Chronicles of the Berkshire Pig: Windy Millom

Millom v Daten

Millom v Wigan St Jude's

Askam v Hurst Green

Original plans for a first trip of the season to Scotland for East of Scotland Churches/Musselburgh/Dunbar were somewhat scuppered by my alarm clock froze at 0519 so by the time I got to Sowerby station, the 0604 Leeds for the 0710 Aberdeen was a distant memory. Instead it was the more social hour of 0759, to find that the north's near obsession with rivers had turned into turf (sided lock) wars on the station as the Ryburn Valley crew had erected a sign but yards from the River Calder crew's home territory. It can only be a matter of time before the dispute witnesses its first drive-by victim, which knowing Sowerby, will probably be from a rusty transit with a slipping clutch, the weapon of choice being an insult about a particularly easy catch that one of the other river crew had dropped whilst fielding at backward point the previous Sunday, as round these parts, such slurs seem to be more impactful than any use of firearms.

Anyway, I digress. My revised destination was now to the Cumbrian coast, with a cluster of games around the Duddon estuary. I was on a mission to flag down a Settle and Carlisle service by rather than going into Leeds, instead charging across Bradford, and heading to Shipley, thus cutting the corner off the move and negating the need to try and make a -2 connection at Leeds.

So it was into Interchange. Incidentally, both these services are operated by the German state railway. On the left, Arriva Northern's Blackpool-York which I'd come in on, and on the right, open access operator Grand Central and a Bradford-London via Halifax, both companies owned by Deutsche Bahn.

A wander across the city took me to Forster Square station, of which it is an act of law to say 'shadow of its former self' whenever it is mentioned.

A Skipton bound class 332 was awaiting me. These are the suburban version of the Heathrow Express units, but unlike their class 1 cousins, they don't have bogie pivot cracks through spending twenty years going at 125mph for twelve miles then doing a ninety degree turn onto the airport branch.

The eagle eyed will notice the kop end stand at Valley Parade rising like a beacon to two seasons of premier league indulgence above the road bridge in the background.

It was up a couple of shacks up road to Shipley.

The stations notoriety comes from it being a triangular set up, one of only two that remain in the UK. I'll spare you the pain, it's Earlestown where the line up from Washington splits both ways when it meets the Liverpool-Manchester chat moss line.

These are the platforms on the main Leeds-Skipton line. To the right is the single line chord for Skipton-Bradford services, whilst in the background, the third side can be seen for services between Bradford-Leeds/Ilkley. I know at this point, my dad will be thinking, oh, like Ambergate used to be, so yes, like Ambergate used to be.

I occupied the ten minutes I had by doing what anyone would do, working out why the starting signal on the down Leeds requires a SPAD balloon. This is the blue signal beyond the normal VMS head in the foreground. They flash like a lunatic if a train goes through the signal at red, and are very rare, being sited only where there is a major consequence if it did happen.

There is a very complex risk assessment to calculate their requirement, but the rudimentary calculations in my head were interrupted by the arrival of a Skipton-Bradford service, which put any doubt to bed as it shows it is a single lead junction with a considerable amount of wrong road running to access the branch, so any SPAD could result in a full head on collision at a decent pace. Fuck me, this has turned into the RAIB website.

My Carlisle bound service arrived. In the background is Esholt, which is the village Emmerdale is filmed in. But that's a report from before the internet and a re-visit for another day, so keep an eye out for any mention of Salts OB.

The train was rammed full of pensioner walking groups, who were using their over entitled heating allowances, funded by minimum wage call centre workers, to fund £300 Berghaus coats and carbon fibre ski poles. If I wanted to listen to people thirty years my senior trying to work out which operations the people who aren't there are having, then I'd go to more county championship cricket. So I moved to the other end of the coach, which was occupied by the Leeds branch of the Rangers supporters club, of which I walked into the tail end of an argument which was 'nooo, it wasn't that I'd made a mess of the toilet, it was that I'd shat everywhere apart from the fucking toilet, then pulled kiwi mad dog over the toilet. I returned to my original position, deciding a life experienced echo chamber of condescending views of bus time revisions in Cleckheaton, was the lesser of the two evils.

We headed down through Airedale, which was very wet.

We left the "little" North Western Railway line as it headed off to Clapham Junction. No not the imposter in south London full of Kiwi bar workers, but the original one which was the junction with the Ingleton line.

Settle station. The Settle and Carlisle, although wonderfully scenic, goes through the middle of no where and is only a through route for journeys that could easily be made using other lines. It's route through the hills means there are massive engineering structures, be it massive viaducts or never ending tunnels, meaning maintenance costs are absolutely extortionate. At the same time, heavily used suburban lines in the north are absolutely starved of investment or even basic maintenance, meaning huge unreliability. Why billions are pissed away from the public purse on pensioners play things like this, whilst routes that are critical for millions of people to get to work go neglected, I do not know. Anyone who has complaints about the funding of HS2 should take a look at routes like this.

Anyway, rant over, here are some of the lovely views you'll miss once I've started my revolution and shut the line (it will be my second action on assuming power. First will be imprison anyone who has ever ordered a hot drink in a pub). Firstly the most famous structure on the line, the 24 span Ribblehead viaduct.

Looking down from the viaduct onto Batty Moss, occupied mostly by people who think phrases like 'soft shell outer layer' is an engaging form of conversation.

Route branded coffee. You don't get that on the Oldham loop.

The sun was now out but the mist was still swirling.

There are a few more scenes from the line, all of which were lovely valleys with cloud encased hilltops. After using up my only mist describing adjectivce in the caption above, I googled 'swirling' hoping for a few synonyms to use. Instead it was quite an education, now knowing that it is the word used to describe vigorous interracial sex. Anyway, that's probably the most obscure introduction anyone's ever given to a photo of Garsdale.

Hmm, let's go for brooding this time.

Jesus, now looking up brooding, and the responses are all from the Urban Dictionary and about having hundreds of kids. Are no words sacrosanct these days?

I'm just going to say it was a bit cloudy in the distance.

Thankfully, we arrived into a cloudless Carlisle. However, there was a new sense of apprehension, for it was now a couple of hours of...

...guess where 37401 is going to fail today?

These are loco hauled services around the Cumbrian Coast that were introduced a couple of years ago in order to enhance the timetable. However, there was no spare conventional rolling stock to use so instead loco hauled coaches were brought back into service. However, for some reason it was decided to use fifty year old heritage locos, which were not only unreliable in their youth, have then been sat unused in sidings for ten years, and are operated by drivers who are completely unfamiliar with handling locos. All of which make them break more often than Wayne Rooney's marriage vows.

At the other end are DBSO (driver brake standard open) vehicles which are normal carriages converted with a drivers cab plonked in the end, so the loco doesn't have to run around the train at each end of the journey, the driver instead controls from this cab, which is wired to the controls in the loco, which pushes from the back. They were first converted in the 1980s for Edinburgh-Glasgow trains, then moved onto London-Norwich.

The coach next to the loco was full of cranks. These people, who incidentally are nearly always from Nuneaton, are the only social class that groundhoppers look down on. I therefore decided to go for some DBSO action, which I had to myself. After I've shut the Settle and Carlisle, I might have a closer look at this line, its combined scrap value might fund some sort of semi-reliable turnout for MP2208 points at Heald Green Junction. I'll spare you a rant about the futility of using shallow-depth clamplocks.

I'd tried to get to Askam earlier in the summer for a rugby league game their, but 37403 had blown up at Aspatria, and then at Dalston. We sat at the latter for two hours awaiting rescue from Kingmoor. All the time two woman sat behind me moaned about how they were stuck in the 'absolute ass end of no-where'. Whilst I wouldn't necessarily challenge that descriptor, these woman were from Maryport. To have such a cutting jibe from the residents of there, must be the ultimate rejection. Anyway, this time we made it to the coast at Flimsby.

Into Workington and the Derwent Park home of the rugby league club, and beyond the Borough Park home of the ex-football league club. If your interested, I watched England v Germany game in the 2012 World Cup in the Gus Risman suite in the former. I could see Lampard's shot was over the line from there, so god knows how the ref couldn't from thirty yards away.

Carrying on down the coast. The stretch down to Whitehaven is undertaken along the cliffs.

Whilst this is very scenic coastline, it also gives the air of being deserted and littered with remnants of a prosperous past. A bit like post-Brexit Dawlish.

Into Whitehaven where we encountered our first failure, this being the CDL door locking playing funny buggers. The usual trick of using another panel did the trick. Any coaching stock on the line with opening windows has to have bars fitted to stop people sticking their heads out as this tunnel is of very limited clearance.

A visit to the bogs on the train betrayed their 1970s heritage as they still have prominent shaver sockets, last used by Reginald Perrin.

Through St Bees where we encountered a pair of class 68s on a nuclear flask train. These are worked to Sellafield where processing of radioactive materials takes place. Everyone assumes these are always full of uranium fuel rods, but 99.9% of the time it is just workers clothings and pens and clipboards that have been used in proximity to a reactor.

Down to Sellafield itself, looking as sinister as ever, with the flask sidings in the foreground.

By now the sun was beaming down, though it didn't make the Irish sea look any warmer.

Looking left for once and across to the rolling fells of the Lake District. You do get quite nonchalant to breathtaking scenery after a while.

The interchange with the miniature Ravenglass and Eskdale railway. Most preserved railways go from nowhere to nowhere, but the destination of this one takes that to new limits. The run itself is very pleasant but you end up in a former quarry in a wilderness, which is neither scenic, interesting or inhabited.

Finally we arrived at Millom, thankfully without incident.

Off it headed, this being the one loco hauled service a day that runs through from Barrow to Preston, to wreak havoc on the West Coast main line.

When you think of new towns, you are generally minded of the architectural triumphs of London overspill such as Bracknell or Stevenage. What doesn't spring to mind is the isolated reaches of the Cumbrian coast. However, Millom is exactly that. Existing since medieval times as the tiny hamlet of Holborn Hill, the discovery of deposits of haematite, which is what people who own Bunsen burners call iron ore, meant the opening of the Hodbarrow iron mines, which at their height had seven pits, and these fed the furnaces at the newly built Millom & Askam Ironworks.

Therefore, to provide workers for the new industry, in the 1860s the town of Millom was built. The mines and works lingered on until the 1960s. However, when you've built a town of 10,000 people in the complete middle of no-where, for the sole reason for people to work in one industry, or to service the people who work in that industry, what happens when that industry closes? Well, 3,000 people never waited around to find out as their was immediate depopulation, perhaps forewarned by the town's own mayor describing Millom as 'a place of despair'. Only the nearby Haverigg prison offers core employment, or failing that, an alternative way of ensuring accommodation and feeding. Other than that, it is mostly seasonal tourist work, or the bright lights of Barrow or Sellafield.

However, the town has had time to regroup and still gives a sense of civic pride, with the town square very orderly, and still quite a shopping centre.

Perusing to find other sporting interests in the town, this took my eye. I admire the optimism that the chess and scrabble clubs aren't described as closed merely 'dormant'; perchance are just sleeping. Also, that it is only 'enthusiastic' members they lack, as though the town is awash with half arsed attempts at the game, but these are not viewed as good enough by the powers that be.

Thankfully, my chosen sports clubs in the town were still very much active, and a short walk led me to them.

The ground caters for a variety of sports, with the rugby and football pitches bordering each other.

This was my first stop off.

Millom 3 v Daten 2, Lancashire Shield

Millom were formed in 1963. They joined the West Lancashire League in 1998 when the new Division Two was set up. They had over ten seasons in division one, but have now slipped back to their original level.

Daten are from Culcheth, with is just to the north west of Warrington, and coincidentally, who's rugby side I'd seen at Woolston a few weeks ago. The football club were formed in 1948, as the sports side of Department of Atomic Energy, who had their head office in Birchwood and their name is a rough abbreviation of the authority. They joined the Mid-Cheshire League in 2002, which became the Cheshire League in 2007, of which they are currently in division one.

The West Lancs league doesn't have particularly strenuous ground grading requirements, so there aren't that many features of note, but what there is, is kept very orderly.

The dug outs sit on the far sides which is out of bounds for spectators. For once, the ram shackle sheds at a non-league ground are actually part of the adjacent allotments.

The visitors took the lead but Millom equalised with a well taken break.

Daten had a player wearing glasses.

There were a couple of very contrasting @nonleague_dogs, both in size and in viewing habits. The rat like thing watching the football, with the rottweiler being more of a rugby fan.

For some reason I managed to get a few shots without any sign of a football. So here are a couple of players running towards where the ball might be.

Here is another goal, except the ball is obscured by the visiting left back.

Into the second half, and here finally is photographic confirmation that they were actually using a ball.

However, gathering crowds on the far touchline signified the start of my next game. The football went on to finnish 3-2 and Millom progressed to the next round.

Millom 18 v Wigan St Judes 25, Kingston Press Cider National Conference - Division 1

Millom declare themselves as the oldest amateur rugby league club in the world, being founded in 1873. Its early years saw it as the leading Cumbrian side, however, the decline in the town's fortunes, coupled with the clubs only brief flirtations with professionalism, meant the likes of Barrow, Workington and Whitehaven took on the mantle. Millom have remained fairly near the top of the amateur set up, with a few notable challenge cup campaigns. These days they reside in the National Conference, the level below the professional championship. They are in division 1, which would be four steps down from Super League. There superiority in Cumbrian amateur status has slowly been challenged with the former industrial area around Whitehaven now emerging as the force, with the likes of Kelly's and Egremont in the conference Premier.

Wigan's status as being the top rugby league side (get over it St Helens) is both cause and effect of having a prolific amateur scene within the town. Wigan St Judes hale from the Poolstock area in the south west of the town. They were formed relatively recently in 1980 as a youth side. When those players came of age, St Judes moved up to the North West Counties League before progressing again, up to the National Conference. Like many of the local sides, they have coaching links with the Super League side and this has seen them produce very noticeable players such as; Kris Radlinski, Mick Cassidy and Sean Long.

The ground requirements in the rugby league conference are mainly focused on player facilities, so spectator offering is usually a railed pitch.

The clubhouse was on the near touchline, with most of the spectators located there.

The far side was very open to the adjacent road, seperated only by a low dry stone wall.

Which some of the locals used to avoid the £2.50 entry, which included a very good programme, including a very good overview of the history of the National Conference league. There was a rogue page on the recent performance of Thornhill Trojans.

The league offers a fairly lax view on touch judge attire.

Both teams playing in maroon didn't make it easy viewing, as I am colourblind, so the yellow trim that separated the two wasn't always easy to distinguish.

The early exchanges, with St Judes on the attack. Or Millom. I couldn't tell when they were in front of me, let alone from here.

Here, the other side break.

The pitch was absolutely immaculate, and from this distance, I could confirm that it was indeed St Judes attacking this way, with the hills in shadow behind.

By now I was struggling with the colours, and the neighbouring football having ended. However, there was an alternative within view. However, it was across a two mile expanse of salt water estuary.

So it was back to the station.

Onto the next Barrow bound service, this time the mundaness of a unit.

My next destination could be seen, only three miles away.

However, The line circles around the Duddon estuary, so is actually ten miles by train.

In time, we'd circumnavigated the bay, and looked back on our trodden path from Millom.

Into Askam station, still patrolled by semaphore signals.

Controlled from the picturesque (and listed) 1890 vintage Furness Railway signal cabin.

It departed off to Barrow, whilst I waited for the crossing to clear, and headed on my way.

Which was to here.

For these.

Askam United 1 v Hurst Green 5, The Bay 102.3 FM West Lancashire Football League- Division 1

Askam joined the West Lancs league in 1999, and have since had a leisurely rise up to the first division, winning the second in 2014.

Hurst Green is a tiny village between Clitheroe and Preston, though I'm sure Burnley supporters use the same description for Blackburn. The football club are relatively new members of the West Lancs, joining in 2012 from the lower level East Lancashire League. However, their spell in the second division only lasted a season where a title win saw promotion to the first, since which they have had a couple of third places but no promotion to the top level.

The ground is another typical West LAncs league set up, an immaculate railed pitch with dugouts and a social club.

It was good to see proper old school dug outs, very low and of solid construction, with the occupants peering out like the Clough brothers at the Baseball Ground.

In the corner was an indication of a spectator structure, but I assume it is an in joke amongst the locals.

The clubhouse and changing rooms are located behind the near goal.

I'll cut out the middleman and let you read about them directly.

But never mind all that, this is what this ground is about, the absolutely stunning location. At one end you look onto the lower reaches of the Lake District.

Whilst the other end sits directly on the Duddon estuary, with Millom still within swearing ear shot.

Though the public car park was almost certainly occupied by doggers.

Another touchline, another dramatic view of the great British countryside.

As well as the estuary, the far end also had yet more hills as a backdrop.

It was the visitors who took the lead.

Wooden railings are usually as a result of a ground having a covenant prohibiting permanent structures, but they fitted in perfectly here.

Alas no @keepers_towels today.

Hurst Green then added a second.

Askam looked to be a very young side. The visitors were a very big team, and whilst not dirty, certainly used the size difference to their advantage.

There was a decent crowd of about forty, the more partisan were gathered on the far touch line.

Giving regular advice to both benches.

Which was regularly ignored.

However, it did see another Hurst Green goal.

Compulsory photo of a huge clearance.

The size and experience of the visitors continued to give the advantage into the second half.

From a cross, it was adjudged there was a handball, to the protestations of the defender who seemed to think it hit his face.

The penalty was duly dispatched.

It then all got a bit arsey, with the home supporters convinced that they were on the wrong end of every refereeing decision. The game itself became very stunted as there was a lot of afters going on post-tackle. Which would have been bearable if the ref hadn't been so obsessed with talking to players.

He talked to home players.

He talked to groups of players.

He talked to Hurst Green players.

He talked to players when they had the temerity to score a goal.

He talked to this bloke again.

He talked to the only Hurst Green player under six foot.

He talked to a wall of players.

However, at least from the last one the home side did get their consolation goal from a very well taken free kick.

The sun shone to light the way for a dramatic come back.

Askam did start to have more of the play.

Only for the visitors to score a fifth.

And the game finished 1-5. An entertaining game. Hurst Green look to be well organised, and whilst Askam seem to be much less experienced, did compete well

The referee eventually getting some grudging handshakes.

After the game their was time before my train. There was an excruciatingly bad live rendition of Wing Beneath My Wings going on from behind a hedge. Poking my camera over the top revealed some sort of Christian rock festival. I've had a lot of stick from the revelation in a report last month that I walked out of both of Nirvana's appearances at Reading Festival. I think I'll incur less ridicule for missing this Cumbrian Bette Midler.

So instead it was into here for a pint of Diet Coke (it's now a year and a week since I truly enjoyed myself). Apparently the pubs named after its favourite genre of UK house music.

It was back to the very picturesque station.

My train shortly arriving on the unusual turfed platforms.

Passing the Holker Street ground of Barrow AFC.

I'd got a seven minute connection at Preston or else an hour and a half wait, so was relying on my service running to time. However, the sack of shit loco hauled was having a meltdown at Barrow, and we were awaiting the single line, which put as nine down. I did get to see a rainbow appear behind a pylon, which I am sure is symbolic of something.

At Ulverston, I passed my earlier steed on its way back from Preston.

Is the world of such base level intelligence that we now have to suffix nameboards with 'station', just in case people on trains wonder what the collection of platforms, buildings and shelters can possibly be.

There was more coastline action, and more massive detours around coastlines. This time around Morecambe bay. Barrow to Lancaster is 18 miles direct but double that once the likes of Grange-Over-Sands and Carforth have been visited.

Crossing the River Kent at Arnside, with the sun starting to set over the southern lakes.

At Carnforth, with the collection of demic 1960s junk that now resides in Steamtown, and occasionally has enough safety systems isolated to enable them to venture onto the main lines.