Well, in footballing terms, that’s the Sistine Chapel Ceiling painted again for another season. On Saturday 10th December, when the first cold snap of the winter decimated the local football programme to the extent that the only Northern League fixture to survive was Sunderland West End 4 Ryton & Crawcrook Albion 3, crowd 110, and the Northern Alliance was reduced to 5 games, all played on AstroTurf, I recompleted my set of all 59 clubs in that brave, brilliant and beautiful league, in the town that won the 2005 Britain in Bloom award, and in the same year was also named England's Favourite Market Town by Country Life magazine by taking in Hexham 2 Gosforth Bohemians 9 on the 3G pitch at Queen Elizabeth High School.
About 6 years ago, I came to see Hexham play at their former home of the Wentworth Leisure Centre, directly opposite the train station, which is the only non-league venue I’ve nipped out of at half time to buy a coffee from the adjacent Waitrose. News of their move to a school pitch, halfway up a frozen mountainside in the depths of the Tyne Valley that necessitates far more than any 10,000 steps to reach the place, but does offer the opportunity to pop your head round the door at Tynedale CC, newly promoted to the North East Premier League of course, is reason enough to visit the bonny and beguiling market town that was voted the happiest place to live in Britain in 2019 and 2021 by visitors to the property website www.rightmove.co.uk, especially when your guide for the day is none other than the jewel in the crown of sportswriters, Harry Pearson. Boasting questionable knowledge of local geography, despite being a 30-year resident in the town, a windproof parka bought to withstand the blasting winds of the Alaskan tundra and wielding a flask filled 50% with proper Bournville and 50% Stroh rum, Harry met me at the station and led us on a route march that seemed akin to impersonating Captain Oates in a game of seasonal charades.
Eventually,
we reached our destination, at which point Harry mentioned the day seemed to
have warmed up. It hadn’t at all. His Alaskan parka was simply doing its job.
Never mind; within minutes, the two sides we’d came to see, were soon thawing
the freezing temperatures with red hot football that eclipsed the Morocco v
Portugal game happening elsewhere. Gosforth Bohemians may sound like a late
Victorian amateur dramatic troupe but formed in 1894 they are the oldest
non-league club in Newcastle and look set for promotion to the Alliance top
division next time around. Clad in red and white hoops, they were all over the
green and white hooped home side from the off. The last time Harry and I had
met was 51 weeks ago, to take in Cullercoats 1 Percy Main 5 and the time before
that, when the post-lockdown 2021/2022 campaign kicked off on Wednesday 2nd
September, when Haltwhistle Jubilee won their local derby over Hexham 4-3 in a
monsoon so ferocious that it caused my copy of Hubert Selby Jr’s Requiem for
a Dream to disintegrate, so it’s fair to assume he knew the sort of
standard to expect. Indeed, I have o say our expectations were more than met,
as the helpful nature of the artificial turf for both teams, as well as a
decent gathering of about 40 well-insulated locals in various styles of down
jacket shouting encouragement, seemed to inspire the sides to go gung-ho from
the off, to the extent that it was 3-1 to the visitors after 10 minutes. Poland
v Croatia it certainly was not.
Bohs attacked with pace down both wings and harried Hexham into rushed balls that led to mistakes. Certainly pace and intelligence were the main weapons early on, though for sheer comedy, nothing could beat the expansive air shot by the Bohs keeper that presented Hexham with a charitable chance of a comeback at 1-2. Unfortunately, the rhapsodic Bohemians decided to be a little more parsimonious in their play after that. It was 1-5 at half time, with the pick of the goals an outrageously beautiful curling left foot shot from the edge of the area by the Bohs number 10. Well done to you sir; your strike was enough to cause Harry to break out the flask of Birmingham meets Klagenfurt cocktail to keep the cold out. Medicinal purposes, you understand.
The
second half followed a similar pattern, though Hexham were unlucky to have 2
goals chalked off for offside, especially as the second of them was a beautiful
header into the bottom corner. Both sides also hit the inside of the post, with
the Hexham number 9 so unlucky not to score, having grafted from first whistle
until last. The floodlights came on and illuminated the valley from Bardon Mill
to Stocksfield, just in time to showcase Boh’s 8th goal; a stunning,
dipping volley that Harry likened to Josimar against Pat Jennings at Mexico 86.
When Bohs reached 9, it seemed as if
Hexham would be buried, but fair play to the home side, they kept on going and
got the final goal of a game. It didn’t restore much in the way of pride, but
they tried hard all game against a damn fine side who now go level on points
with Stobswood at the top of the table.
Afterwards, we half tip-toed, half skated back down the hill, through the Masonic Lodge car park, down past the Abbey and into Waitrose, where we parted and I availed myself of a couple of Emmental bagels and a pack of spelt rolls for laters, before heading back on a train full of eager incipient boozers from Prudhoe, and tired, fraught shoppers at the Metro Centre. They really didn’t know what they had missed. Northern Alliance forever.
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