Ground: 140
Date: Saturday 7th May 2022
Hucknall Town Reserves 1-4 Radford Reserves
Nottinghamshire Senior League Division 1
Attendance: 72
Hucknall Town - History
Hucknall Town were founded in 1943 as Hucknall Colliery Welfare and changed to their current name in 1987. By this point, the club were playing in the Notts Alliance League and they won the title in the first two seasons under the new name. This saw them move up to the Central Midlands League and their success continued, with back-to-back league titles in their first two seasons in this league followed by a runners-up finish in the 1991/92 season.
This earned the club promotion to Division 1 of the Northern Counties East League and they earned an immediate promotion to the Premier Division by finishing as runners-up. Their upwards momentum was halted for a few seasons as they initially finished in the bottom half, but they improved to a 6th-place finish in the 1996/97 season and then won the title the following season to earn promotion to Division 1 of the Northern Premier League.
Their first season at this new level was another successful one as they finished as runners-up to earn promotion to the Premier Division, only missing out on the title on goals scored due to having points deducted. They took a couple of seasons to adjust at this level, but they soon won the title in the 2003/04 season and were promoted to the newly-formed Conference North; they should have been promoted to the Conference Premier that season due to restructuring, but had to settle for the North due to ground grading.
The club finished a respectable 10th in their first season in the Conference North, but this signalled the peak of their fortunes and they started to slip down the table in the next few seasons before finishing bottom in the 2008/09 season to be relegated back to the Northern Premier League; they would have been relegated the season before if not for the demise of Halifax Town. Another relegation followed two seasons later and, after two seasons in Division 1 South of the Northern Premier League, financial difficulties saw the club voluntarily relegated three levels to the Central Midlands League South Division.
After finishing 13th out of 17 teams in their first season at this level, fortunes quickly improved and they alternated between finishing 4th and 3rd for the next few seasons before winning the title in the 2018/19 season to earn promotion back to Step 6 in the East Midlands Counties League. After covid caused the 2019/20 and 2020/21 seasons to be declared null-and-void, they were transferred to Division 1 of the United Counties League for the 2021/22 season and finished 5th. This saw the club compete in the promotion play-offs, but they lost to Hinckley in the semi-final. Their Reserves spent the 2021/22 season in Division 1 of the Nottinghamshire Senior League, two levels below the first team.
The club have a good track record in the FA Cup, reaching the 4th Qualifying Round six times in the 2000s. The most recent of these runs came in the 2006/07 season when they beat Lincoln United and Nuneaton Borough before losing to King's Lynn Town. The club have also reached the final of the FA Trophy in the past: in the 2004/05 season, they beat Bracknell Town, Radcliffe Borough, Southport, Northwich Victoria, Cambridge City, Hereford United and Bishop's Stortford before losing to Grays Athletic in a penalty shoot-out in the final. As for the FA Vase, their best run came in the 1985/86 season when they reached the Quarter Finals: they beat Irlam Town, Coventry Sporting, St Dominics and Blue Star before losing to Warrington Town.
My Visit
Much of what I discussed in last week's entry about my planning for these late-season groundhops also applies in this instance, except I had come to a final decision much more quickly and it was that final decision which influenced my decision-making last week: after considering such options as Wakefield and Willenhall Town, I ended up deciding on a visit to Linby Colliery Welfare.
Making my decision so early allowed me to order my train tickets early, spending just £8.35 on advance tickets to and from Nottingham compared to the usual £17 or so it would cost. I had also considered getting train tickets from there to Hucknall, but the timings didn't really work out and I decided it would instead be easier to use the tram to get there. This approach also meant that if the weather took a turn for the worse and matches were postponed, I could very easily adjust to one of the many other options available in the Nottingham area.
One of my back-up options was Hucknall Town due to their recent announcement that they are set to move to their new ground in September. I knew this was happening fairly soon after having been in the works for years, but not so early into the 2022/23 season. Despite this, it wasn't my first choice as it was their Reserves playing rather than their first team, and I'd have preferred to save it until a first-team game early next season.
However, that all changed on Wednesday when, while pondering options for my final groundhop of the season, I noticed that Linby's game had been moved to a 2pm kick-off (and this was confirmed by the club when I commented about it on Twitter). Having already ordered my train tickets, I was set to arrive in Nottingham at around 1:40pm, so I knew I had no way to make it to Linby in time for kick-off.
With that being the case, I decided that I would head to Hucknall Town instead to get the current ground ticked off before it goes and to give me more freedom of choice in the first month or two of the 2022/23 season. As such, I wrote up the club history on Friday and had a look at the tram timings to try and gauge what time I would get to the ground and whether I would have time to pop across the road and look at the new one being built or not.
We ended up leaving the house just before 12pm yesterday and, despite running into some traffic on the way into Peterborough (presumably due to Peterborough United's early kick-off), I was still dropped off at the train station with ten minutes to spare, more than enough time to collect my train tickets and get onto the train. Much like last week, I had around an hour on the train so I took the time to have lunch before arriving in Nottingham on-time.
From Nottingham station, it was just over half an hour on the tram to Hucknall at the very end of line, and from the tram stop it was a further twenty-minute walk to the football ground. As I approached the ground, a club official came out looking for a ball and I followed him in stepping over a small bit of fencing into the car park (rather than walking a few hundred yards further down the road to find the actual entrance). I then took a few photos from outside of the ground before figuring out where to go to get into the ground itself.
With this being a Reserves game, admission was free and so I went straight into my circuit of photos before heading into the bar for around ten minutes before kick-off to get out of the heat. Once I headed back outside just before kick-off, I chose somewhere to sit in the shade in the main stand and quickly became very glad I'd brought a jumper and light jacket with me as it was considerably colder in the shade. On the bright side, this seat gave me a great view of attacks in the nearby goal and I decided to do something I haven't done in ages: take photos during the match.
Radford were the better side from the start and quickly took control of this match, but for much of the first half they were sorely lacking that final bit of quality in the final third. Their first good chance came in the 17th minute when their 10 poked 11's cross over the crossbar. In the 33rd minute, Hucknall almost scored a comical own goal when a defender tried to head the ball back to keeper but put too much power on it and sent it over the keeper's head. Fortunately, the keeper got a finger to it to push the ball narrowly wide of the post.
Then, two minutes later, the Hucknall defence found themselves in trouble again as they failed to clear a succession of Radford attacks, with 6 eventually putting a shot inches wide of the post. Radford finally made all their pressure pay off by taking the lead in the 39th minute: a corner was whipped in and Jay Bugg managed to get his head on it to send the ball beyond the Hucknall keeper.
Radford remained on top in the second half and could have easily made it 0-2 in the 53rd minute: their 10 was picked out by an excellent through ball and he ran into the box before squaring to 11 for what should have been an easy tap-in, only for the Hucknall keeper to somehow manage to keep it out. Hucknall weren't so lucky five minutes later, though, as a deep cross from Radford's 6 was headed by Hucknall's 5 into his own net.
It was 0-3 moments later as Radford's 11 - a consistent live wire that Hucknall couldn't deal with - found some space on the right wing and took full advantage, hitting a low cross into the box for Ash Dixon to tap in. While the game was very much over as a contest at this point, Radford still wanted more goals and continued to bombard the Hucknall defence as they sought a fourth goal.
That fourth for Radford came in the 76th minute as a free kick was poked in at the near post by Bugg. Five minutes later, Hucknall scored a controversial consolation as Ryan Butler ran onto a through ball and placed his shot low beneath the Radford keeper. Despite the club linesman flagging for offside (and it looked fairly clear-cut to me from my position in the stand), the referee overruled him and awarded the goal. This seemed to slightly rejuvenate Hucknall and they had a couple more decent chances in the closing stages, but without being able to further reduce the deficit.
This was one of the more one-sided games I've seen as a neutral this season, with Radford Reserves dominating from start to finish and deservedly coming out on top. Only some poor decision-making at times (something that could be said of both teams) stopped them from winning by a greater margin. Either way, this is the third time I have seen a Radford side play this season (having visited their ground in January and seen them away at Blackstones a week later) and they've won all three times, scoring ten goals and conceding just two. I was also particularly impressed with their number 11 yesterday as he provided a constant threat on the right wing and deservedly racked up two assists as well.
Even though we didn't kick off here until 3:05pm, a short ten-minute half-time break and minimal added time in either half meant that the full-time whistle blew at around 4:45pm. This was a little earlier than I had expected, which meant I had plenty of time to go across the road and see how their new ground on Aerial Way is progressing. From what's been built so far, it looks like it will be a pretty impressive facility in its own right, though I will be impressed if they do manage to have it ready to go by September as it looks like there's still a lot that needs to be done in the next four months to achieve that.
Once that was done, I walked back to the tram stop and arrived there just as a tram was pulling in. On the way back to Nottingham station, I plugged my phone into my power pack to get it charging while I checked Twitter and BBC Sport to see how things had progressed in the non-league play-off finals and in the final day of Football League and National League North and South football.
This made the journey pass by in what felt like an instant, but now I had around 45 minutes to wait at Nottingham station for my train back to Peterborough. I spent £2 on a muffin in the station cafe and ate that and a packet of crisps to tide me over until I'd be able to get home and have a proper dinner. I also made a small start on my match report before the train arrived, finishing it while standing on the completely packed train on the way to Grantham.
The train eventually arrived in Peterborough at around 7:45pm, around five minutes late due to allowing more time for everyone to get on at Nottingham and then off at Grantham. This meant I didn't get back into the house until 8pm and I decided to have a shower first before having my dinner of lasagne and garlic bread. I then worked on my photos after finishing dinner before jumping onto the usual Discord call to round off a busy day.
In all likelihood, next weekend will now be my final groundhop of the season (due to Moulton Harrox being incredibly unhelpful in not telling me where they're actually playing their match next Saturday). However, I have absolutely no idea where I'll be going as I'm very much undecided between 4 or 5 different options. Let's just say that it'll be a surprise, unless you follow me on Twitter and I confirm my destination there first.
The Ground
Watnall Road is a ground that has hosted Step 2 football in the past and it definitely shows in the scale of the facilities here. The entire far side is under cover with a mixture of seating (270 seats in all) and standing areas, and the area behind the near goal is entirely covered standing as well. There are also five steps of uncovered terracing behind the far goal, with crush barriers in place on two of the steps. The dugout side of the ground is exclusively open hard standing, though there is an old club shop building on this side of the ground at least.
With an official capacity of 4,000 and a record attendance of 1,871 for their FA Trophy semi-final against Bishop's Stortford, the ground would probably still be good enough for Step 2 to this day. It is however becoming a bit dilapidated in places now (no doubt due in part to focus shifting to their impending ground move), with several seats torn out of the main stand being just one example of that. That said, it is a ground with plenty of history and one I definitely recommend you pay a visit before it goes if you haven't already.
Photos
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