I wouldn’t want to come here in the wind and rain but on a glorious, sunny Sunday morning — which today was — I could not think of much better to do in London than revisit Hackney Marshes. It’s an evocative sight as you come over the bridge at the north end and see this view. The place is so big it’s still about 20 minutes’ walking from here to the other end.
There are worse things to do on a fairly pleasant Sunday morning, whether for the players or the people watching. Or the people taking photographs, not just of the action but also the backdrop: wind turbines and all.
When you’ve gotta go, you’ve gotta go, but this sign, at the Belle Vue stadium in Wakefield, promises something like the ‘Worst Toilet in Scotland’ (from Trainspotting) waits around the corner. Perhaps fortunately, a gate just round there bars further progress.
It’s been a while since the ‘pure football’ post went up, but what the hell, Old Earth — the ground of Huddersfield Amateur FC — has good landscape potential; in fact, the ground’s featured on here twice before, and constitutes the entirety of appearances for the town of Elland (because of course Huddersfield Amateur don’t play in Huddersfield). Sunday afternoon and the women take centre stage: visitors Golcar United, on the ball here in green and black, won this encounter 3-2. The focus seems to have worked out nicely on this shot.
It’s Saturday, it’s in the region of 3pm, there’ll be a few football matches going on around the place I’m sure. The Marley Stadium in Keighley isn’t the most comfortable of venues but the backdrop’s pretty reasonable.
A Friday night out, for me and for them. And why not spend it at a football match. It was damn cold though: as 5ºC seemed a reasonable estimation I’d say it was about 15ºC cooler than my last one, on Sunday. We all needed some warm food.
Many places describe themselves as the Home of Football or something similar, but Hackney Marshes in London has as good a claim as any. 88 football pitches make this probably the largest single centre for football in the whole world. About 30 of them were being used today by a diverse range of teams including UK Moldova FC, FC Karpaty, Flamengo, Limehouse Tigres. The sun was shining. You have your Mecca I’m sure, perhaps this is mine.
22 men kicking a pig’s bladder (well, originally) around a muddy field, in the rain, up on a Yorkshire moor. But you know I like this kind of thing. Today, courtesy of Denholme United — the ones in yellow.
Wembley FC do not play at Wembley Stadium — though you can see that from their Vale Farm ground about a mile away. Nevertheless, they give good art work, even if the subject matter, going on the dates, is a tragic one.
This is the kind of photo that only really works if I’ve got the pitch truly horizontal; I think I have. There wasn’t much else to this venue apart from this view taken as I was leaving, but it sums it up reasonably well.
Being 42 