After catching a few minutes of a fifteenth-tier game on the field outside I made my way into the Riverside Sports Complex. There was a T20 game going on next door in Durham’s cricket ground, but with a fairly steady light rain it didn’t seem to have attracted many spectators.
It was a fiver to get in and, somewhat unusually these days, I was given a paper ticket. The bloke on the door asked me if I’d been before and when I replied that I hadn’t he directed me upstairs to a lounge where I was able to get a coffee. The fella before me in the queue managed to carry a pint in one hand with a wriggling toddler in the other. Never an easy task.
The fixture was in the second division of the Northern League and featured Chester-Le-Street United, in a gold and black kit against Billingham Town who were playing in blue with a white band.
The home side were only founded in 2020. Billingham Town are a lot longer established and are probably best known for having transferred Gary Pallister to the Boro in exchange for a pork pie and a Strawberry Cornetto.
I watched the first half from the balcony outside of the lounge. This provided an elevated view across the running track. If I’d wanted to be a bit closer, then there was the option of a small, covered stand behind the goal to my left.
I overheard someone mention that one of the home centre-halves was former Hartlepool player Michael Nelson. I looked him up and he’d played as high as the Championship with Norwich and Scunthorpe as well as winning the Scottish League Cup with Kilmarnock. He was also forty-three, which impressed me no end.
It was scrappy early on with neither side having a shot on target in the opening half-hour. Billingham Town went ahead shortly before half-time with a penalty that the fella just drove straight down the middle of the goal.
That was my cue to head inside for steak pie, chips and gravy and then go downstairs to watch the rest of the game from pitch-side.
It was steady-away for most of the second half until a floaty cross eluded the visiting keeper and was nodded home with twenty minutes to go to level the scores. Chester-Le-Street may as well not have bothered though as Town went straight down the other end to restore their lead. They added another on the break ten minutes from time before a consolation from the home side with the last kick of the game concluded matters for a three-two away win.
Tags: Billingham Town, Gary Pallister, Northern League, Pork Pie and a Cornetto
Trail of the Lion King 
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