Where are you going?

Started the day with a plan to go to my nearest team, Cinderford Town Vs Thornburg Town, Hellenic League Premier.
It rained a bit overnight and as the pitch is laid on granite and clay, the game was called off, waterlogged. As it was the last time I wanted to go there. So, determined not to be denied I rocked up to Gloucester City Vs Braintree Town FA Vase Round 2.
It's been chaos at Gloucester this season but I appear to be a bit of a lucky charm😁. Already having sacked one manager, Tim Flowers (ex England goalie) Mike Cook took over, but with the same results. Last Thursday the new Chairman and Ops Director resigned leaving the club rudderless. Bumped into an acquaintance whose son owns the stadium who was there and I was introduced. As a result we sat in the directors box which apart from the three of us was completely empty. The box was equal to two of the Rovers boxes in the West Stand, and had 3 fridges of fully stocked alcohol. Rovers have none.
The mood amongst the fans was despairing, most accepted they will be in the Southern League next season.
Braintree are going will in the National League South, having won their last outing 1-4 away.
Lo and behold after a pretty tedious 0-0 first half Gloucester came out and won the game 3-0!! There was terrace entertainment when some of the 5ft kids started to waive their arms and running at a couple of dozen Braintree fans. It was hilarious.

Liam Armstrong ex Rovers Goalie was in goal for Gloucester and did ok, Santos, ex Rovers winger was cup tied.

A very well run bar with a large range of fizzy lagers and ciders ensured everyone was served very quickly. There is a really good burger bar.

On that display Gloucester have a chance of staying up, if the behind the scenes stuff can be sorted out.

Entry £10 concession
Lager £5
Parking free, behind a factory on the local trading estate.
Directors Box, free and out of respect I didn't touch the free booze in the fridges.

I will definitely go again, Spennymore Town next up.

Just noticed that bit of spelling stupidity🤓
Thornbury Town obviously

Larkhall Athletic vs Paulton Rovers Southern league south div 1

Local derby at Lark’s pretty Plain Ham ground and a tale of 3 penalties. Paulton missed theirs after about 10 mins and then after that offered nothing going forward. I really enjoyed Larkhall’s opening goal - a real throwback to the past. Some good wing play. Cross whipped in with pace and a thumping header from their CF Ferris. They scored a second shortly after from a penalty which looked very harsh to me when Paulton defender made a sliding block tackle and ball was drilled into him. In the second half Larks got and scored their second penalty this one looked much clearer cut when a defender needlessly tripped a home player as he was carrying the ball away from goal. A fourth was added not long after that when home number 9 Regula completed his hat trick with a really crisp finish after some neat build up play to add to the two excellent penalties he took.

Home side were well worthy of their win and could have had more having a dubious offside decision go against them to chalk off a 5th. Ref was pretty fussy and needlessly stopped the flow of the game on a fair few occasions

Att 170. £10 entrance, £2 for good hard copy programme and £1.50 for a tea.

Definitely a club and ground I would return to

No obvious Gas connections that I could spot

Buckhurst Hill 0 Sporting Bengal 1 (Essex Senior League, tier 9). Nov 25th. Pushed for time due to Christmas tree buying and cycling (not at the same time). So the most local game to me and still missed kick off by 5 minutes. Buckhurst Hill (Stags) have been struggling a bit and I didn't recognise any players from the promotion side of a couple of years ago. New manager as well by the looks of it. Bengal were stuffed by Frenford a few weeks ago, so I was expecting a closeish game. £8 entry and no prgrammes (usually free) as problems at the printers. A sparse crowd for Buckhurst Hill, though with the O's at home that usually makes a dent on attendance. And very cold. Bengal much better on the ball and took control early on. On about 15 mins their No. 7 twisted and turned in the Stags box and delivered a chip to the keepers left and the ball was headed in. Not too much goal mouth incidents for the rest of the half. The atmosphere was ruined by the Bengal manager who berated the officials non-stop. Despite the game being well officiated. Example
Bengal manager: "Oy, Ref - for f*cks sake, clearly our f**king corner".
Ref: "Don't shout at me, talk to me. You were 60 yards away and I was there, goal kick".
HT pretty much the entire crowd headed to the small but well equipped bar (nothing on tap though). £4 for a can of Stella was a bit cheeky. Tempted to watch the 2nd half from the warm bar, but that really isn't the done thing. The moon was rising over the Buckhurst Hill goal in the 2nd half, shame my phone camera is so crap. Things were getting a bit feisty as the Stags got frustrated by their lack of ability. A melee around the hour mark, but the referee got it back under control. A Bengal attack as the Stags pushed forward left them with a 1 on 1, rounded the keeper and was taken out. Stonewall penalty. Really badly taken as the ball trundled harmlessly to the keepers right and he could just as easily have picked it up as dive. Buckhurst Hill offered very little in the final third and Bengal thoroughly deserved their three points.
Fun fact. Sporting Bengal have no Bangladeshi players and if their manager is anything to go by, are not very Sporting at all.
Entry: £8. No programme. An extortionate £4 can of Stella. Reassuringly expensive? Maybe when it was 5.2% - not when it's barely stronger than Fosters!
Attendance: A rather pitiful 45. A friend of mine had previously mentioned there were 'big problems behind the scenes at Buckhurst Hill" and the poor crowd seemed to reflect that.

Bristol Rovers 1 Cheltenham Town 1 (EFL League 1, tier 3). A long trip along the M25 and M4 to Bath and then on to Horfield. Bristol Rovers were formed in 1883, usually play in a superb blue & white quartered shirt and are colloquially known as the Gas. Their supporters are called Gasheads. Cheltenham were formed in 1887, play in red and white, and share a nickname with the 6 fingered scum from south of the river Avon. A quick beer with my son in a local establishment known as "The Wellie". A lot of rain overnight, but the pitch was in good condition. A cold, blustery day. The opposition manager (a certain Mr Darrell Clarke) received a very warm welcome from both sets of supporters. He behaved impeccably throughout, and seems a thoroughly decent fellow. We stood behind the dugout on the East Terrace. Tickets for the Thatchers (nee Blacktorn) terrace had sold out. The 1st half had Rovers playing like an Essex Senior League team. A big mistake from LB Gibbons led to Cheltenham taking a deserved lead. Rovers offered nothing. Playing like 11 strangers who had never met before. Being booed off at HT was unnecessary though, Matt Taylors first league game in charge. Tried unsuccessfully to get a beer half time - but at least was in the warm for 10 minutes. Efficiency of bar service as poor as Haringey Borough. Shambolic. Gibbons subbed at HT and Rovers looked a totally different side in the 2nd half. Rovers well on top and a deserved equalizer was scored from the RB Hunt as he latched on to a loose ball. The substitutions made Rovers look better and perhaps they were unlucky not to take all 3 points.
Entry £26. A bit steep for a terrace without a roof. Couldn't see a programme for sale, but wouldn't have bought one anyway. A pint of Thatchers Dry after the game £4:50 (I think).
Attendance: 8,346. A good turn out given the quality of football on display. Will I go back? On balance, probably. When it's warmed up a bit.

Gloucester City V Darlington today. A coach load of Darlo fans here. What a disaster for that club, from selling their traditional home to being taken over by what turned out to be a criminal and a big stadium which they do not play in to the National League North. A study in how not to run a football club.

Match report later

Edit: Attendance 326

Alvechurch FC vs Hitchin Town, Southern League prem Central.

Interesting but generally low quality game not helped by a pitch that was soft on top but hard underneath at Alvechurch’s sloping Lye Meadow ground. Home side produced the odd flash of invention and creation in the first half without being able to put these together into any sort of move. Hitchin produced the very few half chances on display and took the lead when a corner landed at the feet of a totally unmarked player who scored through a crowd of players. Really poor goal defensively.

Home side equalised in second half with a goal that was worth the £10 admission fee on its own. #9 Dan Sweeney - best player on the day by a country mile picked up a loose ball outside the box, turned the Hitchin defence inside out and then after carving out a yard of space for himself curled the ball into the top left corner over the rest of their defence and keeper. It really was a staggeringly good goal. I’ll post a link if I can work out how to do that.

Sweeney is one who is worth a look I think. Big unit, strong and has a really good first touch. Reminded me a bit of JCH. Some red lights though - appears to be carrying some timber (nothing that a decent pre-season wouldn’t sort) and has a larger bag of clubs than Rory McIlroy. Maybe with the right manager he could settle somewhere. I also don’t like the way his agent is hawking him around to EFL clubs in public on twitter. You could argue that his agent is doing his job but it doesn’t sit well with me when he is playing for a club and should be done in private. At the very least it makes him look a bit of a big time Charlie. Lad definitely has talent though.

Home side had a good grip of the game by now and scored a winner also direct from a corner which landed on the head of an unmarked player. Another poor defensive goal and unusual to see two goals from corners. Home side closed out a deserved 2-1 win without any alarms but in truth Hitchin were very poor second half and offered nothing and got exactly what they deserved. Church need the points more too being in the final relegation spot whilst Hitchin sit in 8th.

Church have mock up plans in their clubhouse for an impressive new stadium complex. I hope they become reality rather than gather dust like ours usually have. They need it to progress beyond where they are as current ground is barely adequate for current level and there is lots of local non-league competition around them with the likes of Bromsgrove, Redditch etc. catchment area could potentially support an EFL club so good luck to them.

£3 for an excellent hard copy programme £2 for two teas and crowd probably just over 200

I still feel ill thinking about the obvious Rovers connection and would have enjoyed the visitors getting a right spanking


x.com/alvechurch1st/status/1748810605060882758?s=48 Sweeney goal

Nothing wrong with a bit of Schadenfreude. The worst thing about that game was that they totally deserved it