Pinchbeck United - Glebe Field

Pinchbeck United FC
Glebe Field
Knight Street
Pinchbeck
Spalding
Lincolnshire
PE11 3RB

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Ground: 145
Date: Saturday 23rd July 2022
Pinchbeck United 6-2 Huntingdon Town
Pre-Season Friendly
Attendance: 64

Pinchbeck United - History

Pinchbeck United were founded in 1935 and joined the Peterborough & District League in 1958. They won their first Premier Division title in 1990 and repeated the feat twelve months later. Their next title win came in the 2011/12 season, a season which also saw the club win the Peterborough Senior Cup. After finishing as Premier Division runners-up in the 2016/17 season, they moved into a groundshare with Spalding United to earn promotion to Division 1 of the United Counties League.

The club won the Division 1 title at the first attempt to earn promotion to the Premier Division, which is where they have remained ever since (moving into the North division when it split into Premier Divisions North and South). They finished an impressive 4th in their first season at Step 5, but finished second-from-bottom last season. Despite this, they were spared from relegation back to Step 6.

Since promotion from Step 7, the club have competed in the FA Vase five times and the FA Cup four times, but they are yet to win a game in either competition.

My Visit

Prior to fitting in a groundhop last week and prior to Yaxley's FA Cup draw, I had planned to groundhop both yesterday and next Saturday. I also had not planned to get a lift anywhere and was instead looking at options on the train, including a potential double as part of next weekend's UCL groundhop. However, after last week's groundhop and an eBay sale that I had to refund, my budget for the rest of the month was a little tighter and so a rethink was required. The news of yet more train strikes next week also added to my need to rethink by pretty much ruling out a groundhop next week.

With my budget restricted by an impending pre-order (it's releasing some point in August, but as I'm not sure which half of the month I have to be careful), trying to find options I could afford to do without stopping me from being able to afford Ipswich Wanderers in a few weeks was very tricky. I very quickly decided that I would have to ask for a lift somewhere, but having already done so once this month I was a little reluctant to do so again.

Regardless, after some extensive searching I found three options that I could potentially ask for a lift to: this, Wellingborough Whitworth and Crowland Town. From those three, it was honestly easy for me to decide which was my first choice, as Pinchbeck's first team only play at their traditional home during pre-season and I figured ticking it off for the first team would be more interesting than doing so for a Reserves game. By contrast, Whitworth and Crowland were playing at their usual home grounds and there would be many more opportunities to tick those off in future.

After enduring the truly oppressive heat of Monday and Tuesday's heatwave, I asked my mum about a lift to Pinchbeck and was pleasantly surprised that she was okay with it despite already having taken me to Cottesmore this month. With that being the case, I went to double-check Pinchbeck's Twitter to confirm that the game was still going ahead (as many clubs have had friendlies cancelled or changed this pre-season) and saw that it was going to be a 2pm kick-off. I then researched their history on Friday as usual so as to save some time yesterday morning.

Yesterday morning, I used the free time I had to play some Pokémon before we left the house at around 1pm. It took just over forty minutes to reach Pinchbeck and this meant I was dropped off with fifteen minutes to spare before kick-off. Just enough time to finish taking my photos and post on social media, at least, before finding somewhere to stand on the far side for the duration of the game. I was also tempted by the food they had on offer in the clubhouse as I heard glowing praise for it from several people. However, that was not an option as I was set to have a barbecue for dinner after the game.

Huntingdon were awarded a penalty within 48 seconds of kick-off after their 10 went on a run down the right wing and was carelessly brought down inside the box. 9 stepped up and opened the scoring for the away side. Pinchbeck came close to equalising eight minutes later when their 7 hit a free kick into the post, but Huntingdon doubled their lead in the 16th minute when their 11 took a free kick from 30 yards and overhit it enough to go over the keeper's head and in.

Pinchbeck pulled one back seven minutes later after some nice interplay on the right wing culminated in their 10 tapping in from a cross across the face of goal. It was 2-2 five minutes later as a shot from Pinchbeck's 9 was saved by the Huntingdon keeper, only to fall straight to 7 for a tap-in.

The turnaround was complete in the 44th minute as Pinchbeck scored their third after some fine work from their 11 on the left wing gave him space to cross to 7 for another tap-in. From the kick-off, the home side were quick to regain possession and made it 4-2 with a low shot from their 12.

The second half was never likely to live up to such an entertaining first half, but Pinchbeck kept going and scored their fifth in the 59th minute when their 10 charged down the right wing before shooting across the keeper and in. 10 then completed his hat-trick three minutes later after showing some great skill to bring an aerial ball down and turn past a defender before placing his shot in the bottom corner. The intensity quickly dropped off after this, but both sides had a few half-chances in the final twenty-five minutes.

This was probably the most entertaining game I've watched this pre-season, with Huntingdon making a fantastic start only for Pinchbeck to emphatically turn it around and claim a dominant 6-2 win. Pinchbeck were constantly able to exploit space on the wing and Huntingdon simply could not handle it. Best of luck to both teams for the season ahead.

The referee blew for full-time a minute early and I made my way out of the ground while posting my thoughts about the game on Twitter. As it turned out, my mum had just parked in the library car park nearby as I came out of the ground and this meant we were able to quickly start the journey home. As usual, I took the time to write up my match report and had more than enough time to get it done.

On the way back home, we stopped off at Tesco to pick up some rolls for the barbecue. This brief diversion meant it was nearly 5pm by the time we got home, giving me an hour to sort out my photos before we had our dinner.

And that was my last groundhop of both July and pre-season, as my next one will be in two weeks when Yaxley head to Ipswich Wanderers in the FA Cup. The outcome of that and the release date of my impending pre-order will then determine my plans for the rest of August as I get ever closer to having visited 150 grounds.

The Ground

Glebe Field is a standard Step 7 set-up which, by the look of it, has little prospect of being upgraded to meet Step 6 ground grading criteria. The pitch is roped off on two sides, with brick-built dugouts on the near side. These have seats next to them in the open, presumably from when social distancing restrictions were in place. Next to the corner flag closest to the clubhouse on this side is a corrugated iron shed, which I would presume is used to store pitch maintenance equipment.

The clubhouse is positioned behind the near goal and provides some cover in the form of a covered overhang, though this is some distance from the pitch. In front of this cover - which is where hot food and drinks can be bought - is some uncovered seating in the form of various benches. There is also a gazebo positioned in front of the clubhouse and there is some additional uncovered seating in front of this. A children's play area is also positioned next to the clubhouse.

The close proximity of residential properties means that there is little chance of the club being able to upgrade the ground to meet Step 6 and above ground grading criteria, forcing the first team to play their competitive games at Spalding United. However, they do play pre-season games here and their Reserves play competitive games here in Division 1 of the Peterborough & District League.

Photos