le bouclier et l'épée

 I've been to Benton FC, Boro Rangers & Willington Quay Saints in the recent past...

While I’ve enthusiastically blogged about my trips to places I’d never been to before in Scotland, my accounts of visits to new grounds in England have been non existent until now. This is entirely because I’ve been utterly remiss in my attempts to tick off local unvisited stadia. I can’t write about places I’ve not been to, can I? 

I’ve mentioned before that the Northern League is evolving rapidly, as many teams from this region funnel upwards into the Northern Premier League, especially the relatively new East Division that includes Ashington, Bishop Auckland, Consett, Dunston and Newton Aycliffe, all formerly of this parish. Hence, new teams arrive from the feeder leagues at the south of the region, such as the Wearside and the North Riding, none of which I’ve ever had any inclination to visit. As a result, I’m still 4 grounds away from my NL set because of newcomers. Kendal Town in Division 1 is in my sights, though not in the immediate future. Benfield are heading there on April 5th, so I hope I can tag along with Big Gary, who fetched me to Boro Rangers, as we shall see in a bit. In Division 2, visits to Darlington Town, FC Hartlepool and Grangetown Boys Club are yet to be scheduled. Frankly, only Hartlepool’s venerable Grayfields Enclosure appeals in the slightest, but I’ve not seen a convenient date for a fixture as yet. Darlington Town are in a new 4G cage, but they’re close to a railway line and at home on successive Saturdays in late December when Percy Main are inactive. Grangetown Boys Club are somewhere in Middlesbrough, without any immediately attractive fixtures, so hopefully the fact they are second bottom of the table may remove the need for me to visit for reasons of Sporting Darwinism.

One club I did tick off was Boro Rangers, who hosted Benfield back on August 28th. Crying off from Percy Main v Ponteland, which we lost 6-1 incidentally. To get there, I took a lift down the A19 with Gary, as well as club stalwarts Allan and Trevor. Being honest, it isn’t much of a ground. Another 4G cage in a high school that teaches one of these worthless football diplomas to sullen teenagers. A small, seated stand, a small covered standing area and bouncy artificial pitch. That said, Boro were one of the friendliest clubs I’ve visited in years. They really did make you feel welcome, especially over half time snacks. Although it is easy to be magnanimous when you’re 4-0 up and could have scored twice as many, but for the heroics of the visiting keeper. Things may change over time, but the one constant about Benfield is the presence of Andrew Grainger between the sticks. He’s currently out injured after a horrific collision in a Northumberland Senior Cup game against Morpeth Town, but back in August, a month shy of his 42nd birthday, he performed heroically for the Lions as Boro battered them from the off. Amazingly, Benfield didn’t lie down and pulled two back after the break, but they were never going to rescue anything from the game. Boro Rangers feel similar to Stockton Town, in the sense of a huge community club for underage teams that have nothing in common with the likes of Crook Town or Seaham Red Star, who are only in the Northern League in passing. Fair play to them, if that’s what the demographics of their club dictates. I doubt I’ll ever be here again though.

Now, aside from the Northern League there is the football equivalent of the Sistine Chapel Ceiling, the quest to tick off the entire Northern Alliance. At the start of the season, it looked like I needed to pay a visit to 6 different clubs to effect my annual recompletion of the set: Benton, Hazlerigg Victory, Ovingham, Westerhope, Willington Quay Saints and Wrekenton Blue Star. However, despite only ticking off one new ground, I’ve got that list down to 2 visits needed. How? Well, Westerhope have moved and changed their name to Walbottle Seniors. I’m not bothered about this as I wasn’t particularly well-disposed to the club who didn’t play a home game at their proper venue of Lemington Road Ends against Whickham Under 23s, at the back end of last season, choosing to move it to Newburn Leisure Centre without saying a word to anyone. Additionally, Hazlerigg Victory are still peripatetic, awaiting the completion of the refurbishment of their Welfare Ground. As soon as they’re back, I’ll be sponsoring a game, but at the minute their return home looks as likely as the Ashington and Blyth train line reopening before Christmas or the new fleet of Metro trains ever coming into service. As we’ll see shortly, Benton and Willington Quay Saints (formerly resident at Churchill Playing Fields and High Flatworth respectively), are sharing the work in progress that is the new Northumberland FA HQ at St. Peter’s Fields. This leaves me with Ovingham (home to Wideopen Reserves on 21 December) and Wrekenton Blue Star (hosting Prudhoe YC Reserves on the same day) to be visited, when the weather is clement. So, where have I been?

Back in August, on Wednesday 21st to be precise, I took the bike down the side of the Coast Road to Battle Hill Shops (or Coastway Retail Park as it likes to be known), spent 15 minutes reading the graffiti in the underpass and emerged at the building site where the NFA had moved to. Now, with the amount of Roman remains in the Segedunum area, you’d be inclined to think the quarrying and tunnelling going on was to search for ancient artefacts. It isn’t.  Back then, and now almost 4 months later, there’s a lot of slow progress being made to build a home fit for local administrative heroes. In August there was one Portaloo halfway down to Holy Cross and little in the way of shelter. Now there are 2 of those small stands you see at the likes of West Allotment / Forest Hall, offering shelter for 50 apiece, as well as floodlights and a pretty good 4G pitch. You need to bring your own bait and beverages though, as facilities are non-existent. Still, why cater for spectators when less than a dozen turned up for my second visit and perhaps only double that amount for my first one?

I like Willington Quay Saints and have seen them play home games at the Barking Dog as well as High Flatworth. They’ve done well since progressing from the Tyneside Amateur League and look keen on establishing themselves in the top division of the Alliance. Certainly, they weren’t unduly taxed by a woefully weak Forest Hall side, who started this campaign poorly and have continued to struggle all season. Back in August they were bottom and hadn’t won a game. That situation remains unchanged and, if they are still as bad as they were that night, when Willington Quay cuffed them aside by a margin of 4-0, without even breaking sweat, then things won’t get better. The Saints sit in third, behind Heaton Stan A and above Bedlington, but with a vastly inferior goal difference to both. At the halfway stage, it looks an intriguing contest as ever in Alliance D1, with resourceful leaders Hebburn Town Reserves almost certain to pull away from the rest.

For my return visit to St Peter’s Fields, I braved Storm Darragh on Saturday 7th December. While games on 4G at North Shields Athletic, Newcastle Chemfica and Wallsend Boys Club were called off, the NFA pitch proved perfectly fit to play football on. Unfortunately, the howling wind and driving rain, acting as le bouclier et l’epee for the worst the weather could throw at us, stopped most attempts to play football on the deck. The balls flew aerially towards Newcastle and the hammering of the horizontal downpour both deafened the impressive crowd of 11 and half blinded the poor players enduring the conditions. Hexham, lying fifth in the table, proved to be the hardier outfit and pulverised a desperately poor second-bottom Benton side 6-0. That said, Benton looked better than Newcastle did in the second half at Brentford; a performance I tortured myself with once getting home for 4pm, on a warm and comfy 307, which was probably the best thing about the day. 

Percy Main are without a game on both December 21st and 28th. Let’s hope for calm weather and two more ticks for this ground collector.