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Near Wild Devon - Weekend Matchgoing

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    Near Wild Devon - Weekend Matchgoing

    In Devon for the weekend, so a trilogy of football steadily going up through the levels.

    Friday - Torpoint Athletic v Plymouth Argyle reserves. First ever game in Cornwall plus a ferry ride to get there.
    Saturday - FA Cup Preliminary round action at Barnstaple Town or (more likely) Bideford.
    Monday - Tiverton Town v Taunton Town.

    As part of the trip I'm also expecting around a dozen new Guide pubs - already ticked off the Waterloo Tap in a railway arch in that there London earlier - and probably my last ever journey down the sea wall hanging out of the window.

    #2
    Originally posted by longeared View Post
    probably my last ever journey down the sea wall hanging out of the window.
    Christ, I used to love hanging out of windows on trains - fucking Pendolinos killed that - I remember coming through Oxenholme at full chat, nonchalantly leaning out with my arm on top of the sliding glass but forgetting I was drinking vodka and coke out of a two bob plastic cup which predictably wilted under the strain and emptied the contents all over my grid.

    Anyway - I’ll be at Liverpool v Brighton on Saturday as there was a spare going. Might have a look at summat local on Monday too.

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      #3
      I've got a REM ear worm now

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        #4
        A bit skint after last weekend, will probably go and see Banbury vs Stratford on Monday.

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          #5
          Work commitments mean I’m unlikely to make anything before Monday so hope to do a double or even triple header that day to compensate.

          As it is a Bank Holiday I will be observing tradition and attending Speedway in the evening with the top of the SGB Premiership table meeting between Swindon Robins and Poole Pirates.

          Hopefully preceding that I will make Highworth Town v Cirencester Town in the Southern League D1 South at 3pm and may take advantage of the Combined Counties League games kicking off at 11:30am to see Abbey Rangers v Guildford City on the way.
          Last edited by Ray de Galles; 23-08-2018, 22:14.

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            #6
            Bah.

            I wanted to get in first with this apropos "Getting over the Lyne" with Ashton Utd. v Darlo on Monday.

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              #7
              Dundalk home to First Division Finn Harps this evening, unfortunately I'm missing my local club's big match as Maynooth Town travel to Cork City at the same time. I'm guessing My Hurley of this parish will be in attendance there.

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                #8
                Torn between Wealdstone-Concord Rangers (no bar) and Catalan Dragons-Warrington (no-one to go with). So it'll probably be Cricklewood Wanderers-Kensington Dragons...

                If I'm organised, I might make it to Kingsbury on Monday for Hendon-Harrow Borough.

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                  #9
                  I’ll be going to Buckingham Athletic v Park View in the Spartan South Midlands League Division 1 on Saturday and Old Bradwell United v Bedford in the Spartan South Midlands League Challenge Trophy on Monday.

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                    #10
                    Originally posted by Patrick Thistle View Post
                    I've got a REM ear worm now
                    Not near enough.

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                      #11
                      Stockport County v Alfreton Town

                      Taking this in as I'm up visiting family as two of my cousins have recently become parents (two separate childbirth incidents, just for clarity). Things could turn ugly if we don't look to be winning comfortably. Even though we've had a half-decent start, we're off the pace already, and to be only half-decent probably means staying down again and facing a seventh season at this level; collectively something is starting to snap.

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                        #12
                        I'm sure it doesn't need me to tell you that this weekend marks the 50th year of the end of trolleybus operation in Reading.

                        Appropriately, the national trolleybus museum is marking the event by running all six surviving Reading Corporation Transport trolleybuses.

                        I'm going to clear all these then head for a convenient double header in the Lincolnshire Premier League, which is basically a league for step 11 reserve teams and Nettleham, and usually someone from Louth. The excitement this season is that the league is sponsored by Balkan Lighting.

                        I am currently at Sowerby Bridge FC at a friendly, viewing their triumphant return to the Cricket Fields grounds, after it was covered in human excrement from the adjacent sewage works in the boxing day floods of 2016.

                        What a time to be alive.

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                          #13
                          Torpoint Athletic 0-5 Plymouth Argyle reserves

                          I've written before on here about how non league in the south features trying to play football rather than kick each other and so it was again. Argyle were sharper and had that extra half second on the ball and gradually took control. The skilful Manny Skeete scored the last pair. Though they did have a man sent off for kicking the ball away then dissent. If they were carded up north we'd have had an abandonment.

                          Nice county colour clash, yellow and black v green and white. The near side liner was wearing glasses.

                          Tidy ground in a hollow. Plenty of cover which was needed in the early rain. First place I've ever been where they run out to Natasha Bedingfield and a mark deducted for no programme.

                          Anyway I just missed the ferry back to Devon so popped in the Queens Arms which is pleasantly good.

                          Three window hangs on the sea wall earlier, which were cracking. *sniff*

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                            #14
                            Arse biscuits. The Ron Clark Memorial Gates are firmly padlocked. I wonder if Cricklewood are still playing at Vale Farm...

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                              #15
                              Bideford AFC 2-2 Bristol Manor Farm

                              This was more like it! Lots of kicking and general shithousery on display, a penalty, red card for late tackle, stamping, pushing. Proper magic of the Cup, especially as Farm were two up in the closing stages and the game just beginning to peter out before a home comeback with an equaliser from a corner in the last minute.

                              Cracking ground, big wide circular tarmac standing (cycle speedway?), box to box terrace, proper floodlight pylons and the first time I've seen an advertising hoarding for shellfish. Imagine it may be a little less impressive on a rainy night in November.

                              Superb away cupsets for Parkgate and Maltby I see.

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                                #16
                                Buckingham Athletic 4-1 Park View.

                                Weather couldn't make up its mind and occasionally served to combine bright sunshine and pissing rain.

                                Park View, promoted to Division 1 of the Spartan South Midlands League after winning the Division 2 title last year, soaked up early home pressure and then took the lead midway through the first half. Gloomy pre-match remarks from the Ath committee members, based on their team's poor showings in the last two matches, looked like they would turn out to be correct. But two well-taken goals in quick succession put the home team 2-1 up at half time.

                                In the second half Park View couldn't stop bickering among themselves for long enough to concentrate on the game, having a man sent off and conceding two more goals while offering no attacking threat. So all in all it turned out well for Buckingham Athletic and my drive back to MK was in pleasant sun.

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                                  #17
                                  Superb away cupsets for Parkgate and Maltby I see.[/QUOTE]

                                  Maltby’s win fully deserved; if they’d been a bit more clinical in front of goal would have won by three or four.

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                                    #18
                                    What’s your view of the, erm, recreation of New Bradwell St Peter, Furtho? I remember you used to watch them quite often before they folded.

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                                      #19
                                      Spent the day on the Wirral. First up was the Parkrun at Birkenhead Park - nice, flat course but not particularly memorable. Then it was up to Tranmere's training ground in Wallasey where their under 18s were playing Oldham. Not a great deal in it with the scores level at half time. Tranmere retook the lead about the hour with a rather controversial goal - a shot may or may not have crossed the line before being cleared. The referee and linesman looked at each other but appeared to have decided it wasn't a goal. However about ten seconds later the referee awarded the goal, at which point Oldham's counterattack was already in the Tranmere half. The home side scored a less contreversial third to secure the win.

                                      Then it was back to Birkenhead Park to watch AFC Park North take on Hoole Rovers in the Chester & Wirral League. This was rather less competitive with Hoole taking the lead after a couple of minutes and getting a couple more before half time. The second half started a bit more evenly before Hoole got three in five minutes around the hour. Park thought they had scored a goal themselves, but unlike this morning the referee didn't think it had crossed the line; not that he had a good view being about twenty metres off the action, but that was probably not surprising as he looked about seventy. Hoole responded by scoring another three before the final whistle. Considering it finished 9-0 Park North didn't look that bad, but Hoole could quite easily have scored bother five or six with better finishing.

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                                        #20
                                        Originally posted by longeared View Post
                                        Cracking ground, big wide circular tarmac standing (cycle speedway?), box to box terrace, proper floodlight pylons and the first time I've seen an advertising hoarding for shellfish.
                                        It's an odd situation. The football and rugby clubs used to share at the ground, then the football club moved out to a ground on the outskirts, and then the clubs swapped grounds so the football club ended up with sole use of the ground.

                                        There used to be a battered wooden stand, but it got condemned in the late eighties. The council then completely rebuilt the ground, with a new stand, floodlights, and also installed a flapping track. The dogs only lasted for a couple of years, and the track was covered over and is what surrounds the pitch now.

                                        The floodlight towers are surprising in that they are four huge corner pylons, rather than the normal row of poles. Of note is that they haven't had mobile phone aerials added to them, which seems to be an ever present appendage at all other non-league grounds.

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                                          #21
                                          Newport 1 Grimsby 0.

                                          One shot on target by my reckoning (free kick, scored). Newport seem to have a couple of quality loanees. Grimsby were quite poor.

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                                            #22
                                            Liverpool 1-0 Brighton & Hove

                                            First half good, second half poor. Brighton nearly nicked an equaliser at the end. You can watch it on the telly if you’re arsed. Nice rendition of “You’re a shithouse and a liar, Bettison” from the Kop.

                                            Had the misfortune to be sat by one of those blokes with a really fucking loud voice who feels that he has to bellow encouragement throughout the match. Between him and the cramped seating in the Kop I came out feeling like I’d been the victim of a kidnapping where I’d been squashed into a holdall and shouted at for 90 minutes.

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                                              #23
                                              Originally posted by Third rate Leszno View Post
                                              What’s your view of the, erm, recreation of New Bradwell St Peter, Furtho? I remember you used to watch them quite often before they folded.
                                              Yes, I was on the committee for two or three years. The club folded at the end of 2016/17, but during 17/18 the pitch was used by MK Dons U18 and, from about March onwards, by Loughton Manor -- another MK club who also played in the Spartan South Midlands League Division 2 and who were having ground and clubhouse problems of their own.

                                              What's happened over the summer is that Loughton Manor have made the move to the Recreation Ground permanent, in so doing changing their name to New Bradwell St Peter. The general consensus locally is that this is a good thing, as it means the ground is being used for the purpose for which it was intended (there are not that many facilities with floodlights and a stand in MK, so we need to make the most of what we've got) and a long-standing club name is revived. The guys involved in running Loughton Manor and now NBSP seem like good people and their organisational skills look decent enough, so there's reason to believe the club is in pretty safe hands.
                                              Last edited by Furtho; 25-08-2018, 21:54.

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                                                #24
                                                FSV Frankfurt 2 FK Pirmasens 0 Regionalliga Südwest (German regional D4)

                                                Or Schick v Schuck - as in Robert Schick (FSV) v Philipp Schuck (Pirmasens). Schick it was who scored one of the more unusual goals I've ever seen - he received the ball in plenty of space just outside the area, a little to the left of the goal. All 1,046 of us present exhorted him to to shoot. He dithered way too long and was subject to a gritty defensive challenge. He lost the ball, then won it back. This happened twice more as everyone roared in exasperation at his inability either to get a shot off or a pass to a better-placed team-mate. Then somehow, at the fourth attempt, he made just enough space to toe-poke the ball into the net with his left foot from about 16 yards out. 2-0 with 25 minutes left. He was immediately subbed out for his troubles.

                                                Earlier, I wrestled with my conscience about whether to pay to get in to this financially wrecked club, or whether to use my referee's pass for a free ticket. I got the free ticket, and my conscience felt even worse. So I bought a replica home shirt and put it on. This is the first time in my life I have worn a replica shirt to a game, or at least one that wasn't hidden underneath a coat or a jacket. I'm 53. I'm regressing. Still, what's wrong with that? Better than growing old gracefully.

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                                                  #25
                                                  Rosina 0 Stranavy 2 in the northern region of the Slovak 4th league. It rained most of the weekend, and the temperature had dropped by almost 20 degrees since Thursday's Trencin game. One young woman was huddled in a blanket on the bench seating, and I kept rubbing my hands to keep them warm.

                                                  Not a bad game anyway, quite evenly contested till Stranavy scored their first goal in the 70th minute. After that, there was no doubt at all that they'd see out the win. Busy day for the ref, with lots of yellow cards. They were all for late challenges, some of which reminded me of the old joke : 'Late tackle ref? We've only been playing two minutes.'

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