FC Hampton - Hampton Gardens School

FC Hampton
Hampton Gardens School
Hartland Avenue
Hampton Gardens
Peterborough
Cambridgeshire
PE7 8HR

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Ground: 148
Date: Saturday 20th August 2022
FC Hampton 2-2 Deeping United
Peterborough & District League Division 2
Attendance: 15

FC Hampton - History

FC Hampton were founded in 2020 and played in Division 2 of the Peterborough & District League in both of their first two seasons as a club. For the 2022/23 season, they have three teams in the league: the first team in Division 2, the reserves in Division 3 and an A team in Division 4.

My Visit

After Yaxley's annual early exit from the FA Cup, I had no match in place for this weekend. Normally, this would prompt me to look on Futbology and see where I could go on the train, but with yet more train strikes in place my options were seriously limited. Even more so as I didn't think it would be overly fair to ask for another lift somewhere after doing so for FC Parson Drove last week.

That combination of factors meant I was limited to very local games, ones I could either walk or get a bus too without too much hassle. All that really fit that bill was the Peterborough & District League, so I had a look at the fixtures on Full-Time and picked out a few that caught my eye, with Crowland Town emerging as my first-choice and this as a back-up.

I also had a look at options on the 27th after I was told that Yaxley would be hosting Corby on the 20th due to both being eliminated from the FA Cup early, but the available options weren't as appealing to me. On top of that, there is the possibility I'll be watching Yaxley play Corby in the league on my birthday anyway (it will be a revisit if I do, but I might as well), so I figured in that case I'd rather see us play two different teams than the same one twice in quick succession (we host Loughborough Dynamo next weekend).

Either way, I was planning to head to Crowland Town today and mentioned that on Twitter on Thursday evening, before asking for a recommendation of somewhere to drink after the game yesterday once I noticed that I would have just short of an hour after the game before my bus back. The Ye Olde Abbey was recommended to me, and after confirming that and researching the club's history yesterday I was excited to make the trip.

However, after starting to get ready this morning, I noticed at around 10am that I had been tagged in a Tweet to tell me that Peterborough North End had asked for the game to be postponed. While I was glad to have been notified well in advance - so as to save me a wasted trip and allow me to come up with other plans - I was obviously a little disappointed, not least because of that time spent planning things and writing up the club's history yesterday.

Rather than looking through the fixtures again for other options, I decided that I'd just go for the easy option at FC Hampton so as to allow myself to do more (including having lunch at a normal time, rather than trying to fit it in beforehand or have it on the bus as I would have had to do if I had gone to Crowland) before having to head to the game at around 1:30pm.

From home, it was an easy fifteen-minute walk to the ground and I arrived in time to see the last few minutes of FC Hampton Reserves 1-5 Warboys Town Reserves in Division 3, including seeing Warboys score their fifth late on. I took a few photos of the ground in the final minutes of that game, before sitting on one of the benches outside the cage to watch the first team's game: trying to find a seat where I could get a good enough view of events inside the cage was easier said than done, though.

Deeping United took the lead after 5 minutes when Daryn Whiteman scored from the penalty spot after their 18 was brought down in the box. They were then firmly on top for the next twenty minutes but were unable to extend their lead due to a mixture of wayward shooting and inspired goalkeeping: their best chance to double their lead came in the 21st minute when their 9 was one-on-one with the Hampton keeper but sliced his shot wide.

Hampton had their first real chance in the 26th minute when their 5 decided to have a go from distance and ended up not being too far off-target. Four minutes later, their 4 went close with a free header from a corner, but a Deeping United defender was there to head clear on the line. In the 37th minute, Hampton once again went close from a set piece as their 14 forced the Deeping United keeper into a full-stretch save to keep out his free-kick from just outside the box.

After a short half-time break of not even ten minutes, Hampton equalised within sixty seconds of the restart as their 14 capitalised on a lapse in concentration (the Deeping United defenders had stopped, expecting a foul to be given) to score from inside the box. It was almost 2-1 five minutes later as Hampton's 10 hit an audacious volley over the bar from just outside the box.

In the 56th minute, Deeping United made it 1-2 instead when Whiteman found himself one-on-one with the keeper and calmly rounded him for an easy finish. Straight from the kick-off, Hampton went on the attack and equalised once more when their 10 hit a powerful right-footed shot into the top corner from an awkward angle; an early contender for goal of the season, for sure.

With fifteen minutes to go, Hampton had two chances in quick succession to take the lead for the first time: their 14 was denied by the keeper's foot and the second shot was a powerful effort straight at the keeper that was palmed away and eventually cleared. Deeping United had one more chance of their own late on to secure the three points: their 11 was able to elude a tiring defence to go one-on-one with the keeper, but his attempt to sneak the ball in at the near post was pushed onto the post and out for a corner.

Other than that ten-minute spell at the start of the second half when three of the four goals were scored, this was a relatively low-energy contest that still felt somewhat like a pre-season friendly at times. Overall, it felt like the two teams cancelled each other out and a draw feels like a fair result, though Deeping United will rue wasting so many good chances early on.

Due to the reserves' game finishing late, the first team's game started around five minutes late, but due to a very short half-time (not even ten minutes, by my count) the second half still kicked off at just after 3pm and finished comfortably before 4pm even with almost six minutes of stoppage time. This meant I was back in the house by around 4:15pm, leaving me with enough time in the day to motivate me to finish my blog immediately rather than saving it for Sunday as I normally do for Saturday games.

My next groundhop will hopefully be on Bank Holiday Monday when Yaxley visit Spalding United, followed by either visiting Norwich United or Mulbarton Wanderers on the Saturday before my birthday (or something else close to Norwich if anything pops up in the FA Cup draw). I might also fit in another groundhop on Saturday the 10th of September, but I'm not 100% sure of that yet.

The Ground

Hampton Gardens School is a 3G cage in front of a school, with no facilities inside the cage for spectators. A few benches are positioned outside of the cage for spectators to sit on, but much of the view from these seats ends up being blocked by the coaching staff, substitutes and club linesmen of each side as they use that side rather than the far side.

FC Hampton's first team and reserves both play home games here, though the reserves also sometimes play home games at Hampton Hargate Playing Fields instead.

Photos