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Post by Drew Steignton on Dec 24, 2019 10:08:35 GMT
Kenneth Wolstenholme flew missions over Germany during World War 2. Like Basil Fawlty he never mentioned you know what, but Ken did like to mock the West German side for "rolling in agony" which they did quite a lot of in '66. My father spent a few years in Italy at places such as Salerno and Anzio. Later he was prone to say similar things to Ken when it came to Italian players. That rubbed off on me for at least two World Cups. I don't begrudge my father this. I'm just thankful I didn't spend six years of my twenties doing what he had to do. Dunk sounds like a West Country name to me, but I'll go for Charlie Austin as my man from near Chulmleigh. Yes, I suppose Dunk has a West County twang about it. Charlie Austin is from Hungerford which is on the main railway line between London and Devon. Not that the trains stop. No, it's George Friend son of poultry farmers from Chittlehampton. More South Molton than Chulmleigh to be fair.
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Post by CC on Dec 24, 2019 16:52:48 GMT
It's been busy in town centres everywhere today but a grand day for a ride in the country. Sadly the café at Port William was closed but the blow was softened by chancing upon this theatre of dreams on a country lane a quarter of a mile or so outwith Wigtown. It's a shame not to have been able to see inside but at least we know now how to spell Trammonford. Or is it Trammondford? If they don't know, how do they expect the rest of us to get it right? Wigtown is my least favourite town in Wigtownshire. The locals stay on an unattractive council scheme while the centre has been bagged by arriviste snobs with their snooty over-priced book shops. Normally I do love a second hand book shop and I've enjoyed a couple of weekends in Hay-on-Wye in the past, but while Hay developed organically Wigtown's book town status has been contrived, courtesy of winning a competition. I was once berated in Totnes, for throwing a miniscule piece of pie crust to a hungry pigeon, by a woman dressed in mediaeval costume whose accent suggested she was not a native of Devon. I could imagine the same thing happening in Wigtown, where, again, judging from the way people speak there are a lot of folk from the Home Counties who have come to Scotland in order to educate the Scots on genteel living and tedious & pretentious arts and literature. There were no cafes open there, either, so we went to Newton Stewart, which is a much more appealing town in every way unless you don't like Christmas Eve traffic jams.
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Post by Drew Steignton on Dec 24, 2019 21:41:57 GMT
Wigtown and Bladnoch: Moving Forward - To Achieve Our Goals. Love it but might such an admirable aspiration look better in Scots or Latin? It's rather "off the shelf" in plain English.
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Post by Drew Steignton on Jan 3, 2020 9:07:33 GMT
Saturday in the countryside at Torridgeside FC on the edge of Great Torrington (or Torrington as it's usually called). This was for a Walter C Parsons Funeral Directors Cup 2nd round tie against Stoke Gabriel, fully six weeks after I'd seen a 3rd round game between Brixham and Mousehole. Torridgeside - their ground is set high above the river and a fair distance away - are the usurpers in Torrington football. Founded as a youth team thirty years ago, the club started an adult team fifteen years later and quickly rose through North Devon football to non-league step 7 and the Peninsula League. With league reorganisation last summer Torridgeside were allowed a place at step 6 provided they upgraded their facilities within eighteen months. They're set fair having obtained permission for floodlights. I doubt Donnacroft will ever be a grand venue but, once the lights are up, it should do the job for this level of football. And, once again, it's a place where rugby is played next door. Closer to the town itself you'll find Torrington FC long-time members of the Western League from the 1980s to 2007. This club enjoyed a moderate amount of success at that level and were part of "the circuit" whereby players and managers were brought in from outside the area. Eventually Torrington either ran out of money - or lacked the inclination to continue on this path - and dropped several levels overnight to the second tier of district football. There they were to be passed by the upwardly-mobile Torridgeside. Until this season anyhow. The new step 6 league had a couple of spare places and was able to offer these to clubs from a lower level that possessed the necessary facilities. Torrington, along with Dartmouth, took the final places. As unlikely as it seemed the small town of Great Torrngton now had two clubs at non league step 6. Six months later Torridgeside are doing nicely enough but Torrington are bottom. When the two clubs met on Boxing Day Torridgeside won 8-0. Torridgeside won again when I visited beating Stoke Gabriel 3-1. They now face the considerable challenge of a game at Falmouth in the next round. The crowd last weekend was no more than sixty although it became clear I was not alone in having been at Exeter City on Boxing Day. Somebody was avidly discussing the referee's performance that day. How many had been booked in stoppage time as well as throughout the game. There were also a couple of observations about the referee's previous game. Then it dawned on me. It was the referee himself amongst his "own folk" with a relative in the Torridgeside squad and a partner helping in the refreshment hut. He certainly appears to be a man who keeps count of matters.
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Post by Drew Steignton on Jan 15, 2020 19:48:03 GMT
I've only ever seen or heard Moretonhampstead described as a "town". It's not very big - no more than two thousand people live there - but once a town always a town. Especially in Devon. It has a smart sports facility - one of those many King George V playing fields - although, as far as I can tell, no football club since 2016. In August of that year a statement appeared on the club's Facebook page saying that "due to circumstances outside our committee's control" the club had no players or manager. The records show the club had finished 5th in the South Devon League's lowest division in 2015/2016. There's been no sign of them in any league table since then.
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Post by Drew Steignton on Jan 15, 2020 20:38:33 GMT
If Ted Hughes ever did follow North Tawton FC over land and sea - and Lapford! - one of his shorter away trips may have been a hop over the hill through Sampford Courtenay (stop here for the Prayer Book Rebellion) and on to the playing fields at Exbourne, erstwhile home of Exbourne and Jacobstowe FC. Compared to Moretonhampstead, or even North Tawton, these really were villages with no claim to township status. Put Exbourne and Jacobstowe together and there's still not much there at all. But more, just about, than nearby Folly Gate which also had a team in the Devon and Exeter League. Today Exbourne's playing field is an ordinary bumpy piece of grass next to a children's play area. Yet there's still two sets of goalposts, both rather rusty. There's also a marvellous semi-derelict stand under which the Saturday afternoon enthusiasts would have taken cover in inclement weather. With such a broad open view of Dartmoor to the south you'd imagine all those rain-bearing south-westerly winds would have spoilt many a match. The Devon and Exeter League is very diligent in logging historic league tables on its website. Short of looking up each season Exbourne (sometimes with, sometimes without Jacobstowe) were certainly on the scene in the 1950s when they won the Devon Junior Cup. Colin Beer, Exbourne’s star man at the time, hailed from Sampford Courtenay and went on to play a handful of first-team games for Exeter City.
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Post by Drew Steignton on Jan 19, 2020 21:24:08 GMT
Although watching a match at all the English Premier League and English Football League grounds - "doing The 92" - might simultaneously appear both a substantial and pointless undertaking to ordinary decent mainstream society it's actually first base to many Groundhoppers. It's generally taken as read amongst those who express surprise at where you've not been as opposed to where you have been. There are rules, requirements and controversies rather like a lot of these things. It must be twenty years since a friend from Liverpool completed the task as it stood at the time and sought membership of the properly constituted Ninety Two Club. He needed to provide a list of each visit with the score, date and attendance. In those largely pre-internet days, a state of affairs which may still apply in his case, he rang me because he knew I had all the reference books for any detail he was missing. We were on the phone for around three hours and discovered we were both at the FA Cup tie between Blackburn Rovers and Southampton on 17 February 1984. The Ninety Two Club has never grabbed me. That's partly because Ayresome Park, a perennial of what was a relatively fixed list of grounds during the first thirty or so years of my life, eluded me. I say eluded although I never really made an attempt to visit the place save for once walking around its perimeter on a Sunday morning. Now, with there being so many different clubs and grounds over the last twenty to thirty years, numbers have become more and more of a moveable feast. Without ever having done a proper 92 I've probably seen games on at least 120 grounds associated with past and present members of the top four divisions. I'm also a heretic when it comes to such nonsense. I've seen football at Salford City even though it was a year or two before the club joined the Football League. That's good enough for me. I'm not planning to go back. But somebody did ask me recently about The 92. The answer was that, at today's prices, I've not been to Millwall, West Ham and the new Spurs should you wish to count it (and I believe the cognoscenti do so because the pitch has moved). The next two new grounds are to be Brentford and Wimbledon. That made me think. All these grounds are in London and I'd quite like to visit them as opposed to as opposed to merely ticking. As it happens, of those missing venues, the very fact I've not been to the new Millwall (it's been there since 1993) has conveniently allowed me to distance myself from the whole notion of being a proper 'hopper. That may have done more good than harm to my self-esteem these past twenty-five years. Something must have changed. Yesterday afternoon I turned into Zampa Road, SE16 and headed underneath the archway....
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Post by CC on Jan 21, 2020 10:14:14 GMT
Although watching a match at all the English Premier League and English Football League grounds - "doing The 92" - might simultaneously appear both a substantial and pointless undertaking to ordinary decent mainstream society it's actually first base to many Groundhoppers. It's generally taken as read amongst those who express surprise at where you've not been as opposed to where you have been. There are rules, requirements and controversies rather like a lot of these things. It must be twenty years since a friend from Liverpool completed the task as it stood at the time and sought membership of the properly constituted Ninety Two Club. He needed to provide a list of each visit with the score, date and attendance. In those largely pre-internet days, a state of affairs which may still apply in his case, he rang me because he knew I had all the reference books for any detail he was missing. We were on the phone for around three hours and discovered we were both at the FA Cup tie between Blackburn Rovers and Southampton on 17 February 1984. The Ninety Two Club has never grabbed me. That's partly because Ayresome Park, a perennial of what was a relatively fixed list of grounds during the first thirty or so years of my life, eluded me. I say eluded although I never really made an attempt to visit the place save for once walking around its perimeter on a Sunday morning. Now, with there being so many different clubs and grounds over the last twenty to thirty years, numbers have become more and more of a moveable feast. Without ever having done a proper 92 I've probably seen games on at least 120 grounds associated with past and present members of the top four divisions. I'm also a heretic when it comes to such nonsense. I've seen football at Salford City even though it was a year or two before the club joined the Football League. That's good enough for me. I'm not planning to go back. But somebody did ask me recently about The 92. The answer was that, at today's prices, I've not been to Millwall, West Ham and the new Spurs should you wish to count it (and I believe the cognoscenti do so because the pitch has moved). The next two new grounds are to be Brentford and Wimbledon. That made me think. All these grounds are in London and I'd quite like to visit them as opposed to as opposed to merely ticking. As it happens, of those missing venues, the very fact I've not been to the new Millwall (it's been there since 1993) has conveniently allowed me to distance myself from the whole notion of being a proper 'hopper. That may have done more good than harm to my self-esteem these past twenty-five years. The rules for the 92 seem to be open to challenge. I've seen a Cup semi-final (not involving Manchester United) and a Rugby League match at Old Trafford. I'm pretty sure the rugby match would not count but maybe I could put in an appeal about the semi? I also spent a day at Ninian Park watching a rock concert but I don't suppose that one would score a point either. We were shown around MacDiarmid Park one day by a guy who worked there, after using the Park & Ride, but obviously I'd be laughed to scorn by the 42 Club if I were to claim that one. It's difficult to grasp that the New Den is no longer new but actually 27 years old. I hear that Scunthorpe are planning to leave their "new" ground for an even newer one even further away from the town centre. They'll end up in Doncaster one day if they're not careful. Here are some related questions: 1 Since Rotherham were given a time limit to move back to town when they began using the Don Valley Stadium in Sheffield, how is it that Bolton and West Ham are allowed to play in Horwich and Stratford and get away with it? 2 And what about Forest Green Rovers, whose projected new stadium is nowhere near either Nailsworth or Forest Green? 3 If you already have St Andrew's, Birmingham, on your list do you have to go & see Coventry play there as well in order to get your score back up to 92? 4 What about a ground that has completely changed since you visited it? If it has 4 new stands can you still include it on your list even though the stadium you originally saw has now vanished? How about Molineux, where the pitch has moved sideways? Arguably, no part of the ground that you saw in 1975 still exists so it should no longer count. 5 Linked to the above, there must be an argument among diehards that if a new pitch is laid at a ground then you should have to revisit it. What do you think?
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Post by Drew Steignton on Jan 21, 2020 12:32:03 GMT
Interesting questions. I don't know entirely for sure but
1. We know localities, communtities and administrative districts are not always co-terminus (far from it) but Horwich and Stratford are in the local auauthorities of Bolton and Newham respectively. Newham was the merger of East Ham and West Ham.
2. This one is looser because Nailsworth lies separate to Stroud - and to the south rather than the west - but I'm sure both Forest Green's current and proposed grounds lie within Stroud District Council's area.
I once went to an evening kick-off at Forest Green. There was no public transport after the game and I stayed in accommodation that was beyond my normal budget. The climb from Nailsworth is astonishingly steep and car parking is an issue. The lie of the land means there is nowhere for another ground in Nailsworth which - if you mapped the club's current and potential support - probably lies on the edge of the club's viable "catchment area". Herein lies the rub because Stroud is also hilly meaning the proposed ground is also on the edge of any reasonably-defined catchment area. I think people beyond Nailsworth have "bought into" the notion of Forest Green Rovers so maybe there's no agitation to change the name. I guess the club's current supporters might be split about the whole idea of moving. If it were me it might depend on where I lived.
A moot point is whether a ground to the west might extend the catchment area. The club's owner might argue the case; I doubt it (especially if Gloucester City can make a go of returning "home"). But, if Forest Green are to move anywhere, then "west is best" purely because of contour lines which are pretty dramatic in that part of the world.
3. In the purest of terms "yes" although this is where I'd part company on the whole matter and ask myself "do I really want to see a Coventry game at Birmingham?" That might depend on who and when. We both know somebody who (I believe) made an effort to see a Coventry home game at Northampton. Others would have endeavoured to see Spurs at Wembley. I know someone who travelled from Liverpool to "tick" Bournemouth at Dorchester although, in that case, he'd not been to Dorchester before. I did that one myself because there was a Bournemouth v Torquay United League Cup game at Dorchester. I also saw a Bradford City home match at Odsal. I'm rather proud of that one.
4. I've thought about this myself. I first went to Chelsea in 1966, Liverpool in 1968 and Everton in 1974. I've not been to any of the three for at least twenty-five years. They no longer seem anything like the same places in my imagination and I've rather fond memories of the old ones. A trip to Stamford Bridge might be expensive and I don't live in the right place to casually pop off to Anfield or Goodison for the day. Everton's new ground may tempt me but I'll be old then and it would be very much a special treat.
There are disputes about when the pitch moves. Is it an overlap or a complete new "footprint" (as they say these days)? Bournemouth rotated through ninety degrees. That wasn't a concern for me because, in those days when a modest little club played there, I was always likely to visit.
5. Not heard of that one although name changes are a concern to some of the tribe. I hope this only applies to the name of the club rather than the ground's so-called naming rights. My aforementioned friend from Liverpool was once extremely concerned over the prospect of Inverness Caledonian Thistle changing their name to Inverness City. He would have gone. Of course he would.
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Post by Drew Steignton on Jan 21, 2020 14:37:51 GMT
"It's difficult to grasp that the New Den is no longer new but actually 27 years old."
Indeed. I did wonder what proportion of Saturday's crowd had memories of the original Den. A reasonable number still but certainly nobody under the age of thirty. Or, as it happens, memories of the old Den's occasional days of infamy such as the FA Cup tie against Ipswich in 1978. I was there that day when I was living on the Sussex coast and fancied a London football trip.
A far more interesting task would be to map where Millwall's regular supporters live. You suspect there'd be an arc right around London's south east and out into Kent and neighbouring counties. What we might call the "demographics" of Saturday's crowd probably speak more of the Den's immediate locality's past rather than its present.
On a wider note we probably don't know too much about how football fans feel once their club has moved home. There's certainly plenty of sentiment at the time but usually most supporters appear to settle to the matter. Of course they have no choice just as, in time, new supporters come along who have no memory of the old place. My awareness of football's geography dates from the mid 1960s yet it's amazing just how much the geography of many people's lives has changed in that time. Would people now relish Bolton Wanderers moving from Horwich to Burnden Park? They're quite a different bunch you suspect.
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Post by CC on Jan 21, 2020 14:45:59 GMT
Cumbernauld United have 2 pitches. There's an ordinary grass one which the stand looks onto, and an artificial one to be used in bad weather. That seems to me to necessitate at least 2 trips, with the possibility that the second might be played on the same pitch as the first, so giving rise to the need for a third (or even 4th or 5th) trip for the serious groundhopper.
Arguably, if you hovered over Dundee in a balloon on a Saturday afternoon when Dundee's first team and United's juniors are both playing at home you could tick off Dens Park and Tannadice at the same time, especially if you were to buy a programme at each ground before taking off. It's also no doubt been a bone of contention that Rangers are a new club since they went bust and reformed so a trip to Ibrox before 2011 no longer counts. The same applies to Gretna 2008, FC Halifax, Chester and no doubt a lot of other places as well.
As for Millwall, I have a suspicion that in addition to the old timers from New Cross and Rotherhithe the club has long been followed by some hooligans with no links to the club's geographical status at all; they watch them because there's a good chance of beating someone up. The same applies to Leeds United. My memory of Leeds is that it's rare to see anyone walking around the city wearing the club's shirt; Loiners are much more likely to wear the colours of Leeds Rhinos or FC Barcelona. They must have more fans who travel to home matches by coach than any other team in England.
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Post by Drew Steignton on Jan 23, 2020 19:06:05 GMT
You could imagine a strong football rivalry between Chagford and Moretonhampstead. Two small towns on the edge of Dartmoor and just a few miles apart. But, as we've seen, there currently isn't a football club in Moretonhampstead. Nor have the two clubs been in the same league for many a year. As far as I'm aware both once played in the South Devon League, centred on Torquay, rather than the Devon and Exeter League. Then, when the new Devon League was formed in rhe early 1990s, Chagford were founder members. Their brand new facilities, catering for both football and cricket, may have helped their cause. These were the envy of many a Devon town and, with respect to cricket, Chagford was to soon host a fixture between Devon and Cornwall. Chagford's football club pootled along in the Devon League for a while before dropping down to the Devon and Exeter. There's been a few ups and downs over the years but this season the club are in the D&E's top division. It's been a dank, misty day in Devon and you couldn't see all the way up the surrounding hills. But enough to see to be sure that Chagford would be a fine place to watch cricket on a sunlit evening. Here's a picture from another visit:
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Post by CC on Jan 23, 2020 20:19:48 GMT
That's certainly a beautiful spot, Drew. Is Chagford the place with two ironmongers' shops next door to each other? If so, I like it very much. Devon does seem to do very well for football and cricket grounds. In fact, the English countryside is renowned, and rightly so, for having a cricket ground in just about every village. The clatter of a batsman's helmet falling onto his stumps is up there with the song of the skylark as the sound of an English summer, just as in the Highlands it's the swirl of the pipes and the swish of the kilts at the Highland Games.
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Post by Drew Steignton on Jan 23, 2020 20:48:19 GMT
That's certainly a beautiful spot, Drew. Is Chagford the place with two ironmongers' shops next door to each other? If so, I like it very much. Taken on a day other than today: It is indeed two separate shops under common ownership divided by an alleyway. One is supposed to be the ironmongers - the other a "moorland" shop - although the window displays are not dissimilar in that they contain a cornucopia of items that you didn't previously know existed. Chagford is a hill town in many ways reminiscent of Northumberland or the Welsh Marches.
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Post by Drew Steignton on Jan 27, 2020 17:28:10 GMT
FA Cup at the weekend. Tickets often cheaper and more plentiful than usual. A ticket at the London Stadium for £25 that can sometimes cost £80. Even at the cheaper tariff the home aficionados were far from happy.
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