Saturday 1st August 2020
Pre-Season Friendly
Recreation Ground, Station Road, Wombwell
Wombwell Town (0) 0
Belper Town (0) 2
Danny South 68, Steve McDonnell 70
Point & hope picture gallery: Click HERE
A whole four months and nineteen days (AKA 141 days) have elapsed since I last attended a game of football as a spectator.
Having checked in advance, I ascertained that Wombwell Town was one of a handful of clubs within a reasonable travelling distance of my home turf, who were permitted to allow spectators into their ground on two counts, namely: they ply their trade below step 6 of the non-league pyramid and have fulfilled the FA's criteria for having devised and published an action plan pertaining to spectators being allowed to watch their pre-season games safely, during the current climate of Covid-19 restrictions and uncertainty.
The plan is available on 'the Wellers' club website, along with details of their forthcoming home games.
Registering your name and contact details at the designated signing in point outside the clubhouse door was a quick and simple enough process, admission was free, a double-sided team sheet (including details of the 'Covid Compliance' protocol) was available for anybody who wanted one... and I really hope that everybody chipped in via the donations bucket or at least had a go on the football card that was doing the rounds after the host club had put in so much effort so that people could satisfy their craving for a football fix.
What with this being FA Cup Final day n' all that, I had to forego watching the special editions of 'Noel Edmonds' Multi-Coloured Swap Shop' and 'Grandstand' because this pre-season friendly at the Recreation ground was scheduled for a 1PM kick-off, but it was a small price to pay and I set the Betamax top loader to record the day's events before leaving the house.
In spite of missing the above-mentioned programmes, I think that I did quite possibly become inadvertently involved in a live version and authentic reconstruction of 'Jeux sans frontières' (AKA 'Games without borders' or 'It's a Knockout') when I made the mistake of approaching Wombwell from the East via the A635 and A6195.
The random scattering of traffic cones across the main road junctions and resulting chaos caused by haphazardly positioned and misleading road signs, that simultaneously instructed frustrated and confused motorists arriving from all direction to circumnavigate a series of over-complicated roundabouts in both a clockwise and anti-clockwise direction, with hilarious consequences (if you've got a warped sense of humour) made for a 'slight' delay en route.
If you're not local and want to travel to drive to one of 'the Wellers' upcoming games (and I can thoroughly recommend that you really ought to), then I would suggest that using the M1 and coming into the town from the West, even it adds a few extra miles to your journey, is by far the best and quickest option... unless you enjoy sitting in long traffic jams and swerving to avoid oncoming lorries at worrying frequent intervals... each to their own innit.
For your information: Wombwell railway station is approximately a (brisk) twenty-minute walk away from the ground, follow Hough Lane, then turn left when you reach the Locky Bar and right opposite the Prince of Wales pub, go past the Library and straight over the roundabout onto Station Road and the football club (and South Yorkshire Kart Club) will appear to your left just over the bridge... and it is indeed a breath-taking sight to behold as it comes into view.
Until (approximately) twenty years ago, there used to be another team going by the name of Wombwell Town, who played at this very same enclosure, but they vanished from the south Yorkshire football landscape when they ceased to exist.
This current forward-thinking club who've adopted the old name was formed by two well-known characters around the local football scene: Karl Rose and Doug O’Connor, as recently as 2018... and thus far they've gone from strength to strength, while enhancing their reputation along the way, since their inaugural game that same year against everybody's favourite Polish team, my good friends: United Worksop FC, who sadly folded at the end of last season... I was personally gutted to have seen the last of them because even when results went against the Manton based side, it was always fun watching their games.
'The Wellers' won the Sheffield & Hallam County Senior League Second Division at the first attempt and were on course to claim last season's First Division title, when football was initially suspended after March 14th because of the untimely arrival of the corona-virus pandemic, before the FA declared that
the 2019-20 season as null and void altogether in the lower reaches of the game's pecking order. Wombwell Town were seven points ahead of second-placed Handsworth Reserves at the time, with both clubs having just three games left to play, including the mouthwatering prospect of the two pace-setters going head to head on the penultimate Saturday of the season.
Of course, viewing their situation with a measure of perspective and realism, missing out on a prize, however richly deserved it might be, for what is, when all said and done, 'only a game', can't even begin to be measured against the scale of worldwide human suffering and havoc that the Covid pandemic has caused in its wake. But as footballing hard-luck stories go, 'the Wellers' plight surely must rank fairly high. To their immense credit and in their own words, the official club website carried a post that stated: It was decided that all three divisions of the County Senior League would become void and there was no promotion. But it didn’t matter because lives were, and will always be, more important than football.
The optimism and eagerness to resume their ambitious journey anew any time soon was tangible and clearly evident to anybody who took the time to converse with the rank and file helpers and volunteers at this obviously very proud club today. Given the calibre of several other sides that play in this division, it will definitely be worth keeping an eye on things whenever football restarts properly.
Today's visitors Belper Town play in Northern Premier League Division One South East, which is several world's apart from county league level football and at times the gulf in class was clear to see as the Nailers laid siege to the Wombwell goal, where the hosts' keeper: Jono Davis, was performing admirably, particularly whenever Danny Gordon and Craig Mitchell tested him.
Gordon headed narrowly wide when he'd looked odds on to score and a benevolent linesman probably kept the Yorkshire side in the game by raising his flag to rule out two strikes for the visitors, but while-soever that the game remained goalless there was still always the chance that Wombwell might hit their hosts on the break and nick a lead... Luke Exley and Gareth McDermott combined and went close to capitalising on a defensive slip, but were thwarted as Belper's back-line moved quickly to rectify the situation while Ryan Musselwhite, the Nailers keeper, was called upon to push a well-struck effort by Luke Norbury away to safety.
Musselwhite was in the thick of things again with half-time approaching when his momentum took him outside his area with the ball in his hands, but McDermott couldn't keep the resultant free-kick on target.
The last action of the first half saw Davis save Gordon's stinging shot after Mitchell had set him up with a sideways knock across the face of Wombwell's goal.
At the interval, Belper made wholesale changes to their line-up and also swapped their shirts from yellow to white, which created a few problems as regards player recognition for many of those present, because the change strip didn't have any numbers on the back of the shirts.
While the rack of substitutes were still finding their rhythm McDermott almost put the hosts ahead but Lee Overton, the visitors' replacement keeper thwarted him.
Belper had another goal disallowed after the referee spotted a foul on 'the Wellers' number six Joe Egan.
But the visitors were on top of things for the most part and their pressure was rewarded in the sixty-eighth minute when Danny South planted a towering downward header from a right-wing cross into the net as Davis and Jake Padgett struggled to keep the ball out... and just a couple of minutes later, the Nailers doubled their lead through Steve McDonnell who stabbed the ball home from North's pass, at the second attempt after Davis had blocked the initial shot.
Exley and Padgett both went close to pulling a goal back for Wombwell from free-kicks, while two second-half substitutes: Harley Blankley and Brad Creswell, both had efforts saved by Overton.
All in all, the best team on the day won, but 'the Wellers' management must have been enthused by the collective effort of their team on the day.
FT: Wombwell Town 0 v Belper Town 2
I've got a few more games pencilled in for consideration in the near future, but I will be playing it by ear as regards where I might be heading for the time being, on the understanding that rules are rules, particularly health and safety ones.
At the time of writing. there are plenty of options available, without either breaking the law or taking selfish and unnecessary risks, but those provisional opportunities are obviously subject to change at very short notice.
