an opportunity to see how I could have done the trip 150 years ago.

My train duly arrived.  Another pacer, but much less busy.

This took me down through the northern fringes of Teesside.  The area often gets a bad rep for just being a mix of smoke spewing industrial complexes and desolate wasteland.  This is patently untrue…

…sometimes it is a mix of smoke spewing industrial complexes and cluttered allotments.

I departed at Billingham.  Billingham was a relatively concern until the First World War when its fledgling chemical works came into high demand for the production of ammonia.  This resulted in extensive development, with three of the works later combining to form the Imperial Chemical Industries, though ICI have now departed town, the works being acquired by Fuji Film.  Billingham had both the first Asda outside of Yorkshire, and also the first municipal owned golf course.  Truly pioneering.  Although such luminaries as Jamie Pollock and Billy Elliott are from the town, it will forever be enshrined in British folklore for being the birthplace of Jet from Gladiators. 

Leaving the station, this wasn’t the first sign I expected to see.

This was more like it.  Bloody Thatcher.

Crossing back over the railway, I spied my destination.

Reaching the ground...

...some of the signage was very welcoming...

…whilst some was more sinister.  I’m pretty sure this is straight from the Bottom Inspectors.

Billingham Town Reserves 2 v Guisborough Three Fiddles 5, Teesside League

The club was established in 1967 as Billingham Social, playing in the Stockton & District League.   After continued success, They joined the Teesside League in 1974, winning it twice, which saw them promoted to the new Division Two of the Northern League in 1982, taking on its current name.   It has played in the Northern League since, regularly swapping between the two divisions.  Alumni includes Gary Pallister.

Three Fiddles is a pub in Guisborough, that is as much as I know about them.  I don't even have a badge.

Billingham moved to the Bedford Terrace ground in 1981, due to the slope on their previous Mill Lane home.  It is used by Hartlepool United for its reserve games.

The main feature is this stand which also houses the changing facilities.  I’m currently without my collection of Groundtastic/Pyramid/Traveller/Groundhopper, so I haven’t got any idea of the providence, not that the last publication would help anyway, but it would be funny just to go through a copy again.

A novel way of meeting ground grading seating requirements.  On the far side is a section of cover.

Behind the goal was this shelter, which suspiciously looked to be a Cleveland Council Bus stop.

It didn’t take long to confirm it was.

The main stand gave a great view of the railway.

The ground is actually in the vee of the Durham coast line, and the (not required – Pathfinder’s Tyne Tees Rambler) Seal Sands branch.  It would be a long wait for a train on this line, so instead, here is the home semaphore.

An exceptional collection of non-league clutter.

In the stand were a couple of home spun flags.  The Synners reference will be explained shortly.

Billingham have one of the few club badges that pays homage to a George Michael song.  Apparently Cleator Moor Celtic’s has ‘careless whisper’ on it.

It was at this point I was informed that the game was actually being played on the training pitch.  I headed for the clubhouse, but it was shut.  The signage still had the Federation brewery sponsorship, this being the Dunston location for Necastle Brown, until Heineken bought it and moved production to Tadcaster.  It is probably best not to call Ken Hall.  Unless you do actually live in Billingham.  And want a conservatory. But I’m guessing the population of the intersection of that particular Venn diagram to be fairly sparse.

The training pitch is adjacent to the ground.

The game had been moved here because of the recent rain, but it was more waterlogged than the main ground.

Team entrances that it would be very difficult to mistake for the tunnel at Wembley.

I was surprised to see pre-match handshakes at this level.  Maybe not as surprised as the keeper, who joins the party a bit late.

The game had a remarkable start.  First of all, a hopeful punt from the home side was dropped in his own goal by the away keeper.

Then shortly after, from a Guisborough corner, their centre half rose above everyone and blatantly punched the ball in the goal.  Everyone waited to see if he’d be booked or not, but the ref who was about three feet away, instead made an action that suspiciously looked like he’d given a goal.  Indeed he had.  This then led to a reaction that I’d never seen before in football, as the immediate reaction from everyone was hysterical laughter.  This seemed to fluster the ref, as by the time the home team had composed themselves enough to complain, he was admitting he may have made a mistake.  God knows what the linesmen were doing.

I lost interest in the game for a bit as a procession of trains went by.  Firstly a Grand Central 180 on a Kings Cross – Sunderalnd ORCATS raid.

Then a GBRF class 66 light engine, despite running as a class 6.  Sack the consister.

Finally, a bit more Pacer action.

This was the portly centre half and captain of the away team.  He seemed to have some compromising photos of the ref, as he was the one who punched the ball in and also got fouls given to him as he steam-rollered the lightweight home attack.

Guisborough scored again just before half time

Then added another

Billingham pulled one back.

Guisborough then scored a couple more to secure a 2-5 win.

I headed off to my next game.  Billingham is called the Dundee of England, not just because of comparative obesity statistics, but also because of the proximity of its rival clubs.  From the railway bridge, the floodlights of Town…..

…and the main stand at my next team, Synthonia.  I’ll level with you, I had hoped that the pictures would come out better than they actually did.  Bloody trees, fuck off and be more deciduous.

The first sign for my next club.

And proper ‘abandoned cars on grass verges’ football parking.  I’m not used to this.

One of my favourites, bespoke initialised club gates.

Billingham Synthonia 3 v Brandon United 0, Northern League – Division 2

Billingham Synthonia were founded in 1923 by employees of the ICI works.  They are the only known football club to be named after an agricultural fertiliser, Synthonia being a portmanteau of synthetic ammonia.  After starting in local leagues, they progressed through the Teeside to reach the Northern League by the mid 1940s.  They have been a strong presence ever since, winning it four times and with numerous runners up positions.  They have also had seven FA cup first round appearances, and have reached the semi finals of the Vase.  Unfortunately, recent times have not been so good, and 2014 saw them relegated to division 2, where they are currently in second place.  Players to start their careers with 'the Synners' include Brian Clough and the mercurial management talent of Dave Hockaday.  It is also a retirement home for Middlesbrough players, with Bernie Slaven, Craig Hignett and Curtis Fleming all ending their careers here.  They also do a nice line in namesakes, with Brian Close (not that one) and Lev Yalcin (definitely not that one) both at the club in the 2000s.

Brandon is located south west of Durham.  Originally an agricultural village, it rose in prosperity in the 1850s with the discovery of a rich coal seam.  However, the three collieries that were set up, were all closed by the 1960s.  It is now the UKs leading toilet roll manufacturer.  The football club started life in 1968 as the Sunday league works team of said recyclers, Rostrons.  By the 1980s, they had reached the Northern Alliance, and then progressed onwards through the Wearside League, to reach the Northern by 1983.  They have played there ever since, with a lot of activity between the two divisions.  They have also had a couple of FA Cup first round proper appearances. 

The Synners moved to Central Avenue in 1958.  Previously they had played at the company' sports ground. 

The stadium's 2,000 capacity cantilever stand was the longest in the country at the time.

At either end is grass banking.

These ever disappearing features are always my favourite position to watch games.

Damn.

You could still walk around the ground, though the path was like an ice rink.

Some match action with the wonderful stand in the background.

Some match action with the wonderful Fuji chemical works in the background.

This pitch also looked to be showing signs of the overnight rain.

Ground grading now requires pitchside railings to be filled in.  This seams to be Billingham’s solution.  Around Teesside, a thousand pet rabbits run free.

Half time and a diet coke in the clubhouse, and the chance to enjoy my first ever green and white striped sofa.

I also caught up on the away team player details. 

Regretfully, I didn’t get the opportunity to use the executive facilities.

Instead it was the gunning point tea bar, under the watchful eye of the Synthonia ultras.

The stand is unique in its format of having seating in the centre, but the rest being terracing.

The benches were also of a unique design, replacing the original dug outs seen in the centre.

Synthonia took the lead, to the delight of the keeper and his dead centre @keepers_towels

They then added another.

An unwelcome sight was a linesman in tights.

With the sun setting, the home side scored a third.

This was how the game finished.  A final view of the stand in the late afternoon sun.

The win took them to second in the league.

I headed off for the last knockings of my last game.  This involved a trek out of town.  I did finally discover a scenic view of Billingham, though the fact that this was of the motorway interchange, is perhaps a benchmark of the rest of it.

This took me to Norton.  Basically, Stockton sees itself as the posh part of Middlesbrough, and Norton is the posh part of Stockton.  It is noteable for being where Duncan Bannantyne got married, the internet telling me the wedding was attended by none other than Anna Ryder-Richardson, and Chery Lunghi.  Notable people from Norton are Gary Pallister and current UK wrestling champion Stevie Lynn, though the last sentence of his Wikipedia entry suggests that the title may not bring unending wealth with it.

After a wander through a couple of posh estates, I spotted the floodlights.

Yet another wander through a cricket club.

As yet I’d seen no signs for the football, the only one I could find was then hidden behind some discrete retro-fitted pipework.

But I got there eventually

Confirmation of that.

Norton & Stockton Ancients 1 v Heaton Stannington 3, Ebac Northern League – Division 2

Norton and Stockton Ancients were started in 1959 as a winter activity for Norton Cricket Club, playing in the Teeside League.  1982 saw the demise of Stockton FC, with what was left of the club, mainly its Northern league place, being taken by Norton, who assumed their current name, Ancients being the Stockton nickname.

Heaton Stannington are from north Newcastle.  They were founded in 1910, but it wasn't until 1940 that they joined the Northern League.  They only hung around until 1952.  By the 1970s, they emerged in the confusingly titled Wearside league, and then in the Northern Alliance from the 1980s.  Successive title wins saw them elevated to the Northern League in 2013.

The ground forms part of the wider Norton Sports Complex.

The main feature is this pitchside stand.

Behind the near goal, is a cover occupied by the groundsman's clutter.

There is also a changing room and clubhouse block.

The remaining sides are hard standing, overlooked by housing.

The railings are undoubtedly of a scaffold heritage.  Somewhere in Germany, a cathedral lists.

The neighbours have direct access into the ground.

At some point, an irate manager, tired of banging his head and stooping his back, has ordered the dugout roofs to be raised.

It was 1-1 when I arrived, Heaton then took the lead.

Quickly adding another.

The rest of the ground comprised the sort of structures that pregnant couples live in on building sites in Grand Designs.

The game ended 1-3 to Heaton Stannington

As well as there being no programme, there were also no refreshments available.

Although I didn’t know it at the time, the lack of programmes and refreshments were due to some serious issues that the club are experiencing.  This sad news was picked up later in the evening.

The ground is right next to the railway, with a very ornate signal box.  Unfortunately, the station has long since closed.

So instead it was a bus heading for Middlesbrough.

Forgoing the dubious pints of Bass that Stockton prides itself for.

I left the bus at Thornaby, childhood home of Paul Daniels and Vera Duckworth.

It was yet more Pacer action.

This took me across to Darlington.

From there, it was a Newcastle-Liverpool Transpennine service, as far as Leeds, which was in diseray due to unit failure at Huddersfield, and flooding at Mytholroyd.

After much sitting around waiting for one of the three, we managed to combine a train, a driver and a guard, and this eventually got me back to Sowerby, just as the snow was starting.