Bearscroft Lane
Godmanchester
Huntingdon
Cambridgeshire
PE29 2LQ
Official Website
Ground: 137
Date: Saturday 16th April 2022
Godmanchester Rovers 1-3 Lutterworth Town
United Counties League Premier Division South
Attendance: 102 (official)
Godmanchester Rovers - History
Godmanchester Rovers were founded in 1911 and spent much of their early history in the Huntingdonshire League before eventually moving up to the Cambridgeshire League and winning promotion to its top division in 1992. Despite being relegated to the Senior Division eight years later, they applied for promotion to the Eastern Counties League in 2002 and were successful due to their new ground.
Though they finished bottom of Division 1 in the 2004/05 season, they were not relegated and were able to gradually improve their fortunes on-the-pitch. This culminated in the club winning the Division 1 title in the 2011/12 season to earn promotion to the Premier Division. They quickly became one of the strongest teams in the league, finishing as runners-up in both the 2014/15 and 2015/16 seasons and then finishing 3rd in the 2018/19 season. The 2021/22 season saw the club transferred to the newly-formed Premier Division South of the United Counties League.
The club have twice progressed as far as the 1st Qualifying Round of the FA Cup, most recently in the 2018/19 season when they beat Newport Pagnell Town and Thetford Town before losing to Hitchin Town. Their best FA Vase run also came in the 2018/19 season as they reached the 4th Round by beating West Essex, Great Yarmouth Town, Holbeach United and Sporting Khalsa before being removed from the competition for fielding an ineligible player against Sporting Khalsa.
My Visit
Originally, I had planned to be at Daventry Town yesterday to watch Yaxley in our second-to-last away game of the season, but late last week it came to mind that the people I would usually ask for a lift to Yaxley away games were away. While it ended up turning out that they were back by the weekend (and indeed went to that game yesterday), I wasn't sure if that would be the case and I didn't want to ask them for a lift while they were enjoying themselves on holiday.
With that being the case, I had to come up with a new plan. I immediately ruled out trying to go anywhere on the train as I wasn't sure what impact a Bank Holiday weekend would have on train services (that turned out to be an astute call, by the sounds of it). Instead, I would be asking my mum for a lift and went onto the Futbology app and the Full-Time pages of a few local Step 7 leagues to see what options there were, with this and Thrapston Town emerging as the two main choices.
In the end, my mum chose this and I did my usual research on Good Friday to prepare this blog entry while also continuing to think ahead to the final few weeks of my groundhopping season. Yesterday, we left the house just before 2pm and reached the ground half an hour later. I paid £6 for admission and headed straight into the ground to do my usual circuit of photos before taking a seat in one of the two Arena stands for the duration of the match.
My expectations for this match weren't exactly high, with neither team having anything to play for in terms of promotion or relegation. On top of that, I'd heard a few things from other posters on the Non-League Matters forum about Lutterworth Town not being the most pleasant team to watch this season.
Godmanchester made the better start to this game and deservedly took the lead in the 12th minute when Danny Baulk got a shot away inside the box after the Lutterworth defence failed to clear. It was almost 2-0 six minutes later when CJ Lewis found himself through on goal and tried to round Lutterworth keeper Warren Butlin for an easy finish, only to lose the ball to the keeper. However, Butlin failed to get hold of the ball and it ended up falling to Baulk, but his shot went high and wide.
Lutterworth gradually grew into the game after a slow start and eventually equalised in the 22nd minute through Rahman Sunmonu Abdul: an aerial ball found him on the edge of the box and he poked it past the surrounding defenders with his first touch before smashing a powerful half-volley into the net. They completed the turnaround twelve minutes later when Justin Peace beat the offside trap to poke in a ball over the top. It was almost 1-3 two minutes later with a Louis Samuels diving header, but Godmanchester keeper Jamie Greygoose kept it out with a fingertip save.
Godmanchester made a strong start to the second half as well, but Lutterworth gradually regained control and did what they could to take any sting out of the contest. There were a few half-chances for both sides, but little for either keeper to do until Lutterworth scored their third in the 84th minute, Peace rising highest to power a header into the net from a free kick.
Overall, this ended up being a better game than I was expecting, with plenty of endeavour from both sides despite nothing riding on the result. Lutterworth were difficult to watch in the second half with their use of every trick in the gamesmanship book, but by no means was the result undeserved as they very much took control after a poor opening fifteen minutes.
In the end, it was almost 5pm when the full-time whistle blew and I headed out into the car park to get picked up for the journey home. This meant we made it back home by around 5:30pm and this allowed me to make an early start on my photos and match report. We ended up having our dinner at around 7:30pm, giving me plenty of time to get everything done and uploaded to social media first and then relax for the evening.
Next Saturday, I will hopefully be going to Yaxley's final away game of the season at Sutton Coldfield Town. After that, I'm debating whether to do two or three more groundhops before bringing my season to an end. Doing two more means I could go somewhere further afield on the 7th, but doing three more means an extra weekend of football before having nothing to do on Saturdays for two and a half months.
The Ground
Bearscroft Lane is a decent Step 5 ground with cover on two sides. All the seating is on the near side of the ground, with two 50-seater Arena stands and a metal scaffold stand containing a single row of seating. A similar scaffold structure is also positioned behind the near goal, but this one is used exclusively as covered standing.
The clubhouse is positioned below pitch level and there are some benches positioned in front of it to provide uncovered seating. That aside, the rest of the ground is open hard standing, with the far goal seemingly being closed off to spectators currently. The ground has an official capacity of 1,050, with a record crowd of 252 for the FA Vase 4th Round tie against Sporting Khalsa in 2019.
Photos
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