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