My initial intention hadn’t been to go to the Boro’s away fixture at Sheffield Wednesday. However, I saw that a cup final was taking place in Mexborough, just half an hour’s drive from Hillsborough on the morning of the Boro’s game. A meaningful game at a venue with an interesting history was enough to tip the balance, and so we headed down to Sheffield for a couple of nights.
Jan and I broke the journey by stopping at Wharncliffe Woods, just north of Sheffield. We picked walking trails at random, although with a loose intention of making our way to a reservoir that we’d seen on a signboard in the car park. We didn’t manage to find it but spent a pleasant couple of hours wandering around. There wasn’t much in the way of wildlife, just some butterflies and a tethered Shetland pony.
The next morning, I drove past Hillsborough and on to Mexborough, where I parked on a side street close to the Fireparts Ground at Hampden Road. The game was the final of the Montague Cup, a competition that had been in existence since the 1896-97 season and is held to be the oldest football final still played at its original venue. It traditionally takes place on an Easter Monday.
This year’s final was between AFP Pewter Pot of the Mexborough Sunday League and Westville, a Sunday League side from Rotherham.
I paid my three quid admission and was given a free programme. The ground had a covered stand along one side, with terracing along the remainder of that side and at both ends. The side opposite the main stand was open as the pitch adjoined a cricket field.
In the corner was an old pavilion which I suspected dated from at least the time of the first Montague Cup final.
As I’d arrived well before kick-off, I was able to take a seat in the main stand. There was rain in the air, and I was keen to stay dry. The previous couple of years had seen crowds of around sixteen to eighteen hundred, but the lack of Bank Holiday sunshine meant that only thirteen hundred or so spectators turned up for this one. Even so, that must be a thrill for lads who normally play in front of between twenty and thirty people.
There was a mix of families, young lads on the beer, old blokes and weirdos like me. People were still making their way in late in the first half, possibly having found that all the parking had been taken in the surrounding streets.
Westville were the better side and went a goal up ten minutes before the break. The looked to have sealed it with a second twenty minutes from time. There was late drama though when Pewter Pot scored with a minute remaining. They piled on the pressure and thought that they had equalised in added time, only to be thwarted by the lino’s flag.
There was some argy-bargy at full-time and as I had a game to watch at Hillsborough I left them to it and cleared off before Westville lifted the cup.
Tags: Mexborough, Montague Cup, shetland pony
Trail of the Lion King 
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