Archive for September, 2025

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North Ormesby v Redcar Town Reserves, Saturday 27th September 2025, 2pm

September 28, 2025

The day’s main event was the Gathering Sounds music festival in Stockton, which starts early afternoon and goes on until late evening. I’m not one for knocking back the beer for hours on end these days and so thought that if I took in game with a two o’clock kick-off first then I could be in town for around 5pm. It all went to plan, and Jen and I saw a few bands before meeting up with friends a couple of hours in.

Most of the early bands that we saw were ok, but nothing special. O’Phantom in Arc2, Risco in Ku Bar and End Credits in The Social Room. Highlight of the day for me was The Kairos, I’ll certainly look into them a little more. Paul had come primarily to see a young Sheffield band, Cruz. I thought that a couple of their songs were foot tappers, but they didn’t really grab my attention. Mark steered us back to The Social Room for Carsick, a band that I’ve seen before, and thought were decent last time. I was less impressed with them on this occasion, maybe they’ve changed direction a little.

We ended up in The Georgian, primarily for their tables and chairs than for any of the bands, and it was a good end to the evening.

The football earlier in the day was in the eleventh tier Premier Division of the North Riding League. North Ormesby were hosting Redcar Town Reserves on the far pitch at the Unity City Academy. That’s a school in old money. The North Riding League is a feeder to the Northern League. Despite the trek across the fields and the lack of any seating or even hardstanding, thirty-five people had turned out to watch.

One of the linos was late and so we had the unusual situation where the one who had turned up just loitered by the halfway line until the other one arrived. The Redcar manager seemed to have the ear of the ref and regularly persuaded him to make North Ormesby move their free-kicks back a few yards. This infuriated the home side, but I suspect that they would have achieved similar results if they had agitated for them in the same way. Instead, they spent their time shouting on the ‘doggy boys’ with rallying calls such as ‘doggy organise’ or ‘doggy focus.’

The standard was poor and maybe ‘doggy shite’ was more appropriate. I doubt that any of the players on show would have looked comfortable one step higher. Very few moves lasted more than a couple of passes before breaking down and it seemed for a while that neither side would even get a shot on target.

The Doggy Boys broke the deadlock just before half time with a penalty. They looked as if they might hold on to their lead, but a Redcar equalizer five minutes from full-time gave the visitors a share of the points.

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Horseracing at Beverley, Tuesday 23rd September 2025

September 24, 2025

I don’t think I’d been to Beverley races before. I remember attending an evening meeting down that way when I was working at Immingham some forty years ago, but as everything at Beverley looked new to me, perhaps that was Market Rasen. Maybe I should keep a list of courses I’ve attended. Perhaps I already do but have forgotten about it.

Anyway, I had some work meetings in the afternoon and Jen and I didn’t leave the house until 2.30pm. Fortunately Hickton wasn’t running until the final race of the day at 5.20pm and so we arrived with time to spare. Lots of cars were already leaving and parking was easy enough in the Owners Car Park. The fella on the gate didn’t even check our names before handing over our badges.

Hickton has been showing some decent form recently, with two third place and one second place finishes in his past four runs. This race was over a slightly shorter distance of ten furlongs, but the soft ground and the stiff uphill finish were generally considered to suit him.

The ground had been heavy up until the day before and that may have prompted a lot of withdrawals. By the time that they went to post, only six horses remained in the field. The bookies rated Hickton as the outsider in the field and he went off at 18/1.

Zak held him up as planned in the early stages and he made his move up the inside with a couple of furlongs to go. Unfortunately, he was blocked on the rail and just about stopped dead before rallying at the end for a fast finishing third place. Zak thought that he would have won with a clear run and it’s hard to argue with that.

He’ll probably run again next week if the ground stays soft, but I’d like to see him return to Beverley next year to have another crack at that uphill finish. It seems to suit him.

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Middlesbrough v West Brom, Friday 19th September 2025, 8pm

September 23, 2025

I quite like it when the Boro game is rescheduled for a Friday night. I appreciate that it messes things up for those who have to travel a fair distance, but for me the freeing up of my Saturday works a treat.

I picked up Harry and Tom and an added Friday bonus was that we were able to park closer to the ground than we usually do.

Rob Edwards had made some changes after the draw at Preston. Strelec and Nypan came in to claim what will likely be regular starting berths. Lenihan was out, either with a new injury or for careful management of his previous one, depending upon which report you believed. George Edmundson slotted into the back three and got his head to everything including someone else’s skull. That gave him a big egg on one eye and meant he had to be subbed before half-time. He did very well though and, as we are short of centre-halves at the moment, hopefully it won’t keep him out for long.

We looked the better side without ever really dominating and first Boro goals for Strelec and Sene clinched the points. Morris and Hackney were a class above in midfield and must be the best central pairing in the division. The win maintained our unbeaten start to the season and took us four points clear of second placed Stoke. How does it go? Oh, yes. We are top of the league, say, we are top of the league.

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Alvsby IF v Bergnasets AIK 2, Wednesday 17th September 2025, 7.30pm

September 22, 2025

It was time for my monthly trip to Lulea, but as the nights are drawing in and most of the nearby teams are in the lower tiers, the general lack of floodlights at their grounds meant that I had very few games to choose from. Alvsby are in the sixth tier Norrbotten Sodra, but their Alvakra IP sports complex is big enough to have lights and so that’s where I went. Alvsbyn is a small town of around five thousand people, but it is on the east coast train line, so reasonably accessible, even in mid-winter.

I didn’t need the train as I had a car and managed to do the forty-five minute journey in the daylight, accompanied by my workmate Steve. He’s a Wolves fan, so was quite happy to take his mind off their Premier League woes with some Swedish groundhopping. There were roadside signs for moose, but disappointingly we didn’t see any.

What we did see was some snow on the running track at the ground. Steve reckoned that it must have recently fallen, but I like to think that it was the remnants of a forty-foot-high pile, cleared from the pitch back in March.

We got chatting with the lady taking the gate money. When he heard that we’d travelled from Lulea she offered to let us in for free. As she’d only just told us about the role that the club played in the community, particularly for some of the less well-off kids, it didn’t seem right to accept her generous offer though and we handed over the recommended four quid admission fee.

The gate lady also told us about the respective teams. This was the penultimate game of the season for both sides and the final home fixture for Alvsby. They would finish between fourth and sixth in the table depending on the results in those two fixtures, but promotion was out of reach.

Visitors Bergnasets were a development side but apparently would often strengthen their team with first team players. She’d heard that for tonight’s game they would be fielding mostly youngsters, giving her hope that Alvsby might come out on top.

Her hopes materialized with the home side taking the lead in the first minute. Bergnasets equalized, but in an open first half where either side could have scored five, the teams went off at the break with Alvsby two-one up.

I liked the ref. He was willing to overturn a penalty that he had awarded after a chat with the lino and then later on after mistakenly brandishing a red instead of yellow, he acknowledged his error when he saw the colour rather than brazening it out by sticking to his decision.

The temperature off the field dropped quite a bit in the second half and the game could have gone either way. Alvsby finally clinched the points with a third goal in the last minute. There were no moose on the way back either.

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Preston North End v Middlesbrough, Saturday 13th September 2025, 12.30pm

September 15, 2025

I hadn’t planned to see the Boro this weekend. In fact, I’d arranged a weekend over in The Lakes long before the fixtures were released. I’d spotted a Boo Hewerdine gig near Kendal and booked two nights in a 1958 vintage Airstream caravan just twenty minute’s walk from the Staveley Pavilion venue.

The airstream was an interesting experience. It was very stylish but the toilet was so cramped that when having a dump I needed to extend my feet into the kitchen area.

The gig was good. Boo was performing by himself, albeit with two support acts. It was a sold-out capacity of around sixty in a hut also used by 1st Staveley Scouts. Tea and coffee was free if you made it yourself and alcohol was available from the pub across the road, as long as you took your own glass.

My plan had been to look out for a lower level game in the Westmorland or West Lancashire Leagues, but when checking what was on, I discovered that we were only forty-eight minute’s drive from Deepdale. At that distance, the chance to see the Boro attempt a record breaking fifth consecutive league win at the start of a season was too much to pass up.

I headed down the M6 to a pre-booked parking spot in Sainsbury’s. It worked well until after the game when it took me longer to get out of the car park than it did to drive the rest of the journey back to Staveley. As I hadn’t anticipated a three-quarters of an hour bottleneck, I exceeded my booked time and now expect to receive a parking ticket.

The last time I was at Preston, I didn’t have enough priority points for an away ticket, so Harry and I had to go in the home hospitality section. This time I was one of the 5,700 Boro fans in the Shankly Stand behind the goal. It was a decent atmosphere, or at least it was until Preston scored their opener, but the big crowds always attract a disproportionate number of glass-half empty people who like to make their displeasure known. The applause for Whittaker’s substitution was disgraceful.

I thought we were off the pace in the first half but got better after the break with the staggered introductions of Strelec, Nypan and Hansen. Once we get to a stage where all three are starting, we’ll be quite a force.

It all appeared to go tits up when Preston went 2-1 ahead with just two minutes remaining, but Hansen’s added time equalizer felt like a win. We are top of the league, say, we are top of the league.

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AFC Halifax Town v Middlesbrough U21, Tuesday 9th September 2025, 7pm

September 10, 2025

I’d originally planned to drive up to Newbiggin for a Northern League game, but then I noticed that the Boro’s U21 team were playing away at Halifax Town in that competition where the lower ranked teams field their first team against the kid’s sides from those higher up the leagues. I’m sure the rules of the competition spell it out more clearly, but that is the gist of it.

There was a handy and free car park outside The Shay and it was ten quid cash-only admission at the turnstiles. I picked up a steak pie with gravy and took a seat in the main stand, which was the only one that had been opened. The unused covered terraces behind the two goals looked great, a real throwback to how grounds used to be.

Boro had included some players from the first team squad, no doubt to get some minutes into their legs. Lenihan and Edmundson formed the centre-half partnership with Micah Hamilton on the left of the three behind Sonny Finch. The two defenders were withdrawn at the break, presumably having enough of a run out, with Hamilton not far behind.

There wasn’t much of a crowd, just 207. I wondered whether it might be the lowest ever for a Halifax game, but a quick online search revealed that just 195 people watched Sunderland at The Shay in this competition last year. Clearly, the Boro are a bigger attraction.

Boro didn’t really shine and only Lenihan looked to be first team standard. Finch was busy and took his goal well, but it was hard to see any gap in quality between the sides. The outcome could have gone either way until a late Halifax goal sealed a 2-1 win for the National League side.

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Bridlington Town v Mossley AFC, Saturday 6th September 2025, 3pm

September 9, 2025

I wasn’t a cool kid. I’ve never been cool as an adult either, not even in that ‘so uncool that you actually are cool’ kind of way. As a thirteen year old and when my cool mates were listening to punk and new-wave, I was listening to The Beatles, Mott The Hoople and Darts. Yes, Darts, a doo-wop revival combo.

They were the first band that I ever saw live. Possibly because The Beatles and Mott The Hoople had already broken up. It was at Middlesbrough Town Hall in June 1978 and, as it was half-term, I even popped along to Debenham’s in Stockton for a signing session earlier in the day. The nine Darts members signed my album and singles and didn’t complain when I rejoined the queue and got them to sign a paper bag as well.

Forty-seven years and three months later, Jen and I went along to Cottingham Civic Hall where I saw Darts for a second time. They played all the songs I’d liked as a thirteen-year-old. Four of the nine who had signed my Debenham’s bag were on stage, two others were dead and three had moved on from their doo-wop revival days. It went well. I doubt I’ll see them for a third time, but it was an enjoyable evening of uncool nostalgia.

Cottingham is close to the start of the Yorkshire Wolds Way and as we were staying in the area we took the opportunity to begin yet another of the National Trails. We recently finished the Cleveland Way, a mere thirteen years after starting it, and currently have Hadrian’s Wall and the West Highland Way in progress.

We set off from Hessle and over the course of two days covered fourteen miles walking to Welton and back. The wildlife highlight was a vole that was so fat to be virtually round. I’ve no idea if they hibernate, but if they do, it looked ready.

There were plenty of options to see a game in the eleventh tier Humber Premier League, but instead I chose to drive forty minutes north to Bridlington for a First Qualifying Round tie in the FA Trophy. Bridlington Town of the eighth-tier Northern Premier East Division were taking on Mossley AFC, who play in the equivalent West Division.

The East Division is the league that most Northern League teams are allocated to if they achieve promotion, so I was interested in seeing the relative strengths of the teams. It’s no more than a rough guide though, especially since Bridlington are second in their division, whilst Mossley are towards the bottom end of theirs.

I’d read that there was plenty of parking at the ground, but a quick circuit of the car park suggested that we’d arrived too late. There were plenty of spaces in the nearby streets though and we were soon in the turnstile queue for the Mounting Systems Stadium.

It was nine quid admission and, whilst most of the 455 attendees were already inside, there were plenty of seats in the main covered stand.

In addition to a covered stand that ran the entire length of one side of the pitch, there was also a covered standing area behind one goal and a kind of bus stop structure opposite the main stand. Brid, as their supporters seem to refer to them, had a small group of ultras with a drum, whilst Mossley were supported by around forty fans at the far end.

At half-time I queued for a baked potato at the opposite end and was joined by the Mossley fans who had switched locations to stand behind the goal that their team were now attacking. That sort of flexibility is one of the things that I enjoy about football at this level.

Football-wise, Brid took the lead within the first minute of the game. I wondered if we might expect a rout, but the contest was fairly even after that. The early goal was enough though as the home side held on despite nine minutes of frantic added time efforts from visitors.

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Crewe Alexandra v Swindon Town, Saturday 30th August 2025, 3pm

September 6, 2025

I should really have been at the Boro watching our fourth win from the first four league games, but I had to drive down to Portland in Dorset to pick up a couple of antique fires. It’s a seven-hundred-and-fifty-mile round trip which, despite being within the tank range of my diesel Passat, is too far for me to want to drive in a day.

I chose to stay overnight in Weymouth, which is a classic seaside town. I didn’t arrive until close to 8pm but still had time for a stroll along the seafront and some fish and chips.

Part of the reason for my late arrival was that I broke my journey at Crewe to tick off another of the ninety-two grounds in the English top four divisions.

As I approached the Mornflake Stadium I passed the Crewe Arms hotel which presumably is the temporary home of some refugees. There was a small group of protesters with Union Jacks and St George flags, soliciting honks from passing cars. If their protest was against the use of hotels then it would have been better directed at the actions of the previous Tory governments that as a matter of policy allowed to backlog of asylum cases to rise to the extent that the regular housing was no longer sufficient. If the protest was against those seeking asylum, foreigners in general or simply people with a different coloured skin, then they should fuck right off.

Pleasingly, a larger group stood alongside them holding Refugees Welcome placards. Three police officers were whiling away their day keeping the peace at what seemed to be a non-violent protest from both sides. Perhaps the opposing attendees knew each other. Maybe they had even shared cars to get there.

I’d bought a ticket online for the main stand, which dwarfs the other three. The away fans were opposite and there were some vocal Crewe fans in the stand to my right. My seat was next to a wall for the access steps and whilst it didn’t really impact my view, there was a small kid in the seat in front of me who wasn’t tall enough to see more than a third of the pitch.

I had a meat and potato pie before the game which tasted as if it had been held over from last season and at half-time bought a Bakewell tart from a stall at the back of the concourse. That went down much easier.

It was a pleasant surprise to see Conor Ripley turning out for Swindon. It’s fifteen seasons since he made his Boro debut as a teenager and it’s good to see that he has now clocked up more than three hundred senior appearances. I last saw him playing for Morecambe against the Boro in a pre-season friendly where he reacted with a bit more humour than I might have done to some stick from the fans of his former team.

He did well, making some decent saves and, as a senior member of his team, frequently popping over to the dugout to offer advice to the coaches.

Neither side look good, but Crewe were the worst of the two and went in at the break three-nil behind. Swindon eased off in the second half but still controlled the game. There were no more goals and the visitors took the points.

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Askam Utd v Crooklands Casuals, Saturday 23rd August 2025, 11am

September 5, 2025

The August Bank Holiday weekend is rapidly becoming associated, for me at least, with Sea Power’s Krankenhaus Festival. This will be the fifth one that they’ve held at Muncaster Castle and Jen and I have been to them all. The first one, back in 2019, had fewer than four hundred attendees and probably many of them were gatecrashers who had been alerted to the complete lack of security.

This year the capacity had reached fifteen hundred and that’s as high as I’d like it to go. Part of its charm is the lack of crowds and, whilst I appreciate the need for it to at least break even, it was very full inside the barn for the higher profile bands.

Despite the increased capacity, the festival was still a success. Hamish Hawk was very well received, as he had been last time he appeared. I can’t really understand how he isn’t bigger. There was a short performance from Stewart Lee, prior to him introducing The Nightingales. I wondered if he might struggle a bit as most of his humour relies on slow burning build ups and looping back to previous references. I needn’t have worried, as he nailed it.

The highlight though was Sea Power. It always is. For their Friday night performance, I started off a few feet from the stage, but it got too hot and after being clonked on the head by a surprisingly heavy wooden owl that was being dangled from a fishing rod, I moved to the colder air outside the barn and watched the rest of the set from there.

We stayed offsite, in a small place near Santon Bridge. It was ideal for a Sunday morning walk along a Forestry Commission path to Mitterdale. We didn’t see much in the way of wildlife other than a few sheep and I’m not sure that they count. As you’d expect, the views were great. When the path became boggy, we called it a day and turned around, but the six-mile stroll with plenty of ascent was worth doing.

Unsurprisingly, I took in a football game. I’d originally planned to head up to Whitehaven, but their 3pm kick-off would have meant missing Hamish Hawk. For an alternative I found a game that was kicking off at 11am as part of a groundhopping weekend. It was at Askham and involved an hour-long drive down some country lanes that were barely wide enough for one car, never mind two.

It was a fiver to get in and that included a programme and a team sheet, something that a lot of groundhoppers regard as essential to their experience.

Inclusion on a groundhopper tour significantly boosted the attendance. There were close to four hundred people there, mostly blokes on their own and of a similar age to me. The club had pulled out all of the stops to provide facilities and hopefully make a few bob from the day.

There was a small stall with Askam merchandise, including shirts that were presumably last season’s match kits. Further along, someone had two full tables of pin badges. He also had replicas of the Champions League, Premier League and FA Cup trophies. Selfies could be taken with the trophies at a pound a pop. An outdoor bar sold cans of beer and soft drinks but I resisted all of the spending opportunities until I reached the food stall where I spent my cash on a bacon and egg roll instead.

The Duddon Road ground doesn’t have any stands or seating, although there were a few picnic tables along one side of the pitch. There are houses along two sides of the pitch and some picturesque views of the sea behind one goal and the hills behind the touchline with the picnic tables.

It was a grass pitch and after the summer that we’ve had was mainly yellow and in need of some rain. It would have benefitted from some levelling too, with one section in particular sloping upwards towards the corner flag.

The fixture was in the twelfth-tier Division One of the West Lancashire League. According to the programme, Askam hadn’t been doing too well so far this season, but they had most of the early possession and better chances.

Crocklands took the lead against the run of play a quarter of an hour in, when a third effort was driven home after the keeper had beaten out the previous two attempts at goal.

Askam stepped up the pace in the second half but despite the pressure couldn’t force an equalizer. Most of the crowd moved on to Dalton for their second game of a three match Saturday itinerary, whilst I headed back up the road to Muncaster with sufficient time in hand for Hamish Hawk’s afternoon set.

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Lulea SK v Bodens BK FF 2, Wednesday 20th August 2025, 6.30pm

September 2, 2025

My second game of the trip was in the sixth-tier, Division 4 Norbotten Sodra. It was another Lulea fixture, this time at the Hertso IP ground and featuring Lulea SK against the reserve side of nearby Boden BK.

I had a couple of companions for this one, as two of my colleagues, Frank and Steve, decided that it might be an interesting way of spending a couple of hours outdoors before we adjourned to the pub.

It was the usual 50 Crown admission, but as there were three of us the kids on the gate were happy to accept the 200 Crown note that I’ve been stuck with for a while. There were probably around fifty people there, many of whom I suspected were there as parents of the ball boys.

We initially watched from the open wooden stand on the half-way line and endured ten minutes of light rain before it eased off midway through the first half. The weather, as well as the adjoining forest, seemed to encourage the mosquitos and I soon had bites on my head.

The home side went into the game in second place in the table with the visitors in third. In theory, you’d expect a competitive game, but it didn’t turn out that way. Lulea made most of their attacks down the left and by half-time had taken enough of their chances to go in five-nil up.

Coffee, beer and burgers were available and after buying our snacks we stayed down at that end of the ground for the second half.

The game was not quite so one-sided in the second half. Boden had hooked their right-back at the break and seemed better organized. Despite that improvement, Lulea still managed to add a further three goals for an eight-nil win.

Frank and Steve seemed impressed by the standard of the sixth-tier as I think that they had been expecting jumpers for goalposts. Perhaps they’ll tag along for some future games.

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