Trail of the Lion King

After the game in Pickering Jen and I carried on down to Penistone, a small town on the edge of the Peak District. We’d driven through it on the way to Buxton the previous month and it looked like somewhere that might be interesting to stay over in the right circumstances.

Those circumstances came around fairly quickly with Penistone Church having a rare Sunday game the following day in the ninth tier Northern Counties East Premier Division. We had a wander around town prior to the game but, perhaps due to the time of year, there wasn’t a lot going on.

We did notice that the Southport to Hornsea Trans Pennine Way passes through Penistone and as it looks an interesting long-distance walk, we might make it back sometime.

The game was clearly a special one for Penistone. They usually get around 200 through the gate but on this occasion, perhaps due to the combination of it being a rare Sunday game and a memorial match for someone associated with the club, it was hoped that the attendance would challenge the previous record of 512.

People were still paying their five quid admission to the 1000 capacity DSM Memorial Ground well into the first half and the eventual crowd total was later announced as 825. That’s pretty good for the ninth tier and boded well for the bucket collection to buy a young lad a new wheelchair.

We had got in early to find space in the 200-seater covered stand. It proved to be a wise decision as there were times when the rain was coming down heavily. Penistone were dressed up as Newcastle, with Emley in yellow. There were some tall lads in the Emley side, although one of the home centre halves could reasonably be described as a big unit. The season was panning out better for the home side and increasingly better form had seen them rise to eighth in the table. Local rivals Emley were down in seventeenth.

Penistone opened the scoring on twenty minutes from a breakaway but were soon pegged back by an Emley effort that had the home fans screaming for offside. The elderly lino kept shaking his head and insisting that the number three had been deep enough to put the scorer onside.

As half-time approached the Penistone striker who had scored their first added a second when he rifled home from the edge of box. In added time he got his hattrick with a left footed finish from the other side after running on to a through ball.

There was a lot less drama in the second half and it finished 3-1 to Penistone. I doubt that we will be back but I suspect that a few of the locals who swelled the crowd will make a return visit.