Spalding Hot

(Castleford v Wakefield)

Logos v St Peters

Moulton Horrax v Stamford Lions 

Spalding United v Bedworth United 

Selby Town v Penistone Church 

Friday was a quick jaunt to the Osgoldcross Wapentake rugby league derby between Castleford and Wakefield Trinity.  

The reason for this was that the junction at Micklefield was being relaid, so TransPennine Express services were being diverted via the normally freight only line between Burton Salmon junction and Castleford, which conveniently goes right behind the open terrace at Wheldon Road.  As games are normally played on a Sunday, there are no freight services booked to run, so yesterday meant I could finally get a @nonleague_train at the ground.

It is also a great, old fashioned ground.  It was packed yesterday and I also find the Cas' fans a decent lot (take notice Salford).  Finally, Castleford are enjoying perhaps there most successful spell ever, based on a very decent coaching set up, playing very exciting rugby and leading the Super League over the much better resourced usual suspects.  If only they could stop bottling it in the play offs.  Anyway, they trashed their local rivals, the 42-24 score making it seem closer than it actually was.

So, on to today.  The reason I had chosen rugby yesterday was due to the hazard of non-league football at Easter; organised ground hops.  These involve a string of games being re-arranged across a day at regular intervals so attendees can visit four or more in a day.  It is the shooting fish in a barrel option for watching football, and attracts new ground desperados rather than anyone just wanting a day out.  This means a large contingent of train spotting weirdos.

I finally gave up on them when I was with my mate Mike happening upon a game on a South West hop (I think it could have been Sticker).  A bloke with a very red nose asked us where he had come from, to which we responded 'Bristol'.  We weren't expecting the second sentence this complete stranger to tell us was 'I went to Bristol once, to see a dominatrix', and if that hadn't made us wary enough, then his closing comment of 'I ended up getting chased round St Paul's by a load of darkies' certainly made sure we didn't take him up on his offer to stay at his, which we were now able to do as his mum had died.  Now I'm not saying that all ground hoppers are sexually repressed racists who live with their mothers, probably only 98% of them are, but that was still the clincher in never wanting to be part of that scene.

So today was doing everything in my powers not to end up on a ground hop game, which seem to be in the Northern Counties East today and then the North West Counties on Sunday and Monday.

There is an still unconfirmed tale that on Brunel's birthday, the sun rises right through Box Tunnel, which he built near Bath on the Great Western .  This was the nearest Saturday to it and I can confirm that it does shine straight down the platform ramp at Sowerby Bridge station.

It was the 0820 off Sowerby, heading for Leeds.

The now trademark morning arrival into Leeds under the gloom of the footbridge.

On to a Donny all shacks, rightfully formed of a 321/9, which are like a Northern version of a Waterloo and City train, being the only services these three units have operated since they were built thirty years ago.  

Off at Sandal and Agbrigg on the southern outskirts of Wakefield.  The station was re-opened in the 1980s, when British Rail could knock up something overnight, rather than the holocaust proof multi million pound ramp fests that Network Rail demand today.

It was a short wander through Sandal, which took me here.  Obviously the place was full of dogs that were freely running around, shitting everywhere.  Who would have thought dog owners would be such inconsiderate arses?

This was an early kick off in the Yorkshire Christian league, but things didn't look too promising.

Though I was at least in the right place.

There was a kids game going on in an adjacent park.

But the main complex was suspiciously empty.  It consists of three football and a cricket pitch.

 The main pitch is fully railed...

...but has the tiniest dugouts I've ever seen.  Even the ones at Tuffley would dwarf these.

The second pitch is part railed and it has opposing dugouts of a more inhabitable size.

The cricket pitch is at the top of the complex and has a slope on that would challenge Edmund Hillary.  The whole purpose of deep midwicket must be just to retrieve the ball from the football pitches.  I have also just realised that my go to simile to describe steepness is someone from the 1950s, are there any famous modern mountaineers? 

The ground loved a shed.  Yet another ground shared with a dog obedience centre, I hope they had their permits.  

The bowls club had their own one.

With the football pitches looking like the start of a christmas market.  Thankfully there was an absence of middle-aged divorcees in trouser suits getting wankered on mulled wine.

All these sheds yet the office was al-fresco?

It was a welcome edition of the good old non-league game of 'guess what on earth agricultural purpose this machine serves?'.  I've no idea what this does, other than be something our friend from the Cornish groundhop would love having dragged across his bollocks.

All around the site were randomly distributed bales of hay.

I thought this was another one on the right.

But it was actually a mutilated hedgehog.

But it did lead me to signs of activity, which turned out to be the teams warming up.

Logos 1 v St Peters 9, Yorkshire Christian league - Premier Division

Logos appear to be a Pentecostal church from Doncaster.  Logos is Greek for 'word', and is mentioned in the bible, apparently referring to the word of God and Jesus Christ. Who Knew.  The team have been going a while, but seem to be the whipping boys this season, with three points from 15 games, and a number of heavy defeats.

St Peters are an Anglican church based in Shipley, with a vision 'to see the town transformed by the power of God'.  The team play in Keighley and won the league cup last year. 

The game was being played on the third pitch, which is sandwiched between the main two, without any railings or dug outs.

The pitch markings were about a foot wide.

The game was about to start when it was noticed that there were no corner flags.  In the true spirit of amateur football 'if a jobs worth doing, its worth doing half heartedly' someone was harangued into getting the flags, and made a token effort at putting them up, this one at a 30 degree angle...

... and this pole placed somewhere near where near its intended home, with the unattached flag placed on top of it.

We then had a minutes silence.  I enquired as to who it was in memory of?  'Jesus' I was told.

The game also starts with daily verse, which also appears on the league website.  I'm not sure what I've learned from this.

There was a suspiciously professional standard of kit, with only one player going off palette. 

One of the reasons for choosing this game was that there is a bit of a @nonleague_train opportunity as the ground is situated next to the Leeds leg of the East Coast main line.  First to pass, during the warm up, was VTECs 1A22 1005 Leeds to London Kings Cross.

The early moments of the game and an HST operating under the wires on 1D06 0833 London Kings Cross to Leeds.

Next was Cross Country's only train of the day to go through Surrey, 1E79 0609 Guildford to Leeds.

But football rewards the patient, as those on Northern's 2B11 1021 Leeds to Doncaster got to see the opening goal for the away side, which, admittedly, is more than you will be able to do from this picture.

St Peter's then went a bit nuts.  Scoring from this.

And this.

This one in the second half made it six.

With Logos looking unlikely to pull back the six goal deficit, I headed off midway through the half.  The game eventually finished 1-9.

Rather than the long detour back through the suburbs, I'd found a way through the woods at the back of the complex. 

This took me down a pathway to the adjacent station.

On the other side of the railway was Agbrigg, which is the less salubrious partner in the station naming.  It is home to Wakefield Trinity's Belle Vue ground, which can be seen above the travellers camp.

This was the scene that guarded the entrance to the station.  The quintessential view of Yorkshire used to be flat caps and whippets.  I would now say that it is definitely the discarded bottle of supermarket Prossecco.  There isn't a street in the county that isn't littered with a three quarters drunk bottle of the call centre worker's special brew.

Despite me wanting to head south, the quickest move was to head back to Wakefield.  The train had arrived five down, and looking through the timings, it had lost time at all stations.  My unit rolled in and sat there.  After about a minute the guard emerged from the back cab and then opened the doors, all the time looking back into the cab and talking.

We headed the one stop back to Wakefield, with another member of staff doing ticket checks.  At Wakefield, we again pulled in and waited for the doors to open.  Another minute wasted.  When the train did eventually pull away, it showed there were two guards in the back cab, obviously prioritising talking to each other over actually doing the one thing they were meant to be doing; safely and punctually operating the doors.  Meanwhile, someone without such responsibility was efficiently and effectively checking tickets and helping customers.  If ever there was an example of why door control should go to drivers, this was it.

The panoramic view of Wakefield prison that you get from the station.

I was onto a Kings Cross bound East Coast service.

Passing the final few seconds of the game.

At Peterborough, I had a ten minute connection onto a two hourly frequency service.  However, more guard woes ensued as the one on the Virgin service decided that he would prioritise getting wifi codes for a couple of pensioners who had forgotten their's, rather than do the doors.  So we lost five minutes at Newark as he didn't realise we had arrived, then went and did an announcement after we were already sat in the platform, and then finally got around to opening the doors, before ambling back to his dispatch position at the other end of the train.  This turned my connection into a +2, which was made by using the ex parcels footbridge at the far end of the station.

I was heading east into Lincolnshire.  One of the world's dullest, flattest train journeys.  If you like rape seed, you would probably be alright, otherwise, bring a book.

Into Spalding station.  This used to be an important six way junction, but one by one the lines have closed, the last two to Boston and March, relatively recently in railway terms.  In the last few years, the station has been reduced from its original seven platforms to just two.

Spalding was a bit of a settlement, but became more prominent when surrounding land was drained and it became a big agriculture area, as well as giving a huge expanse for retired couples to build bungalows, relocate from Essex and complain about East Europeans.  It is also a centre for bulb and flower growing, specifically tulips, and hosts both the World Tulip Summit and the Tulipmania festival.  Apart from that, not much else, seeings as its Wikipedia page has had to resort to lisiting when a barcode was first used in the town.

Spalding is a bloody weird place.  I've been a few times but never found the centre.  This was the road called High Street but was just a river.



This poster alluded to there being a centre, but I gave up trying to find it.  Only on writing this up do I realise that I have taken a picture of the entrance to the public toilets.  I'm sure there are a few people at one of the groundhop games who will be right clicking on it.

So giving up on trying to find the centre of Spalding, I jumped on the bus to my next destination, hoping there might be some thing to do there.

  
It turned out the centre is actually now an out of town retail outlet which half of Lincolnshire seemed to be queuing to get into, even though it consisted of a Clare's Accessories (a shop which exists solely to teach teenage girls to shoplift) and an Edinburgh Woollen Mill.

I was heading for the village of Moulton.  However, the bus didn't actually go there, dumping me on the main road some way out of the village.

So it was a 'B road grass verge walk of shame'.  Today's find, in keeping with the locality, was a trail of discarded cabbages.

I had no idea what to expect in the village, nor indeed how to fill in some time before the game.  I found a very quaint Main Street.  Its most notorious resident was John Molson, who was born in the village until emigrating to Canada, where he joined his mate John Carling in making hideous Lager for fuckwits.

But I did stumble across something to occupy my time, but not just any windmill...

...but Britain's tallest windmill.

I'm very good at thinking things look worth doing, and then not getting round to doing them, deciding I'll come back later.  Having a list of things to do before you die has suddenly become a bit more of an urgent matter with the two worst haircuts in history currently having itchy fingers towards their nuclear buttons.  So I grasped the occasion and can now say I can tick off going up Britain's tallest windmill from my bucket list.  

  
With time well spent, I headed off to here.  It is impossible to take a picture of a non-urban road at the weekend without a wannabee Bradley Wiggins turning up in it.  Fuck off and take drugs at home.

Tucked behind Britain's smallest and least window endowed village hall...

...I found my game.

And what a warm welcome they give you.  In a strange turn of events since on 1950's pub admittance policy, it seems that blacks and Irish are the only ones who are allowed.

Moulton Horrax 1 v Stamford Lions 0, ChromaSport Peterborough & District League - Premier Division

Yet more authoritative signage.  I was disappointed by the restriction on other sports as I'd turned up with a few mates hoping for a few circuits of impromptu grass track speedway.  Is pigeon racing really a sport?

If you can find anything about Moulton Harrox, then you are better than me.  The suffix relates to John Harrox, who founded a school in the village in the 1500s.

Stamford Lions were formed in 2015 when Ryhall United outgrew their village home and relocated to one of the out pitches at the new Borderville ground of Stamford FC’s, basically becoming their reserve side.

The Broad Lane complex has a shared cricket and football pitch.

The football pitch was on the far side.  It is right on the edge of the village and borders mile upon mile of open farmland.  This meant, despite it being a balmy April day, there was a Saharan like dust filled wind whipping across, with a wind chill factor of about -20.

The only structure is this combined dugout, with a central area for officials/directors/anyone wanting to avoid an arctic gale.

Seating was limited to this, but what a joy.  This is how I will spend my retirement, watching shit football with a pint, dressed head to toe in eight different shades of beige.

Well actually, there was one more seat.  A ball got lodged in one of the surrounding trees.  In what seemed a well practised routine, an umpires chair was dragged from the tennis courts, and from it the ball was plucked from its resting place.  You don't get this in the Premier League and those games are emptier for it.

The ferocious wind meant has produced the most on-the-wonk floodlight I've seen in a while.

Where football and cricket pitches overlap, it is always interesting to see how they deal with floodlights.  Being non-league, no two solutions are ever the same.  The one here was a mobile floodlight, which according to my mate under the tree, was based on a Morris Minor chassis, and is wheeled out to the far touchline as required. 

As ever, some unfathomable agricultural equipment.

You wait forty years to see your first ever mutilated hedgehog at a game, and then there is also one at the next game.  Is it hedgehog sacrifice season or something? 

The crowd was about 20, with those on the open touchline obviously regulars, as they had come prepared and were dressed up like arctic explorers.

So, some football.  A keeper points.

A bloke runs.

The wind means the keeper has to save his own goal kick.

The kit situation was very strange, as it looked like the teams had swapped shirts.

Viewed from the players entrance, the home side took the lead.

With 'me in twenty years' now onto his third pint and joined by a friend to discuss local traffic "Everyone had decided to go to Mablethorpe, it took me an hour to get through Ulceby Cross", the game ended, still 1-0.

Heading back to the bus stop and you have to admire the dedication of this individual.  Has anyone else constructed a 1/32 scale model of their villages major landmark in their front garden? 

Back to the main road.

Where the highways department spell checker obviously didn't pick up on Seas v Sees until it was too late.

The bus shelter was as ornate as it was substantial, which was welcoming as it was located right in the cross wind experienced at the ground.  Note the seating is just on the far end, so you sit side saddle so can see the bus coming.

Which it eventually did, about ten minutes late.  No info if this to do with the Mablethorpe hoards though.

The bus running late meant I watched the kick off of my next game from the upper deck of a Dennis Trident ALX 400.

It was back to Spalding bus station.

Which is right next to the football ground.

With this being my next game.

Spalding United 0 v Bedworth United 1, Evo-stick Northern Premier League - Division 1 South

Spalding were formed in 1921, playing in the Peterborough and District League, and then up to the United Counties in the 1930s.  Their location is a bit of a no mans land for leagues above that level, and at various times they have found themselves at the ectremities of the Eastern Counties (which stretches to Clacton), the Northern Counties East (covering to Harrogate), the Southern league Midland (Redditch), the Southern League East (a handy step 8 midweek game at Eastbourne!), the Northern Premier League before it was regionalised and a trip to Kendal, and now the NPL south, with the furthest trip being Stafford.

Bedworth is a former mining and textile town to the north of Coventry.  Its major claim is that no two people can agree on how to pronounce it, dropping the w, or the d.  The football club were founded in 1905 as the excellent sounding Bedworth Evening Combination School.  Being a West Midlands non-league side, naturally they have gone bust and reformed a few times, at various points playing in the Coventry & North Warwickshire, Central Amateur, Birmingham Combination, Birmingham & District and then the West Midlands (Regional) League.  The 1970s saw them rise to the Southern League, where they remained until a couple of years ago, when non-league's tectonic plate like shift south, meant they were switched across to the Northern Premier League.

This has always been Spaldings home.  The ground was originally known as the Black Swan Ground but in the 1950s was renamed after Halley Stewart, a local MP who had died 50 years previous.  

The main feature is the main stand which is of a decent standard and dates from the 1980s.

The opposite touchline is open, with a training area behind it.

There used to be terracing and cover behind the far goal.  It was fenced off on my last visit and now seems to have been flattened



A small cover has emerged at the opposite end.

  
Looming behind over the ground is the huge Chatterton water tower, built in an art deco style in the 1950s.

This is the third time this season I've seen this bloke, who is always dressed in a Freightliner uniform.  I am unconvinced his working day coincides with all these matches, much more likely he wears it so that he can blag free train travel.  Whether or not he does actually work for them I do not know.  

The tea hut didn't have any soft drinks apart from sugar free pink lemonade Lucozade, which was slightly niche.

Anyway, to the game.  Spalding missed a penalty.

Then Bed(w)orth scored right tat the end to win 0-1, though other results meant Spalding qualified for the play offs.

Wanky J name watch revealed the obligatory Joshua, a Jack and a Jordan.

It was time to head off.  The station frontage has been replaced by a Sainsburys car park and a ring road.

It was a single dog box on the 1657 to Peterborough.

No hills had developed since the morning.

Into Peterborough.

This was going to be my train home, which was a Leeds service.  However, I noticed that the next train was East Coasts one train a day to Hull, which went to Selby, where there was an evening game.  The dilemma being that it was part of the groundhop.

However, when it turned up, it was a pair of East Midlands Trains power cars on an east coast set, so the opportunity to get in a bit of VP185 haulage was too good to miss, and off to Selby it was.

My train heads off over the swing bridge, with me still contemplating whether to bother going to the game.  This used to be part of the East Coast Main Line, but the part of the line between here and York was bought by British Coal in the 1980s for drift mining, and a more direct route between Doncaster and Hull was built, which bypasses Selby.

Selby Town 1 v Penistone Church 1, Toolstation Northern Counties East League - Division 1

I'm sure there are a thousand reports covering every blade of grass at the game, so I won't bore you with the detail too much.  Selby; founded 1919, Yorkshire League, NCEL, winners a few times.

Penistone Church, have a look here.  My heart's not really in this game.

Selby moved to the Flaxley Road in the 1950s, and I'm not sure any work has been done since.  To be fair, its an interesting little ground, but the club are looking to move, so it isn't in the best condition.

The cover is all at one end.

Including this tiny area of preferential seating.  There are concrete steps adjacent for the proles.

The rest of the ground is pretty much just hard standing.  Although a moat seems to have been dug around the pitch since my last visit, which did a good job in catching the ball.

Predictably, it there has a large hopping contingent, though less than I thought would be there.   A fine selection of anoraks as ever.

I'd arrived about ten minutes into the second half, with the home side winning 1-0.

Despite the day drawing in, there was no sign of floodlights, so you will just have to take it from me that this shows Penistone's equaliser.

The game ended 1-1.

The home side were complying with the compulsory Josh requirement, and also had a Jordan. 

I headed back to the station, with my HST from earlier now heading empty back to Leeds, passing a Hull Trains 180 on its way to the European capital of culture.  That's Hull by the way.

Engineering works at Micklefield meant it was a replacement bus for me.

Somewhat off route haulage.

Back at Leeds, and due to the engineering works, the Blackpool services were starting from here and calling at Sowerby.

And back home, feeling slightly dirty having soiled myself with a ground hop game, though thankful at least this I hadn't been accosted by a sexually depraved purveyor of casual racism.  Small victories.