It’s fair to say that Hickton’s career to date has been disappointing. After a promising two-year-old debut where he ran on to finish fourth of eight in a five-furlong race at Redcar, he has not challenged for a place since. Despite trying him over a variety of distances and going, he is generally one of the last two horses to finish. We’ve tried most things to change his fortunes including switching trainers and lopping off his nuts.
I could sense a growing feeling in the syndicate that there might not be any improvement to be had and that if we wanted to grace the winners enclosure, then it may have to be with a different horse.
I drove down to Catterick by myself as I was travelling on to Bradford afterwards to watch the Boro. It was heavy rain all of the way down, which whilst not the best conditions for driving are great for a horse with as little pace as Hickton.
I arrived just in time to see the race before ours and it was clear that the ground was as suitable for him as it was ever going to be.
The plan was that Zak would drop him out at the start and then try and pick horses off in the second half of the race. That’s exactly what happened. He stayed last until the half-way mark and then gradually improved his position. He was still going strongly into the final furlong when others were fading and by the time he reached the finish line he had overhauled all but two of the horses. If there had been another hundred yards he might very well have won.
Everyone was very pleased with third, particularly those of us who had got 66/1 just before the off. It was great that Declan’s faith in him was vindicated, and we now have a better idea how to get the best out of the horse. It’s likely that he’ll stay an extra couple of furlongs, but the key to it is holding him up on ground no better than soft. I’ll be hoping that we’ll get plenty more rain in the next few weeks.
Hickton is a horse who needs soft ground and the lack of rain over the early part of the season has meant that he has only ran once this year. That was on the all-weather down at Southall, a month ago. It didn’t work out as he took a bump towards the end and faded from contention.
The heavy rain over the past few days made a return to the turf possible and he was entered in a nine-furlong handicap at Redcar. I thought I’d have a beer or two and so Jen and I took a taxi for the twenty-five-minute journey to the course.
We had an underwhelming buffet in the upstairs Owner’s Restaurant and just about broke even on the pre-Hickton races, courtesy of a single decent priced winner.
There was a fair bit of optimism among the syndicate due to the good to soft ground rating and trainer Declan’s positive assessment of his work on the gallops. Hickton had been backed in to as low as eighteens at one point but went off at twenty-eight to one, which is the price that I’d taken that morning.
The race didn’t go well. He ran strongly from the front again but faded inside the last couple of furlongs, slipping back to finish tenth of the twelve runners.
Zak, the jockey, reckoned that Hickton ran his race the wrong way around, expending far too much energy at the start and then leaving nothing in the tank for the finish. He has an entry for Catterick in three day’s time where the intention will be to drop him out in the back of the field and then let him come from behind to pick his rivals off late on. Let’s hope.
I had some university stuff going on in Colchester, so Jen and I stayed down there for three nights. I don’t really know much about the place other than the Romans rocked up there a while ago. Football-wise, they’ve got a team in the lower reaches of the Football League and I’ve a vague recollection that they once beat Leeds in the Cup. Probably not long after the Romans had gone home.
We stayed on a boat, which was enjoyable. It looked to be permanently moored, which meant that the shower and power worked better than the boat we’d stayed on recently in London. It was interesting to watch the ducks extracting whatever they dig for in the mud as the tides went out.
We went for a wander around a nature reserve, Fingringhoe Wick. Apparently, the name originates from the geography of the area and the protruding pieces of land rather than it being a place where Romans would engage with sex workers.
There were multiple bird hides, some of which were occupied by blokes with cameras big enough to photograph birds before they’d even migrated to the UK. I was hoping for some seals, but didn’t see any.
We’d been told that there were adders at the reserve, but we didn’t see any of them either. We did spot a deer but it quickly legged it. The highlight was probably two squirrels fighting. They grappled in trees until one fell out and the other would jump down to continue the punch up. All it needed for the full bar room brawl experience was for one of them to smash a chair over the other’s head.
Insects were easier to photograph and we got some snaps of butterflies and something that looked like a dragonfly.
On the Thursday evening I drove to the nearby Hawthorns ground, home of Stanway Rovers. They’ve just been promoted to the eighth-tier Isthmian League North. Their opponents were Walsham-le-Willows, a ninth-tier Sussex team that plays in the Premier Division of the Eastern Counties League.
I hadn’t really had much interest in pre-season friendlies in the past, but this year I’ve come to appreciate the way in which it helps gauge the respective strengths of leagues. Providing, of course, that teams take it seriously. So far, that seems to have been the case.
It was a fiver to get in and I wandered around to one of the three four-row shipping container stands on the far side. It looked as if more containers had been used to form the outer wall behind one of the goals and by retaining a section of the container roof it provided cover that was somewhere between a stand and a walkway. As long as the rain came down absolutely vertically, it would probably do its job.
Dog of the day was in the stand next to me. I overheard its owner explaining that it was a cross between a Jack Russell and an American Rat Terrier. Apparently rat terriers can be quite muscular, but this dog just looked like a taller Jack Russell. Ideal, I suppose, for catching rats that are a little above ground level.
The pitch was in poor condition for this time of year, although the lack of rain won’t have helped. It wasn’t level either, with a hump in the centre of the pitch and a corner with an incline up to the corner flag. It looked like something that a bloke with an excavator and a few tonnes of topsoil could have fixed within a week.
The game was tight early on, before Stanway scored two goals in the run up to half-time. The second one was a gem, with the striker flicking it over the advancing keeper’s head with a prolonged contact between ball and foot that would have graced a freestyling competition. I celebrated with a burger that had received extensive online praise, but in reality, was just a burger.
I’d been expecting the floodlights to come on at half-time, but we were an hour or so into the game before anyone turned them on. By that time, it was pretty dark, the sort of gloom that you’d happily play in as a kid, but in the knowledge that it was rapidly approaching ‘next goal the winner’ territory.
Both sides had their chances in what had been a competitive game but there was no further score until we reached the ninety-minute mark. Some slack marking from the visitors allowed Stanway to add a third from a tap in after the keeper had made a decent stop from the initial effort.
With just a month to go until most leagues commence, there are plenty of pre-season games to pick from. I’d initially identified a low-key fixture between Westmoreland League teams on the basis that they generally involve sitting in a camping chair in a field. That meant that Jen and Henry would have been able to come along. However, Henry wasn’t keen to get in the car and so I left them both in the garden instead. They were fine with that.
My delayed departure called for a change of plan to a closer ground. I’d been saving Knaresborough to combine it with a visit to somewhere like Mother Shipton’s Cave, but it was the best fit for that afternoon and we can always pop along to the cave on another occasion.
The Manse Lane ground is on the outskirts of the town. That’s just as well as Knaresborough is a busy place on a sunny Saturday afternoon.
Knaresborough Town are in the ninth-tier Premier Division of the Northern Counties East League. Opponents Blyth Town were promoted last season from the Northern League via the play-offs and will play in the eighth tier Northern Premier League Division One East this season.
It was six quid admission and the bloke on the gate also sold me raffle tickets for a meat draw. I’m not sure what the meat was, but there was a large lump of flesh in a small glass-fronted fridge. I think he assumed I’d travelled ninety-odd miles from Blyth as he told me that if I was worried about taking the meat home in the thirty-degree heat I was welcome to take twenty quid as an alternative prize.
The ground worked well at this level. There was a covered stand with five rows of seats along one side and a small raised covered standing area behind one of the goals. Blyth had brought some fans on a coach and one of them, a young lad, had taken up residence in the standing area with his flag and drum.
There was also a clubhouse with a bar and a raised beer garden outside. If anyone wanted to sit closer to the pitch there were a handful of picnic tables as well.
I watched the first half from the covered seated stand where the benefit of shade was cancelled out by the lack of a breeze. I shared the area with a couple of old blokes, a family with a baby that looked no more than a few weeks old and some lads out on the beer who soon left to get another pint each. The highlight though was a small dog inside of a handbag.
Both sides kept it tight for the first half-hour before Blyth scored twice in quick succession. They added a third on the stroke of half-time.
I wandered around to the food hut and bought a hot pork pie before watching the second half from different vantage points on the rail. Knaresborough pulled a goal back before a well-taken finish to a one on one with the keeper restored Blyth’s three goal advantage. That’s how it ended up.
The pre-season rounds of fixtures are well underway, and I’d picked a match just on the other side of the Tyne-Tunnel at Killingworth. Again, I’d not been up to very much before the game as the dog is still recovering from his ACL op, but he’s happy enough in the garden, particularly if I’ve got him a bone from Blackwell’s. Hopefully the surgery will fix his knee, but I can’t help but think about the former Boro player, Matty Bates, who snapped his cruciate ligament five times. No doubt from jumping up on the settee when he wasn’t supposed to.
Killingworth, of the 12th tier Northern Alliance Division One, were hosting Bedlington Terriers who were one step above them in the 11th tier Premier Division of the same league. Bedlington were demoted last year from the Northern League for failing to meet ground requirements. I was at a game at their Dr Pit Welfare ground a couple of years ago and it seemed ok to me, but I understand that it might have been the floodlights that were the issue.
There wasn’t anyone collecting gate money, so I wandered into the clubhouse and spent it on a very good bacon sandwich instead. There were a lot of people in there watching the Lionesses on the telly and many of them moved outside as kick-off approached to see some live football.
It would have been a good game to have brough Henry along to if he had been fit. There were a couple of staffies, three labs, a greyhound and a scottie dog. Highlight though, was a dog that had the shape and curly hair of a Bedlington Terrier, but was around three times the size. It was as if it had been crossed with a polar bear.
Bedlington struggled in the first half. It’s not surprising really as they had only managed to retain three of their Northern League team from last year. Their keeper kept them in the game but they went in at the break three one behind.
The visitors gelled a bit more in the second half and had the best of the chances. They pulled a goal back at the death, but Killingworth hung on for a three-two win.
I usually try and combine a game with doing something else, although sometimes for this blog I’ll cheat a bit and rattle on about something that I did a few days earlier. I’ve not been up to much at all though lately as the dog has just had a ruptured cruciate ligament repaired and so we’ve been pretty much stuck in the house whilst he recuperates.
So, the best I can mention is that I called into a garden centre on the way to the game at Selby and bought some plants. I don’t really pay much attention to what the plants are, other than trying to buy the ones that are attractive to bees. We have some living inside a wall in the back garden and lavender goes down well with them.
It was six quid to get in at Selby Town’s Fairfax Plant Hire Stadium. Once inside, I bought a strip of raffle tickets and had a go on a blind card despite not knowing what the prizes were. There weren’t any programmes, but there was a book on sale celebrating Selby Town’s centenary. I was briefly tempted to buy one but didn’t want to lug it around for the next two hours.
The ground dates back to the 1950s and had some covered seating behind one of the goals and two covered standing areas at the other end. Most people stood along the rail on the side with the dressing rooms. The dugouts were opposite.
There were four divisions between the teams with Selby in the tenth tier Division One of the Northern Counties East League and Scarborough up in the sixth tier National League North.
Selby were in red, with Scarborough in their recently released yellow and blue kit. It was so new that they hadn’t had time to add numbers to their shirts, which might well have caused difficulties if the ref wanted to book someone. There were also lots of the new Scarborough kits among the crowd. I’d estimate that maybe half of the 358 in attendance were supporting the visitors.
Whilst there’s usually a tenuous Boro connection if you look hard enough, this one didn’t need me to dig too deeply. Jonathan Greening, who was one of Steve McClaren’s first signings, is the Scarborough manager. The fans around me weren’t initially sure that he was there, speculating that he might be on holiday. I wandered around to the dugouts and recognised him despite him having moved on from his Jesus hairstyle to a buzz cut.
Ste Walker started up front for Scarborough. He played eleven times for the Boro as a kid, but at one point looked to have drifted away from the professional game. It’s good to see him making a living from football.
Most of the chances went Scarborough’s way but Selby defended well and it was goalless at the break. I joined a lengthy queue for a pie that was billed as steak and pepper. I could definitely taste the pepper, but didn’t notice any steak in there. Slurry and pepper might have been a better description.
Ste Walker was replaced at half-time along with five of his teammates. Refreshing the line-up worked for Scarborough and they went ahead just before the hour. That first goal gave them a bit more confidence and they rattled in another four without reply before the full-time whistle.
I’m sometimes unsure when a new season starts. The women’s Euros, for example, is that 2024-25 or 2025-26? Pre-season friendlies are a good indication though and as that’s how this game was designated it marked my change from last season to this.
In 2024-25 I got to fifty-three games. That’s relatively low for recent seasons, but I did spend a lot of the season in a remote region of Saudi Arabia. As I’m now working from home, with the odd trip to Sweden, I’ve got high expectations for the next twelve months and by the time the season concludes with the World Cup, I’ll be surprised if I haven’t seen at least a hundred games with maybe sixty new grounds.
This friendly was a home fixture for Percy Main Amateurs at their Purvis Park ground. Visitors North Shields are based just a mile away and so it was an easy trip for their fans. There’s a little more distance between the clubs league-wise, with the hosts playing in the eleventh tier Premier Division of the Northern Alliance League. North Shields are in the ninth-tier Northern League Division one.
It was an easy enough drive north and as I’d paid for a few journeys through the Tyne-Tunnel in advance I’d didn’t have the stress that comes from having to remember to go online before midnight the next day to pay the toll.
I think I most associate the area just beyond the tunnel with Wet ‘n Wild. It’s a mainly indoors water park that I took my kids to a few times in the late nineties. I don’t think that it had ever been cleaned or maintained since it opened and by the time my kids grew out of it you couldn’t swim five yards without encountering cracked tiles, fungus or discarded Elastoplasts. Anyone who pissed in the water was probably improving its quality. A quick check online revealed that it has since closed and been demolished.
It was three quid admission to Purvis Park. There had been some programmes available, but they sold out before I arrived. There was a decent crowd of 365 for the visit of North Shields and I think a lot of them were visiting fans looking to pay their respects to one of their players, Curtis Coppen, who had died ten days earlier. There was a minute’s applause for Curtis before kick-off.
Purvis Park is an odd little ground. There’s a covered stand with tables and chairs, plus a row of single chairs in front of the clubhouse. If you want to see the game though you need to find a spot on the rail that runs around three sides of the pitch. There’s no access to the end behind one of the goals, unless you are the fella given the job of retrieving the ball from the nettles after a wayward shot.
North Shields were much the better side and were three up after twenty-five minutes. I popped into the clubhouse at that point and joined the queue for some food. It’s as well I did as they were just about sold out. I was able to get the last bun for a chip butty. Anyone who chose to wait until half-time will have been limited to chocolate bars.
I hadn’t missed any goals and it remained three-nil at the break. There were plenty of subs in the second half, but they were well managed and didn’t detract from a competitive game. Whilst there were frequent chances, mainly for North Shields, there were no further goals and it finished three-nil to the visitors.
On a groundhopping note, it was my six hundredth ground. That’s a milestone that I’d been hoping to get to before my sixtieth birthday. As it was, I managed it in my sixtieth year, which is almost the same thing if you say it quickly. I’d like to think that I can get up to a thousand before I’m seventy.
Jen had a conference in London and so we headed down there for a week. I like to try out different places to stay and for this trip we booked one of those canal boats. It was moored on Regent’s Canal at Coal Drop Yard.
I’ve stayed on a few types of boat and quite liked this one. It was tall enough for me to rarely bang my head and stable enough. The only downside was that the electricity supply wasn’t strong enough to charge my laptops, so much of my working time was spent in the nearby library.
You’d think that there would be plenty of options in London for sporting activities, but the only event that appealed was a trip to Romford dogs. Oddly, there wasn’t much going on gig-wise either. We went to see Sparks at Hammersmith Apollo, which is where I saw five Mott the Hoople gigs within a week, back in 2009. Looking back, I’m pleased that I finally got to see Mott and I’m equally pleased that the band enjoyed their reunion. It’s a particularly poignant memory in the week that Mick joined Buffin and Pete in no longer being with us.
Sparks were good. It’s always a fun atmosphere and they have a similarly dedicated fanbase to that of Mott. Ron is pushing eighty, with kid brother Russell not far behind. Hopefully they will continue for a while yet.
Earlier in the week I’d been up to Newcastle, where Paul and I had seen another set of siblings in The Molotovs at Think Tank. It’s a small venue with a low ceiling, perfect for a mod-revivalist band. They signposted a lot of their influences, but none more so than The Jam. The singer, who was only seventeen, was reminiscent of Weller at the same age. The bassist was less reminiscent of Foxton as she was an eighteen-year-old girl, but she had a similar presence. I’d very happily see them again, ideally in similar sized venues.
Final gig of the week was advertised as an ‘Anti-Folk Festival’ at the London Hospital Tavern, Whitechapel. It seemed as if the pub bill was organized by the main guy from David Cronenberg’s Wife. As he was able to guess my name when we went in, it’s possible that Jen and I held the only advance tickets bought.
I should have seen David Cronenberg’s Wife last year when they were supporting Jeffrey Lewis at The Georgian, but I was a bit tired and so didn’t bother. Big mistake as they were excellent and, like The Molotovs, I’ll add them to my list of bands to keep an eye out for.
Ok, less music and more dogs. Greyhound racing is dying off and with Crayford closing down earlier in the year, Romford is the last remaining London track. It might well be a case of now or never. Jen and I took the Elizabeth line eastwards and then walked back towards the city past pubs and car showrooms, neither of which had any customers on a Saturday morning.
It was free to get in, presumably with the costs being met by whoever needs televised racing to sell to betting shops. A couple with a toddler and a baby came in just before us and it reminded me of taking Tom to the greyhound racing at Cleveland Park when he was three or four years old. I may have given him the impression that we were going to a special zoo, just as I did with the fish counter at Tesco.
It was a really hot day, so I was grateful for the air conditioning in the main stand. There were around sixty or so people inside, which is a lot more than I’d expected. I’d assumed that nobody would be interested, but it was more like day care for old people.
A solitary bookie turned up after four races, but I didn’t see anyone betting with him. I’m surprised that on-course betting survives in the days of smart phones and bookies Apps. Maybe there are pockets of people still using cash.
I was also surprised to see the bar open and a food counter downstairs selling bacon and sausages in buns and baguettes. There was a big meeting at the same track that evening, so maybe they were just warming up for what would much likely be a substantial crowd.
Despite being given a racecard, we didn’t study the form, and our selections mainly came from Jen liking a dog’s name. The only exception was when we eavesdropped on a woman sat behind us and piggybacked on her excellent selection. It was enough to mitigate our losses to just under three quid over the six races that we hung about for.
The second and final game of this trip was at Vita, a small village that’s a forty-minute drive north of Lulea. I’d been tempted by a game a further hour on, in a town that bordered Finland, on the basis that at this time of year it’s light virtually around the clock and if I went later in the year it might not be such an easy drive.
In the end, I opted for the closer fixture at the Vita IP. I arrived a good twenty minutes before kick-off, parked my car pitch side and wandered over to the bloke manning the burger counter. He was curious about why I was there and how I even knew the game was being played. I showed him the Futbology App which mildly amused him. When I ordered a burger from him he directed me to a hatch where I could pay for it and also for admission to the game.
It turned out that payment for the game was voluntary. As I didn’t have the preferred Swish App I handed over a one hundred Krona note. The fella inside thought that was excessive and gave me fifty back. He also handed me a bag from their sponsor which contained a cap, water bottle and some sweets. I may have got the best of that transaction.
The players were still warming up as I took my burger to a small three row wooden stand. It had an announcer in a box at the back of it, which I thought a little over the top for a sixth-tier Division 4 Norrbotten Norra fixture.
The playing surface was more appropriate for the level though. It wasn’t particularly flat and had areas without grass. On the other side of the pitch to me were the dugouts, and behind them the main road. Every now and then a lorry would pass with a trailer full of lumber.
The stand filled up as the game kicked off, with the overall attendance peaking at around forty people and three dogs. Midway through the first half I was greeted by a fellow groundhopper who had been alerted to my presence via the Futbology App and who then identified me with the help of the burger man.
Leif is in his mid-sixties but still reffing at the level above this game and running the line at tiers three and four. He pointed out that the ref in this fixture, who was also in his sixties, had once been Sweden’s top match official.
He filled me in on some of the details of the league and the players. It’s rolling subs at this level and it worked well with nothing like the delays that you get with regular subs. We chatted a little about the new eight second goalie rule and how, as a ref, he felt that it would work.
I rarely speak to people at games for long but would be happy to bump into Leif again.
It was one way traffic on the pitch with Skogsa three up at the break and five in front as we reached ninety minutes. Vita nabbed a consolation in added time in what ended up as a five-one away win.
After the trips to Finland and Denmark, it was time to move on to Sweden, this time for work rather than the dubious pleasure of watching Duran Duran. The project I’m involved in is in a small town in the north of Sweden, just a hundred kilometres or so from the Arctic Circle.
It’s a region that doesn’t have any top tier clubs, but that suits me fine and for the first game of the trip I selected a fourth-tier fixture in the Division 2 Norrland league.
The Jiabvallen ground was a few minute’s drive away on the outskirts of Lulea. The roads leading to it all seemed to be bordered by forests, although it’s not just the roads, everywhere is bordered by forests. Flying in, the views below me were all either trees or lakes. I’m hoping to get the time to have a decent look around the region when I make my monthly visits.
It was eighty crowns to get in, which is about six quid. That included a free programme too. The game was between mid-table Bergnasets and Boden City who were bottom of the seven-team division.
There was a three-row wooden stand that ran most of the length of one side of the pitch. Around a hundred or so people had turned up. The ones near me were mainly players who hadn’t been selected and their friends. A couple of youngsters were sat at the front, eating salad that they’d brought from home in Pyrex dishes.
The standard was good, particularly the home side. I’m not sure at what level in Sweden the players drop to part-time, but they all looked to be ‘proper’ footballers. Bergnasets had the best of a cagey first half, but neither side managed to break the deadlock before half-time.
At the break I got myself a burger. Just as it had been earlier at the gate, I was given the choice of payment in cash or via an App called Swish as they couldn’t take payment by card. I don’t have the Swish App as you need a Swedish bank account to open it, but fortunately I had sufficient Swedish cash with me.
After the restart, Bergnasets picked up where they had left off. They had most of the decent chances, including hitting the bar from what might well have been a cross rather than a shot. The Boden City defence held out though and the game finished goalless.
Trail of the Lion King 