Somerset Levels

Clutton v Odd Down Reserves 

Stockwood Green v Nailsea & Tickenham 

Hengrove Athletic Reserves v Brislington Reserves 

Cutters Friday v Peasedown Miners Welfare 

Stockwood Wanderers v Shirehampton 

Brislington v Cribbs 

Having a midweek day out back in the south meant the potential of some evening action the day before.  Although Bristol contains some of the less featurefull grounds in non-league grounds, they are often clustered together, so I decided to go for quantity over quality and see how many I could visit over the course of the evening.

It was a mid afternoon train down from Manchester, which departing Bristol Parkway, passed the new electric train depot, which still sits unused as the wiring programme is so many years late.

Heading down the hill and work is going on to re-quadruple Filton Bank.  The original four tracks were reduced to two in the British Rail austerity days of the 1980s.  Bloody Thatcher.

It was off at Temple Meads.

I've got some great new mapping software so I can now show my plans, not that they make much sense.  It was to be a bus move down to Clutton for game one, before returning half way, for a walk to a couple more games, and then onto Stockwood playing fields where two more games were being played.  It was then a bus and walk move across south Bristol for an evening game at Brislington, before the bus back into Bristol and a train home.

So to start with First Bus 376 that goes from Bristol to Street.  In my time away, I'd forgotten how the level of conversation to be expected from the natives, but was instantly reminded.  The bloke behind me was on the phone to his partner, enquiring whether he should buy some bark, as he had seen nine metres of it for sale on e-bay for £60.  However, he confessed that firstly he didn't know if this was a good price or not, and secondly he had no idea what nine metres was.  Added to that is that the local accent makes everyone sound like a pirate, and you have text book Bristolian. 

After crawling along the Wells Road, eventually I was able to alight at Clutton.

My first game nestled nicely behind the pub opposite the bus stop.

Step 12 parking cones.

Clutton 1 v Odd Down Reserves 1, Somerset County League - Premier Division 

Clutton are one of the most historic teams in the area, having been formed in 1890.  Their long existence has seen them pass through the Bristol & Suburban, Church of England, Bristol & District and the Mid Somerset League.  However, recent times have seen the club at their highest level, rising from the third to the premier in the Somerset Senior League.

Odd Down was a separate village south of Bath, but it has now been enveloped by the city and finds itself being a slightly nicer version of Twerton, and with a park-and-ride.  The football club dates from 1901, playing on farmers fields in the Wiltshire and then Somerset leagues.  The 1970s saw the club really take off, as improvement of facilities at the ground saw a rise to the Western League, where they have been since.  A fairly anonymous time in the league was broken in 2016 when the title was won.  The Reserves assumed the first teams position in the Somerset league when elevation to the Western was achieved, and since then, have mostly been at the top end of the league.

The club originally played at Nine Acres, the field behind the current ground which they moved to in 1945.  Warwick Field was owned by the pub and happily, the club were able to buy it off local micro-brewery Greene King in 2009. 

There was originally a ferocious 25 foot slope on the pitch, but this was levelled out in the 1970s, giving the elevated view from behind the clubhouse end goal.  At the same time, this small standing cover was built, which did incorporate micro-dugouts.

However, more recent addition have been larger, separate dugouts, but very much in keeping with the tidy appearance of the ground.

Behind the far goal is a small training area.

With the other touchline being the pub garden.

This year has seen the emergence of warm-up @keepers_towel and they have now reached the Somerset Senior League.  In August.

However, more in keeping for the level was every one of the warm up balls being of a different design.

Another category for the much promised non-league I spy book will be 40 points if the mower is actually an untaxed road vehicle.  So that's 40 points for Clutton...

...and another 20 points for the club house being supplied by a long since departed brewer.  In this case Watney's live on through their Tripple Crown Bitter ash trays.

Approaching kick off time and the crowds flocked in.  Well, two other people joined me.

The teams cheerily emerged from the changing rooms.  These were formerly the buildings at Monkton Combe Junior School, and when they were replaced, half the building came here and the other half went to fellow Somerset Senior side Backwell United.  

The Clutton physio then noticed he'd locked the changing rooms with four players still inside them.

So returned to ensure his side had a full complement, self-prophesying his t-shirt slogan.

With me quite tight on my next bus move, the teams ambled around the pitch for a bit.

Then decided to do the handshake thing.

Then ambled around some more.

But eventually we got underway.

And some people kicked the ball around a bit.  I'm sure you've got the hang of the game by now without me boring you with details.

I saw three memorable minutes of glorious football before heading off. 87 minutes late the game finished 1-1.  A lovely little ground and a friendly set-up, but no regrets with what was to come.

It was back to the bus stop for a Bristol bound service.

For a trip back through the Chew Valley.

I was off at Hursley Hill, just on the fringes of South Bristol.

Look, I've bought this mapping software, so by god I'm going to use it.  So here is a detailed itinerary of the walk I was about to undertake of six ground, four of which were hosting games.

Stockwood Green 2 v Nailsea & Tickenham 2, Somerset County League - Premier Division
Stockwood is a large 1960s housing estate that forms the outermost south easterly suburb of Bristol.  Stockwood Green is the area around the primarily school and the football club originally played at the cricket ground there.  This site was used by Melbury United, however on their demise, it was taken over by Bedminster team RWP, who had lost the use of the exotically named Robinson's Waxed Paper Sports ground.  However, the move away from their heartland depleted them of organisers so in 2006 they merged to become Stockwood Robinsons, playing at Melbury, but within a couple of years had reverted to the Stockwood Green name.

Nailsea & Tickenham were formed in 2014 from the usual scenario of one club having the facilities but no team, and one club having the team but no facilities, so deciding it is best to put the two together.  Tickenham is a village just outside Clevedon and had a strong Somerset league team in the 1960s but merged with Clevedon Sports to become the present day Clevedon United.  A new village team was set up in 2007 and were all conquering in the Weston & District League, but with no ground of their own.  Nailsea Town were playing in the Somerset league, and for many years were happy as the second team to Nailsea United, multiple champions of the Somerset Premier.  However, a desire to challenge their neighbours was not matched with what they could offer on the pitch, and so Nailsea & Tickenham were formed.

The site is in a lovely setting but has remained fairly undeveloped over the years.

A contender for the most ramshackle changing rooms and clubhouse in non-league. 

With the pitch railed... 

...and dug outs in place.

The dug outs were only marginally bigger than the re-cycling bin, but they both seemed equally well filled with discarded cans of Thatcher's Gold.

Even though the Somerset League games were all 1830 kick offs, the light was already starting to draw in.

Which was of a concern if we had to rely on this floodlight set up, that probably wouldn't take much interference from a Chinese betting syndicate to fail.

The location is quite isolated, but is a very pleasent setting to watch a game.  

Bettered only by the presence of another @keepers_towel, which was very orderly laid out, providing bedding for the drinks bottle.

Shadows lengthened...

...men kicked footballs.

The pitch had a hell of a dip towards the halfway line from both ends.

This bloke took a throw in.

This goalkeeper tried not to look self-conscious in bright pink.

But despite the attraction of staying, I'd other places to be.  The game went on to finish 2-2.

It was a quick wander down Gibbet Lane, still so named despite public hanging having being outlawed in Bristol as long ago as 1970.

There was just time to pop into neighbouring side Bristol Spartak, who play in the Dentmagic Bristol and Suburban league.

It was back across the A37 and down more country lanes. I'd passed a jogger on the way from the bus earlier, and on encountering them again, he passed a cheery comment that I'd done more miles than him that evening.  

But I reached my next stop off.

Which was here, a re-visit to a ground I'd visited many tiomes when I lived locally.

Hengrove Athletic Reserves 6 v Brislington Reserves 3, Somerset County League - Division 1 East
Hengrove Athletic were formed in 1948 by soldiers returning from the war, and joined the Bristol and Suburban League.  A reserve team was started the following year and the club expanded at at various times has fielded up to four sides.  The first team joined the Somerset Senior in the seventies, and after running away with the Premier Division in 2005, they stepped up to the Western League.

Brislington were formed in 1956 originally as a youth team in Bristol Church of England League.  They moved up to the Bristol and Suburban League by the 1960s, and then the Somerset Senior in the 1970s.  The won the league in 1989, which saw promotion to the Western League, with the reserves assuming the Somerset Senior membership.

Hengrove moved to the Norton Lane ground in 1964, having previously led a nomadic existence across a series of venues in South Bristol.

The ground was considerably upgraded in 2007, when floodlights and stands were installed to continue Western League grading.  The EWW Stand was installed at the ground in 2012 to attain FA cup and future Southern league grading.

On the opposite touch line are the dug outs with a couple of other pitches behind, which are used by the clubs third team.

The sun was starting to set over Malden Head in the background.  But there was enough light to see the home side score.

But glory be to start the second half with double @keepers_towel as the away one is in place as the home custodian wanders past with his slung over his shoulder.

The towel was soon in place.

But I'd seen what I needed to see and for logic I didn't question until I was half way through doing it, exited the ground through a compost heap into a neighbouring garden centre.

It was a brisk stroll down more country lanes.  However, who was approaching, none other than my mate the jogger, who this time looked decidedly uneasy to have encountered for a third time someone walking around in suit, making notes on a tablet.  Even I was concerned that I was in fact a civil servant scoping out burial sites for a future murdered wife.

He scurried off in the opposite direction in what appeared to be personal best timings, whilst I arrived here.

Which is home of these.

With my next game in play on one of the myriad of pitches that are located in the complex. 

Cutters Friday 2 v Peasedown Miners Welfare 2, Somerset County League - Division 1 East

Cutters Friday I used to know the origins of but can't remember anymore.  I have a vague recollection it is to do with a local pub.  Or boats.  Or tobacco.  God knows.  Anyway, they were formed in 1989 and have been in the Somerset league for the last twenty years.  I'd visited previously in my university days as it meant I'd been to a football team for every week day; Leatherhead Monday, Shepherds Tuesday, Sheffield Wednesday, Abergavenny Thursdays,  

Peasedown St Johns is a village to the south west of Bath.  You may or may not be aware, or care, that Somereset used to have a decent sized coal field.  It was based around the north east corner of the county and Peasedown was at the heart of it with four collieries, the last closing in 1970.  Bloody Thatcher.  This facilitated large welfare clubs which became strongholds in the local sporting scene.  Peasedown FC were formed in the 1890s and by the 1910s were in a very strong Western League.  However, they kept getting inconvenienced by world wars as they dropped out for WW1 and they had only just regained their status by the 1940s whereby Hitler was well into his dastardly plan of depriving Somerset miners of Western League football.  However, they did rejoin after the war but dropped out in the 1950s as the mining declined.  They regrouped in the 1980s, now very much as a village side, and joined the Somerset Senior league.  They're ground seemed to alternate each season between being a lovely little well kept village Sports ground, and the next year being wind torn, derelict and piss stained, though last time I visited it was looking well.

The Stockwood Lane complex has six pitches, owned by four clubs, with three different entrances.  Cutters have a couple of the pitches.

The club house didn't look to be offering up much in the way of refreshment.

So it was over to the football.  This is the first team pitch which is railed and has dug outs.

There is also another pitch with the same offering.

It is actually closer to the changing rooms but has a massive hump down the centre of the pitch so is used by the reserves.

Various artefacts were in the goal, but alas, no towel.

A game was going on.  I was a bit footballed out having watched as much as ten minutes play over the course of the evenings games so far.

A bloke who sounded like Long John Silver shouted 'nevagh ref nevagh' every time the referee made any call.

I did get to see a goal as Peasedown scored.

By now it was very dark, so I decided to head for my final daylit game.  This one finished 2-2.

This was the obvious route to it, separating Cutters from their neighbours.

A quick camera over the fence trick got a shot of the most developed pitch in the complex, which belongs to Bristol Telephones.

Thankfully, Bristol Telephones aren't a prissy named mobile phone shop, but actually date from 1948 as the works team of the telephony department of Bristol Post Office Telephones.  They played at Bristol Civil Service Club but got kicked out when British Telecom was privatised.  Bloody Thatcher.  Eventually they found a home here at Stockwood Lane.  They played in the Bristol and Suburban League but are currently on a roll, as 2013 saw them promoted to the Gloucestershire County League, which is a bit odd as that is normally for clubs in North Bristol.  Last season they won that and managed to avoid the near purgatory that is the Hellenic by instead being promoted to the Western League.

But I carried on through the 'neighbours from hell' type conifer trees, with the next game now being visible.

Stockwood Wanderers 1 v Shirehampton 1, Somerset County League - Premier Division
Stockwood Wanderers seem quite a shy club as there is very little about them anywhere.  They were formed in 2004, which I know because it says so on their badge.  They joined the Somerset County league in 2014, which I only know from looking at the league table section of FCHD as the club page is blank.  Other than that, nothing.

Shirehampton is located up the Avon gorge from Bristol, close to the Avonmouth docks.  The football team are long term residents of the Somerset League, despite firmly being in Gloucestershire FA territory.  They play at Penpole Lane, which used to be shared with Western League side Portway Bristol, but their demise in the late eighties saw all but the duggouts ripped down and strewn across the site.

The ground consists of the the main pitch by the changing rooms and clubhouse, and a reserve pitch behind that.

There are dug outs on the far side of the pitch.

These are back to back offerings like those seen the previous weekend at Woolston.

However, whilst the home bench was passable...

...the away team was two place open seating, with some sort of torture device between. 

So, I suppose I'd better show some vague pretence of interest in the game.

Some goalmouth action.

This is more like it.  The substitute-come-lino sponsored by a discount off-licence.  Football as it should be.

A dog who's head doesn't fit with the rest of its body, appears to be taking another dog for a walk.

A robust keeper breaks off a detailed conversation, probably about motor insurance with his dad behind the goal, long enough to clear the ball.

Some more football.  Oh, and the changing rooms if you were wondering what they looked like.  No, I wasn't either.

A very low sun signalled my departure from the game.  It was yet another draw, this time 1-1.

For some reason reason people think Bristol is a quaint west country town.  I worked there for ten years and the reality is somewhat different.  It is mostly shitty housing estates.  To demonstrate the point, well you know how crap Peckham looks is in Only Fools and Horses?  Well, it isn't actually filmed anywhere London, it is all filmed in Bristol.  My next move gave me various glimpses of the faux deprived South London, as I was off into Stockwood.

Where an insect bus move took me a mile or so to the Coots terminus of the number 2. 

Where it was a wander out the back of another crap estate.

Just visible in the centre of the woods of this next shot is a floodlight of my next ground.

Stockwood is seperated from Brislington by what is described as a nature reserve, but is more just a theme park for opportunist muggers.  

I was wary of putting on public display anything of value as A) it was now getting dark, and B) I was in Bristol and technology confuses them.  Therefore, here is a snatched shot of the approach to the next shitty housing estate.

Here is the shitty housing estate. Brislington used to be a village between Bath and Bristol.  It is now a 1950s housing estate between Bath and Bristol.

The football ground is actually located closer to Keynsham than Brislington, so it was a hike down the Bath Road.  Fortunately there was a pavement.  Unfortunately it was mostly occupied by warehouse workers on knackered mountain bikes, either heading at breakneck speed to their night shift, or at break neck speed home.

Until this eventually was reached.

However, the ground is actually down a lane off the main road.  This is an unmade road with no lighting, and is one of the darkest ground approaches in football.

However, the intrepid are rewarded with this.

Brislington 2 v Cribbs 1, Toolstation Western League - Premier
Brislington hadn't had any historical developments since I'd seen their reserves 45 minutes earlier.

Cribbs are the football team of the Axa insurance sociable club. They started in the 1970s when the then Sun Alliance moved to Bristol. Much like the IBIS club at Reading, Bristol had a sports ground for the various insurance companies in the City, this being at Cribbs Causeway. They joined the Bristol Combination, moved up to the Gloucestershire County in 2000 under the guise of Axa, before joining the Western in 2012, by that time being backed by Friends Life. They were promoted last season to the premier, but do not have the backing of any of the companies, so are now just known as Cribbs.

After initially playing at Arnos Court Park and then Victory Court, Brislington moved to Ironmould Lane in 1978. The installation of floodlights in 1995 and the construction of the Park Pets Stand enabled promotion to the Premier Division. 

In 2013 they were Premier division runners-up, but were denied promotion to the Southern league for ground grading issues, so further works took place. 

This is the pick of the structures and the ground now has a capacity of 2,000 with 144 seats. 

Supposedly there are 1,500 covered standing places, but I wouldn't want to be one of the 1,350 that would have to not be in the front row of the covered standing.

As this was my last game, I stayed to the end.  Here a bloke takes a shit corner and then runs off blaming the centre halves for not making an unprompted run from the halfway line to the edge of the penalty area to meet the pin point cross. 

However, there was a record breaking fifth @keepers_towel of the evening.  Bristol, I salute you.

Brislington were leading 2-0 but Cribbs then pulled one back to make for a tense finish, but held out for it to finish 2-1.

I was back to the main road where the Airport to Bath express bus never turned up, so it was across to the opposite carriageway for the trusty First Bus 39 stopping servcie.

Which dropped me back at Temple Meads.

Where the last London service of the day was taken.

Which whisked me back to the Wiltshire residence.

So in under three hours I'd done six games, eight grounds, five towels, four buses, 5.5 miles of walking and watched about twenty minutes of actual football.  

A perfect evening.  Well, apart from the actual football.