Hendon 1-1 East Thurrock United

A spot of groundhopping in good old London Town tonight. The big match in town tonight was Chelsea v Bayer Leverkusen in the Champions League. Hendon v East Thurrok however appealed to me far more! Whenever I am in the Capital I always like to sink a pint or two in the Red Lion pub in Westminster and today was no exception.

Hendon are currently homeless and are playing their home games at Vale Farm; home of Wembley FC. I was based in the Bayswater area of London which meant in was only a half an hour or so journey on the Bakerloo line up from Paddington to North Wembley tube stop. On the overground bit of the underground journey you get a decent view of the other Wembley stadium. I would love to visit Wembley one day but as it is a special ground (and bloody expensive) i would only want to do it if one of the following happens.

• Lincoln City get to play in a playoff  final/ any other final
• The Pittsburgh Steelers are sent over as part of the NFL's International series. 

I think we would all agree that at the moment option two is by far more likely to happen first.

Hendon's website is one of the best official football websites i have come across and has plenty of information on the club, it's history, the clubs facilities,  and a great set of directions for finding the ground. A lot of other clubs should take note of this. It even has links to the websites for each other club in the division. Check it out here!

From the tube station (Zone 1-4 underground ticket) it is about a 15 minutes walk with most of it being slightly uphill, but its easy enough to find. The programmes are on sale outside the turnstiles for a couple of quid, so I bagged one before heading into the bar. The bar was filling up quite nicely with both set of fans. There doesn't seem to be any pubs nearby so i imagine that the club bar does quite well most weeks.

Hendon FC have had a great start to the season and before tonight's game sat proudly on top of the Ryman Premier division after collecting 4 wins and a draw from their 5 matches played. Tonight's visitors East Thurrock United (Or the Rocks as they are known) were promoted to the premier division last season after winning the Ryman Northern division title last time out. Life hasn't been as straight forward for them as they had collected just one win and a draw from their opening 5 matches and sat in 18th place in the table. So on paper it looked like a home banker but as we all know football has a wonderful way of kicking you in the arse when you least expect it.

Not surprisingly i didn't recognise any of the players in either squad bar one. Lining up for Hendon up front was former Arsenal and Bradford striker Isaiah Rankin. Back in 1998 Lincoln, then in League one, had drawn 1-1 at Bradford (then in the Championship) in the first leg of the League Cup 1st round thus setting up a great second leg. A couple of days later Bradford paid Arsenal 1.3 million pounds for Rankin's services. Rankin then went on to grab the only goal in the second leg at Sincil Bank as the Bantams went through 1-2 on aggregate. Later on that season Bradford were promoted to the Premiership. Lincoln were relegated back down to League Two. After Bradford, Rankins career when downhill. The poor sod even had a spell at Grimsby Town.

It was £9 entry tonight which is pretty much the norm for this level. Vale farm is a smashing little ground which has real character. As you enter through the turnstiles the snap hut, club offices, and clubshop are on your left hand side. The clubshop had all the normal stuff in and loads of boxes of old programmes to rummage through. Lee and Braintree Gary would have loved it. Also on sale were those Jester hats in green and white with bells on the end. Tempting as they were i decided just to buy a club badge for £3. The hats would look good at Lincoln away matches but not so good on the underground at 10pm.

We decided to sit in the seated stand that runs along the far touchline as you enter the ground. One slightly concerning fact was that even though it about 7.30pm the club hadn't switched the floodlights on yet. While there was still someday light left I took a stroll around the ground and took a few snaps. I quite like this style of stadium. The ground has been slowly built up over time and has plenty of covering. One strange thing i noticed was the amount of children's toys that were laying about behind the far goal. Maybe Wembley's youth development programme starts at a very early age or something.

The bar is one the far touchline opposite  the one we were sat on. It looked like you could access it at halftime which is always a good thing. Non league football isn't non league football without a halftime pint.
As the teams entered the pitch the first thing i noticed was that neither side had a shirt sponsor. East Thurrock were in all red with Hendon sporting an all green Panathinaikos style strip.
On my lap of the stadium i had overheard  a couple of Hendon fans chatting about the amount of injuries they had but it didn't seem to hurt them to much as they pretty much had the visitors penned back in their own half for much of the opening spell. Rankin my not be as mobile as he once was but you can see he still has a footballing brain by the way he organises those around him and makes space for others. Hendon launched quite  few balls into the box but they were dealt with by a well organised East Thurrock defence. The visitors were happy to sit back and hit their hosts on the break.
Then on 32 minutes the Rocks took the lead with a goal that was worth the admission fee alone. A mix up in the Hendon midfield allowed The Rocks Kye Ruel to collect the ball on the halfway line and skip past the Hendon central midfielders. He kept on going and beat the Hendon centre half (who seemed reluctant to tackle in case he conceded a penalty) then dinked the ball past the Hendon keeper. Minutes later Hendon's night got worse as the injury list got longer when Rankin hobbled off on 38 minutes.
This all led to the visitors holding the lead at halftime 1-0. It was a lead they barely deserved but nobody could argue with the quality of the goal.

Hendon didn't have to wait long to be on level terms. On 51minutes Hendon gained a free kick and whipped it into the box, this led to a mix up between goalkeeper and defender in which both thought the other would clear it. In the event neither did and this allowed Greg Ngoyi to head home the equaliser. After the goal Hendon really took the game by the scruff of the neck and laid siege to the Rocks goal. But a combination of good defending, Lady Luck, and the crossbar kept the score at 1-1. East Thurrock did have a go at it in the last ten minutes or so but in the end i think they will be happier than their hosts with the point
FT 1-1
If you ever get chance i can recommend a visit to Hendon/Wembley FC. Its easy enough to reach by public transport and the grounds a bit of a gem. There is a kebab shop right next to the underground station but i cant tell you if its any good as i had my fill of kebab when i got back to Paddington following a few pints in the Pride of Paddington just round the corner from the station.

Sorry for the lack of decent pictures on this log entry, My camera didnt get on with the lighting levels from the floodlights