After briefly stopping off at the Gosforth game, Jen and I headed further north for our originally intended destination of Cleator Moor. It’s usually an awkward place to get to, but as we were already over in this part of the world for a British Sea Power festival it made it easy enough.
The festival, which took place in the grounds of Muncaster Castle, was excellent. It had been limited to five hundred people, but as Sea Power aren’t the most popular of bands these days, or any days really, it didn’t sell out and so there were probably only around four hundred people to see three BSP sets as well as some band member spin-off stuff and some well-chosen support acts.
The festival camping worked well too, at only a short walk away from the barn where the action was and with drinking water supplied and showers nearby. A real toilet block made the facilities an improvement on just about any other festival I’ve ever been to. As you’d expect at a Sea Power gig everyone was very friendly with many of those attending being older than me and with quite a few of them having brought their dogs along too.
Daytime is a difficult time at a festival though. If you start the drinking too early then you may not see any of the bands later in the day. I remember one early start at End Of The Road resulted in me being asleep in my tent by 6pm, but then I woke up refreshed and ready to start the new day at midnight meaning I was able to catch the annual outing of the Jonathan Richman tribute band, The Modern Ovens, in the early hours. That was a little weird as I was more in the mood for coffee and Weetabix than I was for a beer. This time though, a morning hike and an afternoon trip to the football filled the daytime hours very well.
The football on this occasion was a Playermatch.com Cup fixture between Cleator Moor Celtic of the tenth tier First Division North of the North West Counties Football League and visitors Cheadle Town who ply their trade in the equivalent First Division South of the same league.
It was the first home game of the season for Celtic at their McGrath Park ground, after a run of seven away fixtures brought on, I think, by the laying of a new pitch.
I can’t remember how much we paid to get in but I’ve a feeling that it might only have been three quid with another pound for a programme. We were there just in time to take a couple of seats in a small covered stand. There was a separate covered standing area too, although most people just leaned on the perimeter barrier.
One odd thing was that nobody spent any time looking at their phones due to there being no signal in Cleator Moor or anywhere as far south as Muncaster. How can that be? It’s as if this part of Cumbria hasn’t moved into the twenty-first century. Instead of looking up line-ups and anything else random that popped into our heads we were distracted by more present goings-on such as the small dog playing with a clothes peg and a kid who couldn’t have been more than four years old wearing a denim jacket with Slayer on the back.
I’m not really sure that the Playermatch.com Cup figured significantly in the ambitions of either club, but for what it’s worth Cheadle took the tie by two goals to one leaving us to head back down the road to Muncaster for the evening activities at the festival.
Trail of the Lion King 