Ilkeston Town - New Manor Ground

Ilkeston Town FC
New Manor Ground
Awsworth Road
Ilkeston
Derbyshire
DE7 8JF

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Ground: 136
Date: Saturday 26th March 2022
Ilkeston Town 1-0 Yaxley
Northern Premier League Division 1 Midlands
Attendance: 965 (official)

Ilkeston Town - History

The current incarnation of Ilkeston Town were founded in 2017 after the demise of Ilkeston FC (themselves founded in 2010 after the demise of the previous Ilkeston Town). They were placed in Division 1 of the Midland League and finished 2nd in their first season to earn promotion to the Premier Division for the 2018/19 season. They won the Premier Division title in their first season to earn promotion to Step 4, a level they have remained at ever since.

In the club's three seasons in the FA Cup, their best run saw them reach the 4th Qualifying Round in the 2020/21 season: they beat Shepshed Dynamo, Coventry Sphinx, Hanley Town and Alvechurch before losing to Hartlepool United. They have reached the 3rd Qualifying Round of the FA Trophy twice in their three seasons in the competition, most recently this season when they beat Daventry Town on penalties before losing to Bromsgrove Sporting.

As for the FA Vase, the club's one season in the competition (the 2018/19 season) saw them reach the 3rd Round by beating Gedling Miners Welfare, Graham Street Prims, Heanor Town and Wolverhampton Sporting Community before losing to Eastwood Community.

My Visit

This was another ground I had intended to visit ever since Yaxley were placed in the same league, due to its close proximity to the nearby train station. As the season has progressed and it has begun to look more and more likely that Ilkeston will be promoted, my desire to visit with Yaxley has only increased (as, being a 3/4G pitch, it would likely fall way down my priority list if they were promoted).

When we visited Belper Town back in February, the possibility of us taking a coach to Ilkeston as well was mooted and, had that happened, it would have made for an easy journey. In the end, though, that didn't happen and I instead asked Chris for a lift after initially considering taking the train to Ilkeston instead.

After looking into Ilkeston's club history on Friday, I left the house at around 11:20am yesterday to walk the two miles from my house to the shops in Yaxley, where I would be getting picked up. It was a very nice walk on such a warm and sunny day and I ended up arriving at the shops just before 12pm and getting picked up not long after.

From there, it was a fairly straightforward journey towards Ilkeston until the satnav took us through the centre of Nottingham. This meant that we arrived at the ground closer to 2pm rather than at around 1:30pm as planned. After heading into the ground and getting a couple of photos, we headed into the boardroom and received a warm welcome, with tea and biscuits on offer.

We stayed in the boardroom for a while, but I eventually headed out to do my usual circuit of photos at around 2:30pm. After that was done, I joined the rest of our committee and club officials in the black seats between the two dugouts for the first half, returning to those seats in the second half after heading back to the boardroom at half-time for some chips and a sausage sandwich.

With recent results in mind, I fully expected Ilkeston to thrash us, even if we had given them a good game in the reverse fixture (losing 0-1 by conceding deep into stoppage time). At the very least, I was hoping we wouldn't embarrass ourselves as we have done a few times on the road this season.

John-Paul Duncliffe was captaining the Cuckoos in his 400th appearance for the club

From the start, it was clear that Yaxley came into this game with a specific gameplan: defend deep to frustrate Ilkeston, then try to hit them on the counter and nick something if possible. This restricted Ilkeston to a few efforts from range - such as Montel Gibson hitting a volley just over the bar in the 6th minute - as they tried to break through a deep-lying Yaxley defence. At the other end, Yaxley's best chance of the half came shortly before half-time as Dan Cotton tried his luck from range.

On the stroke of half-time, Yaxley were reduced to ten men as Josh Moreman was sent off for a reckless two-footed challenge just outside the Ilkeston box. This saw Ilkeston up the pressure considerably in the second half, forcing Yaxley to dig deep to defend against wave after wave after wave of attacks; young goalkeeper Will Lakin was called into action on several occasions to keep Ilkeston at bay.

Eventually, as happened in the reverse fixture, Yaxley's resistance was broken in stoppage time: in the 91st minute, Remaye Campbell headed home from close range to give Ilkeston the lead. Yaxley went straight on the attack in search of an equaliser and earned a corner, but Dan Bucciero's header from the corner was easily saved by Ilkeston keeper Saul Deeney.

In many ways, this match ended up being remarkably similar to the reverse fixture back in November: Ilkeston were on top, but we defended well and so nearly held out for a goalless draw, only to end up conceding in stoppage time to suffer a narrow defeat. It's frustrating that we couldn't hold on, but at the same time I can't really complain about the result. Who knows how differently the second half would have played out if Josh Moreman hadn't got himself needlessly sent off, though.

When the full-time whistle blew just after 5pm (due to seven minutes of stoppage time in the second half), we made a quick exit to the car park and started straight on the journey back home. This time, we used Steven's phone rather than the car's sat-nav to direct us, hence avoiding another awkward journey through the centre of Nottingham. This made for a much smoother journey home and I was dropped off at Tesco at around 6:35pm after paying fuel money for the trip. Fifteen minutes later, I was back in the house and sorted out my photos, wrote my match report and had a shower while waiting for dinner.

I currently have plans for four more groundhops before the end of the season, but the next of those is three weeks away when Yaxley visit Daventry Town on the 16th of April. I'll then head to our away game at Sutton Coldfield Town on the 23rd followed by two more neutral groundhops on the following two weekends. I may also go for one more in mid-May, but we'll see closer to the time.

The Ground

Courtesy of its previous usage at higher levels, New Manor Ground is one of the better Step 4 grounds I have visited so far. There are two seated stands on the near side, with one having seats at pitch level and the other having elevated seats. The pitch-level stand contains three separate areas of seating for spectators, split up by the two dugouts also in the stand. The elevated stand is the ground's more interesting feature and is positioned in the far corner, with a clock tower positioned directly next to the stand.

There is covered standing behind each goal, with the cover behind the near goal extending most of the length of the pitch. The covered terrace behind the far goal is a more substantial structure, extending the entire length of the pitch and containing four steps of terracing with crush barriers.

The far side is exclusively open hard standing and contains the bar and boardroom buildings. Overall, the ground has an official capacity of 3,029 and is probably good enough for as high as Step 2 in its current form.

Photos

Horden Community Welfare - Welfare Park

Horden Community Welfare FC
Welfare Park
15 South Terrace
Horden
Peterlee
County Durham
SR8 4LX

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Ground: 135
Date: Saturday 12th March 2022
Horden Community Welfare 4-2 Jarrow
Northern League Division 2
Attendance: 114 (official)

Horden Community Welfare - History

Horden Community Welfare were founded in 2017 after Horden Colliery Welfare, the village's previous team, decamped to Darlington and became Darlington 1883's Reserves. The new club joined the Durham Alliance Combination League and finished as runners-up in their first season to earn promotion to the Wearside League.

After finishing 8th in their first season in this league, the club's results over the two covid-curtailed seasons were good enough to earn promotion to Division 2 of the Northern League for the 2021/22 season: in those two seasons, they picked up 26 wins, 1 draw and 7 defeats from the 34 matches they managed to play.

With this being the current club's first season at Step 6, they have yet to compete in either the FA Cup or FA Vase. However, their predecessors reached the 1st Round on the FA Cup several times and even reached the 2nd Round in the 1938/39 season.

My Visit

After my trip to Crook Town back in October, I was hoping that an opportunity would arise for me to do another long groundhopping trip like that before the end of the season. Initially, I had expected to have that opportunity in April and was trying to plan accordingly. As part of this planning, I was aiming to go to Yaxley's away game at Carlton Town yesterday and I had drawn up shortlists for both the 2nd and 9th of April of long-distance groundhopping options.

A few weeks ago, my plans ended up changing for a combination of reasons: first, Storm Eunice meant I didn't get a game in on the 19th of February; then, my plans to visit friends from University again on the 26th ended up being cancelled and I had to get a refund on the train tickets I had already ordered; also, I ended up realising that I had missed a lot more Yaxley games than I had intended this season and wanted to miss as few as possible in the final two months of the season.

What all this meant was that I scrapped any groundhopping plans for the 2nd or 9th of April to instead go to Yaxley's home games those weekends. Also, due to Yaxley's remaining away games, I realised that there would only be two other dates I could potentially use for a long-distance groundhop: the 12th of March (when Yaxley were away at Carlton Town) or the 16th of April (when Yaxley will be away at Daventry Town). After some consideration, I decided to go for the 12th of March as I wasn't sure how well trains would be running on the Easter Bank Holiday weekend for a long-distance groundhop.

I drew up an initial shortlist while taking my expected refund from LNER into account, with Matlock Town initially being my favoured choice. However, after waiting more than a week and seeing that the money from the refund had not gone into my account, I double-checked the confirmation email and saw that they'd instead put it into my LNER account as an e-voucher.

This opened up an entirely new range of opportunities and the first thing I did was check the Northern League fixtures for the 12th of March to see if there were any interesting options I could do from Durham (the idea being to follow the same approach as I did when I went to Crook in October). Straight away, this fixture stood out due to the fact that the main stand was set to be knocked down at the end of the season; this would be my only opportunity to tick off the ground and see the stand before that happened, so it was an easy first choice.

After checking ticket prices and researching potential back-up options, I ended up taking a risk and bought my train tickets nearly two weeks in advance. While this meant that I would only pay £12 after taking my e-voucher into account (saving £24 in the process), there was also a possibility that British weather would intervene and cause the fixture to be postponed. If that did happen, I had back-ups in place at Billingham Synthonia and Northallerton Town, but I was very much hoping it wouldn't come to that.

In the build-up to the game, I was constantly keeping an eye on the weather forecast in the Horden area in the hope that the game wouldn't be postponed and by Friday I was confident that the game would go ahead and got my usual research done. Yesterday morning, we left the house at around 9:50am and I was dropped off at the train station just over ten minutes later. My first train of the day left the station at around 10:15am and arrived in York two hours later.

Under my original plan, I had a twenty-five minute wait at York before getting a connecting train to Thornaby and then changing there to go to Horden. However, almost immediately after I stepped onto the platform I saw that this train was cancelled and I thought that I wouldn't be able to get to Horden at all as that was the only train on that route I could take that would get me to Horden before kick-off.

I started checking on my back-up options, but with neither truly appealing I decided to check Google Maps to see if there was any way I could get from York to Horden before kick-off. Thankfully, contrary to what the National Rail Journey Planner said, there was another way I could get to Horden after all: I would have to get a train heading to Newcastle, then change there to head down to Horden. It was going to be fairly tight connection, but still perfectly manageable.

With that sorted out, I went to the Costa Coffee on the station platform and ordered a hot chocolate, sausage bap and cinnamon brioche bun to take to the waiting room while I waited. The train was slightly late, but left at 12:40pm and arrived in Newcastle just short of an hour later. I managed to make my connection and travelled for another forty minutes before finally arriving in Horden at around 2:20pm and taking a photo of the sea from atop the railway bridge before starting my journey to the ground.

From the train station, it was a ten-minute walk to the ground entirely uphill. After getting a couple of photos from outside the ground, I paid £5 for admission and £1.50 for a programme. I then did my usual circuit of photos before taking a seat in the main stand, initially planning to hold off on getting any food until half-time but eventually doing so just before kick-off: I ended up getting a steak pie and chips with gravy, all for £3. Very good value for the portion size and very nice as well (although a small part of the pie crust was burned).

With Horden coming into this match on an eleven-game unbeaten run, my prediction was that they would claim another win and keep up their play-off push against a Jarrow side who realistically don't have much left to play for this season. However, I noted that both teams seemed to score and concede a lot of goals, so I had a feeling I was in for a goal fest as well.

Horden took the lead in the 3rd minute of this match when a ball over the top set Josh Home-Jackson through on goal and the winger shot low beyond Jarrow keeper Steven Hubery. The home side doubled their lead seven minutes later, Liam Wright pouncing on a defensive error and rounding Hubery for an easy tap-in. It should have been 3-0 a couple of minutes later when Barney Dobinson intercepted a poor pass in midfield and found himself one-on-one with Hubery, but this time the keeper anticipated the low shot and saved it with his feet.

Jarrow pulled one back in the 22nd minute: a hopeful aerial ball from midfield found Channon North and he showed great strength to outmuscle the covering defender, before using his long legs to poke the ball past Horden keeper Paul Griffith and tap into the empty net while still under pressure from the keeper.

Though the opening twenty minutes had been all Horden, Jarrow had very much grown into the game at this point and the rest of the half was a more even contest. Still, it was Horden who came closest to scoring again in the 36th minute when a quick free kick found Home-Jackson in acres of space on the right wing, allowing him to run into the box unchallenged before shooting narrowly wide of the post. Jarrow had strong complaints about where the free kick was taken from and had a player sin-binned for the rest of the half as a result.

The away side made a good start to the second half with a concerted spell of pressure on the Horden goal. However, it seemed like the game was going to be taken out of their reach when Home-Jackson was brought down in the box in the 52nd minute to earn Horden a penalty. Wright stepped up to take it but was denied by a fine save from Hubery. Eleven minutes later, Horden had their third goal through Jack Maskell, but he almost managed to miss an absolute sitter in the process: John Bowes picked him out for what should have been an easy tap-in but Maskell somehow scuffed the first shot before reacting quickly to poke it in on the rebound.

Jarrow pulled another goal back in the 78th minute when Kris Summers bundled in a header from inside the six-yard box after Horden somehow failed to clear their lines. After this, they pushed hard for an equaliser, but in doing so they were leaving big gaps at the back that Horden tried to exploit. After some end-to-end play for the last ten minutes, it was Horden who scored a fourth in the 91st minute to secure the three points: Wright charged towards the box with Marc Ellison in support and the ball rolled off his shin into the path of Ellison, whose first-time shot from the edge of the box nestled in the bottom corner.

This was a thoroughly entertaining match from start to finish, with Horden being the better side throughout and being good value for their victory. In spells, they were playing an impressive one-touch passing style that you just don't expect to see in the 10th tier, let alone done so well. However, Jarrow had good spells of their own and could have still got a point had things gone their way with some of the chances they spurned. Also, their fans in the stand were in good voice throughout and provided a good atmosphere all game.

When I go on a long groundhopping trip like this, the worry is that the game or the club won't live up to the journey and that it'll end up feeling like a wasted day, but this was most definitely not the case yesterday. The match was excellent end-to-end stuff, the food was great and both clubs came across as very friendly. Another great day out in the Northern League, that's for sure.

After the full-time whistle blew, I walked downhill back to the train station and had a twenty-minute wait for my first train of the journey home. This took forty minutes to get to Middlesbrough, and I used that time to write up my match report on my phone. I normally don't do this as I find it annoying to type that much on my phone, but I figured it would be a good way to pass the time and would make sure that my report was written while the memories were still fresh in my mind.

At Middlesbrough, I had a short wait before catching my connecting train to Leeds, arriving there around eighty minutes later. Once I was at Leeds, I had to wait half an hour for my final train of the day, which left the station at 8:15pm. Ninety minutes later, I was back in Peterborough and had a ten-minute wait for my taxi (having accounted for the possibility of my train being late in choosing a time), eventually getting back into the house just after 10pm to round off a twelve-hour day. I then sorted out my photos and posted my match report on the Non-League Matters forum before relaxing for the evening.

All being well, my next groundhop will be in two weeks when Yaxley head to Ilkeston Town in the league, though there is a possibility I'll go to our away game at Shepshed in the midweek before as well.

The Ground

Welfare Park is a great ground for Step 6 with plenty of character. The impressive main stand, which is set to be knocked down at the end of the season (I'm not sure what they plan to replace it with), is the centrepiece of the ground. It provides elevated views of the pitch with the supporting pillars thankfully not disrupting views too much. The stand currently contains around 150 seats, but it looks as if it used to contain many more which are now covered and inaccessible. Beneath the seating area, the stand also contains the changing rooms, toilets, tea bar and indoor bar area. Also attached to the front of the stand are two small three-step terraces.

Five (deceptively steep) steps of uncovered terracing can be found behind the far goal. This extends the full width of the pitch and also curves onto both sides of the pitch (slightly further on the far side than the near side, as the near side stops just short of the stand). Standing atop the terracing behind the far goal provides a view of the ocean down the hill from the ground, while a row of terraced houses provide an interesting backdrop on the far side. The rest of the ground is open hard standing, with grass banks behind the far goal and on the far side leaving plenty of room for ground expansion in the future.

Photos

Fisher - St Paul's Sports Ground

Fisher FC
St Paul's Sports Ground
Salter Road
Rotherhithe
London
SE16 5EF

Official Website
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Ground: 134
Date: Saturday 5th March 2022
Fisher 1-2 Lordswood
Southern Counties East League Premier Division
Attendance: 159 (official)

Fisher - History

Fisher were founded in 2009 by members of the Fisher Supporters Club after the demise of Fisher Athletic, who took their name from Catholic martyr Saint John Fisher. The new club were placed in the Kent League and initially groundshared with Dulwich Hamlet (just as their predecessors did in their final few years) before moving into their current ground in 2016.

The new club struggled in their first few seasons in the Kent League (which changed name to the Southern Counties East League for the 2013/14 season), finishing bottom in the 2010/11 season and finishing in the bottom half in every other season until a second-from-bottom finish in the 2016/17 saw the club relegated to Division 1 of the Southern Counties East League.

This relegation rejuvenated the club as they finished 3rd to secure an immediate return to the Premier Division. Then, in their first season back at Premier Division level, they finished 3rd and missed out on the title by just six points. After that success, the manager resigned and the seasons since have seen the club return to mid-table in the Premier Division.

In the FA Cup, the club's best run saw them reach the 1st Qualifying Round last season as they beat Horsham YMCA and Tooting & Mitcham United before losing to Cray Wanderers. Their best FA Vase run came in the 2019/20 season when they beat Greenwich Borough in the 1st Round before losing to Glebe in the 2nd Round.

My Visit

Having tried and failed to go into London for football several times this season already, I was determined to get a couple of grounds ticked off in London this season, with one of those set to be Wealdstone at the end of the season (if they get their ground sorted out by then so they can have fans in again). As for the other date I'd head into London, after Athletic Newham's expulsion from the FA Vase last month I realised that the 5th of March would be the only other opportunity I'd have to head into London.

So, in trying to draw up a broad groundhopping plan for the rest of the season, I started to assess my options on the Futbology app in early February, drawing up a shortlist of eight grass options and two 3G options as a starting point. From there, my plan was to put some polls up on Twitter last week to narrow that down to a list of four grass options and then to decide on my first choice, but due to Storm Eunice I ended up doing all of that two weeks ago instead.

The first phase of polls had the following pairings: Erith & Belvedere against Sporting Club Thamesmead; Lewisham Borough against Newbury Forest (at Redbridge); Hanwell Town against Uxbridge; North Greenford United against Wembley. The winners of these four polls were Erith & Belvedere, Lewisham Borough, Hanwell Town and Wembley and I put those into a final poll as soon as the first one was done.

In the end, as I expected to be the case based on the results from the first round of polls, Hanwell Town won at an absolute landslide. I was satisfied with this outcome, as I'd already intended to go to Hanwell Town once this season (when they hosted Eastbourne Borough in the FA Cup back in September) but been unable to for reasons I cannot remember now. I also decided on Fisher as my first-choice 3G option, in case all four of those matches ended up being postponed.

Though that had been decided, I still had two weeks to wait and so I made sure to do my research on the routes required for each, the associated travel costs and the matchday costs themselves. I also made sure to buy my train tickets into London a week in advance to get the cheaper prices, before carrying out my research on Hanwell Town themselves yesterday in preparation for the blog.

Yesterday, I was dropped off at the train station at around 11:40am and got some cash out for this week and next week before collecting my train tickets. My train left fifteen minutes later and arrived at St. Pancras at around 1:15pm, giving me plenty of time to have lunch and read on the train. From there, I headed onto the Underground and got onto the Victoria line heading to Oxford Circus, where I intended to change to the Central line to get to Perivale.

However, I soon became aware of a problem: the PA was announcing that there were severe delays on the Central line. Initially, I thought I would just risk it and head to Hanwell anyway as I still had plenty of time before kick-off, but I didn't want to leave myself at risk of missing my train after the game due to the delays. This meant I had to reroute somewhere, but being on the move already seriously limited my options.

The only choice I could think of on the spot was to stay on the train I was on, but get off at Green Park instead and change to the Jubilee line to head to Canada Water and go to Fisher. Normally, I'd be unhappy with "wasting" a 3G option like this, but there are enough of those in London that it really doesn't matter. Eventually, I got off at Canada Water a few minutes before 2pm and arrived at the ground around 20 minutes later, having taken a more circuitous route than was really necessary as I kept making mistakes with following Google Maps.

After taking a photo of a sign on the outside of the ground, I headed through the turnstile and paid £8 for admission and £2 for a programme before doing my usual circuit of photos. Once this was done, I took a seat in the main stand to get out of the rain and remained there until a few minutes before the final whistle (as by that point it was almost 5pm due to all the stoppage time and I wanted to get out quickly to get back to the Tube, just to be sure I wouldn't miss my train).

As I hadn't expected to end up at this match, I'd not had a chance to look at the league table until I checked in on the Futbology app before kick-off (hence why my photo of the table is from the programme and not my usual source), but I was aware that Lordswood were in danger of relegation this season. In truth, I really wasn't expecting too much from this match, but I hoped to see Lordswood put up a good fight at least.

Lordswood made a strong start to proceedings and took the lead in the 12th minute through Nat Murray: a shot from the edge of the box was pushed onto the crossbar by Fisher keeper Tommy Taylor before dropping back into the box to another attacker, who squared it to Murray for an easy tap-in at the far post.

Having established an early lead, Lordswood settled into a pattern of trying to play out from the back and started to invite pressure onto themselves in the process. It took a while for Fisher to convert this pressure into serious chances, but in the 23rd minute they should have equalised when a cross eluded Lordswood keeper George Bentley and left an attacker with a free header at the far post. Somehow, the header hit another player on the line and bounced down off the crossbar before eventually being pounced on by Bentley.

Four minutes later, Fisher found an equaliser when Julio Da Mata beat Bentley to a loose ball outside the box and passed to Vincent Follea for an easy finish from range into the empty net. Much of the rest of the half saw Fisher pin Lordswood back in their own half in search of a second goal, but they struggled to break through a stubborn defensive line. On the stroke of half-time, Bentley made up for his earlier mistake by getting down low to push a powerful shot from 30 yards past the post.

Fisher started the second half on the front foot, but continued to be frustrated by their struggles to threaten the Lordswood goal. They did go close to a second goal in the 52nd minute when a Collea shot hit the post, but it was Lordswood who eventually took the lead once more in the 68th minute: on a rare counter-attack, Zak Jakubowski hit an excellent left-footed volley into the net from just outside the box.

Fisher came close to equalising straight from the kick-off when Darnelle Bailey-King ran down the right wing and turned past a defender as he broke into the box before shooting low and forcing another good save out of Bentley. Two minutes later, they were denied by the woodwork once more when Fidan Fejzi curled a shot into the post. Then, in the 73rd minute, Bentley kept Lordswood in the lead with another fantastic save to deny Manny Shoderu's volleyed effort.

The match became very stop-start after this as Lordswood did everything they could to hold onto their lead, eventually managing to frustrate Fisher and hold on for their first win in over four months, although Shoderu came very close to an equaliser in the 88th minute with another shot into the woodwork from just inside the box.

This was a bit of a scrappy match throughout but it was still reasonably entertaining in spells. Other than the first twenty minutes, Fisher were dominant but were constantly denied by either the woodwork (I feel like I've never seen a team hit the woodwork so much in one match before) or the excellent goalkeeping of George Bentley, though at times I thought they were guilty of overplaying or making the wrong decisions in the final third. For their part, Lordswood scored with virtually their only two chances and then did very well to hold on, having to really dig deep at times to relieve the pressure and secure just their third win of the season.

While this was not my intended destination at the start of the day, I still enjoyed this groundhop well enough, not least because it was plain to see that Fisher are a club very much rooted in the community; it's a rarity to attend a Step 5 game where the fans generate a genuine atmosphere, but Fisher managed it even though the result went against them.

It was almost 5pm by the time the full-time whistle blew and I made a quick exit through the turnstile when it did. This time, I made sure to follow Google Maps more carefully and ended up taking a far simpler route back to Canada Water than the one I had taken to the ground. Progress on the Tube was quick as well despite it being busy and this meant I ended up back at St. Pancras with half an hour to spare before my train left.

The problem with heading back to Peterborough from St. Pancras instead of King's Cross is that it takes well over an hour, with this meaning I was set to arrive back at Peterborough station by 7:35pm. With this being likely to be while my mum was having dinner, she booked a taxi for me to get home instead.

As a result, I wasn't back in the house until just after 8pm, not helped by the driver getting lost due to Google Maps taking him the wrong way. I then had a shower and dinner before sorting out my photos and match report (rather than the other way around as I usually do), meaning I didn't finish the latter until almost 10pm before relaxing for the evening.

Next week, I'll be taking another long trip up north to pay a visit to Horden Community Welfare before their stand is knocked down at the end of the season. Hopefully the weather holds out for that, but I have a couple of back-ups in place if things do go awry with the weather.

The Ground

St Paul's Sports Ground is a fairly basic new build (having opened in 2016) that is set in a pleasantly rural area of south London. There are just two areas of cover at the ground, both of which are the standard Arena structures: on the near side is a 150-seater Arena stand and behind the near goal is an Arena terrace which provides cover for around 200 people. The clubhouse is positioned on the near side next to the main stand and provides hot drinks and snacks in terms of matchday refreshments, with no hot food being available.

The rest of the ground is open hard standing enclosed by wooden fencing, though this is very compact behind the far goal and on the far side. This means that a complete circuit of the ground is impossible, as the hard standing on the far side only extends as far as each dugout due to space constraints. Nearby Canary Wharf provides an interesting backdrop behind the far goal.

Photos