Belstone FC
The Medburn Ground
Watling Street
Radlett
Hertfordshire
WD6 3AB
Official Website
Twitter
Ground: 141
Date: Saturday 14th May 2022
Belstone 3-0 Wingate & Finchley Development
Hertfordshire Senior County League Premier Division
Attendance: 83
Belstone - History
Belstone were founded in 1983 as a Sunday team and moved into Saturday football at the start of the 2009/10 season after years of success in the Marathon and Harrow Sunday Leagues; they won at least some silverware in all but the 2000/01 season before moving into Saturday football. The Saturday team joined Division 1 of the Hertfordshire Senior County League and finished 6th in their first two seasons, before finishing as runners-up in the 2011/12 season to earn promotion to the Premier Division.
They have remained in the Premier Division ever since, finishing 10th in their first season at this level but quickly becoming one of the league's strongest teams. They won their first Premier Division title in the 2014/15 season and finished as runners-up in the seasons before and after this. They started to slip down to mid-table after that second runners-up finish, but the two covid-curtailed seasons allowed them to rebuild and then win their second Premier Division title this season. The club applied for promotion to Step 6 this season as well, but delays to planning permission being granted look set to halt those ambitions for at least another year.
Outside
of league success, their Saturday side won their first silverware in
the 2013/14 season when they won the Hertfordshire Senior Centenary
Trophy for the first time. They also won the Aubrey Cup in the 2017/18
season and the Pauline Mary Fox Trophy in the 2013/14 and 2014/15
seasons.
My Visit
After last weekend's groundhop, I knew I had one more in me for the season, but that wasn't always the case. Instead, my initial plan had been to get in two more by getting a lift to Moulton Harrox's home game in the Peterborough & District League yesterday and then heading somewhere on the train next weekend (most likely Kew Park Rangers in south London).
However, this plan was scrapped a couple of weeks ago when I tried to confirm where that Moulton Harrox game would actually be played (as it wasn't listed as their usual home ground on Full-Time): I asked them on Twitter and was told that it was neither being played where Full-Time said nor at their usual home ground, but they did not say where it was actually being played instead when I asked. I also later noticed that they had previously ranted on Twitter about that "meaningless league game" being arranged, so that plan was scrapped (I have since noticed that the game unsurprisingly was not played).
With that being the case, I did have another look to see if there were any other games at new grounds I could get a lift to on the 14th to still allow me another groundhop on the 21st, but there were no suitable options and so I had little choice but to settle for just one final groundhop for the season on the 14th.
So, with an absolute maximum budget of £30, I headed onto Full-Time to look at various Step 7 leagues and see what options I would come out with. My initial shortlist contained Kew Park Rangers, Stonewall, Dunnington and Wakefield, with Dunnington being the most expensive option and the two in London comfortably being the cheapest.
I was very much undecided on where I wanted to go from these four options, but I initially felt myself narrowly leaning towards Dunnington despite it being both the most expensive to get to and the least substantial ground in terms of facilities. To make sure I didn't rush into a decision on impulse, I ultimately decided to at least wait until after writing up last week's blog entry to decide. However, by that point the only decision I had reached was that I didn't want to head anywhere on the London Underground, so I removed the two London options from my shortlist and searched once more for other options.
In the end, I posted about my final four options (Dunnington, Wakefield, this and LIV Supplies) on Twitter and asked a couple of questions about some of them to confirm a few things to help me make my decision. In doing so, I received an almost-immediate reply from Belstone and I got chatting to them about a few things. Their friendliness from the start very quickly made my decision an easy one and I ordered my train tickets on Monday for just short of £20.
After dealing with the surprise confirmation of the provisional 2022/23 league constitutions on Thursday, I got to writing up the club history on Friday and carried out the rest of my usual preparations for my final groundhop of the season. Yesterday didn't get off to the best of the starts, though, as I'd had a poor night's sleep due to the alarm at the school across the road going off at 5:30am. I was able to get back to sleep after that, but it wasn't a great sleep so I started the day with quite low energy.
My first train of the day left Peterborough at 11:25am and, despite running into some traffic again on the way into Peterborough, I was dropped off with plenty of time to spare for the slow journey into London St. Pancras. At around 12:45pm, I arrived in London and headed across to the other platform for my train, although I had a half-hour wait due to how all the timings had worked out.
From there, it was a half-hour train journey to Radlett station, where I got picked up by Belstone coach Lee as we had spoken about earlier in the week. This meant I arrived at the ground at around 1:40pm, considerably earlier than would usually be the case (as I had originally booked my tickets with the half-hour walk from station to ground in mind) and the welcome from all the club officials was very warm as I headed into the clubhouse.
At this point, I was pleasantly surprised when Lee offered to cover both my admission to the game and any drinks that I wanted in the clubhouse throughout the afternoon, so I asked for a bottle of Älska Nordic Berries cider and sat down in the clubhouse while drinking it. The league trophy was on a table in the clubhouse, so I made sure to grab a photo of that as well in the time I had before kick-off.
While waiting for kick-off, I got a free teamsheet from Lee, got chatting to several other supporters and club officials who had known I was coming and took a few other photos from inside the clubhouse (something I usually neglect to do on my groundhops, at least in part because I don't often head inside them).
Eventually, at around 2:40pm, I decided to head out to do my usual circuit of photos before heading back into the clubhouse for another cider to drink during the first half. For the first half, I watched the game from one of the benches in front of the clubhouse, whereas I spent the second half watching from next to the home dugout.
Though both teams made a slow start, it was champions Belstone who drew first blood in the 18th minute when Jamal Adu found space on the left to run into the box and chip over the Wingate & Finchley keeper. This saw Belstone take control and they came close to doubling their lead twenty minutes later: Dene Gardner shot low from the edge of the box, but the keeper managed to push it wide for a corner. While I was noting that chance down, Belstone took the corner and doubled their lead with a free header from Eyituoyo Akinbulumo.
Belstone continued to dominate in the second half and took just six minutes to add their third and final goal of the afternoon: an excellent ball over the top found Tommy Pidgeon and he cut inside before placing his shot in the bottom corner. The rest of the half saw Belstone create plenty of chances as they sought more goals, but no more came and it finished 3-0. In the 90th minute, Wingate & Finchley found themselves down to ten men as their 17 was sent off for a high tackle.
A decent game of football to end my season on. Despite having rotated a fair bit to give some of their younger players some game time (as Lee was telling me beforehand), Belstone were well on top throughout and good value for the win. They definitely stepped up a level in the second half when they brought their usual first-team players on from the bench though. Either way, both teams were keen to play football the right way and it was a good-natured contest too apart from that late sending-off.
In a break of play late in the second half, I had noticed that my planned train back to Peterborough from St. Pancras had been cancelled, so I could stay behind after the full-time whistle to see the title celebrations. While we waited for everything to be ready for those to start, I started checking train times to see what train I would be aiming for at St. Pancras and hence how long I'd be able to stay for.
In truth, though, I was happy to be able to stay behind and see Belstone celebrate their success this season after such a warm welcome from everyone at the club (probably one of the friendliest clubs I have ever visited while groundhopping, in fact): I wish them the best of luck next season and sincerely hope they can get everything they need sorted so they can fulfil their ambitions of moving up to Step 6 next season or beyond, as they definitely deserve it.
After the main part of the celebrations was finished, I headed back into the clubhouse to watch the final few minutes of the first half of the FA Cup Final before starting my 25-minute walk back to the station. As it turned out, I could have gotten an earlier train had I left a few minutes earlier and hence gotten an earlier train back to Peterborough, but that wasn't the case.
Instead, I got the 6:45pm Thameslink to Peterborough and ended up arriving at around 8:20pm after a fifteen-minute delay between Finsbury Park and Stevenage. It was then a taxi back home and this meant I made it back into the house at around 8:40pm, close to an hour later than I had originally planned. This meant I had to rush around a bit to fit in a shower, dinner and getting my photos sorted before my usual Saturday evening Discord call.
While this was my final groundhop of the 2021/22 season, I'm not done with blog entries this season just yet. Instead, I'll have two more to post in the next week or two: one will be a review of my 2021/22 season (best game, best ground, friendliest club etc.) and the other will be an early look at some of my groundhopping plans for the 2022/23 season. But after that, there won't be anything for me to add to the blog until early July when I'll get my groundhopping back underway again.
The Ground
The Medburn Ground is a good ground for Step 7 set in a lovely rural location. There is a small covered stand on the near side which is primarily used for standing but contains a few seats at the back. Additional uncovered seating is provided in the form of some benches in front of the clubhouse and a couple on the dugout side.
There is hard standing on three sides of the ground, though there is plenty of space to add far standing behind the goal in future. The clubhouse is positioned behind the near goal, while the near side and far goal are bordered by trees. Trees also border some of the dugout side, but not all of it due to the presence of a second pitch next to the main one (this second pitch has a massive pylon directly behind one goal).
There is much the club need to do to make the ground meet Step 6 grading criteria, but they are confident that planning permission will be approved in future. And as Roffey's ground shows, they can definitely make this meet those criteria without compromising the lovely rural feel it currently has.
Photos
No comments:
Post a Comment