You
know, I hadn’t even countenanced the possibility that my annual trip to the
Scotch Juniors could have been on the first weekend in June. As far as
concerned, I would be accompanying the neophytic Mr Pearson on June 11th.
However, as age catches up with the world’s only diffident Yorkshireman, one
must be prepared for sudden scheduling changes. Having already been thwarted in
my plans to attend the Blaydon v Tynemouth NEPL 20/20 game on Friday by the
need to attend the Wallsend Winstons Over 40s FC AGM (now renamed Wallsend Boys
Club Over 40s) in The Dorset, I was able to show my resilience when the Fresh
Prince of Great Ayton phoned on the Thursday to tell me he wouldn’t be in Ghent
during the first weekend of June after all, but the second. We were left with
one shot at it, so I got up close and personal with the fixtures and the rail
splitter website. The Highland McPonce was now a reality.
A
quick skeg told me that there were far more games on in the East than the West;
9 unvisited grounds versus 2 unvisited and 1 visited to be exact. The latter
was Irvine Meadow XI, where last May I enjoyed the company of Ayrshire’s most
extreme Tourette’s sufferer, who memorably described a home player who’d missed
a penalty in the shoot out against Arthurlie as ya fuckin’ Noddy. I’ve always found the Scotch are the world’s best
swearers and that those in the West region do it most flamboyantly of all. I
should also mention that Harry insisted we travel via Hexham and Carlisle and
that I have somehow acquired a free pass for the West Region Juniors.
Frankly,
the East region can sometimes feel a little genteel and I was particularly keen
to unearth the authentic Scotch amateur football experience for Harry, whereby
toothless men in shell suits would be yelling at each other for the whole game.
The choice was Cumbernauld United versus Greenock in the Euroscot Engineering
Central League Cup quarter final or Beith against Auchinleck Talbot in the
Ayrshire Weekly Press Cup quarter final.
To quickly recap; there are 64 teams in the West, made up of 40 in the
Central region and 24 in Ayrshire. Every club plays in one of the 5 divisions;
Super League Premier, Super League First, Ayrshire, Central First or Central
Second. As well as that, there are the various cup competitions; the Scottish
Junior Cup being the holy grail, followed by the West of Scotland Cup, Ayrshire
League Cup and Central League Cup and two sectional league cups for Ayrshire
and Central. On top of that, there’s the Evening Times Cup, where the 5
divisional winners play for a season-ending knock-out trophy.
Bearing
all this in mind, it appeared that despite the attractions of Cumberland
(Greenock won 2-0 and then progressed to the final by thumping St. Anthony’s
6-2 in the semi, to set up a contest with Pollok at Cambuslang on Wednesday 15th),
it had to be Beith versus Auchinleck for us. The Sunday prior to our visit,
Beith had defeated Pollok 4-3 on penalties after a 1-1 draw to win the Scottish
Junior Cup at Kilmarnock’s ground. Meanwhile Auchinleck had bested Ayrshire
rivals Hurlford the Saturday before in the West of Scotland Cup, having already
claimed the Super League Premier. As Jim
Morrison said, the West is the best,
though perhaps a more recognisable icon in Ayrshire would be Mick McGahey,
endlessly berating chain-smoking middle managers in bri-nylon shirts about demarcation disputes related to the erosion of differentials.
Squeezing
through the dozens of hen dos and 40th birthday parties milling
around Central Station, having picked up 20 pre-booked vouchers from the ticket
machine that enabled us to do the route quite cheaply, I caught the 9.25 to
Carlisle, picking up Harry on the way. The journey on an almost deserted train
to Glasgow was effortless and punctual, giving us so little time in the
Mugabeville that neither the Alf Ramsey * nor Ronnie Barker ** quotations were given an outing, as we hopped onto a
suburban rattler to Paisley Gilmour Street, where our chauffeur Mickey Hydes
awaited us. Fairly predictably I suppose, Harry and I were to be accompanied /
chaperoned on our day out by 2 Ashington ex-pats who live in Paisley, follow
the Juniors and write match reports for The
Sunday Post and The Sunday Mail. That’s Mickey and his pal Chris Sanderson; in
addition, another son of Ashington, Glenn Wallace, perhaps the most dedicated /
foolhardy NUFC obsessive in the world, was visiting. I’m not making this up you
know…
Chris,
formerly employed in the utilisation of speed cameras in the Ayrshire region,
knew the back roads and took us on a scenic two-car convoy to Beith. To clear
up any confusion, Beith have nothing to do with East Region teams Hill of Beath
or the currently moribund Crossgates Primrose from Cowdenbeath (whose ground is
called Humbug Park; perhaps second only to Larkhall Thistle’s Gasworks Park in
the evocative name stakes). Sure we got lost a couple of times, but there were
lovely sights to see, such as Arthurlie’s home of Dunterlie Park in Barrhead,
and it was a nice day wasn’t it?
North
Ayrshire is the fifth most deprived area in Scotland but, never having been a
mining town, Beith appears to have avoided the crushing poverty and dismal
bleakness of other settlements in the region. It looked a pretty little place,
more like the small hamlets and villages en route from Dumfries to Stranraer
than Kilwinning or Irvine for instance. Many shops and houses were bedecked in
black and white flags and banners, exhorting the local team to win the cup or
praising them for doing just that.
We
parked up and made our way to Bellsdale Park, where despite the humid
conditions, most fans had opted for the traditional Scotch match day attire of
a woollen scarf; black and white for the home side, yellow and black for the
visitors (who actually played in their dark blue away kit). My East Region pal
David Stoker is a connoisseur not only of Juniors football, but pies in
football grounds. He’d sung the praises of the chicken and haggis number on
sale at Beith. I didn’t partake as Laura had helpfully produced a mini-picnic
(the cookies and sandwiches were lovely darling; thank you); however, just
about the first thing we heard in the ground was a conversation about said
comestible.
Bloke 1: how’s the pie Tam?
Bloke 2: It’s no fuckin’ Ambrosia…
The
magnificent combination of profanity and erudition contained in the reply was
enough to tell us we were in the right place. Not that the game had a huge
amount to recommend it. Many Juniors teams find the endless round of end of
season cups to be an irritant. Some teams can finish their programme weeks
before and struggle to raise sides. Others are flat out on their feet after an
intense last month of two or three games a week. This game had something of an
anti-climactic after the Lord Mayor’s Show feel about it. Understandable of
course and it was still lovely to be amongst 500 or 600 intensely committed
fans, whose devotion to incoherent tirades at the referee for minor points of
the laws of the game must be commended.
While we
fell to chatting about music, firstly Teenage Fanclub (sparked by curiosity as
to whether Beith’s Bobby Love was related to the genius who is Gerry Love) and
then Aztec Camera (a group you’d be unable to talk to a younger lady friend
about as she’d be Oblivious to them),
the game continued on a lovely afternoon, utterly devoid of midges. Somehow Mick managed to concentrate on
proceedings long enough to concoct the following report -:
Beith
1 Auchinleck Talbot 1 (5-4 pens)
Beith came from behind to win on
penalties to book their place in the Ayrshire Cup semi-final with a home tie
against Irvine Victoria on Wednesday night.
This keeps the season alive for the Beith men following their Scottish
Junior Cup victory last weekend.
Nicky Doherty fired home Beith’s
final penalty with keeper Stephen Grindley beating away Martin McGoldrick’s
final spot kick for Talbot. In a game of few clear cut chances Keir Milliken
gave Talbot an eleventh minute lead by hooking home Graham Wilson’s left flank
cross. David McGowan created the opportunity for Kenny McLean to equalise
midway through the second half when he scraped home a chance from close range.
Chances were blown at each end before the spot kick decider.
Once
he’d composed his magnum opus, he dropped us back in Paisley and we caught
earlier trains than anticipated, with only minimal irritation from the plethora
of all-day drinkers who were poured on at Carlisle. Harry and I talked about
anything and everything but the game, not because we didn’t enjoy it, but
because it was almost irrelevant to the day.
In a sense it didn’t matter who won, it was important to be there, to be
among friends and acquaintances at a game that you can enjoy in the same way
you enjoy local cricket; for the spectacle and the company.
Heading
to the Central from Hexham, I checked the NEPL results; easy wins for Tynemouth
(where I would have been) and South North, but a cracker at County Club, where
Captain Nicotine’s 167 not out and 5/38 helped Newcastle beat Benwell Hill, who
fell short by a dozen runs chasing 309. Now that sounds like entertainment!!
As
a postscript to the above, it’s a good job Harry and I went up last weekend as
June 11th offers only the Evening Times Cup final at Pollok or the
East of Scotland Cup final at Bathgate; two grounds I’ve been to twice
before. Beith finished their league
programme with a 1-1 draw against Pollok on Monday, before beating Irvine Vics
3-1 in the Ayrshire Cup semi on the Wednesday. They’ll play Irvine Meadow in
the final, after they beat Girvan 4-2 away.
The final is on Tuesday 14th at Kilwinning; a team who are
3-2 up against Shettleston following the away tie in their two legged promotion
and relegation play-off. Auchinleck dusted themselves down following the Beith
loss, to defeat local rivals Cumnock 2-1 away, to progress to the Evening Times
Cup final against Renfrew.
In
the East, they have no equivalents of the sectional league cups or the Evening
Times Cup. Instead Penicuik claimed the Fife and Lothians Cup on Wednesday 8th
with a 3-1 win over Bonnyrigg Rose at Musselburgh (where Benfield are playing
on July 23rd; shame I’m on holiday), while Lochee United, who also
defeated Sauchie Juniors 10-0 on aggregate in the promotion and relegation
play-off, won the Tayside Cup, beating Jeanfield Swifts 4-2 on penalties after
a 1-1 draw. Finally, the East of Scotland Cup final will see Boness United take
on Dundonald Bluebell.
That’s
it for 2015/2016; see you in 2016/2017, on or around July 2nd.
(* Anonymous
SFA blazer; welcome to Glasgow Sir Alf
Ramsey; you must be effing joking)
(** Norman
Stanley Fletcher; I used to think I was
working class, then I went to Glasgow and realised I was actually middle class)
No comments:
Post a Comment