#62 West Shepton Playing Fields, Shepton Mallet

Shepton Mallet 4 Brislington 1
Sunday 8th October 2017, Western League Premier Division

Today was never likely to be easy. After a long Saturday evening of footy where we saw some classic battles in the form of Odd Down vs. Bitton (2-2), Hengrove Athletic vs. Hallen (3-3), Tom & Daz vs. Pints (24-0) and Tom vs. Fridge Door (0-1), we were perhaps understandably tired and feeling a considerable amount of regret. The hop stops for no man however, so it was time to get in my car and pootle off to darkest Somerset for round three of the Western League marathon.

It was always going to be a struggle to get to the game on time but it didn't help that we'd read the wrong time off the website so once we arrived we'd missed the first half an hour and two goals, one being scored mere seconds before our entrance judging by the roar of the crowd as we walked up to the ground. Luckily Duke (who seems to turn up at every ground I go to these days) was on hand to clue us in. Dressed resplendently in khaki raincoat and cap, fresh from his morning hike up Glastonbury tor and looking somewhere between Swedish backpacker and Polish hooligan, he explained that the goals were nothing too special and as I can't find any match reports online that'll have to do.

The stands of the ground are greatly varied in terms of both age, size and shabbiness. When we got into the ground we immediately took up position in the standing section opposite the main stand, a modern curved cantilever roofed contraption that kind of reminded me of the weird, new-age motorway services they have in Gloucester. No really. It has two levels to watch from and some Blackthorn adverts running along the back, the latest attempt from the ailing company to win back the crown from Thatchers in this all-important constituency. The adjacent main stand is a big rickety corrugated iron beast with the same traditional wooden steps we saw yesterday at Radstock but this time with and black and white plastic chairs tacked on in an effort to move with the times. These chairs also featured in the noticeably squat team shelters, which Jack expressed a dislike to as in his own words: "You don't want separate chairs on your bench. Not at this level. That's Tory. You want a good socialist bench that everyone can share." Whatever that means.

Maggie's very own technical area.

A sign that Mallet had their gaze firmly on the stars was the small square of metal cut out at the back of the main stand ready for the inevitable day the TV cameras roll in. The stand extends back so far that the tree branches and fence behind combine to form a little tunnel that you have to pass through to get to the rest of the ground. The only other structure in the ground apart from the clubhouse is a squat little modern seated stand called "The Dean Gregort (Gregsy) Memorial Stand" [sic]. This sits to the side of the near goal and has room for about 30, plus 2 if you count the tiny stone bench right next to it. Spoilt for choice this lot.

West Shepton Playing Fields is another lush, conifer entombed arena rich in small west country town sleepiness and hearty, full-blooded (and often slightly unhinged) Western League football skirmishing. It might just be because I was feeling quite sensitive to noise that morning but the game did strike me as the most ill-tempered of the seven matches, with plenty of inter-team mate bickering and general effing and jeffing. This intensity extended even to the crowd, none more so than a lone gentleman stood in front of us, freshly purchased copy of Western League: the First 125 Years tucked under his arm who was keeping a forceful, mumbled commentary to himself, seemingly not supporting either team but encouraging violent play and admonishing any and all referee interference in typical old guy footy fan fashion.

Looking resplendent in their black and white quartered shirts it was the home side that were really dominating proceedings, in more ways than just their two goal advantage. The Mallet looked stronger, better organised and more up for it on the day, possibly due to the inflated attendance. Shortly into the second half Mallet added a third goal, as a player took the ball down the wing and round the back of the defenders to put in the cross. Unfortunately no one got on the end of this for the easy tap-in but it eventually did fall to Ash Willmott who lobbed it back into the box for James Billing to nod in to the bottom corner.

Brislington do finally pull back a consolation goal in hilarious fashion as an ambitious bicey fails utterly but the resultant stray ball is tucked away but another forward, who might have just preferred a simple pass, was facing in the correct direction. Mallet reassert their dominance very quickly through a lofted through-ball on the break which Billing raced forward with until it was one-on-one. Full of confidence, the forward stuck it into the top of the net from 18 yards to complete his hat-trick.

Of the three new grounds on this trip I'd have to say West Shipton Playing Fields was my favourite. A nice easy-to-follow one-sided game in the sun was a great way to blow off the cobwebs of the morning and get warmed up for what would be the most thrilling game of the seven later on that afternoon.

#61 Southfields Recreation Ground, Radstock Town

Radstock Town 1 Oldland Abbotonians 0
Saturday 8th September 2017, Western League First Division

[Disclaimer: Due to the sheer amount of football and beer Daz and myself consumed over the last 72 hours, I have a lot of posts to write and a lot of the finer details of the actual matches have sort of merged into one. As a result expect the following three posts to be shorter and crapper than you're used to.]

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It's that time again ladies and gentlemen. After some very memorable trips together, including a weekend in the west midlands, the Ireland, Northern Ireland, England and Wales (kind of) extravaganza and last year's Bristol and Clevedon bank holiday bash among others, it was time for my friend and rival Daz Knapton and I to hit the road once more. This jaunt was to be our most voluminous yet as we would be joining the Grand Days Out Network's Western League groundhop and attending seven games in just three days. We'd be visiting a fair amount of old favorites as well as three new grounds for myself and five for Daz. As a warm-up on the Friday I returned to Ashton and Backwell to watch the Stags overcome Bishop Sutton 2-1, you can read Daz's report of that here. The next morning we got up bright and early and headed to Weston to grab the coach. While we were waiting we encountered one of Weston's many and varied drunken eccentrics, a chap named Wayne who had wandered into the hotel from the street and proceeded to spend five minutes forcing us to guess his name via the medium of charades. A hearty sigh of relief was sighed by both of us when we didn't get on the bus.

The second match of the trip was another familiar ground in the form of Welton Rovers, where the boys in green won a 3-1 victory over Keynsham Town in their bid to re-enter the Western League Premier. A quick minibus jaunt later and we were in the home of Welton's arch-rivals Radstock Town the Southfields Recreation Ground.

When we arrived the clubhouse was already a hive of groundhopping furor, with badge and programme swapping galore and reams of peculiar old gentlemen crowding the doorways to meticulously note down the line-ups. After grabbing a pint and a new Rovers badge off the venerable Terry's Badges, I meandered out into the bright autumn afternoon. Radstock, like their Coalfield Classico counterparts have been in the Western League since time immemorial but Welton get bragging rights for not falling into the Somerset County League for a decade like Radstock did in the 90s. However neither team have ventured any higher than the Western Premier in 130 years. Welton groundshared with Radstock for one season in 1961 while West Clewes was having it's pitch leveled. 

Without diving into some very dusty, specialist Western League tomes I couldn't tell you how long The Miners have been at their current digs but by the look of the grand old wooden stand that makes up the only covered viewing area in the ground, I'd wager it's a pretty long time. The stand is made up of six large wooden steps that you can sit or stand on, enclosed by brick sides and a corrugated iron roof. The whole thing is held up by mighty metal girders painted bright red, the club colour. If old pictures are anything to go by then the stand has had a bit of an update in the last decade to make it less ramshackle but is still a lovely traditional centrepiece. I say centrepiece but the stand is really all there is to the ground, aside from a tiny bit of shelter overhanging the clubhouse exterior.

The ground was a picture of autumnal beauty in the early afternoon sun. The leaves that covered vast swathes of the pitch probably weren't conducive to a slick-passing playing surface but they certainly looked sweet. I was starting to get too pissed to care about the quality of football anyway. Much to the chagrin of our coach-mate Willie, who would tut patriarchally every time he clocked Daz and I staggering about with a fresh pint. In fairness to the chap I did manage to make a twat of myself early doors by sitting on the white wall by the pitch to get a side-on picture of the action, not realising it had been painted for the occasion and spending the rest of the day with an even whiter than usual arse. I'd like to give a shout out to the facilitator of this drunken horseplay, the lady on the bar who was working it on her 40th birthday. A true legend of the non-league.

Other than that, the only other recountable feature of the ground is the fact that if you want to stand behind the far goal, you have to in fact leave the ground and go behind the chain-link fence of the neighboring park. I discovered this when I struck up a conversation with a chap in a Rovers jacket from about 20 feet who I initially thought was just getting a sneaky free show. We mutually expressed doubt that Rovers' international duty back-up defenders would stand much chance away at Northampton that day. Jokes on us though because they won 6-0.

The main reason for this chat was probably the fact that the game unfolding before us wasn't exactly a classic. In fact the single goal of the 90 was an admittedly impressive own goal from Oldland, the result of an outfield player responding to a ball bouncing slowly into the 6 yard box by rushing back and panickedly lobbing it into the roof of his own net. Other than that the only other action was a Radstock player getting absolutely munched right in front of us in the second half with a turf-ruining slide tackle.

With nothing much else to say on this one, I'm going to dive right into the tomfoolery. During the first half, a lady came round with a bucket and asked Daz to draw the raffle. This was awkward as even with the much-inflated attendance of 213, it seemed a distinct possibility that he was going to draw himself and be forced to sheepishly carry a prize four pack of Thatchers back to his seat past the accusing eyes of everyone in the ground. Fortunately, he pulled out the ticket of the bloke sat directly behind us so instead we were momentarily very popular. Also the ref had bleached blond hair like he was in a 00's nu-metal band.

All-in-all another good addition to the old Western League tally and the mere tip of the iceberg for this long weekend of Somerset silliness.

Because there is always a playground at a Western League ground.

#60 Badgers Hill, Frome Town

Frome Town 0 Hereford 3
Wednesday 27th September 2017, Southern League Premier Division

Readers will by now be well aware of my main motivating factor this season: beating the East Riding eejit that is Daz Knapton. With my main rival stuck doing late shifts this week, not to mention the prospect of the Western League Groundhop next weekend where Daz would be ticking off five new grounds compared to the three that would be new to me. So, like the man who affixes a superfluous noise-generating exhaust to his Fiat Punto after his neighbor buys a sports car, I continue to attempt to close the gap with the least amount of effort possible. 

The most interesting and easily accessible match on this Wednesday night was a Southern League Premier clash between Frome Town, who were playing their seventh consecutive season in the 7th tier and the reformed Hereford who, symbolically enough, find themselves back in the division they were cast down into for the 2014-15 season but didn't survive for long enough to play in. We all know the tale of Hereford United's final years so I won't bore you with the sorry details, instead I'll move right along to the happier sequel. Since launching in 2014 the phoenix club have done pretty much exactly as well as everyone expected them to. Two successive promotions (both as champions) from the Midland Premier and the Southern South & West, scooping up two Herefordshire County Cups and a Midland Football League Cup as well as retaining attendances in the mid-2000s with the odd sell-out match, the journey back has been a pleasant one for the Bulls faithful. The only slight blotch in the record being losing the 2016 FA Vase final at Wembley to Northumberland's Morpeth Town but judging by the guard of honor the Hereford players made for them as they received their trophy, they weren't taking it too hard. For fans, it seemed enough simply to be back at the national stadium with a 20,000 strong following behind them.

For the Robins of Frome Town progress has come at a more steady pace. Languishing in the Western League pretty much from their inception until 2010 when they were promoted as runners-up due to our old pal ground grading denying Bitton the opportunity. Their next chance to push on came after only two seasons in the eighth tier when they faced Sholing in the play-offs and overcame them 1-0 away from home. Their best FA Cup performance came way back in 1954–55 when a crowd of 8,000 saw them defeated by Leyton Orient and they reached the quarter-finals of the FA Vase in 2004–05. Hereford will again be strong favorites for promotion but at the time of writing were in 7th place, fighting Banbury United and Slough Town for the final play-off place. Frome sat in a respectable but unspectacular 11th place, which was about customary for them since joining the league. Expecting a tight encounter with Hereford emerging victorious, I set off for the Special Effect™ Stadium (also sponsored by Raves from the Grave Independent Record Shop™) straight from work. 

The weather had been pretty rank all day with multiple scattered showers and by the time I got there the light had all but receded, perfect autumnal evening kick-off conditions. As expected the Hereford fans had traveled well, swelling the attendance from Frome's typical 250 to 531. While there were a lot of black and white shirts and scarfs dotted around, it was quite difficult to discern whom the various flatcap-wearing men were aligned to, this being a midlands/west country cider-swilling, farmer derby ooh-ar ooh-ar etc. 

Farmhand casuals: this tweed don't run.

Whilst waiting for the game to start I decided I'd check the line-ups for luminaries and nearly spat-take my beer to discover that the Nouveau Bulls were managed by none other than former Rovers, Gillingham and City man Peter Beadle. Noticeably rotunder than in his playing days but an interesting name nonetheless. This shouldn't have surprised me as Peter was caretaker manager for Hereford United (becoming the old club's penultimate gaffer) for a month in 2014 after leaving Newport County and having a brief and disastrous spell at Clevedon Town. I'd just lost track of the bloke. Other notables were former Bulls players Ryan Green and Rob Purdie and 20 year-old Cheltenham starlet Adam Page on his second loan to the club. Interestingly, Wikipedia claim that Hereford have a player duel-registered with Partizan Bristle favorites Hereford Lad's Club in the form of Harry Franklin. However unless it turned out to be their Claudio Sanchez lookalike, I wouldn't have known.

Notable Frome players included Darren Jefferies who had a brief spell with Rovers as a youth and George Miller who made appearances with Preston North End and Accrington Stanley as is currently duel-registered with Gloucester City in Conference South. On the subject of former players, I noticed that some Hereford fans had a flag bearing the name Adam Stansfield, a well-known figure in the West Country lower leagues who spent two seasons with Hereford between 2004 and 2006. A Yeovil lad, Stansfield won an FA Trophy with his hometown club and promotion into the league via play-offs with the Bulls and Exeter City, going on to make 160 appearances for the latter. Tragically, Stansfield died in 2010 aged just 31 after a short battle with colorectal cancer. After so many appearances and two promotions the man is an Exeter legend but it was nice to see a former club he didn't spend all that long at honouring him, obviously a bloke that touched many lives.

Badgers Hill is another West Country ground that's spectacularly well hidden when approached from the road. Concealed behind a thick hedgerow with only a slightly out-of-place looking PVC door wedged in it to hint at what lies behind, I managed to drive straight past until I clocked a sign for overflow car-parking at a nearby school. They were obviously expecting a crowd. With over an hour to go I plodded down the hill for some beer and cricket at the nearby Vine Tree pub where I was immediately taken a dislike to by the landlady's small yappy dog. By the time I entered the ground at about 19:10 it was still fairly empty so I took the chance to mooch around and take pictures unhindered by the anticipated throngs of Herefordians.

My eyes were immediately drawn to the clubhouse behind the near goal which, in an act of non-league ingenuity, was kind of half clubhouse half covered stand. The building has a large roofed porch coming off the entrances which provides a decent elevated view and ample space for wheelchair users. There is also a ground-level path in front which can house the same amount of standers behind the goal. The whole thing essentially creates a very sparse two-level terrace and watching the match just inches from warmth and provisions is the stuff of dreams, imagine being a Frome fan on a cold Tuesday in January watching them get battered and being able to just slink off like that. The dream. On the far side of the ground there is a massive roofed-off section which is so tall it kind of looks like a barn that's been sawed in half. It's height and the fact that there are some rickety-looking wooden crush barriers at the front would make you think that it's a terrace but it's actually just a slight hill, so it's not the best use of space but it does the job and there'd be room for improvement if needed.

Behind the far goal there's a pretty standard easy build seated stand nice and close to the action. Finally there's the main stand on the near side of the ground, a breezeblock affair with five rows of seats under cover and six thin metal pillars supporting the corrugated metal roof. I'd wager it's a little on the old side as most of the seats are pretty faded and the few that stick out from under the end of the roof look completely sun-bleached. Looking at old pictures of Badgers Hill online tells me the ground has changed a lot over the years. The main stand for example was half standing half terrace as recently as 2008 and at some point was a classic wooden stand. As far back as 2004 the sheltered standing opposite the main stand wasn't there, instead that side of the ground was taken up by an approach road running right down the side of the pitch. At some point before that there was a proper terrace on that side but that looks to be long gone. It would seem that a lot of the modernising work was carried out with a view to making the ground more enclosed and overall it wasn't a bad place to be, I even overheard some Hereford fans say it was one of the better grounds they'd been to so far in their mystical non-league journey.

The only part of the ground that looks a little on the tatty side is the small white brick hut that acts as the players changing room. It's size and general ramshackleness makes it look like the home of a ridiculously stereotypical farmer character from a children's stop-motion animation named something like Cowpatty Burt. It's things like this that make me wonder what Hereford's old heads and fans are making of clubs like Frome and the sleepy towns that surround them.

"WHO'S JOCKSTRAP IS THIS?" bellowed Burt.

The game kicked-off and Frome were narrowly on top of a very aerial game in the opening exchanges. Hereford must have felt under some duress as their fans felt the need to bring out their solitary drum. On 11 minutes Hereford force a quick succession of goal-line clearances from a lobbed cross that got closer to the goal than I think anyone was expecting but with 20 minutes gone the game was still anyone's. Frome are able to get forward a lot and make some genuinely lovely touches but play a lot of hopeful balls and have their passes cut out too often. Hereford for their part cross the ball with real menace, when they're given the chance.

I was all settled in for a tight battle until Garyn Preen opened up the scoring in the 24th minute for Hereford when an attacking player cut in from the wing and stuck a cross into the box. This was headed away but only as far as Preen who dodged a tackle, steadied himself and launched a shot from outside the box. Frome keeper Kyle Phillips ducked down and looked like he'd got it under control but somehow the ball squirmed under him and rolled into the back of the net. A hell of a blow for Frome who were more than matching their opponents until this moment.

The goal knocks a lot of the wind out of the home side's sails and John Mills is able to make it 2-0 in the 37nd minute. A ball was floated to the edge of the box inch-perfectly for the rapidly encroaching Mills to volley into the bottom-right of goal past the diving hands of Phillips. A peach of a goal. 

Frome really needed a goal or half-time to come to them and fast but unfortunately their torment wasn't over. In the 41st minute A ball was pinged from the centre of the pitch to the left wing where Preen took it past the sole defender right down to the touch line and sent it skimming along the ground across the face of goal and Keyon Reffell stepped forward for the easiest tap-in of his life. The least spectacular of the three goals but still a slick bit of passing from Hereford. 

Cheers Soapy me old mate, you've always been there for me.

During second half I decided I'd wander over to the seats behind the Frome goal as a cricket score looked like a distinct possibility. As I sat enjoying the songs and jubilation of the Hereford fans beside me, I caught someone waving at me out of the corner of my eye. This turned out to be Matt of Gone For A Burton, a fellow Bristol groundhopper that I'd first met last year at Larkhall Athletic. Unfortunately for him, Matt had pied off the first half and therefore missed all of the goals. Serves him right for sneaking in. As a magistrate of the Groundhopper's Supreme Court Matt naturally asked me if I reckoned he was still allowed to tick off the ground. I decided in his favor because I am kind and benevolent like that. Part of the reason for him coming down to Frome was to attend a game with his mate Ben, who had only just moved to Frome. 

Truthfully, though the Hereford boys continued to pepper the Frome goal for the first 20 minutes or so of the second half, we'd seen the best moments of the match in the first 45. Looking for entertainment, we went over to watch the assistant running the line nearest the entrance who was apparently Ben's mate. I'm sure he did him proud. Despite some mild fisticuffs after a Frome player flattened a Hereford midfielder there wasn't much more to write about. Unfortunately my wait for a non-league mass brawl continues. Here's hoping next weekend's Western League Groundhop (7 games in 3 days) delivers.