|
Post by CC on Nov 25, 2019 19:57:46 GMT
21 September this year was a lovely day, and since we'll not get another one as nice till next year it was a perfect opportunity to take advantage of Scotland's free bus travel for the over 60s and visit Raydale Park, home to phoenix club Gretna FC 2008. The opponents in a Round 1 Scottish FA Cup tie were Hill of Beath Hawthorn, of the East of Scotland League. Everybody knows the story of the old Gretna and their rise & fall so there's no need to bore everyone with it here. I expect the old club were elected into the SPFL partly because of the very decent stand behind one goal, which would be the envy of many another club in the lower divisions today. It has no facilities but it does give a great view. The only problem is that nobody seems to want to sit in it, preferring instead to squeeze inside the much more basic stand which covers the halfway line. The other side is basically a couple of steps worth of terracing plus the dugouts, and behind the far end is a just a flat patch of green field. The current club is at pains to disavow any connection with Gretna FC. The pitch looked lovely in the sunshine and the weather was perfect; warm and sunny with a breeze to help cool the players down. The match wasn't that great; it was an even contest but that was because neither side was very good. They were whole-hearted in the tackle and gave 100% effort but the standard of passing was pretty bad. Gretna had one shot at goal in the whole game, but it was a good one and it provided the winning goal 10 minutes into the second half. The Haws hit the post twice and had a goal disallowed for offside so they might feel a bit unlucky, although I had a chat with one of their squad afterwards and he had no complaints. He thought HOB were below their usual form and that Gretna had a wee bit too much experience. Chris Humphrey. Pundit on Friday night, Gretna player-manager on Saturday afternoon At the end of the game the Gretna players were whooping it up in the dressing room. Used to being slaughtered every week, a win made a very welcome change. It was a pity they wasted time in the last 10 minutes, though. As for Hawthorn, their young team looked like schoolboys up against miners. They were so skinny and their hair was so short some of them looked as if a gust of wind would have blown them over. They certainly didn't deserve the constant stream of abuse they were subjected to, from start to finish, by their manager Kevin Fotheringham. "A fucking shambles" and "brainless cunts" were just 2 of the unfair insults he aimed at his young charges while they chased the game in the second half. The ref, by the way, was excellent. I tried to tell him so at full time but he looked as if he didn't want to engage. I think he believed I was trying to be sarcastic, which wasn't the case. He had a really good game. NB A postscript to the game was Kevin Fotheringham's resignation a few days later. This decision was, I'm sure, in the best interests of his own and the players' mental health. They certainly seem to have done pretty well without him ever since.
|
|
|
Post by Drew Steignton on Dec 15, 2019 11:13:55 GMT
Let’s have room on this site for where football is played. A few stadiums (in the old-fashioned meaning of the term), plenty of enclosed grounds both large and small as well as the occasional pitch in a public park. Maybe precisely here for general stuff - such as spotting grounds on our travels - leaving other spaces for proper visits and matches seen (as per Gretna and Tarff already). And we’ll start with a basic set of goalposts and a proverbial picture poser. Where is this?
|
|
|
Post by Drew Steignton on Dec 15, 2019 15:33:26 GMT
Having spoken with Chalder about this before I'm still struggling with just how little football is to be watched - or played - within Stranraer itself or the county of Wigtownshire. It's also remarkable that what does take place is either in the Scottish League itself or in the South of Scotland League, the sixth level of football in Scotland. Isn't there any other Saturday afternoon football in the vicinity? Has there been more in the past?
Mind you, I'm saying this from the perspective of the south west of England as opposed to the south west of Scotland. Although we might consider ourselves to be a peripheral area far from the main centres of population we have to remember Devon has over a million people. This equates to around 20% of the Scottish total. Cornwall has half Devon's population; in other words around 10% of Scotland's. These comparisons would be beyond the ken of most people down here. Whether the two counties have 30% of the number of football clubs in Scotland remains to be seen.
I've been trying to make other comparisons and reckon East Devon (which does not include Exeter) has a similar population to the whole of Dumfries and Galloway whilst covering only an eighth of the area. The largest town is Exmouth. That's around the size of Dumfries; another fact that might surprise a few people.
Of East Devon's towns Honiton is nearly as large as Stranraer and has a team playing at the tenth level of English football. So does Axminster. So does Sidmouth. Ottery St Mary play at a step below. But this area doesn't neatly cluster together populations along the lines of Wigtownshire's near 30,000 (not that this figure is particularly widely-quoted). I reckon parts of Mid Devon do with the leading football team at Crediton and others playing district league football in six or seven nearby villages. Given village football is contracting across the island we share that's a diminished number but still pretty healthy in my book.
The difference is that, even in a relatively rural part of England, you can put populations of 30,000 together far more easily. The Devon and Exeter League might be considered far-flung but is compact when compared to anything in the south of Scotland. I imagine that - for a fourth, fifth or sixth club to flourish in Wigtownshire - they'd need to compete in a league spread across several counties for the numbers to be anywhere near viable. It's hardly surprising that this is a near-impossibility - as well as being unattractive to most players - and that, for any other football to occur, it probably needs to be played in relatively impromptu fashion on artificial surfaces during the evenings. And that, it is being said, is what might happen to much of our recreational football too.
|
|
|
Post by CC on Dec 15, 2019 15:57:09 GMT
I know where it looks like, Drew (& a hearty welcome to you) but it can't be, so it must be somewhere else. I need a clue, though. Something like knowing whether it's in England or Scotland might help. I can't quite read the number plate on that car, even with reading glasses on, so that doesn't help me at all.
That water does not look wide enough to be Tor Bay. It could be the Exe estuary, in which case that might be Topsham across the water? It looks a bit like Loch Ryan as well, although, as you have rightly pointed out elsewhere, there is such a lack of local football teams around here that it's most unlikely. There is a pitch in Leswalt but that is not it because you can't see water from there. That might also be Luce Bay in the background, but I'm guessing this is one from your more recent wanderings so I'm placing it in South Devon.
The water could be the River Dart at a particularly wide point so my number 1 guess is Dartmouth, with Totnes in second place. In third, but a very long shot, I'll try Kirkcudbright, with Annan in 4th.
|
|
|
Post by Drew Steignton on Dec 15, 2019 16:43:01 GMT
Not Dartmouth although it is in England with a certain (albeit relatively limited) resemblance to the Clyde as well as the Mersey and the Tyne.
|
|
|
Post by CC on Dec 15, 2019 21:44:35 GMT
Been reading an Inspector Morse novel and watching Rumpole on TV today and I'm sure both of them would have solved this clue by now, but I'm still stuck. It's a river in the background so the possible links include shipbuilding, docks and slavery. Bristol comes to mind but that scene looks a bit too rural and not muddy enough to me.
Can we have another clue, please?
|
|
|
Post by Drew Steignton on Dec 15, 2019 22:09:35 GMT
Rather than detectives you'd be better off with polar explorers.
|
|
|
Post by CC on Dec 16, 2019 9:01:09 GMT
Rather than detectives you'd be better off with polar explorers. It's Plymouth, isn't it? Hoe hoe hoe! Birthplace of Captain Scott. I shall be going outside in a while, and I may be some time, but I'll be back for my afternoon nap after a cup of coffee and a bun. On the subjects of coffee and Plymouth, I once asked for an Irish Coffee in a pub near the Barbican and the barmaid had never been asked for one before so she didnae ken what an Irish Coffee was, but she was a nice lassie and did her best to be helpful. "Oi can make yew a milky coffee if you loik" she said. You can get a good crusty vegetarian pasty in town and both Paul & Michael Foot were Plymouth Argyle fans. Argyle's green, white and black colour scheme was the same as my Subbuteo team and Home Park the final stop on Comrade Clive's original quest to visit all 92 grounds in the English Football League. If Plymouth were in Scotland it would comfortably be the third largest city in the country, would be a lot cooler and would probably return 4 or 5 SNP Members of the Westminster Parliament rather then the 2 Tories and one Labour it has today.
|
|
|
Post by Drew Steignton on Dec 16, 2019 10:13:49 GMT
Plymouth? There was a time when you could have split hairs and said it was Devonport, a quite separate place altogether. That finished with the First World War. When local government was re-organised in the late 1880s both Devonport and Plymouth became county boroughs. East Stonehouse - the bit in between - fell under the new Devon County Council and, as such, was policed differently. This resulted in comparitively relaxed moral standards being tolerated in the Union Street area which linked Plymouth and Devonport. Collectively Devonport, Plymouth and Stonehouse were known as the "Three Towns". Jon Gibbes, the Torquay United historian of your acquaintance, has unearthed press cuttings of Edwardian Torquay teams venturing off to play games in the "Three Towns". Eventually it was the military, arguing the case for emergency planning during the war, that encouraged the process of amalgamation which was already under discussion. And, to a large extent, it was the Second World War that did for Devonport as a commercial and shopping centre in its own right. It had remained a rival to Plymouth but, such was wartime damage and the plans for central Plymouth so grand, the old shops and buildings were never replaced. Yet, if you walk around the area (as I did on Saturday), you can see how the urban landscape doesn't comply with normal patterns of development. Modern Plymouth isn't quite a polycentric city, in the nature of Stoke-on-Trent, but still makes for a fascinating exploration. Scott of the Antarctic was literally born across the road from what is now the Argyle ground. The goalposts are in Devonport Park looking across the Tamar to Torpoint and Cornwall. Ask an old football fan about Devonport and they'll tell you that all the Argyle hard nuts used to congregate in the Devonport End.
|
|
|
Post by Drew Steignton on Dec 17, 2019 12:33:23 GMT
We've seen a pitch in Plymouth. Here's a ground. If you know Plymouth it's right behind the Hoe. Walk up to Smeaton's Tower from the city, turn right, go to the end of the grand terraces and turn inland. If you'd been travelling by train long ago you could have arrived at the old Millbay station, crossed the road for a snifter at the Duke of Cornwall Hotel and then found this ground within a couple of minutes. It's called Millbay Park and it's been there since the 1930s. Over the years it's been used by police, military and civilian teams. Devon and Cornwall Police, notably, played South Western League fixtures at Millbay for a number of years. At the moment Millbay Park plays host to The Windmill of the Plymouth & West Devon League. That's effectively the twelfth tier of English football although official counting finishes at eleven. The ground would probably be fine for the level above; floodlights would be required above that. The Windmill are good enough for promotion should they be interested. Not that the Windmill pub itself is anywhere near Millbay. The first picture was taken last week. The second has been copied from Kerry Miller's 1996 The History of Non-League Football Grounds. Here you can see Millbay Docks with a ferry ready for France or Spain. The grain silo, built in 1942, was demolished in 2008. I still find myself looking for it when I'm thereabouts.
|
|
|
Post by Drew Steignton on Dec 17, 2019 13:08:50 GMT
And now Home Park itself. Or more specifically the Mayflower Stand. I’ll not go into too much detail. There’s plenty of information online and in publications such as Simon Inglis’s The Football Grounds of Great Britain. Argyle’s original main stand was built before the Great War – back in the days of the Three Towns – and replaced in 1930. The new one was destroyed during the next war. The third stand, known as the Mayflower, lasted from the early 1950s until a couple of years ago. By that time the rest of the ground consisted of single structure, built by the Scottish firm Barr, dating from the early 2000s. I first sat in the Mayflower on Boxing Day 1969. I’d been to bigger grounds by this time but, in our neck of the woods, this was the largest football stand for miles and miles around. Over the years it was to see a fair few changes including the conversion of its standing enclosure to seating. Then, when one of Argyle’s periodic new owners took over, the message was that the Mayflower was outdated and needed to go. The plans were grand but were gradually scaled down. When push came to shove it became apparent that millions could be saved by salvaging concrete and steel from the existing structure. An entirely new build became a refurbishment keeping closely to the existing – but not entirely satisfactory – dimensions. It was partially open to season ticketholders for the first time on Saturday and will be fully functioning by January.
|
|
|
Post by CC on Dec 17, 2019 17:02:44 GMT
Is that a hedge around the old Millbay, DS? You'd certainly get a cracking view of the action from one of those flats in the tower there, and of the docks as well. And does the new-look Home Park still have a gap at one end that someone could drive a bus or lorry through?
As everyone knows, Plymouth Argyle are the greatest under-achieving football team in Britain, representing the largest city never to have seen top division football. I once stood next to some of their supporters at Saltergate who were singing, to the tune of Cwm Rhondda:
We have never We have never We have never been in the Fourth (Or the First) We have ne-e-ve-er been in the Fourth
They certainly have now. They also took part in the only match I've ever seen which finished with 17 players on the field because five of the original 22 had been sent off.
|
|
|
Post by Drew Steignton on Dec 17, 2019 17:35:21 GMT
Is that a hedge around the old Millbay, DS? You'd certainly get a cracking view of the action from one of those flats in the tower there, and of the docks as well. And does the new-look Home Park still have a gap at one end that someone could drive a bus or lorry through? Indeed, the Millbay Park hedge has gone. I'm sure there are images online that show Argyle were intending to make the Mayflower longer and possibly fill in the corners. They have now opted to put in a new administration and changing rooms block in the Barn Park corner leaving the Devonport corner empty at present. One nice feature is that the old turnstile block has been converted into the club shop.
|
|
|
Post by mccharlo on Dec 17, 2019 17:47:24 GMT
Very glad "Drew" guided me in this general direction...I'll hopefully share some travels of my own when I get back on the horse in the New Year.
And there is a chance Stranraer could be one of my new stadiums in 2020 - perhaps even on a very special day in February - although I am not sure if visiting Stair Park on Leap Day means I have to stay there forever?
Andy - Charlo/McCharlo
|
|
|
Post by CC on Dec 17, 2019 20:46:05 GMT
Very glad "Drew" guided me in this general direction...I'll hopefully share some travels of my own when I get back on the horse in the New Year. And there is a chance Stranraer could be one of my new stadiums in 2020 - perhaps even on a very special day in February - although I am not sure if visiting Stair Park on Leap Day means I have to stay there forever? Andy - Charlo/McCharlo ...and you'll be very welcome, Andy. The way things are going just now you might be in time to see Stranraer clinch relegation, although a win this Saturday would reduce the gap to Forfar in 9th place to a more manageable 2 points. A defeat doesn't bear thinking about. We could go for a swing or a ride on the roundabout before spoiling the afternoon by passing through the turnstiles into the ground. But beware, because there's something about Stranraer FC that tends to make you fall a wee bit in love with them.
|
|