Holyport FC
Summerleaze Park
Blackamoor Lane
Holyport
Maidenhead
Berkshire
SL6 8SP
Ground: 60
Date: Saturday 27th October 2018
Holyport 3-2 AFC Aldermaston
Hellenic League Division 1 East
Attendance: 21 (official)
Attendance: 21 (official)
Holyport FC - History
Holyport were founded in 1934, but disbanded for World War 2 and then did not reform until 1956. After reforming, the club joined the Maidenhead & District League, later transferring to the Hayes & Giles League. The club finished as champions of this league in the 1998/99 and 1999/2000 seasons, as well as again in the 2001/02 season. After this third title victory, the club moved up to Division 1 East of the Hellenic League.
The club's first few seasons at this level saw them struggle near the bottom of the league, but from the 2006/07 season onwards the club began to move into the top half of the table. For each of the next four seasons, the club improved on the previous season's finish by two places, eventually seeing them win the title in the 2010/11 season to earn promotion to the Premier Division. The club spent four seasons at this level, but never finished outside of the bottom half and were eventually voluntarily demoted back to Division 1 East at the end of the 2014/15 season, where they have remained ever since.
The club have yet to win a game in any of their seven FA Cup campaigns so far, but took Abingdon United to an Extra Preliminary Round replay in the 2014/15 season. As for the FA Vase, the club's best run saw them reach the 2nd Round in the 2010/11 season, beating Abingdon Town and Baldock Town Letchworth before losing to Tunbridge Wells.
My Visit
Unlike last week's groundhop, I had absolutely no idea where I was going to go until yesterday morning. In fact, it wasn't until Friday morning that I even started properly looking at options to try and make a decision. This was mainly because of the strikes on South Western Railways (which are set to continue every single Saturday in November, which is downright infuriating), which meant that the timetables weren't likely to be finalised until Friday morning at the earliest.
On Friday morning, I looked on the Groundhopper app to see what options there were, then checked the National Rail Journey Planner to see which train journeys would or wouldn't be affected by the strikes, with this very rapidly thinning my options until I had just three left: this, Hungerford Town and Banstead Athletic. I posted on Twitter asking for suggestions of which of the three to choose, keeping an eye on the comments as the day progressed.
I ruled out Hungerford quite early on, deciding to save them for another time (possibly on the 24th of November if they get a home tie in the FA Trophy 3rd Qualifying Round), but after that I was very much split between my other two options. After much thought, I eventually decided on Banstead Athletic, but after checking the trains again I noticed that it was now affected by the strikes, having not been so when I first checked in the morning.
With my decision finally being made, I ordered my train tickets early in the morning and left the house at around 11:30am, stopping in the Co-op on the way to the station to get some food and some cash. My train then left Guildford just after 12pm, getting into Reading 50 minutes later. I then got a different train at Reading heading towards Maidenhead, before getting off there and waiting for 20 minutes to catch a train heading to Furze Platt station.
This saw me arrive at 1:45pm, eventually arriving at the ground 20 minutes later. I paid £5 for admission and £1 for a glossy and decent programme, talking to the man on the gate for a few minutes before beginning my circuit of photos around the ground. This kept me occupied for the next 15-20 minutes, after which I stood behind the near goal waiting for kick-off. Just before kick-off, I was able to get photos of the team sheets, which was fortunate as they'd not been put up anywhere and weren't posted on Twitter either. Then, after taking some photos of the players coming out onto the pitch for kick-off, I moved to take a seat in the main stand and get some cover from the cold and the wind.
Going into the match, Aldermaston were top of the league and seemed clear favourites over lowly Holyport, but with quite a lot of variance in the number of games teams in this league have played, it's hard to place too much stock in the league table at this point of the season (in fact, after winning the game, Holyport could now catch Aldermaston by winning their two games in hand).
Holyport team sheet
AFC Aldermaston team sheet
Here's my report on an entertaining game that saw the home side make an impressive second-half comeback to beat the league leaders:
After a slightly late kick-off again (3:03pm), the game got off to a slow start, both teams taking most of the opening ten minutes to find their feet and adapt to the windy conditions. Once they did, though, Holyport looked much the better team, creating the first real chance of note on 12 minutes: Jonny Feaver was set through on goal and was able to chip the ball over Aldermaston keeper Ash East, but it had a little too much power on it and went wide. On Holyport's next attack a minute or two later, Feaver had another good chance: he was left unmarked in the box and a cross reached him, but his shot was weak and easily saved by East. Holyport had Aldermaston rocking at this point, putting pressure on their goal while limiting the away side to just one half-chance with a tame shot from the edge of the box (no threat to Holyport keeper Jake Quelch at all). Another Holyport chance came on 21 minutes when a corner was headed on to Jamie Wright, who had to react quickly to get a shot away, poking the ball over the crossbar from a couple of yards out.
Five minutes later, the ball was finally put into the net, but not by the home side: Aldermaston had gone on a quick counterattack and Lemar Maycock got a shot away that Quelch saved, with Jamal Small then pouncing on the rebound, only to then be flagged for offside. This seemed to spark something in the Aldermaston squad and they upped their intensity dramatically, taking just three minutes to get the ball into the net again, but this time without the offside flag: Maycock's pace allowed him to run down the left wing unchallenged before cutting inside and placing his shot under Quelch from a tight angle. It then took little more than a minute for Aldermaston to double their lead, some nice attacking interplay getting the ball into the box, with Maycock catching the loose ball and slotting it under Quelch to score again. At this point, it started to seem like Aldermaston would run away with it, as their pace, intensity and intricate attacking interplay was simply too much for Holyport to handle, making it a little more obvious just why the away side were top of the table. Surprisingly though, Aldermaston could not find another goal before half-time, not even when Quelch had to go off injured (he'd seemingly had a knock from the start but tried unsuccessfully to play through) and be replaced in goal by an outfield player; Holyport were likely relieved to go in at half-time only 0-2 down.
While Aldermaston had dominated the last twenty minutes of the first half, they made a very slow start to the second half, and Holyport were quick to capitalise, pulling one back in the 49th minute: a clever short corner routine saw the ball passed between a couple of players before reaching Steven Deverall, who then floated in a cross that, with some help from the wind, flew over East's head and into the back of the net. Aldermaston then attempted to react with a wonderful attacking move, a dazzling display of one-touch football baffling Holyport and setting Phil John through, whose shot was well-saved by the stand-in Holyport keeper. However, this was as good as it got for the away side in the second half and, sensing a chance to get all the points, they upped the pressure and started to bombard the Aldermaston goal with attack after attack after attack. It took until just after the hour mark for this to pay off though, a free kick from the edge of the box reaching the head of Adam Sharp; the header was so weak that it should have been an easy save for East, but he somehow lost his grip on the ball and dropped it into the net. In the 73rd minute, the turnaround was complete as the Aldermaston defence failed to effectively clear a ball across the box, with Deverall being the one to benefit and getting a shot away from the edge of the box to make it 3-2 to the home side.
After this, the game began to die down somewhat as Holyport took the foot off and started to focus on frustrating Aldermaston, letting them move forwards with the ball but bringing almost everyone back to the edge of the box in a blockade to keep the away side out; this was easy enough really as, for the most part, Aldermaston seemed intent on trying to pass through the defence to score, when a simple ball over the top or a cross may well have proved more effective for them. However, an off-the-ball incident in the 82nd minute saw the game briefly descend into chaos: Aldermaston's Jay Welch apparently kicked out at Holyport's Alfie Adams (I didn't see it personally, but that's what the few people who did see it said happened), with Adams then hitting out in response (I did see - and hear - that, so can definitely confirm that's what happened). The referee talked to a bunch of players and the linesman over the space of the next couple of minutes, trying to calm everything down and figure out who was actually responsible in the first place. When he eventually did, both players were sent off, putting a slight damper on what had otherwise been a well-disciplined contest with no bad blood to speak of. This didn't make much of a difference to proceedings though, as all Holyport had to do was run the clock down for the last few minutes, and that was that.
Overall, this was a great game that really had everything: an impressive comeback, an outfield player forced to go in goal, two red cards and two teams playing some great football at times. Obviously, the home side will be the happier of the two sides after this result, while Aldermaston will be rueing missed chances and their inability to really test Holyport's substitute goalkeeper: other than that one-touch passing sequence I mentioned above, they barely created any clear-cut chances to test him with. Had they done so, they may have drawn or even won the game. That being said, Holyport's performance was incredibly impressive and they were good value for the three points, so Aldermaston can't really have too many complaints about the result.
Five minutes later, the ball was finally put into the net, but not by the home side: Aldermaston had gone on a quick counterattack and Lemar Maycock got a shot away that Quelch saved, with Jamal Small then pouncing on the rebound, only to then be flagged for offside. This seemed to spark something in the Aldermaston squad and they upped their intensity dramatically, taking just three minutes to get the ball into the net again, but this time without the offside flag: Maycock's pace allowed him to run down the left wing unchallenged before cutting inside and placing his shot under Quelch from a tight angle. It then took little more than a minute for Aldermaston to double their lead, some nice attacking interplay getting the ball into the box, with Maycock catching the loose ball and slotting it under Quelch to score again. At this point, it started to seem like Aldermaston would run away with it, as their pace, intensity and intricate attacking interplay was simply too much for Holyport to handle, making it a little more obvious just why the away side were top of the table. Surprisingly though, Aldermaston could not find another goal before half-time, not even when Quelch had to go off injured (he'd seemingly had a knock from the start but tried unsuccessfully to play through) and be replaced in goal by an outfield player; Holyport were likely relieved to go in at half-time only 0-2 down.
While Aldermaston had dominated the last twenty minutes of the first half, they made a very slow start to the second half, and Holyport were quick to capitalise, pulling one back in the 49th minute: a clever short corner routine saw the ball passed between a couple of players before reaching Steven Deverall, who then floated in a cross that, with some help from the wind, flew over East's head and into the back of the net. Aldermaston then attempted to react with a wonderful attacking move, a dazzling display of one-touch football baffling Holyport and setting Phil John through, whose shot was well-saved by the stand-in Holyport keeper. However, this was as good as it got for the away side in the second half and, sensing a chance to get all the points, they upped the pressure and started to bombard the Aldermaston goal with attack after attack after attack. It took until just after the hour mark for this to pay off though, a free kick from the edge of the box reaching the head of Adam Sharp; the header was so weak that it should have been an easy save for East, but he somehow lost his grip on the ball and dropped it into the net. In the 73rd minute, the turnaround was complete as the Aldermaston defence failed to effectively clear a ball across the box, with Deverall being the one to benefit and getting a shot away from the edge of the box to make it 3-2 to the home side.
After this, the game began to die down somewhat as Holyport took the foot off and started to focus on frustrating Aldermaston, letting them move forwards with the ball but bringing almost everyone back to the edge of the box in a blockade to keep the away side out; this was easy enough really as, for the most part, Aldermaston seemed intent on trying to pass through the defence to score, when a simple ball over the top or a cross may well have proved more effective for them. However, an off-the-ball incident in the 82nd minute saw the game briefly descend into chaos: Aldermaston's Jay Welch apparently kicked out at Holyport's Alfie Adams (I didn't see it personally, but that's what the few people who did see it said happened), with Adams then hitting out in response (I did see - and hear - that, so can definitely confirm that's what happened). The referee talked to a bunch of players and the linesman over the space of the next couple of minutes, trying to calm everything down and figure out who was actually responsible in the first place. When he eventually did, both players were sent off, putting a slight damper on what had otherwise been a well-disciplined contest with no bad blood to speak of. This didn't make much of a difference to proceedings though, as all Holyport had to do was run the clock down for the last few minutes, and that was that.
Overall, this was a great game that really had everything: an impressive comeback, an outfield player forced to go in goal, two red cards and two teams playing some great football at times. Obviously, the home side will be the happier of the two sides after this result, while Aldermaston will be rueing missed chances and their inability to really test Holyport's substitute goalkeeper: other than that one-touch passing sequence I mentioned above, they barely created any clear-cut chances to test him with. Had they done so, they may have drawn or even won the game. That being said, Holyport's performance was incredibly impressive and they were good value for the three points, so Aldermaston can't really have too many complaints about the result.
Despite it being bitterly cold and very windy, this was yet another good groundhopping experience: a friendly club and an excellent game is always a good combination, and Holyport certainly provided both yesterday.
My next groundhopping plan is Yaxley's game away at Bromsgrove Sporting next Saturday, but the postponement of our FA Trophy game yesterday at Kidsgrove (due to an investigation into Kidsgrove fielding an ineligible player in the previous round against Wisbech) may change that: based on previous precedent, Kidsgrove will be kicked out of the competition and Wisbech reinstated, with our game against them then likely to be rearranged before the next round takes place on the 10th of November (which would mean either midweek or next Saturday). Whatever happens, I'll be keeping an eye on Monday's 2nd Qualifying Round draw, just to see if Yaxley will have another away tie if we beat Kidsgrove or Wisbech.
The Ground
Summerleaze Park is a basic and standard ground by modern standards (having opened in 2005): there's a 115-seater Arena stand on the dugout side of the ground, with a covered Arena terrace providing cover for a further 75 people behind the near goal. Other than this, the rest of the ground is open to the elements, with hard standing on three sides of the ground (the far side lacks hard standing).
The ground is in a pleasant rural location at least, but this is perhaps best enjoyed on a sunny day in the Summer rather than a cold Autumn day like it was yesterday (although the autumnal colours did make for a nice backdrop to proceedings, in fairness). The record attendance at the ground is 218 for a game against Eton Wick in 2006.
Photos
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