Hucknall Town 2-2 Aylestone Park

After a few weeks of watching the Imps, it was time to get back on the non-league scene this weekend. Although I have enjoyed watching the Imps, I was more than happy to get back watching non-league and the feeling you get when watching a random game often at a new ground between two teams that for the most part you know very little about and often with either a beer in hand.

Today seeing how Felice was in Nottingham and Baz at work it made sense for me to meet Felice in Nottingham (a city that the Duke of Edinburgh had visited several times over the years) and then go to a game from there. To get to Nottingham from Retford you have two choices by public transport either the train or the bus. The train is quicker by roughly half and hour but just over double the price. Therefore, I decided to take the bus it may take just over 2 hours but its quite relaxing winding through many Nottinghamshire villages on route to the city. The bus came in at 12.25 and the plan was to meet up with Felice at 2.00pm then head over to the game. This gave me an hour and a half to kill, in times gone by I would just have headed to a pub somewhere. But with the early football kick offs not being very appealing I thought I would take a stroll around the city centre and try to find some rare post boxes but alas all that I could find were a handful of ER II era ones. The most common in the UK.

As a city I really like Nottingham and it is a city I would dearly love to spend more time in. What it seems to lack in vintage post-boxes it more than makes up for in geeky shops, bars that cater for all tastes and stylish women so basically the opposite of what Retford sadly has to offer. On the plus side Retford does have 4 of the 6 different Royal Crests on post-boxes that you can see in the UK so its swings and roundabouts, eh? Our original plan had been to watch Bilbrough Town take on Sandiace Town in the NSL but this game suffered a last minute change of venue to one that we had been to in the not to distant past. This meant we had to change our plans. I want to give whoever runs the Bilbrough twitter account a hat tip for letting us know. Little things like that leave a good impression on people and we will most definitely be heading over to watch them at some point this season. With Felice spending quite a bit of time in Nottingham I am sure plenty of chances will present themselves and I look forward to visiting them.

The match chosen was Hucknall Town v Aylestone Park in the UCL division one (Step 6 of the pyramid) I have been to Hucknall before, but it would have been around ten years ago or so watching them play the Imps in a pre-season friendly match. I don’t remember much about the game apart from 1) I had an all-day session in Nottingham pregame and 2) Baz bottled the game to take in Retford v Worksop. I think the Imps won but I couldn’t be sure. I do remember us getting into a social club with cheap beer after the match in Hucknall but again I couldn’t tell you what it was called. Today’s entry fee was a reasonable £5 with a smart programme costing £2. Hucknall have had a tough time over the past decade having dropped from the hights of the conference north and an FA Trophy final to the CML. It does appear though that the club is on the way back up and the club must be one of the best supporter sides at step 6 in England. The ground appears to have changed very little since I was last here but with a new stadium on the way its not surprising. I do like it however as it’s a proper old school ground. The clubhouse is a cracker too with a decent range of beers and club merchandise available. There is also a separate hatch selling food, I didn’t eat anything myself but Felice stuffed his chip butty down in record time so I can assume it was decent. I did have a cup of tea that is an early contender for cuppa of the season as it was a cracker.

So, onto the game itself. A quick glance at the league table in the programme told us that Aylestone Park sat top of the division collecting 10 points from their 4 games. Hucknall had collected 6 points from their opening 3 games winning two and losing one. It was obvious early on that both sides were looking to get on the front foot early. We didn’t have to wait long for the first goal as the visitors won a freekick in the 4th minute on their right. The ball was fired into the boxand with the Hucknall defence not being switched on it allowed Ben Tansey to finish well leaving the keeper rooted to the spot. When a side concedes early there is always a worry that they will buckle but credit to Town as they went straight back on the attack and on 8 minutes they were level thanks to a header from former Imp Liam Hearn. Hearn was one of the better pre-Cowley era players in the Imps non-league years so its great to see him still involved in the game. On 27 minutes the hosts took the lead with another well taken goal thanks to Sam Sims. The game had been end to end all half only broken up by some clinical fouls from both sides. Aylestone were back level just before halftime on 42 minutes following great work on the right wing allowed Shay Brennen to finish from close range.

With it being 2-2 at halftime we needed a pint or two in the bar to calm down. In the bar we checked the scores elsewhere to find that the Imps were losing 0-1 at Wycombe. I wasn’t very confident of the Imps getting anything at Adams Park before the match and when I saw they had gone 1 down after 3 minutes all hope had pretty much gone.

You very rarely get two very good halves in a football match and sadly this followed that pattern. It was for no lack of trying and both sides went at it hammer and tongue to get a winner. The main talking point of the second half came when Lee Barratt was shown a second yellow card for an aerial challenge. Hucknall forced a flurry of corners late in the game but just lacked that final touch in the box. The game finished 2-2 and although both sides will feel that could and should have won it, I think secretly they were both glad that they didn’t lose it. I thoroughly enjoyed this match, and it was the perfect tonic after a dull week where I got nowhere fast. If you get a chance to watch either of these sides, then don’t pass up that opportunity, on this showing you won’t be disappointed.

We caught the final minutes of the Imps game on the radio as Lincoln went down to Wycombe with barely a whimper. With Oxford and Rotherham coming up next in the league I have a feeling its going to get worse before it gets better for Lincoln. As for us I am not at a game this coming Saturday so hopefully I can bag a midweek game somewhere. Till next time.