Posts Tagged ‘Bedlington Terriers’

Blyth Town v Bedlington Terriers, Tuesday 26th December 2023, 3pm

May 31, 2024

For my second Boxing Day game I headed north for an hour or so to Blyth. I was there early enough to be able to leave the car outside the Gateway Park ground. With plenty of time to kick-off I made my way through a housing estate and followed a beck until I reached the sea.

It was busy, with people walking their dogs and strolling along the promenade. You have to stroll on a promenade, it’s compulsory.

With kick-off approaching I retraced my steps and handed over the six quid for admission. I was soon relieved of another two pounds for a raffle. I’m not really sure why I bother as the only thing I’ve ever won at one of these games is a trucker’s cap advertising engine oil. Maybe I should re-train as a lorry driver to get some use out of it.

Gateway Park has a small seventy-seater covered stand and I was there early enough to nab a seat before most of the crowd had left the clubhouse. There was a smaller adjoining standing area for latecomers with others lining the pitch perimeter and many of the two-hundred plus crowd nursing pints that seemed out of place on a cold winter’s afternoon.

Home side Blyth Town are a fairly recently established club, dating back to 1995. I had a look in the online programme and they had only made it into the Northern League around three seasons ago. The visitors, Bedlington Terriers, have a more illustrious history. They’ve been around for the past eighty years or so and hit a purple patch around the millennium when they won five Northern League Division One titles on the trot.

This fixture was in the Second Division and both sides were handily placed for promotion with Blyth in second place and Bedlington just one spot behind them. They both trailed leaders Newcastle Blue Star by a single point.

There weren’t many chances in the first half and the most excitement came whenever a wayward shot ended up in the car park. As I’d bought out the insurance excess on my hire car I had little skin in that game other, I suppose, than the inconvenience of having to have a windscreen replaced before driving home.

At the break I wandered into the clubhouse and had a look around. For a club with a short history, Blyth had a lot of trophies on display. As I bought a Bovril the bloke next to me let me know, with some delight, that Blyth Spartans were winning at South Shields three divisions up. Clearly there isn’t much of a local rivalry between the Blyth clubs, or at least not as far as that fella was concerned.

Blyth took the lead not long after the re-start with a strong header at the back post. They doubled their lead on seventy minutes with what may well have been intended to be another header but looked as if it might well have actually bounced off someone’s back.

The trusted tactic of a lofted ball into the box paid off for a third time with a cleaner headed connection as the clock ran down. The goal sealed the win for Blyth and opened up a gap between the teams in the battle for a top two spot.

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Bedlington Terriers v Chester-le-Street Town, Saturday 23rd April 2022, 3pm

May 6, 2022

The Northern League season is drawing to an end and with Bedlington Terriers having a home fixture I thought that I’d head up to Dr. Pit Welfare Park to watch them take on Chester-le-Street Town in a second division fixture.

I parked on the street just around the corner and gave my fiver to the fella on the turnstile. He came straight out to see me, or rather to see Henry, my daughter’s beagle. He told me that he used to have Westies, but they were just too expensive these days and his current dog was a cross between a Jack Russell and a Lakeland Terrier. If I lived in Bedlington and supported Bedlington Terriers, then I’d feel it almost compulsory to have the breed of dog associated with the town.

As we were talking the team in yellow and blue opened the scoring. The dog bloke was not happy and told me that they were the visitors. Bedlington were the team in red and whilst they were fourth from bottom at kick-off, were in serious danger of dropping into the bottom three and out of the Northern League. He felt that a win today was vital to their hopes of survival.

There were different covered stands along one side and a massive scoreboard that wasn’t used. There were plenty of dandelions alongside the grass pitch. I took a few for Mr Rose who I was also looking after for the weekend. He’s my granddaughter’s rabbit who was previously known as Rose until the vet informed them that they had been wrongly advised of his gender. Frequent dead-naming doesn’t seem to bother him and he loves dandelions.

Bedlington’s relegation worries got worse on the half-hour when their keeper dawdled on the ball and had it took off him and knocked into an empty net. The scorer celebrated by booting the ball on to the clubhouse roof and received a yellow for his lack of manners. It infuriated a few of the crowd who presumably supporting the visitors. They got even more pissed off when the lino told them that he’d have done the same. They soon cheered up when a third goal was added from a free-kick a minute later.

I’d made a mistake sitting in the stand nearest to the food hut as every time someone passed with a burger, Henry gave them his full attention until it had been eaten. Bedlington got more into the game as we approached half-time but couldn’t take any of their chances and went in at the break three down.

The ref continued to get some stick in the second half, on one occasion when the choice seemed to be between a penalty and a goal-kick he appeared to compromise with a corner. That decision left nobody happy and resulted in both sides berating him.

Chester-le Street added a couple more in the final quarter of an hour before Terriers notched a consolation at the end. I missed that one as Henry had slipped his lead and ran into the food cabin. He had his eye on a big bowl of chips but fortunately the lady in there managed to head him off. Other results didn’t go the way of Bedlington and they dropped into the bottom three making relegation a real possibility.

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Esh Winning v Bedlington Terriers, Saturday 31st October 2020, 3pm

December 4, 2020

I was temporarily back in the UK for a funeral and after a fortnight’s quarantine I had a little bit of freedom whilst I awaited the results of a covid test that would allow me to return to Russia. As you might expect, I had a look at my football options and the ninth tier game at Esh Winning in the Northern League Division Two seemed my best bet for an afternoon out in the fresh air.

Esh Winning’s West Terrace ground is known for the countryside that surrounds it and I drove up a track as far as I could to the car park and then walked alongside woodland to reach the entrance. I handed over a fiver and left my name and telephone number in case I needed to be traced.

Once inside, I bought a coffee in the clubhouse where the fella behind the counter seemed thrilled to be able to tell me that they had milk before finding a seat high behind one of the goals in a wooden shelter.

The view from the shelter was as picturesque as I’d anticipated and it gave me a decent vantage point of a heavily sloped pitch that cut up quickly. Esh Winning were in a Norwich-style kit with opponents Bedlington Terriers in blue.

On the side of the pitch to my left were what looked like old bus shelters which one of the Bedlington defenders managed to clear twice in the first five minutes when wellying clearances into the car park. Esh Winning took the lead around ten minutes into the game with a cracking shot from twenty-five yards that may well have taken a deflection.

A further ten minutes in and Esh Winning were two up when one of their centre-halves turned in a corner at the back post. On the half hour the hosts made it three with a right-footed shot across the keeper into the far corner.

I worried for Bedlington at this point as all the Esh Winning goals had come whilst playing up the slope and with the advantage of kicking downhill after the break I did wonder if we might be on for double figures.

The second half was better for Bedlington and they won a pen which was a clear error from the ref. The Esh Winning players appealed to the elderly lino for his help but he just kept repeating ‘I didn’t give it’ or when asked to intervene ‘only if he needs me’. The ref, who I suspect would be asked for ID in pubs for at least another twenty years or so, had incorrectly overruled the same lino on a throw in the first half and clearly was in no mood to seek a second opinion, especially a dissenting one.

The home keeper saved the initial spot kick but couldn’t keep out the rebound and Bedlington reduced the deficit to two. With twenty minutes remaining Bedlington gave the ball away out wide and the subsequent cross was easily tucked away to restore Esh Winning’s three goal advantage.

It finished four-one, with the only other incident of note being a Bedlington striker getting his marching orders in the final moments for something that he said to the ref. The miscreant, who should have seen red anyway for his man-bun, looked very much like one of the fellas who works in my local butchers. If he was the same bloke, or as equally handy with a meat cleaver, I think the ref may have made another error in not overlooking the late indiscretion.

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