Blackstones - Blackstones Sports & Social Club

 Blackstones FC
Blackstones Sports & Social Club
Lincoln Road
Stamford
Lincolnshire
PE9 1UU

Official Website
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Ground: 129
Date: Saturday 15th January 2022
Blackstones 1-2 Radford
United Counties League Division 1
Attendance: 75 (official)

Blackstones - History

Blackstones were founded in 1891 as the works team of Blackstone & Co. The club initially played in local leagues before joining the Peterborough & District League after World War 1, winning the title in the 1918/19 season. Two seasons later, the club resigned from the league and returned to local leagues such as the Stamford & District League and the Bourne & District League.

Having won the Stamford & District League just before the outbreak of World War 2, the club returned to the Peterborough & District League after the war, but they struggled and resigned from the league after finishing bottom of Division 2 in the 1951/52 season. They returned tp the Peterborough & District League once more in 1959, winning the Division 2 title three seasons later to return to Division 1.

In 1969, the club changed their name to Mirrlees Blackstone after Blackstone & Co merged with Mirrlees National Limited. The 1975/76 season saw the renamed club win the Division 1 title to earn promotion to the Premier Division, where they remained for eight seasons before joining Division 1 of the United Counties League for the 1984/85 season. After four seasons at this level, they finished as runners-up to earn promotion to the Premier Division.

In 1998, the club adopted its current name after Mirrlees Blackstone closed their Stamford works. They spent the next fifteen years in the Premier Division, recording a highest finish of 4th in the 2007/08 season. Five years later, they finished second-from-bottom and were relegated to Division 1, where they have remained ever since, recording a highest finish of 5th in the 2018/19 season.

The club's best FA Cup run saw them reach the 2nd Qualifying Round in the 1992/93 season when they beat Great Yarmouth Town and Bishop's Stortford before losing in a replay to Heybridge Swifts. As for the FA Vase, the club reached the 4th Round in the 2007/08 season by beating Norwich United, Diss Town, Norton United and Coleshill Town before losing to Lowestoft Town.

My Visit

Originally, I had intended to go watch a match in the FA Vase yesterday, specifically Athletic Newham's match against Littlehampton Town. However, not long into the New Year I decided to scrap this plan due to a combination of two factors: the fact that FA Vase and Trophy matches go to penalties if they finish level in 90 minutes and the fact that the trains have been seriously unreliable since my aborted visit to Spalding United a month ago thanks to a cancelled train.

Having made that decision, I then spent much of the next two weeks trying to figure out where to go instead. I considered a wide range of options including but not limited to visiting Sherwood Colliery for a first trip into NCEL territory, heading to Goole via Doncaster or heading into Leicester and getting a bus to Leicester Nirvana/St. Andrews. In truth, though, I was feeling very uninspired by a lot of the options I had and even considered changing my mind and going into London for the Vase anyway, only for the train prices being higher than normal and putting paid to that idea.

On Friday morning, I had one last look on the Futbology App to see if inspiration would strike and it did when I saw that Holwell Sports were at home, with their ground being one I've been eager to visit for quite some time. After writing up their club history on Friday, I ordered train tickets to Melton Mowbray yesterday morning with no concerns about a postponement. However, upon checking the club's Facebook page (due to no updates being posted on their Twitter since Wednesday) I saw that there was a pitch inspection planned due to a frozen pitch.

Just from the photo they had posted, it was plain to see that the match there was not going to go ahead, so I had to reconsider my options. I could have gone for a refund and got different train tickets, but the £10 admin fee they charge for requesting a refund made that basically pointless. I considered getting additional tickets to allow me to head into Leicester as I had previously been considering, but I wasn't especially motivated by the idea.

In the end, I opted to head for Blackstones, as this would allow me to get the same trains I was going to get anyway, except getting off a couple of stops earlier. This did essentially mean I'd spent twice as much on train tickets as was actually necessary, but there wasn't much to be done about that. In any event, I got the 1:54pm train from Peterborough to Stamford, which ended up arriving at 2:10pm after leaving five minutes late.

From the station, it was just short of a half-hour walk to the ground through the very circuitous and hilly streets of Stamford. Upon arrival at the ground, I bumped into someone I see regularly at Yaxley home matches who was here to watch one of his sons playing for Blackstones. After a brief chat outside the ground, I headed through the turnstile and paid £5 for admission and £2 for the programme. We then chatted for the next ten or so minutes before I started on my circuit of photos with ten minutes to spare before kick-off.

Other than a brief period at the start of the second half when I walked across to the far side to do an attendance headcount, I spent the entire match stood in or just next to the covered standing area on the near side in the company of Sean and Tony, another two people I first ran into at Yaxley.

With this being the second week in a row where I'd be watching Radford, I had a better idea of what to expect from them this time. As with last week, I fully expected them to come out on top and continue their promotion charge, but I didn't expect them to do so convincingly, not least because they were away from home this time. I was also hoping to see Blackstones do well and get something out of this due to all the Yaxley connections in their squad (as well as their management team having previously been involved with Yaxley reserves, seven of the matchday sixteen had previously played for Yaxley, including promotion-winner Josh Pike).

Radford took the lead 7 minutes into this match when Conor Moore spotted Blackstones keeper Simon Dalton off his line and hit a powerful shot into the top corner despite Dalton getting a hand to it. Blackstones' best chance of the first half came in the 40th minute when Scott Waumsley scooped a shot over his head inside the box to force a fine save out of Yinka Adebowale after Radford failed to clear their lines.

Blackstones equalised two minutes into the second half when Callum Madigan tapped in after the Radford defence failed to clear a free kick. It should have been 2-1 to the home side in the 71st minute when the ball was squared to Jack Wilson inside the box, but Moore's challenge took the power out of the shot and it was a simple save for Adebowale in the end.

Six minutes later, Radford regained the lead after Dalton pushed a cross into the path of Ryan Smith for a tap-in. The Blackstones defence strongly appealed that Smith was in an offside position to slot in the rebound, but the goal was given. In the 88th minute, Blackstones almost equalised once more when Luke Clemenson found himself through on goal, but Adebowale made the save once more to secure the three points. The ending exchanges of this match were marred by a mass brawl involving players from both teams and spectators on the far side, after which a spectator was ejected from the ground.

Compared to their dominant victory over Bourne last week, Radford weren't overly impressive. The credit for that has to go to an impressive Blackstones performance, with the struggling side being somewhat unlucky to come away from this with nothing. They certainly put up much more of a fight than Bourne did and really made life difficult for Radford. I'd like to think they can stay up based on that performance, not least because they're a very friendly club off the pitch. They might need a striker to give them a bit more firepower, though.

Towards the end of the second half, Sean offered me a lift back home (as he and Tony would be heading in that direction as well anyway) and I decided to take him up on his offer rather than endure the long, cold walk back to the station in the dark. Before that, though, we headed into the clubhouse after the full-time whistle, eventually leaving about fifteen minutes into the Aston Villa-Manchester United match that was playing on the TV.

After stopping to drop another of the Blackstones player's father off in Peterborough, I was dropped off at around 6:15pm and had another chat with Sean (in which he said he'd be happy to give me lifts to any other Blackstones matches home or away) before heading into the house. I sorted out my photos and got my match report mostly written up before dinner.

Next weekend will be another groundhop for me, and once again I'm not sure of where I'll be going. Depending on what else is going on, I could ask for a lift from someone for Yaxley's visit to Halesowen Town, I could get a lift from Sean to Blackstones' visit to Dunkirk or I could get a lift to somewhere more local from my mum. I think I'll wait and see what Monday's FA Trophy and Vase draws offer before I decide what I want to do.

The Ground

Blackstones Sports & Social Club is a characterful Step 6 ground. As is the norm for this level, there is just the one seated stand and one area of covered standing, but neither of these are Arena stands. The main stand contains 100 seats in the form of bench seating and is distinctly painted in the club's colours. The area of covered standing next to this provides cover for around 50 people.

The rest of the ground is open hard standing, with the clubhouse and tea bar positioned behind the near goal. Building work has started behind the far goal for a small structure of some sorts, but it is too early to tell what that will be. The ground's perimeter is dotted with trees, which probably gives the ground a much more rural feel in spring or summer. In its current form, the ground is probably good enough for Step 5 and there is plenty of room for expansion as needed too.

Photos