Followers of this blog will be aware that I go to quite a few football matches — tonight being my 53rd of 2024 so far — but I try not to let the theme dominate these daily posts. However, Hurst Cross is a fine example of the genre and worth depicting. It’s been continuously in use by Ashton United since 1884 and so is one of the oldest extant grounds in the world, and a perfectly decent place to spend a Thursday evening, if you ask me.
The younger members of the small crowd at AFC Bentley v AFC Phoenix disport themselves in an aesthetically pleasing manner over the little main stand. It would have been very easy for this one to have been cluttered up by a number of things — signs on the back wall, or dangling wires, maybe — but other than at the bottom right corner, these things are not present (and I did consider cropping further, but then the standing couple would have been too near the edge). I doubt any of them particularly cared that the visiting team won on the day, they were just enjoying the sunshine, as was I.
The substitutes of Stafford Rangers FC ponder the fact that, about ten minutes into their game with a team from a lower division, they are already 1-0 down and are going to go on to lose 4-0. OK, it might have been a pre-season friendly but it’s not a great omen for the season to come. And none of these people were even in the starting XI.
I do wonder what the guy on the left of the shot has seen to distract him: assuming all the others are watching the current action on the pitch, he’s certainly not.
Despite having missed out on all of the last seven weeks, I am not giving up on the football season just yet. Nor were the blue-clad players of Newport AFC, who triumped 7-1 in tonight’s final of the Gray Trophy (aided considerably by the indiscipline of their opponents who obligingly reduced themselves to 9 men with quite a bit of the game still to go). Out they trot for the start of the game, not yet knowing how straightforward this will prove to be in the end.
No apologies for putting up the cheesy-grin family shot today as the day was all about Clare, who ran her first ever marathon in a time of 6 hours and 1 minute. The Edinburgh marathon started in the city, headed out along the coast, turned around and came back as far as Musselburgh. This is Longniddry, where Joe and I caught up with her at about the 20 mile mark. She looked, as you can see, fresh as a daisy, and from this point on I had absolutely no doubt that she would finish. I know what this has taken in terms of training — an immense effort! And I am very sure it won’t be her last. (Will I be taking up the challenge? No chance.)
Both these facilities are to be found in Darwen, Lancashire, where concluded my last weekend in the UK until late May. By the time I get back it might have stopped raining — this shot was grabbed in one of the afternoon’s few dry spells. At least, if it does rain on my travels to come, it’ll be warmer rain.
Good Friday, hence a day off work, and plenty of football around so it seemed the logical thing to do, particularly as Clare was paying — the destination being Accrington Stanley v Morecambe in League Two. Which, insofar as anything does in Accrington, attracted quite a crowd.
“Top o’ the morning to you and welcome to Ireland’s Northernmost Football Ground for today’s big match in the Inishowen League; unbeaten visitors Glenceely Colts arrive unbeaten all season, with second in the table Sea Rovers needing to win to have any chance of catching them…. but they’ll fancy their chances I think, don’t you Conor….?”
And right they were to do so. Sea Rovers (in red) 4, Glenceely Colts 2. This actually is Ireland’s northernmost football ground, located a short distance from Malin Head, the country’s northernmost point.
If they don’t necessarily look happy I can assure you that they were, as these fans of Morecambe FC have just seen their team come back from 2-0 down to win 3-2 at Crewe Alexandra: and at 2-0, no one in the whole ground saw that result coming, believe me. As the set of humanity that counts itself as Morecambe fans includes the wife (and I have to say, increasingly, myself), this was a good turnout of events.
The FA Sunday Cup might not seem like much to the rest of the world but about 600 people turned up today at Lower Breck FC’s stadium, in Liverpool, to see one of the quarter-finals. The tension seems to be getting to this guy: he’s about to see the home team (Pineapple) go out 0-2 to the visiting Trooper team from the West Midlands, anyway.
Being 42 