One of my aims for this year is to complete the Yorkshire Wolds Way. That doesn’t sound too ambitious, given that the trail is only seventy-nine miles long, but it took us twelve years to do the Cleveland Way, albeit in both directions.
With the plan in mind, Jen and I spent a couple of nights just outside of Market Weighton and ticked off fourteen miles between there and South Cave. We’d have done more if we hadn’t taken the dog with us, due to his age, knee op and tendency to stop and smell everything.
There wasn’t much in the way of wildlife. The odd hare and a couple of birds of prey that I’m not knowledgeable enough to identify. The highlight was probably a white pheasant. I’d assumed that these birds were rare, but on reading up about them it turns out that that they are bred to act as ‘markers’ for the birds during the hunting season.
I had hoped to have been at Wrexham to watch the Boro in their final game of the regular season. I didn’t have enough priority points for a ticket though and so was limited to following our push for promotion on my phone. Our slim prospect of automatic were over early on once Ipswich had gone two goals up in their game. That left me free to focus on the match that I had been able to get into at the New Earswick Sports ground, just outside of York.
I was there to watch the York City and District Saturday Senior Cup Final, a fixture contested by Kirkbymoorside and Tadcaster Magnets, both of the eleventh-tier York League Premier Division. Tadcaster had already clinched the league title, so were going for the double. Kirkbymoorside were in fifth place in the table and so potentially capable of providing decent opposition.
It was free to get in and, if I’d chosen to, I could have watched a cricket or rugby game on the nearby pitches instead. There were around eighty other people there and I think I might well have been the only one who wasn’t a friend or family member of the players. League Champions Tadcaster were a class above. They went ahead in the opening minutes and then added a second just before half-time when their left-back rifled one home from about thirty yards.
Tadcaster were content to sit back after the break and going into the final ten minutes there were still just the two goals in it. The Kirkbymoorside keeper then booted a Magnets striker for trying to block his clearance and was given a red. The Casper-like outfield replacement for the goalie seemed to be trying to avoid being hit by the ball at the resulting penalty. Tadcaster then made it four when Casper got his fingers to a shot that was going wide and deflected it into his own net.
The winners were presented with both their League and Cup trophies at the end and celebrated with the obligatory jumping up and down whilst spraying ‘bubbly’ over each other. Hopefully I’ll watch the Boro doing the same in three week’s time at Wembley.
Trail of the Lion King 