Frickley Athletic 1-1 Buxton FC

A trip to one of my favourite non league grounds was on the agenda for tonight. An Evo Stick premier division match (Step 3) between Frickley Athletic and Buxton. Having already watched Lincoln play Alfreton twice in the past few weeks i knew i wouldn't be missing much and given our crappy FA Cup record i thought it would be a wise move to pass on it. I will be back at the "Bank" on Saturday as Barrow come to town.

Frickley play in South Emsall in South Yorkshire. The ground may not be in the nicest part of the town but it does have bags of character. Its a real old fashioned non league ground. Last season the club celebrated its centenary season and had this mural painted inside the ground to recognise it.

Tonight's admission was a very reasonable £8 and a further £1.50 for the programme. As its a club i like i even shelled out for a 50/50 ticket. The bar at Frickley is situated inside the ground, just to the right of the turnstiles as you enter. We had a nice pre match pint in there and the bar had a good number of both home and away fans in supping.
On paper the game didn't look like a classic. Frickley were 17th in the table with Buxton a place behind in 18th. We watched the match from the top of the Impressive main stand which gives you a pretty decent view of the action. The seats are all of the wooden bench style but cushions are available on request from the back of the stand. Former Imp Ollie Ryan (who has just returned from two months out with an injury) was playing up front for the hosts while Buxton also had former Imps in the squad in the form of Martin Pembleton and Spencer Weir-Daley.

To be honest for the most part this was a poor game. Frickley missed a good chance in the opening minute and were made to pay for this on 8 minutes when Mark Reed rose unchallenged to head home a corner for Buxton. What was especially disappointing about the goal from Frickley's point of view was the fact that Buxton had tried a pretty much identical corner routine just moments before which they failed to deal with convincingly. This was also the 100th goal i have seen this season so to honour this fact i treated myself to a chip buttie from the snap hut for £1.50. And very nice it was too!
The goal seemed to settle Buxton down and it was they that played the better football. There wasn't a huge amount of passing football going on but what there was was being played by the visitors. Frickley's best moments came from the runs made by Ollie Ryan but they struggled to created any clear cut chances.

I checked out the clubshop at halftime which has a pretty impressive collection of programmes from league and non league clubs. There is a good range with quite a few Doncaster Rovers issues. Looking back through the programmes there are a few from the mid 80's; a time when Frickley were in the Gola League, the fore runner to the current Blue Square Premier division. I would say that Frickley's Tech5 Stadium is way better than grounds like Braintree and Alfreton. Will they ever get back to that level again?

The second half was worse than the first. It never really got going and it looked like the game was petering out until Mark Gray smashed home a quality finish from just outside the box and beat the Buxton keeper with sheer power. It was the only moment of real quality in the entire match.
After the goal both sides had chances to win it but a draw was a fair result in the end. On the way back our A1 curse raised its head again as we discovered that it was shut and thus had the pleasure of traveling back through the centre of Doncaster.

Elsewhere it was a dreadful night for Lincoln City. After going 1-0 up we somehow managed to piss it away and lost 1-2 at home in the FA Cup reply to Alfreton Town. This means that the name of Lincoln City Football Club will not be in the first round of the FA cup for the first time since the 1924/25 season.

This means the the Imps have a week off next Saturday. (Some would say we have been off for about 4 seasons now) Knowing LCFC as i do i had planned for this eventuality. Next Saturday i will again have another sporting day in Nottingham with Greenwood Meadows v Ilsbrook United in the afternoon followed by the biggest match in British Ice Hockey in the evening. The Nottingham Panthers v Sheffield Steelers.  And the best thing about it? Lincoln aren't playing so they can't darken my mood by losing! Ever cloud has a silver lining and all that.

The next new ground for the Mind of an Imp blog.