Brymbo v Penycae
Cefn Druids v Carmarthen Town
With parts of Britain forecast to have more snow and flooding than a Donald Trump hotel room, I decided to stay fairly local this week.
I checked the weather before I left and it seems the predicted Armageddon hadn't taken place, though I did managed to go arse over tit on the black iced Hovis cobbles on the way down to the station.
It was the 0808 Victoria all shacks off Sowerby, but my upending meant I was running late, and I gate crashed the dispatch to get on.
Moving along the Calder Valley, and Todmorden was snow bound.
It appears that snow is like hope and culture, in that by the time we reached Rochdale, any signs of it had disappeared.
Into Victoria, with a bookend of blurred photos for this journey.
With passes no longer valid on the trams, it was a stroll across to Piccadilly.
I was heading to Gatley, but the quickest way was a fast train out to Manchester Airport.
Despite the alleged 16 hour time shift..
..there was time for a unit back two stops. There seems to be an international agreement that all Airport Railway stations should resemble mid 1970s Romanian architecture, being universally built of unrelieved concrete, carefully designed to channel the wind and rain through the minimal waiting shelters, whilst overlooked by a budget chain hotel of similarly austere design. Welcome to Manchester/Birmingham/Gatwick/Luton.
I was off my ex-Thameslink 319 at Gatley.
A new addition to my collection of Northern Rail station manager posters, and the first one who doesn't look like a hostage victim dictating his captors demands, or at least looks to be happy to do so.
The walk to my first game was actually through Cheadle. It is the sort of place that wants to convince people that it's definitely not Stockport. The sort of place that adds 'craft' to the normal shops.
The sort of place where traditional clock faces are too urban.
The sort of place that would be the furthest north Pizza Express would go if they had their way.
The sort of place that has a Cons club on the middle of the High Street.
Anyway. It also has this.
Thought for the day;- "Why are the access roads to non-league grounds such a magnet for discarded mattresses?"
Despite the pretensions of the town, it was a classic non league entrance of pot holed car park, long since locked up turnstile...
...and faded signage.
My first game was to be in the the South Manchester and Cheshire Christian Football League. For thousands of years, religion has served the purpose of convincing the gullible poor that if they live a life of compliance, then it will eventually lead to reward in future life. Nowadays, Brexit and the National Lottery seems to serve this purpose. So nowadays the church is pretty pointless except for one thing; that it has a number of Saturday morning leagues across the country, so gives the opportunity for an early scratch. It also gives fixtures that would only normally be found in the Antiguan premier league, World Harvest Salford v Spacious Place Blue, or the only known team with an exclamation mark at the start, !Audacious Church. Despite the excellent options, my chosen game this morning was Bridge Bolton as they play at Cheadle Town's Park Lane ground, and it was shown as still being on.
However, this being Greater Manchester, turning up for a non league game at the advertised time and location, only ever offers a slim chance of the game being on, and sure enough, at kick off time there was no sign of any activity. With the only other presence being two ground hoppers (they are the only childless humans who would contemplate owning a people carrier), there was no one to ask. The league web site was of course declaring it was still on.
So here is the main stand. As was pointed out on another forum, these are the only known photos of Park Lane that don't contain an aeroplane, as the ground is right under the flight path of Manchester airport, so it seems obligatory to include an aircraft in the photo.
I walked back to the station, for a unit heading out of Manchester. Note the mod revival outside the station building.
On to Crewe and the APT lurking behind a whistler cab in the Heritage Centre.
Into the back road.
I was over to the equal gloominess of the overbridge undercroft, and a Voyager move.
This took me into Chester.
For an easy +2 onto a Cardiff service.
Passing across Deeside, and though there was snow on the distant mountains of Berwyn, all looked good and my next fixture was showing as still being played, on the usually very timely Welsh National League web site.
Which was taken to Ruabon, a station I was going to be very familiar with by the end of the day.
An unexpected -3 make onto the Traws Cymru, which was a somewhat off route Machynlleth - Aberystwyth branded Enviro400, operating out of the former.
This was my destination, Trevor. The distant viaduct is for the railway, but I had my sights on an equal structure.
First stop was the Llangollen canal. This was intended to be a canal stretching all the way from the Mersey to the Severn, but only a very short stretch was ever built. It survived when other canals didn't, because it feeds in to a number of reservoirs. It has since re-opened for leisure traffic, with text book Welsh marina naming bottom left.
It was on to Trevor Basin, which despite sounding like a 1970s haircut, was a veritable narrow boat M25.
The major ambitions of the canal meant it had some grand structures, including the UK's longest aqueduct.
This saves me copy and pasting from Wikipedia, though notice how only the Welsh language wording has been properly maintained. It's the first step towards burning down holiday homes.
This is perhaps the highest altitude pitch inspection I've ever done. Despite it almost being kick off time, there was little sign of activity down below. The goals can just be seen through the trees on the right.
I headed down the twisting lane to find out more.
Across the ancient bridge over the River Dee, with a tractor heading off with animal feed.
Sure enough, the signs were ominous. I don't believe there are 25 other entrances to the ground.
I had a look around anyway. The ground is home to Acrefair Youth who aren't actually a Youth team. They play in the Welsh National League, which is actually just the Wrexham and District League, but like all leagues in the country, cryptically try and pretend they are a national set up.
The ground is well known for its amazing setting.
So the predictable shot of a canal boat crossing above the game, I'd managed to avoid by there being no boats and no game.
The facilities themselves are very spartan.
I bet these spectators were even more pissed off, having paid for main stand tickets.
I headed back up into Trevor.
My plan C was the ten minute walk to Cefn Albion, as that had passed a pitch inspection, but the appreciated timely update was that it had now failed one.
So instead it was back on a bus to Ruabon...
...back to the station.
Where I was disappointed to miss out on this unit fest.
Instead I was on another hippo...
...as far as Wrexham. Picture taken from the former Wrexham Exchange platforms, which were strangely part of the LNER and used to be the departure point for the branch up to my next destination, Brymbo.
Instead, it was a short walk to the bus stop outside the Racecourse, where North Ferriby United were being entertained.
A surprisingly punctual Arriva service took me up to the outskirts of Brymbo. The area was dominated by its steelworks, which was first started in the late 1700s by the brilliantly named industrialist John "Iron-Mad" Wilkinson. To serve the works, a number of deep mines were sunk, and Brymbo became a major industrial area. However, the works fell in and out of favour, and despite major investment in the 1950s, was finally closed in 1990, the mines having long since shut.
This game had been confirmed as on by the home team, the away team seemingly choosing other priorities for its Twitter updates. Watching Premier League football on TV, amongst 4 pint Foster's pitcher fuelled 'average banter', is my vision of hell.
However, the only thing I hadn't checked was where their current ground was as I'd got the bus to the wrong estate. So it was a walk across some playing fields, the eroded grass bank giving a clue to their former existence.
A further leg stretch along a dual carriageway took me to my intended location.
This was a very smart sports complex, comprising a bowls club...
...a cricket pitch...
...and hopefully, up the steps to the promised land, some football.
Result.
Brymbo 2 v Penycae 2, Guy Walmsley Limited Chartered Accountants Welsh National League (Wrexham Area)
Brymbo were formed in 1943 as the steelworks team. They played at a senior level in the Cymru Alliance but are currently in the Welsh National League, which they seem to prefer, having won it 14 times.
Pen-y-Cae is a village in the hills outside Ruabon. The football club use the anglicised Penycae and were founded in 1982 and have competed mainly in the Welsh National league. They finally won the league in 2011, and were promoted to the Cymru Alliance, but soon dropped back down, though I did see them play in that competition at Llandrindod.
The ground is unofficially titled the Crick, and was the sports club for the steel works. Unlike many company grounds, the decline of the associated works hasn't been reflected in the recreational facilities, which were absolutely pristine.
There was a quite lonely stand on the far touchline. Slightly unique in design with its tapered end walls.
Most of the crowd were on the near touchline which housed a standing cover and the dug outs.
Behind the main pitch was another railed off reserve pitch.
I arrived with the game having already started and reached the pitch just as an almighty fracas was going on around the benches. From mixed reports, it appears one of the players had taken a swing at one of the coaches, but everyone remained on the pitch, so what actually went on, I don't know.
The dug out roofs seemed to have taken some stick over the years.
I think it was the away side that took the lead in the first half. They definitely scored at some point.
More Andy Townsend worded ground signs.
A @keepers_towel on display, and yet another in the centre of the goal. Definitely a trend for this season.
I think the order of scoring went that Bymbo equalised
Then took the lead.
Then Penycrae equalised.
The game definitely finished 2-2 though.
Having now finally seen a game, it was on to my next game, though a lot longer journey than originally anticipated. It started with a more typical Arriva bus, being ten minutes late for the run back into Wrexham.
Into the bus station and onto another Arriva service.
Which took me back through Ruabon, to Cefn Mawr. The village was founded on its mineral deposits, initially sandstone quarrying but latterly iron and coal deposits meant it became heavily industrialised, with blast furnaces and forges, as well as collieries. In the 20th century, chemical works dominated with the production of such lovely sounding commodities as paraffin oil, paraffin wax, coal tar, carbolic acid, vanillin, salicylic acid, and probably out of necessity, aspirin. The works finally closed in 2010, bloody Cameron.
It was a short walk up to spectacularly located next ground.
Although the pedestrian entrance was slightly less impressive.
Cefn Druds 0 v Carmarthen Town 0, Dafabet Welsh Premier League.
Cefn Druids is a 1992 merger between Druids United and Cefn Albion. Druids were previously the senior team in the area, being formed in 1869 and going through a number of mergers and name changes, but had success, winning the Welsh Cup eight times, providing numerous Welsh internationals, and playing in such exotic leagues as the Birmingham and District. However, by the 1980s they had fallen on sustained hard times, and Albion had superseded them as the leading team in the area. A merger prevailed, which saw a rise to the League of Wales, though they did see a dip back to the Cymru Alliance before returning to the Welsh Premier a couple of seasons ago.
After a few false starts with football clubs in the town, the current Carmarthen club came into existence in the 1950s. They played in the Welsh League, which in effect is a South Wales league. Despite the size of the town, the club didn't do much until the 1990s, when a league title saw promotion to the league of Wales, where they have been ever since, qualifying for Europe on a few occasions.
Cefn Druids moved to The Rock in 2010. It is brilliantly located deep inside one of the villages quarry's. The clubs former ground, Plaskynaston, was a strange set up, being a number of tiny structures randomly thrown around the ground, the main stand being in a corner, right next to the entrance, but miles away from the pitch.
The new ground has a much more convenient main stand.
But the main feature of the ground is undoubtedly that it is located in an old quarry, and down one touchline is a sheer cliff face. Despite this, the grounds name comes from the clubs favourite WWF wrestler, rather than its geological features.
The foothills looked a very enticing viewing position for a summer game.
A disappointingly poor selection of graffiti. I'd have thought the cliffs give a great opportunity for a thirty foot spunking cock or such like.
There was the inevitable Welsh league TV tower, who's guidelines require them to survive intact if they'd been in the Chernobyl reactor during melt down, so they are never the subtlest of structures.
The game was being televised, but in a way that befits that the only viewers will be the four people in Saundersfoot with access to the internet. This meant one manager was interviewed in the tea hut, and the other in the main stand.
Premier League show time.
It was a 4G pitch, but there was still a @keepers_towel on display.
It wasn't the worst game I'd seen, with both teams having chances.
However, neither side could convert them.
Half time and a read of the decentish programme, but with one of the more obscure adverts. A metaphorical tale of porcine absconscion, film making and Midlands management consultancy, in a North Wales football programme?
The second half was more of the same; badly taken half chances.
Sure enough the game finished 0-0.
The late kick off meant the buses had finished so it was a 40 minute B road grass verge walk.
Back to Ruabon and the obligatory 'look what we used to do before we just took in each other's washing' winding gear roundabout display.
I was back to the station, thankfully for the last time.
My steed was a seven car 175. A very hungry hippo?
On to Chester with a faff as they tried to detach two units but the driver had brought it in on an overlap.
I was on another 175, heading to Warrington.
The direct line from Bank Quay to Manchester was shut, so it was a toss up between going via Preston, but an 80 minute wait there, or a man of steel cross-Manchester 17 minute connection.
The latter won out. So firstly it was a wander across Warrington, in a seemingly well lit park until I got to the pitch black far end woods where I bid a hasty retreat from the junkies and the doggers.
The rest of the walk was through a deserted town centre, to Warrington Central station.
I was on to a York bound TransPennine service, which gave the option if it was running late, of carrying on to Huddersfield and a move back via Halifax.
The train into Manchester was a few minutes down, but I chanced the Oxford Road - Victoria jaunt. However, I hadn't factored in the number of pissed up loons there would be, aimlessly walking through the centre, and I was swearing at myself as I arrived into Victoria three minutes late, but seemingly as late as the guard for my train.
They were on a late inward working, so I made my slightly delayed 150/2, rather than the last train of the day, an already present 158 waiting to form the closing time special on the left.
Back into Sowerby at a not unearthly hour.
With the ice on my walk back now having the good grace to make itself visible.
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