The CML Football Bonanza 2012 Part One.

The Central Midlands League Football Bonanza; one of the high points on the footballing calendar, right up there with FA Cup third round day, Manchester United v Liverpool and the Milan derby. This years hop saw 5 matches take place in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire in 24 hours. The CML is our local step 7 league and the starting point for clubs entering the pyramid. The curtain raiser on the Friday night saw Bilborough Pelican lock horns with Belper United in a CML Southern division clash.

I had spend much of Friday afternoon in the Old Sun and Sherwood Ranger public houses in Retford drinking and watching folk lose various amounts of cash from betting on the Cheltenham Festival. A couple of chaps i was drinking with in the Sherwood seemed very interested in Bilborough Pelican FC so i gave them the low down on the club and its history and promised to bring them back a shirt if they sold them. (Alas when we got there we found that there weren't any Pelican shirts on sale) Belper United were selling some at £1 each but i didn't see anybody purchase one. Late on Thursday night plans changed as our driver and navigator have had some bad news at home. So i stepped in and planned the directions and Lee took up the challenge of driving. Felice was going to bring his Sat nav as back up but ironically was unable to locate it. So we set off to Nottingham with a driver who hasn't had much experience at either night driving or city centre driving, Felice; who has spent very little time in Nottingham in the last 10 years or so, and a navigator who had been drinking since about 1.30 pm. So its not a massive surprise that things didn't go totally according to plan. Things started out ok, they always do, but as soon as we got about halfway Lee's bladder decided it could take no more. As soon as we hit Nottingham the problem intensified. Naturally we made a wrong turn in Stapleford when we turned off too early when looking for the Nottingham ring road which didn't help our brave driver's bladder. Eventually we came to a McDonalds in which Lee performed a Dukes of Hazzard style parking routine in the carpark and sprinted inside to relieve himself. While Lee was inside it became obvious to us that something wasn't right as we received a couple of dead eyes from passing drivers. It then became evident that we were nicely parked over two spaces and this isn't great form where you are in a City on a Friday evening. Felice then stepped in got in the drivers seat and straightened the car up.

Felice took over the driving for the final leg of the journey but our luck didn't really change. As the ancient Chinese proverb famously says

"Never give navigational duties to drunken man"

I have been to both grounds next to Pelicans this season but never by road. As we got nearer i recognised where we were but the flyovers and roundabouts and stuff threw me. After another boo boo when we missed the turn off and went round the roundabout a couple of times we ended up on the famous Lenton Lane, Nottingham's answer to Hackney marshes, home not only of Bilborough Pelican but also Greenwood Meadows and Dunkirk FC.

Even now though the fun and games wernt finished. As you drive up the lane the first sign you come to is Pelicans then Greenwood then a little further up round the bend and pass the restaurant, Dunkirk. What i/we didn't know was is that the entrance to Pelican's ground is past Dunkirk's ground. We could see the game going on but could we buggery find the entrance. Then we spotted a couple of fluorescent jackets and headed over there where they told us where to park. WE HAD MADE IT!!! (and only missed about 5 minutes of the game was well!) When we had been driving round we had seen a goal go in and assumed that the visitors had taken the lead. First port of call was to find the master of ceremonies behind the hop Mr Rob Hornby and pay for our tickets and programme packs. The cost of this feast of football was £15 for the five matches and all programmes were included. If we paid on the gate each game it was going to cost £3 plus £1 for the programme so even though we were only doing 4 games it made sense to buy in advance and get it out of the way.

Pelicans award winning Brian Wakefield memorial ground is a basic but tidy enough ground for this level of football. As you enter the first thing that catches your eye is the two storied clubhouse. Tonight the upper bar was open and both ale and curry and chips were doing a roaring trade. I nipped upstairs to shake the snake and purchase a club badge for the standard £3. As always on the bonanza days a couple of stalls were set up selling old programmes, and yearbooks etc. Going on previous experience i didn't take too much cash as i would only spend it on stuff that i didn't really need or want. Lee however was in football heaven and spent much of the first half rummaging away only to reappear just before halftime with a bag of programmes and 24 quid lighter.

BUY, BUY, BUY!!!!!!!

We watched the match from behind the goal at the clubhouse end of the ground. The pitch is railed off with a small stand on the right hand touchline. Most of the "Hoppers" were huddled under the aforementioned stand or browsing the stalls.
On the pitch were discovered that the "goal" that we saw from the car had been disallowed. Belper are in the bottom third of the division but they did take the game to the hosts in the opening 15 minutes or so and took the lead in the 12th minute. Pelican are having a fine first season back in the CML South and sat in third place before kick off. They didn't let the early goal or playing in front of a large crowd faze them and set about getting back into the match. The equaliser in the 20th minute was a great effort which gave the Belper keeper no chance. After a bright start the visitors faded and were lucky to go in at 1-1 at the break.

It was getting a tad chilly so we headed up to the clubhouse for a very reasonable cup of tea before returning to position behind the goal which the mighty Pelicans would be attacking in the second half. In the end they ran out comfortable winners adding a further couple of goals to wrap up a 3-1 win.
The only downside of the night was that some tool decided to try and bore us to death about Zac Knight and how he was transferred for a set of team kits at some point in his career. Now everybody who knows me knows that i will pretty much talk to anybody about anything. However folk who i have never met just randomly butting into a conversation (the three of us were discussing how any club would pay £35 million for Andy Carroll) as if they are some kind of superstar will get short shrift. In a way it was a good thing we encountered this fellow as we now knew who was the most boring bloke on the hop and the one to avoid at all costs. So all in all a decent start to the hop. On the way back we stopped off at McDonalds in Ollerton so Felice could get his standard large Big Mac Meal plus a Happy meal with chicken nuggets and an apple pie. The McDonalds carpark seemed the place to be with chavs and boy racers a plenty. Quite how anybody could miss out on the festival of football that is the CML Football Bonanza is staggering.