Quite a few games were being called off due to the effects of Storm Amy, so I didn’t really want to travel too far just in case I turned up at a ground an hour away with a postponed sign on the gate. Fortunately, I’d still to visit the Northern League’s Grangetown Boys Club and so I decided to make the short trip to their Trunk Road ground.
The night before, Jen and I had been at Coulby Newham Cathedral to see John Bramwell. It’s quite a modern building for a church and it solves the problem of sitting on hard wooden pews by hiring out cushions. The gig was good, but as it’s the fifth time we’ve seen him this year, I know his anecdotes word for word.
Grangetown’s ground proved harder to find than I’d anticipated, as I’d left my phone in the house by mistake. The sat nav in the car isn’t the best, but my old-skool technique of just driving around Grangetown until I saw the pitch worked in the end.
It was a fiver to get in and I bought a programme and a chip butty from the food kiosk behind one of the goals.
Grangetown Boys Club dates back to the 1940’s with most of their time having being spent in the now-defunct Teesside League. They gained promotion from the North Riding League in 2024 and so this is just their second season ever in the tenth tier. The visitors, Sunderland West End, have been in the Northern League for a few seasons now, but haven’t ever really looked as if they might reach Division One.
As Grangetown haven’t been long at this level, their ground is still developing. There was a fifty-seater shipping container stand along one side of the pitch with two covered ‘bus stop’ type sheds providing somewhere to shelter when it rains. There was also a portacabin bar that seemed popular with a bunch of older fellas who looked to be on some sort of jolly.
The Northern League has a rule that spectators can only stand in areas where there is hard standing and not grass. This meant that half of one side of the pitch and the area behind one goal were out of bounds. Some concreting preparation was going on, so hopefully it won’t be long before there are views from the full perimeter. It could also do with some fast-growing trees planting between the pitch and the trunk road, to reduce the risk of wayward clearances hitting cars.
The attendance was announced as eighty-four. In addition to the jolly boys, there were a few fans from West End, many of whom might have been unselected players and their Mams. I spent the first half of the game in the container stand picking up snippets of info from some of those in the know.
For the second half I moved to the rail on the far side. The hills provided a better backdrop than the road.
The wind made play difficult and neither side had many clear chances on goal. West End upped their game in the second half and took the lead with around twenty minutes to go. Grangetown had a few chances afterwards, but the visitors held on to take the points.
Trail of the Lion King 