Nuneaton Griff - The Pingles Stadium

Nuneaton Griff FC
The Pingles Stadium
Avenue Road
Nuneaton
Warwickshire
CV11 4LX

Official Website
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Ground: 139
Date: Saturday 30th April 2022
Nuneaton Griff 1-1 Wednesfield
Midland League Division 1
Attendance: 78 (official)

Nuneaton Griff - History

Nuneaton Griff were founded in 1972 as Nuneaton Amateurs after a dispute saw many members of the local Co-op Sports FC move to the Nuneaton Griff and Coton Miners Welfare Ground. They initially played in the Coventry & North Warwickshire League before moving up to the Coventry & Alliance Suburban League in 1974. Twelve months later, the club adopted its current name.

The club soon moved up to the Coventry Alliance League and became a dominant force in the league in the 1990s. In 1998, this dominance prompted the club to apply for membership of the Midland Combination League and they were controversially placed in the Premier Division for the 1999/2000 season. However, this quickly proved justified as they won back-to-back Premier Division titles in their first two seasons at this level.

The club remained in the Premier Division until the end of the 2013/14 season, at which point the league merged with the Midland Alliance League to form the Midland League. They were placed in Division 1 and have remained there ever since, recording a highest finish of 3rd in the 2015/16 season but otherwise finishing in the bottom half every season (though that will change this season). They even finished bottom in the 2018/19 season but were spared from relegation.

In the FA Cup, the club's best run came in the 2012/13 season when they reached the 2nd Qualifying Round by beating Earlswood Town, Sporting Khalsa and Dudley Town before losing to Hednesford Town. As for the FA Vase, their best run came in the 2015/16 season when they reached the 5th Round: they beat Shawbury United, Coton Green, Anstey Nomads, Highgate United, Pinxton and AFC Wulfrunians before losing to Salisbury.

My Visit

With Yaxley's season having come to an end last weekend, I found myself in the position of having complete free reign to choose where to go in the final few weeks of the 2021/22 season. The first thing for me to do then was to assess all my options and figure out how many more groundhops I wanted to do before the end of the season based on that.

This process saw me go through all sorts of different options and I found myself changing my mind again and again as I thought of different ways to balance budget with interesting matches in the ever-shrinking pool of matches in May. For this weekend specifically, my options were constrained by the fact I would have to get a bus to the train station to go anywhere due to my mum and stepdad being in Bristol for the weekend.

My initial first choice was Oakham United's ground for their "away game" against Stamford Lions, but I put that on hold after hearing about the Rutland Cup due to take place in July. My next first choice was a two-legged bus journey to Crowland Town for their Reserves' match against FC Peterborough. That would be just a pitch rather than a ground, but it was cheap enough that it would allow for more interesting options over the following two weeks.

I kept flip-flopping between those and other options as I struggled to decide whether to go for two or three more groundhops, but in the end it was the events of last weekend (i.e. me forgetting to get complimentary admission last weekend) that influenced my final decision. With that and my plan to visit Linby Colliery Welfare in mind, I would need to get cash out again (as Linby charge for admission) and that opened up options above Step 7, with this quickly emerging as the prime candidate. I had planned to only visit Griff after visiting Nuneaton Borough, but the timing worked out too well to pass it up here.

With that being decided, I ordered my train tickets on Monday to take advantage of cheaper advance prices; I wouldn't normally do this, but at this point in the year the weather is generally good enough that I'm not worried about postponements. I then got cash out on Tuesday without any issues, wrote up the club history on Thursday and then made sure I was fully prepared on Friday by double-checking the bus timetables and packing everything I would need (including making sure to take my spare phone charger so I could plug the USB into the power pack and actually use that to charge my phone).

Yesterday morning, I left the house at 11:30am to get the bus just after 12pm. By the time I got into Peterborough and reached the station, I had realised it was a fair bit warmer than I'd expected and so I popped into the shop on the station to buy a cold drink and a pack of rolos (a terrible mistake, as they were very sticky) before collecting my tickets and heading onto the platform. The train left just before 1pm and I had plenty of time to have lunch before the train arrived in Nuneaton ten minutes late at around 2:25pm.

The walk from the station to the ground was probably one of the most pleasant I have done since graduating from University, as it mostly took me through the picturesque Riversley Park which features war memorials and the Nuneaton Museum & Art Gallery. If I'd had more time before the match, I would have taken a few photos and spent a bit more time in the park, but I had to keep moving and make it to the ground.

Two trains passed on that small stretch of line directly above the ground in each half (one going each way)

By the time I arrived and took a photo from outside the ground, I had twenty minutes to spare before kick-off. I paid £5 for admission and then £1 for a programme before starting on my usual circuit of photos, failing to notice in my haste that I also could have gotten a free teamsheet along with the programme. After completing my circuit of photos - having stopped along the way to pass some balls back to the players training - there was about five minutes until kick-off and I opted to sit in the main stand for the entire match.

Only Nuneaton Griff posted a teamsheet online, but teamsheets were available at the game and I have since learned the Wednesfield line-up courtesy of Griffon on the Non-League Matters forum

It was Wednesfield who started this match on the front foot, going close in the 12th minute with a free header that required quick reactions from Nuneaton Griff keeper Joe Salisbury to keep out of the net. Two minutes later, Jimmy Yates went close when he beat the offside trap and tried to chip the ball over Salisbury as he rushed out. The two collided, but despite Wednesfield appeals no foul was given.

In the 21st minute, Yates spurned a golden chance for Wednesfield by skying over the bar after Jack Dew put it on a plate for him inside the box. This first twenty minutes did a good job of summing up most of the match, particularly the first half: the quality of play was not great overall, with both teams being very wasteful with possession and even more wasteful in front of goal. On the stroke of half-time, Wednesfield took a deserved lead when Craig Tuckley went on a run from deep and hit a powerful left-footed shot beyond Salisbury.

Wednesfield made a strong start to the second half as they looked to extend their lead, Tuckley placing a shot narrowly wide in the 52nd minute. Both teams continued to spurn chances throughout the second half, with Griff growing into the game more and more as this progressed. By the time we reached the final ten minutes, the home side were on top, but they were still struggling to find quality in front of goal with their best chance coming from a Ben Stokes shot straight at Wednesfield keeper Dominic Smith.

However, that moment of quality came out of nowhere in the 88th minute: a corner was headed away into midfield, but it fell to Ross Proudlock 25 yards out to hit a first-time volley into the crossbar and in. It could have been 2-1 moments later as a hopeful punt upfield almost flew into the net, but Smith was aware of the danger and caught it on the line.

This was probably one of the lower-quality Step 6 matches I've been to this season, not helped by a bobbly pitch or by the fact that both sides were realistically on the beach with little to play for in this final game of the season. A draw was ultimately a fair result, but Wednesfield will really rue the plethora of chances they missed throughout. A decent season for both sides though, particularly for Nuneaton Griff as they secured their first top-half finish in six years and showed some impressive improvement from finishing rock-bottom in the 2018/19 season.

After the full-time whistle, I made my way straight back to the station and arrived with roughly half an hour to wait. While this gave me plenty of time to start charging my phone with my power pack and get my match report written up, this was also where the problems began. At 5:30pm, it was announced that my train would be delayed by around twenty minutes. Initially, I didn't mind this as it would cut down my time waiting for the bus home, and I was still in this mindset when the train eventually arrived at 6:05pm.

However, it transpired that the delays were because of a fault on my train and so it gradually got more and more delayed as it progressed. In the end, it arrived into Peterborough forty minutes late, giving me just short of ten minutes to get out of the station and across the road to catch the bus. This meant I missed the bus by mere seconds and gave me little option but to fork out £8 for a taxi rather than waiting an hour for the next bus, an annoying needless expense.

When all was said and done, I was back in the house at 8:15pm and went straight for a shower after ordering myself a KFC for dinner. This meant I got around to sorting my photos much later than I normally would and made for a rushed evening before hopping on the usual Discord call with my friends from University. I then got around to writing the rest of my blog today later than normal because I met up with my dad at Costa for the first time in a while this morning.

As I already mentioned earlier in this entry, I should be heading to Linby Colliery Welfare next week. I've got my train tickets to Nottingham booked already, and the plan is to then get a tram to Hucknall. If necessary, that leaves me plenty of flexibility to head elsewhere, but I doubt that's a concern at this point in the year. I'll then hopefully get in one more groundhop on the 14th, but that's not set in stone yet.

The Ground

The Pingles Stadium is an athletics ground first and foremost, but it's got enough character to make it an interesting footballing venue. The main stand provides good elevated views of the pitch (offsetting the distance from the pitch in the process) and contains 250 seats. There is also a small area of cover attached directly to the front of the stand, presumably to provide cover to disabled supporters. The clubhouse is next to the main stand and is a fairly compact brick-built structure.

Other than some benches and various bits of athletic miscellanea serving as improvised uncovered seating, the rest of the ground is open hard standing, curving along with the running track and generally being a fair distance from the pitch. There is a small area on the far side which lacks hard standing as they were not allowed to dig into that part of the banking. Behind the far goal is what looks like a screen of some sort, though this was not in operation on my visit. Behind the near goal is a pleasant-looking wooden building with an electronic scoreboard attached to it.

The ground has an official capacity of 4,000, with a record attendance of 870 for the FA Vase game against Salisbury in the 2015/16 season.

Photos