The plan this morning was to watch the Imps away at rock bottom Darlington in league two. Alas the weather had other plans as the Imps match was one of only two matches in league two to fall foul of the weather. In all fairness to Darlington as you can see from the picture below, they were always fighting a losing battle to get the match on and they did, unlike Hereford united, call the game off in good time before any of the travelling red and white army set off. The fact that their near neighbours Hartlepool united called their game off too showed how bad the weather was up there.
Being as the game was called off at 9.30 am it gave me chance to join Mr Rob Waite for a spot of Nottinghamshire non league action.
Darlo v Lincoln-match off
Two games were planned for today. The first was Radford FC v Holwell sports FC in the East midlands counties league. Radford is a borough of Nottingham only a quick ten minutes or so tram journey from the city centre(or about a 50 minute drive from Retford). Due to Nottingham Forest playing at home this afternoon Radford had brought their kick off time forward to 12.30 am. Forest are doing well at the moment and alot of their fans are now crawling out of the woodwork which is starting to get on my tits. oh and all council tax payers in Nottinghamshire are going to be helping with funding for their new stadium for the world cup, fantastic eh? they cant sell out a 30,000 stadium so what are they going to do with a 50,000 one? Pittsburgh's Heinz field or the Giants new stadium would be a much better venue for a world cup match FIFA take note. And do Plymouth really need 46,000 seater stadium either?
Its been a hard season for Radford FC in the EMCL. 18 games played and only two wins and two draws to show for their efforts. Only one team is relegated to the CML at the end of the season and The pheasant's seem to be one of three sides who could suffer the dreaded drop. Anstey Nomads are bottom on 5 points, Radford have 8 while 3rd bottom Graham st Prims have 9 but do have two games in hand and a much better goal difference, so for me it is between the bottom two. Just to spice things up Radford play them both back to back. Graham at home on the 30th of Jan and Anstey away a week later. I am sure a certain Nottingham based Rangers/New york Giants/Radford fan i know will be having a few sleepless nights before those to matches.
Radford fc club shop
As we drove into Nottingham it dawned on me that about 75% of the buildings we passed were either Pubs or takeaways, I knew there was a reason why I always liked Nottingham. The Shelhurst street stadium is a little hidden but we got parked up without too much trouble. As we paid our money at the turnstile we were told that the match had only just got the green light from the ref. Most of it did seem to ok there was just a strip that was a little hard because the trees covered it from the sun. The Radford players were warming up on it though so it couldnt be that hard.
The early kick off time had certainly brought the Hoppers out of the woodwork. The clubhouse before the game was like a hoppers xmas party with fans of clubs as far away as Leatherhead fc attending the match. I like it when you can tell people are trying to work out what scarf you have on, but lack the social skills to ask you which team it is. I had my Shakhtar Donetsk v Breman UEFA cup final on one today and could tell it was confusing some of the life forms in the clubhouse before the match, two badges two colours schemes etc etc.
As we left the clubhose the bad news was that the food hut was closed due to the lady who runs it being ill! This was bad news because firstly the food is first class and secondly the staff were very nice last time we were here in August (and good looking)
We looked into the clubshop/hut and I bought a Forest Town fc badge (I got a Radford one earlier in the season) The shop has a good range of badges and programmes and I can thoroughly recommend a visit.
Holwell sports themselves had only won four games all season and were in the bottom third of the table so Radford would have fancied their chances. The visitors brought a good number of supporters with them and took control of the game early on and it wasnt a great suprise to anybody that they took the lead. To be fair Radford gave as good as they got but that final ball just wasnt there. Then just as the Pheasents were finding their feet they were 2-0 down as the Holwell sports number 11 spotted the keeper off his line and scored for 40 yards, just to rub it in the keeper helped the ball in just to make sure.
HT 0-2
The half time entertainment was provided by a groundhopper running up and down on the spot on and off for the whole half time break. I really hope that isnt me in 30 years time.
At 0-2 down i would imagine the home sides team talk would have been along the lines of keep it tight for the first ten mins or so and lets get a grip in the game and go from there.
I would also imagine that conceeding in the 46th min wasnt in the plan which is what happened as Holwell killed the game off with a well worked goal which the keeper wearing a Barcelona keepers shirt didnt see till it was too late.
That was more or less it i am afraid.The only other points of interest was a guy in an afro coming out to his window balcony overlooking the ground to shout "come on Radford" every so often and i saw the worst corner ever taken by Radfords number 9. The glare he gave my friend was a picture. As was Robs face when a Holwell sports fan took the piss out of his Hearts Scarf. The ref played what seemed like too much injury time but when the final whistle went we got back to the robmobile and sped from Nottingham and headed North to Calverton Miners Welfare fc for our next match off the day.
Addmission £4
Teamsheet -free
Programme £1 8/10
Match Quality 6/10
Ground 8/10
Calverton Miners Welfare 0-1 Newark Town
The journey out of Nottingham was easy enough thanks to sat nav lady, she really does know her stuff. We pulled up at Calverton to find the car park full, which wasnt a suprise as every other game in Notts had been called off due to the cold snap
As we ambled over to the entrance a booming voice shouted out "ITS ROB WAITE!" It was none other than our old friend Rob Hornby, CML committee man and the planner of the CML Football bonanza Hop. We didnt get much of a chance to talk to him but he did come over to shake hands and take the piss out of my Lincoln City Fleece.
Calverton are a club that has come along way over the last few years and there ground is very smart and tidy, it is also quite scenic, a stark contrast with Radford.
Teamsheets were given free on the turnstile and we got a Programme just before half time when they very kindly printed some extra copies as the first batch had sold out.
Calverton are 6th bottom of the Central Midland League Supreme division (the league below the Radford match this morning) and Newark Town are 5th top so it wasnt a huge suprise that Newark totally dominated much of the first half. Newark had some big guys up front and with Calverton having a young side there was a threat that Newark would run away with the match.
Although Calverton were lucky at moments due to poor finishing from newark and last ditch defending they kept trying to play the ball on the ground and it looked as if they were going to hang on till half time. A couple of minutes before half time a low Newark cross was met hard by Simon Ellison to give town a 1-0 Half time lead which was a little harsh on Newark as they could have had the game wrapped up.
HT 0-1
A swift pint was taken in at half time as well as a recent copy of Ballsmania. I was happy to see that Grimsby were wasting their chance to gain ground on the Imps by losing 0-2 at home to Port Vale. By the time the Imps play again Grimsby will have played two more league games than us due to our FA cup game against Bolton on Saturday. I know points in the bank are better than games in hand, but its even better to have both! The pint in the club was very good value and i can see why this place alway seems busy.
We then had one of those moments that can only happen at a non-league match, the floodlights wouldnt fire up for the second half so somebody from the club had to take the battery out of their car to fire them up. He wasnt a happy bunny about it but he has to take the credit for getting the match finshed. Non league football is littered with people like this, we salute you!
The second half was much more even although chances were limited. Calverton looked much better as Newark ran out of ideas and steam. Calverton finished the strongest but just couldnt get the goal that their second half display deserved.
Admission £3
Teamsheet -free
Programme £1 5/10 10/10 for printing some more though
Ground 7/10
Clubhouse 8/10
Match 5/10
All in all it was a fine day out; two games seen and Grimsby missing the chance to gain ground on the Imps. Much credit must go to the two host clubs for getting the matches on when other clubs didnt.
No comments:
Post a Comment