Farnham Town - Memorial Ground

Farnham Town FC

Memorial Ground

Mead Lane

Farnham

Surrey

GU9 7DY

Official Website

Twitter 

Ground: 105

Date: Saturday 1st February 2020

Farnham Town 1-0 Eversley & California

Combined Counties League Division 1

Attendance: 66 (official)

Farnham Town - History

Farnham Town were founded in 1906 as a merger of local sides Farnham Bungs and Farnham Stars. They were initially members of the Surrey Intermediate League, winning the title in the 1929/30 and 1930/31 seasons. After World War 2, they joined the Surrey Senior League in 1947, leaving in 1962 but returning a year later. After their return, the club won successive titles in the 1965/66, 1966/67 and 1967/68 seasons before joining the Spartan League in 1971.

After finishing bottom of the league in the 1979/80 season, the club were transferred to the Combined Counties League. When the league split into two regional divisions for the 1981/82 season, the club were placed in the Western Division and finished 3rd. The club won back-to-back league titles in the 1990/91 and 1991/92 seasons, earning promotion to Division 3 of the Isthmian League. However, the club resigned before the season as they were unable to sufficiently upgrade the ground.

The 1993/94 season saw the club return to the Combined Counties League and their first two seasons back saw the club struggle near the bottom. Three top-half finishes followed, before the club found itself languishing in the bottom half for the next five years. In the 2002/03 season, the club were placed in the Premier Division when the league gained a Division 1.

After finishing bottom of the Premier Division in the 2005/06 season, the club were relegated to Division 1. They won Division 1 at the first attempt, but ground-grading issues denied the club promotion. They spent four more seasons at Division 1 level before finishing 2nd in the 2010/11 season to return to the Premier Division. 

They spent seven seasons in the Premier Division - recording a highest finish of 8th in the 2012/13 season - before finishing bottom in the 2017/18 season to return to Division 1. Last season saw the club finish 4th in Division 1 to narrowly miss out on an immediate return to the Premier Division. 

In the FA Cup, the club's best run saw them reach the 2nd Qualifying Round in the 1999/2000 season, beating Cobham and Selsey before losing to Herne Bay. As for the FA Vase, the club progressed as far as the 4th Round in the 1976/77 season, beating Reigate Priory, Fisher Athletic, Chichester City and Eastbourne Town before losing to Farnborough Town.

My Visit

Originally, upon returning to Guildford on Monday for University, I was going to head to Maidenhead United on Tuesday night for their County Cup match against Marlow. However, after a tiring and busy Monday, I ended up deciding against this, partially out of fatigue but also because I probably could not actually afford it. This proved to be a wise decision, as I noticed that the match ended up going to extra-time and penalties; I doubt I would have been able to get a train back to Guildford after that if I had gone.

This meant that, after a slow start to my footballing year, my next match would not be until yesterday. I had taken a cursory look on the Futbology App and online over Christmas to begin gauging my options, but I had this match slated in as first choice for a while. However, with it raining heavily on the day after my arrival in Guildford, I decided to prepare a list of back-ups to be safe.

Fortunately, as the week progressed towards the weekend, it became both drier and milder, so it didn't seem like my back-ups would end up proving necessary. And, with yesterday being mild and sunny, this proved to be the case. This allowed me to order my train tickets early and to get ready at a leisurely pace. With Farnham being one of my closest options from Guildford, I was able to have lunch at a normal time and did not need to head towards the train station until well after 1pm.

However, I ended up leaving slightly later than I had originally intended to, so this meant that I arrived at the station with just over five minutes to spare, having stopped to withdraw some cash on the way. This meant I was slightly rushed in collecting my tickets and getting onto the train, but other than that the journey towards Farnham was uneventful, being a simple twenty minutes on the train.

From the station, it was a fifteen-minute walk to the ground, which made me note that getting the 5:05pm train back to Guildford would be difficult if there was any notable amount of added time in the match. Either way, I arrived at the ground at 2:30pm, paying a steep £7 for admission (steep for Step 5 football, let alone Step 6 football) and an additional £1 for the last programme.

After taking a moment to put on my hat and scarf (as it had already started to get colder at this point), I did as much of my usual circuit of photos as the ground's layout allowed, before positioning myself by the turnstiles in the hope that the team sheet would be filled out before kick-off. Fortunately, it was, and after I got a photo of it I moved across to the other side as the match kicked off due to the low sun shining directly into my eyes on the near side. For the second half, I sat in the main stand overlooking the pitch.

The form guide and table suggested that only one outcome was likely here, with it seemingly just being a matter of how many Farnham could score. However, in the back of my mind I was aware of the fact that February has been a month of poor games in both my years of University so far, so I was wary of this match following that trend.

Here's my report on a poor match which saw Farnham labour to victory against a hard-working but limited Eversley & California side:

Eversley & California almost took the lead within the first minute of the match after earning a free kick on the edge of the box, but the chance was wasted. After this, the opening exchanges were fairly even as Farnham probed to find a way through a compact Eversley & California defence, while the away side sought to contain their opponents and score on the counter.

This meant the match remained at an impasse for a while, but as the match progressed Farnham started to take control, comfortably sweeping up the away side's attempts to attack while constantly pushing forwards. However, their first half-decent chance didn't come until the 28th minute, when Matt Glass shot wide on the half-volley after a ball over the top. Seven minutes later, the home side made their pressure count and took the lead, Glass beating the offside trap and then passing across goal for Charlie Oakley to tap in.

Farnham remained in control as the second half began, but they continued to struggle in front of goal: they were able to transition from the defensive third to the attacking third with ease, but every time they reached the final third their decision-making let them down, allowing Eversley & California to get back and defend. In the 57th minute, Oakley should have scored his second with a free header at the far post, but he somehow put it well over the bar.

In the 68th minute, Eversley & California were reduced to ten men after Dale Small - who had defended valiantly up to this point - fouled a Farnham attacker on the edge of the box and was judged to be the last man by the linesman. After a delay to get the player to leave the side of the pitch, the free kick was taken by Ross Drury; he shot low beneath the wall, but it was an easy save for Eversley & California keeper Liam Vaughan.

Farnham having the man advantage did little to change proceedings, as they continued to be profligate in front of goal. They did start pushing more and more men up the pitch in search of a second, match-winning goal, but this left space for Eversley & California to attack on the counter. Despite this, the best chance still came the home side's way in the 82nd minute with a free header from a cross, forcing Vaughan into an excellent close range save.

So, it is already looking like February this year will follow the pattern of the previous two years, as this was not an enjoyable match to watch at all. Farnham had plenty of chances to increase their margin of victory, but they rarely looked like they would score. As for Eversley & California, they worked hard to try and get something out of the match, but I don't think the Farnham keeper had a save to make.

Because of the stoppage time in the second half, I ended up just missing the 5:05pm train back to Guildford, meaning I had a 30 minute wait for the next one. To pass the time, I crossed the road and went to a fish and chips shop close to the station, ordering some whitebait and a sausage and eating them on the platform while I waited for the train. The journey back to Guildford took twenty minutes again and, after stopping at Sainsbury's on the way back to the house, I got in at around 6:25pm.

Up next is hopefully going to be a long-overdue visit to Leatherhead next Saturday, as they take on Bishop's Stortford. It's a ground I've been looking forward to visiting for a while, and that match is the perfect opportunity for it with former Norwich striker Jamie Cureton likely to be playing for Bishop's Stortford.

The Ground

The Memorial Ground is a quirky, characterful ground which is looking a little worse for wear in some places. There is cover on two sides of the ground, with the main stand positioned on the hill behind the near goal. This stand contains around 50 seats (some of which are damaged) and provides an excellent view from above the pitch.

The rest of the ground is flat, with an additional area of standing cover on the far side. Some benches inside this small stand offer seating, but it is mostly used for standing. Directly across from this, a new stand seems to be being built, with the sides and back in place.

That aside, the rest of the ground is open hard standing, though the area behind the far goal is out of bounds to spectators. The clubhouse is located within the car park just outside the ground. The ground has an official capacity of 1,500.

Photos

Notts County - Meadow Lane

Notts County FC

Meadow Lane

Nottingham

Nottinghamshire

NG2 3HJ

Official Website

Twitter 

Ground: 104

Date: Saturday 18th January 2020

Notts County 0-0 Dover Athletic

National League

Attendance: 5,157 (official)

Notts County - 5 Facts

1) Notts County were founded in 1862 and are one of the oldest football clubs in the world, as well as the oldest professional football club in the world. The club became founder members of the Football League in 1888.

2) For most of the club's history, they have plied their trade in the bottom two divisions of the Football League, with irregular spells in the top two tiers. The club's best ever finish came in the 1890/91 season when they finished 3rd in the top tier.

3) At the end of the 1991/92 season, the club were relegated from Division 1 into Division 2, missing out on a place in the opening season of the Premier League. Since then, the club have never competed in the top tier again. The club have not competed in the second tier since relegation to Division 2 at the end of the 1994/95 season. 

4) After that relegation, the club spent the next two and a half decades drifting between the third and fourth tiers. After falling short in the 2017/18 League 2 play-offs, the club had a disastrous 2018/19 season and finished second-from-bottom, suffering relegation out of the Football League for the first time ever.

5) The club reached the FA Cup final for the first time in the 1890/91 season, but lost out to Blackburn Rovers. Three seasons later, the club reached the final again, this time beating Bolton Wanderers to win their first and only FA Cup. The club have reached the Quarter Finals of the Football League Cup three times, most recently in the 1975/76 season. The club also won the Anglo-Italian Cup in the 1994/95 season, beating Italian side Ascoli in the final.

My Visit

After I came back home for Christmas just over a month ago, I started looking at groundhopping options to tide me over until I return to University. I was always planning for two groundhops outside of Yaxley's two scheduled away games at new grounds during that time: one would be on the train and the other would see me asking for a lift. This then changed when the visits to Halesowen and Wantage were both postponed, leaving me with an extra groundhop on the train (that ended up being Downham Town a few weeks back).

Originally, I was considering heading to Norwich's FA Cup match at Preston two weeks ago on the train, but I didn't think that would be worth it after a series of disappointing results. Instead, I decided to hold off on the groundhop on the train until yesterday (with the 11th originally being slated for the Halesowen visit which was postponed), allowing me to take in Yaxley's home match against St. Neots on the 4th instead.

To find a match on the 18th, I looked at Nearby Fixtures on the Futbology App and found a few which were potentially feasible on the train. However, issues with Greater Anglia meant my options soon became very restricted. This was one of the few that were available and, after doing some research on how much it would all cost, I decided to go for it. However, I opted to wait until after Christmas and just before the New Year to order my match and train tickets (the latter so as to avoid the New Year price hike on train tickets), paying £14 for the match ticket (and a few admin fees) and around £17 for the return ticket to Nottingham.

During my initial research, I noticed a lot of pubs within the proximity of the ground and, with train times working out reasonably well for it, I opted to have a pre-match meal in Nottingham to make more of a day of it (rather than just going to and from the match as I usually end up doing). I ended up opting for the Trent Bridge Inn for my pre-match meal, though I was prepared to adjust that plan in case of an unlikely postponement (another good reason to get an early train in).

Eventually, the day of the match rolled around and, after a wet and miserable week of Storm Brendan (which saw Yaxley's visit to Wantage postponed yet again), it was a cold but sunny day, so no need to worry about back-up plans. I was driven to the train station and dropped off at 11:10am, picking up my train tickets before heading to the platform to wait for the train. The journey from there to Nottingham took around an hour and I killed the time by playing on my 3DS and occasionally flicking through Twitter.

The train arrived in Nottingham at around 12:30pm and I set off from the station to find the Trent Bridge Inn. Initially, Google Maps led me into a housing estate to get to the bridge, but it neglected to make any mention of the fact that the footpath was completely closed partway down, meaning I wasted around five minutes rerouting myself and getting out of the estate. Still, I made it to the bridge itself before 1pm, taking a quick photo of Forest's ground before going across and into the Trent Bridge Inn (it looked quite nice from the outside, so I wish I had bothered to get a photo of it now).

With any luck, I'll be able to get here next season

Naturally, being just around lunchtime, it was rather busy inside, but I was able to find a free table in the back. From there, I used the Wetherspoons app to order a BBQ bacon beef burger, adding an egg on the side to put in the burger as well. This and my drink - a J20, as I'm not hugely fond of alcohol in all honesty - cost me £7.50 and arrived within about ten minutes. It was a great meal and really filled me up, but when I was finished it had only just gone 1:30pm, so I sat in the pub for another half an hour before making my way back across the bridge to the ground.

It was easy enough to find my way to the ground but, after looking at my ticket, I realised that I was at the completely wrong side and that I was going to have to walk the whole way round to get to the right turnstiles. This cost me a further ten minutes, though I was able to pick up a programme for £3 on the way (though I had nowhere to store it as I didn't have my bag with me, as I was expecting stringent security checks and strict rules on what was and wasn't allowed in).

As I walked around the outside of the ground, I took a few photos to keep myself occupied before eventually reaching the intended turnstiles. Once I did, it was simply a manner of getting my ticket scanned and being allowed in, without any of the checks I had been expecting to encounter (though that doesn't guarantee that this would have been the case if I did have a bag with me).

From there, I headed into the concourse beneath the stand and went to the toilet before going up to find my seat. At the top of the stairs out of the concourse, I took a few photos of the ground before climbing the steep steps to my seat. From there, I took a few more photos (all of these were on my phone, as I expected they wouldn't allow people to use cameras, as is often the case at higher levels) and sat down for a bit, before heading back down into the concourse to grab a bottle of water. After that, I returned to my seat and remained there throughout the match.

Going into this match, Notts County had the better of the table and the form book, so I was expecting them to be favourites in this fixture. However, with their manager having just won manager of the month for December, I was wary of the potential for the manager of the month curse influencing things.

 Only Notts County bothered to post a teamsheet on Twitter, so I had no clue who was playing for Dover until I checked to write my report

Here's my report on a dour football match which saw Dover earn the point they came for against a relatively toothless Notts County side:

Notts County started the match on the front foot and earned themselves a corner within the first minute, though they didn't make it count. They remained in control for the first ten or so minutes as Dover tried to weather the storm and get a hold of the ball. In the 14th minute, Wes Thomas could have given Notts the lead with a low shot from a cross, but it went narrowly wide for a goal kick.

As the away side started to gain a foothold in the match, the chances began to run dry for the home side and we quickly reached an impasse: Notts had most of the ball but were struggling to break through the resilient Dover backline, whereas Dover lacked a real outlet to counter with as Inih Effiong was isolated up-front. The home side had the half's best chance in the 41st minute when Thomas' low shot from the edge of the box was saved by the feet of Dover keeper Lee Worgan, before the attempted rebound was easily caught.

The home side also started the second half on the front foot and began to stretch the play, leading to another excellent chance for Thomas: a through ball split the Dover defence and set him through one-on-one, but the shot lacked conviction and was easily palmed clear. After another long spell of the two sides cancelling each other out, Dover had their best chance of the match in the 69th minute: after a free kick was headed clear, Shadrach Ogie attempted a volley but was narrowly off-target.

The rest of the second half was a scrappy affair as Dover attempted to run the clock down and Notts tried to fight through and push for a winner. Both sides had chances here and there, but there was little flow to proceedings and neither keeper had much to do. Thanks to a late head injury to Dover's Ricky Modeste, there were ten minutes of injury time and Notts almost secured the win at the death: from a free kick on the edge of the box, Enzio Boldewijn shot beneath the wall and towards goal, but his effort hit the post and was cleared.

So, a poor match which put a slight damper on an otherwise enjoyable afternoon out: neither keeper really had much to do, as Dover never really threatened to score besides set pieces and Notts County couldn't really break through often enough to create good chances. Still, it was a fine afternoon out at an extremely impressive ground for this level.

As would be expected with a crowd of over 5,000, it took a while to get out of the ground, but once I did it was a short walk back to the station, where I had a twenty-minute wait for the train back to Peterborough. This ended up leaving five minutes late, but it still got me back into Peterborough at around 6:40pm as I was expecting.

I won't be watching any more football matches before I return to University in eight days, so my next groundhop will be on the 28th when I visit another of the National League's Magpies: I'll hopefully be visiting Maidenhead United for their county cup match against Marlow.

The Ground

Meadow Lane is an impressive all-seater ground which wouldn't look out of place in the Championship. The ground has 20,211 seats, but its official capacity for football matches is currently 18,816. The Derek Pavis Stand - where I was seated - is the largest stand at the ground with 6,715 seats. Directly across from this is the Jimmy Sirrel Stand, which is exclusively for away fans and contains 5,775 seats.

The Kop is the larger of the two stands behind the goals, with 5,440 seats compared to the 2,281 seats of the Hayden Green Family Stand. The Kop is the tallest stand at the ground and contained the most vocal of the home supporters.

The record attendance at the ground - before it became an all-seater stadium - was 47,310 for an FA Cup match against York City in 1955.

Photos