With the Boro not playing until the evening I had the chance to take in a game in the afternoon and so I went along to Beechfield Park for the twelfth-tier Wearside League Division Two fixture between Coxhoe Athletic and Ferryhill Athletic. It was two quid admission, or at least it should have been. The bloke on the turnstile told me that as I looked like a pensioner, he would only charge me a quid. I didn’t know whether to be pleased or not.
I had a few options for watching the game. There was a fifty-seater covered stand down one side, with a covered standing area nearby. On the top of an embankment behind one goal was a sort of dugout that might accommodate three or four people at a push and there a run-down covered area on the opposite side, next to the entrance. It was like a shed with a wall missing.
After watching from the rail for a while I took a seat in the stand. I got non-stop analysis from the two fellas behind me, although I wondered how good their knowledge was when with the game half an hour old, one of them suddenly noticed that his nephew was playing.
Coxhoe were in red, with Ferryhill in yellow. The visitors had some early chances, usually on the break, but with a few minutes remaining in the first-half Coxhoe squared the ball into the centre for a simple finish and a one-nil lead at the break.
Ferryhill made some substitutions in the second half and started to boss the midfield. There were two penalties in the space of four minutes, one for each side, but neither converted. The second one caused a Ferryhill player to say something to the ref that earned him ten minutes in the sinbin.
With time running out Ferryhill made their pressure count with an equalizer after one of their strikers cut inside and finished well. Both sides went for the winner and Ferryhill nicked the points with a goal two minutes into stoppage time. Quite a turnaround.
Trail of the Lion King 