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Newcastle Benfield v Seaham Red Star, Wednesday 23rd March 2022, 7.30pm

March 26, 2022

I’ve been steadily working my way through the Northern League grounds and this game, at an hour’s drive away, was the nearest option this evening. I could have got to Benfield Park a little quicker if I’d used the Tyne Tunnel but now that they’ve taken away the option to do anything other than pay online I can’t be arsed with remembering and then making the payment once I’ve got back home.

The game was between Newcastle Benfield and Seaham Red Star in the Northern League Division 1 Cup. I’d never heard of the competition before, but there’s lots of things that I haven’t heard of so that’s no reflection on the prestige of the competition.

It was six pounds in and another two for a programme. Benfield Park is a decent ground. There were two covered stands that each seated about a hundred people, a couple of raised terrace areas, a hospitality suite, and a clubhouse. There was also a tea hut where I got a Bovril and almost killed myself with salt poisoning. Someone should invent a version that replaces the salt with pepper.

Bizarrely, there were also a couple of outdoor gym areas just in case anyone wanted to do some pedalling or pummel a punch bag.

Newcastle Benfield were in blue and white stripes with Seaham Red Star in red and white. Newcastle created the better chances in the first half but the away goalie was equal to them. There were a few tackles flying in, but I thought the ref controlled the game well despite the constant moaning at him from both sides. After one altercation he ordered the two miscreants to come to him and he gave them an enormous bollocking that all of the 131 people in the crowd were able to hear. A nice alternative to a couple of yellow cards.

I switched seats at half time and moved to the other side of the pitch. That stand is behind the dugouts, so I got the moaning by the management teams closer up. Seaham took the lead from a penalty early on in the second half, but Newcastle equalised with around twenty minutes to go and then nicked a winner close to the end. By this time the ref had started supplementing his bollockings with cards and the visitors finished a man down.

It was another enjoyable evening out, just sitting quietly waiting for a bit of skill beyond expectations and with the lack of tension that comes from not caring which team wins.

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Middlesbrough v Chelsea, Saturday 19th March 2022, 5.15pm

March 24, 2022

I suppose the Boro’s cup run was always likely to come to an end against Chelsea. They are a step above the two Premier League sides that we’d put out in earlier rounds and if we were to have progressed then we would have needed to be at the top of our game and for Chelsea to have an off-day.

We played ok, but the gulf in class on the pitch was just too much and at two down in the first half hour I feared the worst. We didn’t crumble though and whilst they might have taken their foot off the pedal, we just needed a bit of luck to bring us back into the game. Even up until the final few moments I kept thinking that if we could just nick one…

Harry and I were in the front row of the West Stand Upper again. The atmosphere wasn’t as good as against Spurs, but early goals conceded tend to have that effect. The crowd picked up in the second half though and if we had scored it would have lifted the roof off. I though Tav was immense. If there are any haters still around then that performance should surely shut them up for good. Or at least until there’s a misplaced pass.

One of the things that I’ve enjoyed about the cup run is that we took it seriously. There was a strong side against Mansfield and then we were at full-strength for the three ties against Premier League opposition. That’s how it should be, so it’s another well-done to Chris Wilder.

Boro bowing out ended my personal cup run too. I’d started off in August at Ryhope in the Extra Preliminary Round and took in a match in each subsequent stage, ticking off eight new grounds. The Boro got involved after that and I was able to follow them to Mansfield and Man United before the home ties with Spurs and Chelsea. Twelve rounds in all. The only way that I could have continued the streak to Wembley would have been if we’d got there. And I suppose that’s how it should be as I wouldn’t really want to take the seat of a fan of the competing clubs at that stage. It won’t be long until August though and it will all start again.

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Wolviston v Shildon Reserves, Saturday 19th March 2022, 1.30pm

March 23, 2022

With the Boro not kicking off until 5.15pm Harry and I had a chance to take in an early afternoon game. The most convenient was the Wearside League Division One fixture between Wolviston and Shildon Reserves at Metcalfe Park. It was three quid for me and a pound for the grandson. That‘s about right for the eleventh tier.

There was a hut just inside the ground selling food and drink and a picnic area with tables and benches next to it. We started off over in the three-row covered stand on the far side but didn’t stay there for long as it was shaded and about ten degrees cooler than standing on the rail in the sun.

Harry soon found a kid to kick a ball about with and spent most of the game doing that rather than watching.

It was a standard late season encounter with nothing at stake as Wolviston, in blue, were twelfth in the table and Shildon, in red, just the one place above. Neither is going to be involved in the promotion or relegation battles other than as a third party. The home side had the better chances early on, but the visitors came more into the game as the first half went on. It was goalless at the break.

Shildon took the lead soon after the restart following a ball into the box that the defence should really have dealt with. There was a quick equaliser from Wolviston though that I missed as I was watching Harry but everyone reckoned that it resulted from a good turn from someone. There were no more goals and a meaningless mid-table fixture finished in a draw.

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Craghead New Punchbowl v West Kyo Earl Grey, Friday 18th March 2022, 7.15pm

March 22, 2022

We are getting into the time of season for cup finals, yet it doesn’t seem so long ago that the season was starting. Time moves quickly for me these days. This final was for the North-West Durham Charity Cup. Who would have thought that Durham was big enough for its North-West to have a competition of its own?

The Charity Cup is for Sunday League teams, both of these from Division One of the Consett District Sunday League. Hence, I suppose the choice of Consett’s Belle View Stadium for the final tie. It was a good venue, three quid in, programmes for free, a cabin for chip butties and coffee and a popular bar with the Wolves-Leeds game on the telly.

Craghead New Punchbowl and West Kyo Earl Grey had both battled through four previous rounds to reach the final and were incredibly well supported. I’d estimate around four hundred people attended, some of whom, as the evening went on, were stood on the tables outside of the bar chanting in support of their team.

I started off in a covered seated stand on the opposite side to the clubhouse before watching the second half from different vantage points on the rail.

Craghead New Punchbowl were in a Milan style kit with West Kyo in dark blue shirts and black shorts. The latter was close enough to the all-black kit of the ref to cause him to first put on an orange bib and then to change to a light green ref shirt.

I didn’t have to wait long for the first goal as an early corner from ‘The Punch’ was palmed into his own net by the West Kyo keeper. He complained furiously about being dazzled by the floodlight, something that I imagine he rarely has to contend with on a Sunday morning. Craghead doubled their lead just before half-time after a break down the right led to an easy tap in.

West Kyo had their names on the backs of their shirts, which seemed a bit over the top for a Sunday side, although I suppose it was a cup final. I wonder if they had thought about commemorative embroidery on the front? They also had a striker with number 1 on his back, something that I hadn’t heard of happening since Holland and Argentina did it in World Cups when I was a kid.

Both sides had their chances in the second-half but the score remained at two-nil and Craghead lifted the trophy. I doubt that they sell much champagne in the Consett clubhouse but two bottles were found for spraying around in celebration after the players had collected their medals and the cup had been raised.

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Millwall v Middlesbrough, Saturday 12th March 2022, 3pm

March 16, 2022

At the start of this season, I still had four of the current Championship grounds to tick off with a first visit. One of them was Millwall’s New Den, or as it is now getting on for thirty years old, just The Den again.  Harry was busy with a rugby tournament, so I only needed the one ticket which I was able to get fairly easily.

I booked a seat on the supporter’s club coach. I’d looked at travelling by train but that was a hundred quid more expensive and I’d have had to travel for about an hour and a half on various underground trains once there. I also thought about driving but the lack of parking and the cost and chew on of paying both a congestion charge and an emissions fee put me off. In the end the coach was the easiest option for a day trip. It was a long day though with a 7.30am departure from the Riverside and a midnight return.

The journey itself wasn’t too bad. I was fortunate that, unlike the last game, nobody was singing Boro songs at top volume. I took a book and bought a newspaper which was the first printed copy I’d read for a long time. There’s something more enjoyable about reading a real paper. Maybe I might have to start doing it more.

It took us almost seven hours to get to the Den. We passed through Greenwich towards the end of the journey, and it looks a lot smarter and more tourist-friendly than it did when I lived nearby in the mid-eighties.

The Boro had the upper tier of one of the stands behind a goal. The lower tier was kept empty except for those in wheelchairs. I spotted Paddy below me and had a half-time chat with him. He’d done it properly and driven down the day before. Maybe I should have done the same and had a mooch around Greenwich.

A benefit of having a whole stand with only the upper tier full was that the concourse area was big enough not to be crowded. I was able to watch the end of the televised lunchtime game without being jostled or having beer thrown over me. Stuff you think that you’d be able to take for granted.

I thought we performed ok. Djiksteel was a big miss going forward and we never really looked like scoring. However, we were solid at the back and on the basis that Millwall would have overtaken us if we’d lost, I was happy with a point and a clean sheet.

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Brandon United v Chester-le-Street Town, Wednesday 9th March 2022, 7.45pm

March 11, 2022

I had a couple of options for games this evening and if I’d gone to Washington instead, I’d have witnessed a world record penalty shootout that finally ended up with a 25-24 winner after 54 kicks. I imagine that the shoot-out will probably have taken around three-quarters of an hour to complete though and so at times people would have been wishing that it had just gone to a replay.

Instead, I went to Welfare Park for the Northern League game between Brandon United and Chester-le-Street Town.

It was a fiver in and I picked up a programme for a quid. I’m always impressed when clubs of this size produce programmes. With average crowds around the sixty mark I suspect the sales might be in single figures, which is a shame as it was exceptionally well done. I learned from it that Brandon started out as a Sunday League side in the sixties and have the FA Sunday Cup on their list of trophies. They have won the Northern League too, although they are currently struggling in the bottom half of the second division.

Welfare Park looks as if it’s as old as the club. There are some benches behind one goal that are rotting away and the covered seated stand has areas in front of it that have been fenced off, presumably for safety reasons. With perimeter fencing that looks to date from the sixties as well it’s a bit like being in a time-warp. If they do get around to upgrading anything, I suspect that Beamish might be interested in the old stuff. It’s a pity that this was a night game as there looked to be a great view across the pitch to what might have been Durham. In the dark though, it was just a cluster of distant lights.

Brandon were in all red with visitors Chester-le-Street in yellow and blue. Imagine it as Wales v Sweden. Both sides appeared to struggle with the cold and the wind and a lot of first touches seemed to go straight to an opposition player. Brandon broke the deadlock not long before half-time with a header after some penalty box pinball and that was enough to take the points and move them a little further towards mid-table.

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Middlesbrough v Sheffield United, Tuesday 8th March 2022, 7.45pm

March 11, 2022

With Harry getting more enthusiastic by the week about going to the Boro games I thought I’d take him down to Bramall Lane for the Sheff United match. The easiest way was to go on the official supporters coach, and I booked two seats online when I ordered the match tickets. It’s a long time since I’ve been on the bus to a game, official or otherwise and I’d forgotten just how noisy it all is. There were two lads sat directly behind us who sang Boro songs throughout most of the journey. Harry enjoyed that part of it, as you do when you’re eleven, but to me, it was just unwanted racket. I rarely even listen to the radio in the car these days in order to avoid other people’s noise.

The journey took longer than it should have done due to the difficulty in parking the coach. Cars had been abandoned on double yellows on each side of the road to the parking area and it meant a lot of manoeuvring for the drivers. I’d have deliberately knocked their wing mirrors off if I were driving.

We were greeted by a sniffer dog whilst queuing for the turnstiles. He reminded me of the ones that they had in Korea at Incheon Airport. I would regularly arrive with a cold bag in my suitcase packed full of frozen sausages, bacon and lamb burgers from Blackwell’s and the sniffer dogs would ignore it as they were trained for Class A’s only. That’s some discipline. I doubt the beagle could manage it.

Once inside the concourse area was packed. We struggled to get something to eat as young lads bounced about going ‘fuckin’ mental’. As so often at away games it looked as if they were extending their drinking capacity by topping up with coke, presumably before they reached the sniffer dog, although the extent of the queues for the toilet cubicles suggested that some had been successful in bringing extra supplies into the ground.

Our seats were in the back row of the lower tier, bang in the middle. The overhang meant that I couldn’t see much of Bramall Lane but it’s a ground that I’ve been to plenty of times in the past. Mind you, the Sheffield trip I remember the most is one where I didn’t see any of the game as a consequence of my son Tom getting hit by a car on the way to the game. I spent that afternoon and night at a Sheffield Hospital as they operated on his broken collar bone.

The evening got worse as the game went on. We didn’t really compete and relied too much on lumping the ball forward. It was as if Warnock was back in charge and Sheff Utd were well worth their four-one victory. In a final act of fuckwittery someone threw a brick at our bus on the way out breaking the outer pane of a double-glazed window. If it had smashed the inner pane, we’d have had to wait for a replacement bus which is not what you want when you are already scheduled to get back at around midnight. Still, I suppose I should be grateful that neither of us were ran over.

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Burradon and New Fordley v Mayfair, Sunday 6th March 2022, 2pm

March 10, 2022

I’d had my eye on the FA Sunday Cup for a while. It’s a competition that I was vaguely aware of due to Hardwick Social of the Stockton Sunday League winning it a couple of times in recent years. It’s a national competition for Sunday League teams that is ran on a regional basis in the early rounds.

From what I could see, games are usually staged at grounds of bigger clubs to allow a more prestigious venue than school playing fields or a council pitch.

Burradon and New Fordley of the Cramlington Sunday League had made it through to the quarter-finals and their tie with Mayfair was taking place at Morpeth Town’s Craik Park. I drove up from Teesside, parked in the overflow car park and paid my £2 admission. If I’d been inclined I could have got in for 50p as the bloke on the turnstile clearly  had no idea if I was a pensioner or not. He gave both prices, leaving it to me to choose my age category. I suppose it won’t be too long before I may quite enjoy any uncertainty about my age.

Burradon were in yellow and blue stripes with Mayfair in a grey kit. I’d hoped that they were from ‘Monopoly’ Mayfair and might be kitted out in top hats and tails. Sadly, they weren’t from round that way although they did wear grey shirts that would have fitted well with morning suits. I never really see grey as being a football colour unless you’re Dino Zoff, of course. Can you believe that he’s eighty? Me neither. I doubt he ever gets quoted pensioner prices at games like these.

Mayfair were from Liverpool, which according to the programme has one of the strongest Sunday Leagues in the country. I remember that when Hardwick won this cup they had a few Stockton Town players in their side and maybe the strength of a Sunday side depends on how successful you are at persuading players to turn out twice over a weekend.

I liked the Craik Park ground. There was a raised seated stand on the far side with tall conifers behind it. On the side of the pitch where I came in there was another covered seated stand and a raised viewing area that was a sort of balcony to a bar tent. A covered standing area behind one of the goals provided an alternative to seating down or leaning against the perimeter railing.

The initial play was quite cautious with both sides keen to play a short passing game on the artificial turf. Some of the tackles were outrageous and I wondered if there was a Sunday set of rules where you could still wipe someone out with a lunge from three yards away providing you got a slight touch on the ball mid-air.

Mayfair opened the scoring with a direct free-kick, but ‘The Ford’ levelled just before half-time following up from a shot that came back off a post.

Some of the second half tackles were just as ferocious and there were numerous scuffles that rarely received a card. Mayfair got the winner with a shot through a crowd of players that left the home keeper unsighted and flat-footed. Dormans are one of the teams joining Mayfair in the last four of the competition and so I might yet get the opportunity to take in another Sunday Cup game this season.

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Middlesbrough v Luton, Saturday 5th March 2022, 3pm

March 7, 2022

Whilst we are going well in the Cup, we’ve faltered a little in the League lately with away defeats at Bristol and Barnsley contributing to a slip to eighth place. There’d been a good result for us in the Friday night game though with the draw between Sheff Utd and Forest resulting in both of the teams dropping two points.

I’d seen some of that game in the Malleable Club in what was my first visit since attending their Christmas parties as a child. Paul and I had called in on the way to see Altered Images at the Georgian. I’d read mixed reviews of their recent performances, but they did well. It seemed like an enjoyable night for both the band and the capacity crowd.

That draw meant that a win against Luton would allow us to leapfrog both them and Sheff Utd and move back up into sixth place. It’s ridiculously tight at the top of the Championship and whilst Fulham are probably far enough ahead to ensure automatic promotion the other spot could still go to any of the teams in the top eight, maybe even top ten. The play-offs are even wider open with clubs currently below half-way in the table still in with a shout.

Wilder had made two changes from the line-up that faced Spurs, switching out the strikers to allow Connolly and Balogun to start. The high-pressing game that we play makes big demands on the front-men and it makes sense to share the workload.

Luton looked a better side than us when we played them at Kenilworth Road back in October. We’ve improved considerably since those Warnock days though and, providing the Spurs game hadn’t taken too much of a toll, I was reasonably confident that we could take the points. Harry had no doubts. His logic being that if we could see off Tottenham then Luton should pose no problem at all. I was like that at his age.

Harry’s confidence wasn’t misplaced. Luton played a niggly game, trying to break up our rhythm at every opportunity. It’s exactly what we would have tried to have done under the previous manager. Once we’d got the first goal though it was always going to be difficult for them to get back into it and Watmore’s late clincher sealed the win despite an even later away consolation. The win was our ninth home league win in a row. That’s promotion form.

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Middlesbrough v Tottenham Hotspur, Tuesday 1st March 2022, 7.55pm

March 4, 2022

Well, well, well, how good was that? Outplaying Spurs in the fifth round of the FA Cup on a night when the game had displaced EastEnders and the like on national telly. I love the idea of people sitting down to with a cup of tea expecting to watch the Mitchell brothers gurning their way around Albert Square but instead getting a Jonny Howson masterclass and then seeing the Boro defence hardly giving Harry Kane a touch of the ball all night.

I’d switched seats for this one and so Harry and I were in the front row of the West Stand Upper. It’s the same row that Gibbo sits in, albeit around fifty yards to our right. The atmosphere was one of the best I can recall at The Riverside, maybe the best. The Liverpool game in ’98 usually gets a mention in conversations like this but that was in the pre-Red Faction days of just one singing end. When songs are started and taken up at both ends of the ground it makes it much more likely that those down the sides will join in too. And we did.

The performance was so much better than when we rode our luck to beat Man Utd in the previous round. We grew into the game in the second half and took it to them in extra-time. What a finish from Josh Coburn. He’s a fella with an eye for a goal and his strike rate per minute on the pitch must be up there with the best at the moment. Here’s hoping for a home draw in the Quarter Final.

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