Coatdyke Congregational v Mearns Churches
Kilsyth Rangers v Irvine Victoria
Yoker Athletic v Girvan
So, a weeks on-call which started with being called out to Manchester Victoria on Monday night, and didn't get much better, a welcome opportunity for a day away from events.
Still a reasonable volume of games going on in Scotland so it was north of the border for the third Saturday in row. This week's games were around Glasgow, but engineering works on the West Coast Main Line meant it would have been three different replacement buses to get there on that route, so instead it was up via the East Coast again, starting with the 0604 Sowerby to Leeds.
Into Leeds in the blazing sunshine. Well, daylight at least.
Over to the 0710 East Coast service to Aberdeen.
This was formed of one of the East Midlands Trains HSTs that are on long term loan to VTEC. This means that they are both a coach shorter than they normally are...
...but also some retro IC70 seating, with low backs and fixed arm rests.
Across the Tyne.
Because this service starts from Leeds, it is one of the quieter northbound services, so VTEC put loads of cheap advance purchase tickets on it. Being an 0842 departure off Newcastle, the train is basically just one big Geordie hen do, as hoardes of late twenty call centre workers in matching t-shirts head to Edinburgh. The most regular phrase heard on the train is 'what time is the Prosecco bar booked for?'. This is apparently an establishment in the Scottish capital, who's waiters must be in more danger of having their bodies mutilated than any serving member of the armed forces. Today's accompaniment was 'Joanne's Hen Do', with 12 friends, plus the obligatory mother and auntie, who always provide a seemingly endless supply of Tesco finest party food, but today with an added twist of eight bottles of home made shangri-la.
Into Edinburgh Waverley.
I was onto a Milngarvie bound ScotRail starter.
There are four different ways of getting by train from Edinburgh. The fast route via Falkirk to Queen Street, the infrequent and indirect route via Carstairs, which only really operates because it is currently the sole electrified option, the endurance stopping service via Shotts, and then the route I was taking. This is the most direct via Bathgate and Airdrie, however, it has numerous stops which means it is not the fastest. The line had been closed in the 1960s, and was taken up when freight ended in the 1980s, but was relaid about five years ago. It kicked off a dispute with the unions as the train doesn't have guards, the drivers do the doors and there is a ticket checker on board each service. This apparently horific arrangement meant there was a visible staff presence between each station, and station dwells were 30 seconds or less, with no one being killed. No wonder there is opposition. Anyway, it does travel through some nice scenery, including skirting the banks of Hillend Loch, which would be even nicer if ScotRail cleaned their windows.
I was off at Drumgelloch.
This is basically an eastern suburb of Airdrie. These days, it just looks like every location setting in Gregory's Girl has been put together in one town, and not cleaned since the film was made.
If you are a fan of light grey with black streaks, this is your kind of town. I made my way through the monochrome estates until I spied these.
These fields are the North Lanarkshire sole splash of colour equivalent to the Girl in Red in Schindler's List.
My first game was a double header of cup finals in the Strathclyde Evangelical Churches league. There was a surprisingly large turn out, including two coaches.
Strangely, the entrance to the stand that was open, was through the players tunnel...
...with the medals and cup assembled ready for the presentation. You don't get this at Wembley.
Coatdyke Congregational 2 v Mearns Churches 1, Strathclyde Evangelical Churches League - Daysoft.com Athol Cup - Division 2 Final
Coatdyke is on the western fringes of Airdrie, so this was a local game for them. The church (Our doors and our hearts are open to you) is part of the Congregational movement, and hosts two activities, line dancing and the football club. The latter were formed in 2004 to 'share what it means to have faith in Jesus and to use football as one way to communicate the difference he has made in players lives'.
Newton Mearns is located right on the Southern outskirts of Glasgow. The football club were founded in 2012, and seem to be based around the town's Baptisit Church (demonstrating the reality of Jesus' Good News in Newton Mearns and beyond).
The Excelsior stadium was opened in 1998 by the then Airdrieonians. Their old Broomfield Park prevented entry to the Premier League, so it was flogged to Safeway, and this compliant replacement was built. However, the cost bankrupted the club, though I suspect it wasn't the architecture fees. The club were resurrected by buying Clydebank, moving them across Glasgow and renaming them Airdrie. The only other option would have been to start a new club at junior level, and to work up the leagues, but the effort and merit basis of this option did not appeal.
Coatdyke were already a goal to the good when I arrived.
There were then goals for each side after I arrived.
Though I can't remember which order they came in.
But it 2-1 to the delight of most in the stands.
There then proceeded arrangements that probably weren't to be replicated as Wembley later in the day as the trestle table with the curtain over it was brought on to the pitch by two blokes in leisurewear.
The losing side got their medals.
However, closer inspection revealed that the official photographer was a bloke with a camera phone and a Tesco carrier bag, and also some ferile kid then sauntered into proceedings and helped themselves to a couple of medals which then had to be prised back off him.
But eventually it was time for the winning captain to collect the cup.
And the triumphant squad to have their photos taken by a collection of people who look like the focus group assembled to discuss the next Jacamo range.
I couldn't stay around for the next game, the Fraser Trophy. Instead it was into town, which meant I could at last answer the question of where ScotRail get all the barrels to make the station whisky train features.
I was onto a Kirkintilloch bound bus from the centre.
Well I was, and so was one other bloke.
My journey planner was suggesting for me to change buses at a school on the outskirts of Cumbernauld. I thought this was a bit odd as both services stopped in the town centre bus station, which I chose to get off at instead.
It was only when I alighted in the centre that I realised why they suggest not to.
If Aidrie's ground was designed by someone with a penchant for straight lines, Cumbernauld bus station was designed by, well I don't think it was designed by anybody It is just a kerbside next to a dual carriage way at the loading dock of a shopping centre.
Thankfully, my onward bus turned up, leaving a load of Celtic supporters to slowly asphyxiate on a mixture of car exhaust and the emissions from the extractor flue of the adjacent Greggs.
I'd previously thought that a visit to Kumanovo bus station in Macedonia would never be worsened...
...but today, Cumbernauld was a new low.
We rattled on through the now pleasent surroundings of Monklands, with quite a healthy load on board.
I was off in Kilsyth. Kilsyth is a very historcal settlement due to it being a strategic location on the trade route across the narrowest part of Scotland. Basically it was where Celts could ambush Scandinavians who were trying to get to Ireland without sailing around Scotland. These days, it is a Glasgow commuter village.
I was fast coming to the conclusion that either being an architect in north east Strathclyde is the easiest job on the planet, or else none exist. These were the two drinking options. The club on the right has no roof, just walls, whilst the pub on the left is all roof, no walls.
I pitied those who had to walk down something as soulless as Wembley way to get to their game later, as I had the splendour of a side road in an industrial estate, flanked by crumbling concrete walls topped with palisade security fencing and barbed wire.
But it did lead me to here.
Or more importantly this.
Outside the ground was another drinking option, which again appeared to be just a full size version of a Duplo mock up.
Though bespoke security compounds for individual bins was a neat touch.
But I could wait no longer, and it was down to yet another set of junior club ornate ironwork gates.
Kilsyth Rangers 3 v Irvine Victoria 1, Scottish Junior West - Division 1
Irvine is found on the Ayrshire coast, down towards, well, Ayr. It is a bit of a strange place in that it was already a large town that then became a designated newtown. The football club were formed in 1904, playing a quite low key existence in Ayrshire junior football, but last season winning promotion to West 1.
Duncansfield Park is one of the largest grounds in junior football, with a record crowd of almost 10,000. It sits in an enormous grass bowl.
The main structure if this full length covered terrace along the far touchline.
On the near touchline is uncovered terracing.
The two ends being grass banking.
The changing rooms are set some way back from the pitch, at the top of the nearside banking.
This creates the need for the major structure at the crowd, which rather uniquely, is the players tunnel.
There are engineers from Crossrail who would shirk at building such a long and sturdy tunnel. It reminds me of when Port Vale wanted to turn Vale Park into the 'Wembley of the North' in the 1930s, but only got as far as building the players tunnel.
The players emerging onto the pitch like jubilant Chilean miners.
I made my way over to the cover. I was surprised to see that either end of it was cordoned off.
Scottish junior football has the health and safety requirements of a world war one trench, so to find something deemed to dangerous to inhabit, must mean it has either been laced with landmines or is where the chairman is burying the VAT receipts.
I took my place on the identical looking open terrace.
The pitch had been taken over by a particular enthusiastic game of chidhood headers and volleys.
But the actual game got started.
Overseeing procedures was this @nonleaguedog, though it spent most of the game sorrowfully staring at spectators, like a hostage victim blinking out escape messages in morse code.
With the ends of the cover blocked off, the only access was via the pitch itself. In English non-league, to have spectators encroaching within twenty foot of the pitch would have had the club shut down, here. no one batted an eyelid. Except for the dog of corse, who blinked ...---...
These guys stopped off on their wander over to take in an attack. However, the Irvine forward appear to be wearing bowling shoes as he slipped over.
Again.
And again.
The more vocal supporters were on the clubhouse side. The most common start to a sentence amongst supporters at this level is "I've been watching junior football for sixty years, but....".
Today's use of the phrase related to the referee in the midweek game, the common sentiment being "I've been watching junior football for sixty years, but I've nae seen a ref who was so obviously bent".
There wasn't so much a good collection of groundsman's clutter, but more that they appear to be hoarding it for the whole of the Scottish Junior organisation. If abandoned mowers with flat tyres is your thing, this is your mecca. There were ride on variants.
Push along ones, tantalisingly sat on a strip of astroturf.
And doubled up domestic mowers, sat in trailers with equally flat tyres.
A decent collection of discarded half full petrol tanks.
Adding a second.
And a third.
Irvine did pull one back.
Still just enough time for the home side to have a player sent off.
I left with some of the game remaining, as I had a move to get me to the end of the title decider in the league.
So it was back to the centre for a bus.
The world's slowest driver eventually got me to Croy station.
Where it was onto a Glasgow bound DMU, the wiring not yet being complete.
Raising the game up here, with instead of the train being littered with Prosecco bottles, it was instead shot glasses,
It was into Queen Street.
Down to the gloom of the low level, and an Argyle line service along the north bank of the Clyde, with it now absolutely lashing down.
Normally this would result in people running for cover, but in Glasgow it appears the natural response is to strip down to your pants.
I had a change of trains at Partick, off a Milngarvie bound pair of Junipers...
...and onto a single 320, heading for Dumbarton.
Past Scostoun Stadium, home of kick and clap side the Glasgow Ra-Ras.
I was off after a couple of stops, at Yoker. Yoker used to be a major shipbuilding area of the Clyde. All that remains is a small area of the Yarrow yard, which makes amphibious craft and bits of warships for BAE.
Shipyards are not normally the most prosperous of areas, and it would be more descriptive than judgemental to describe Yoker as an absolute shithole. However, the desire for riverfront properties has now spread up the Clyde, and developers have spotted an opportunity to buy up cheap land in Yoker, and with excellent links into the city centre, the area is starting a bit of a rejuvination.
However, the cereal cafes had yet to make it to the two minute walk between the station and the ground.
Yoker Athletic 1 v Girvan 4, Scottish Junior West - Division 1
Yoker were formed in 1886. Their glory days were the 1930s with a Junior cup win and a runners up place, as well as a league title. Scotland has some great sounding cup competitions, Yoker's being the Beatons Coaches Sectional League Cup in 1986.
Girvan is situated way down the Clyde coast, between Ayr and Stranrear. It is the most boring place I have ever been to. I think they make Yorkie bars there. The football club were formed in 1947 as Girvan Amatuers, but played within the SFA structure in the Lowland League. However, they moved to the junior leagues in 2004, whilst retaining SFA membership.
Holm Park is the traditional home of Yoker, but recently the reprieved Clydebank have also moved in, with their perceived higher status leading to some ground improvements.
The only structure is this quite fantastic cover on the far touchline. The curved roof is reminiscent of the recently constructed stand at Godolphin.
The near touchline is a few steps of terracing.
In the previous picture, you may have noted the fairly prescriptive, four foot high graffiti.
I knew there were some works going on, and I thought it was this terracing that had perhaps seen better days, but it turns out that this was actually the new offering, its predecessor being even worse.
At some point, somebody started adding to or repairing the terracing, but it appears that interest has waned.
With Girvan having the chance to clinch the title, they had a fair following at the game. It seemed to be compulsory to be drinking a can of Tenants.
Except for the kids, who steadily consumed the average persons lifetime allowance of tartrazine and monosodium glutamate.
With the rain still falling, there was a rather lively @keepers@towel on display.
A highlight of the day was perhaps the most homespun cornerflag I've seen in football, being a hanker chief tied to a bamboo cane.
The away side were already two goals up when I arrived.
They thought they had added another but it was disallowed.
But eventually they did get another.
With some signs of industry in the background, the home side pulled one back.
Before Girvan sealed the victory with a fourth.
This saw them win the title, taking over top spot from the current Clydebank side, who actually ground share here. I left the supporters to celebrate, though they were in a good old state anyway, so god knows how battered they were by the time they got back to Girvan.
For me, it was back through McPeople Just do Nothing.
Yoker wasn't the finest of stations.
Yet somehow had managed to win this?
Onto another ScotRail dusty bin.
Into the gloom of Queen Street low level.
Upstairs to the much pleasanter main train shed, and a Edinburgh bound express.
This heads across through Falkirk, looking down on the Forth estuary.
The class 170 bonanza obviously too much for this bloke.
My East Coast HST rolled in, the exact same train I had travelled up on this morning, on its way back from Aberdeen.
As we departed Edinburgh, the heavens absolutely opened, with torrential rain and lightening.
As we skirted the coast around Dunbar, it was clearing up a bit, with some strange clouds out in the North Sea.
Berwick was just drying out.
And by Newcastle, it was blazing sunshine.
I was off at York.
Unfortunately, the city had been hosting the sporting event which creates far and away the worst spectators to be sharing a train home with. I am of course talking about horse racing, as a mixture of absolutely slaughtered middle aged couples and coked up youths, suddenly think they are the most entertaining people on earth. I therefore dodged the fast services back to Leeds, instead taking the Northern stopping service, as this is the stock that then forms the Preston service anyway.
Back into Sowerby, this time accompanied by participants on the Calder Valley ale trail, who are slightly less slaughtered middle aged couples and slightly less coked up youths. May's Britain; strong and steady recreational substance abuse.
