Saturday 11th September 2021
Scunthorpe & District Football League Division 1
At the Swineyard, Hollowgate Hill, Willoughton
Point & hope photo gallery: Click HERE
Limestone Rangers (4) 10
Ben Crawford 19
Mickolaj Balcerzak 27, 31
Max Batty 42
David Betts 51
Henry Fieldson 60ish
Tyler La Rocca 71, 73, 77
Philip Spindley 83
Manor Park (0) 0
A pleasant afternoon in the grassroots quarter of North East Lincolnshire.
"Limestone Rangers, where the hell is that!?", you might well ask. Well, Limestone Rangers play at Willoughton, which is near Bilborough and Yawthorpe. Still none the wiser? Okay then try just along the B1388 from Hemswell Cliff (where they do the Sunday market) and down Hollowgate Hill where that odd looking Y shaped junction is. Still none the wiser? Type DN21 5SG into the location find app of choice and look out for the sign posted at the top of this page and go down the driveway for approximately 100 yards and you'll be in the car park, overlooking the pitch, changing rooms and pavilion.
To put you in the right kind of area, lets just say: it's off the main road from Gainsborough to Kirton Lindsey (or Kirton in Lindsay as it's called on some of the signage around these parts).
Rather helpfully, the first Manor Park player to arrive was stood by the side of the road fully kitted up, to guide his mates into their desired destination. But, unhelpfully, if you approach Willoughton via the backroad via Yawthorpe, there is a sign on a corner painted red (Rangers' colours) and saying LFC, pointing down a rough and ready farm track that leads to some ploughed up fields in the middle of nowhere.
Luckily I work around these parts quite regularly and use the roads that pass Limestone Rangers and Blyborough Town (down another nearby hill at a funny Y shaped junction) on a frequent basis to avoid hold-ups on the main drag (and to find somewhere handy to skive-off away from prying eyes.. once we have worked up. of course).
The two clubs play roughly a mile apart and I recognised a quite a few of the people that I'd seen on my last visit to Blyborough in attendance at today's game.
Manor Park, who play their home games on pitch 2 at the Co-op Sports Ground on Woodlands Gardens in Scunthorpe, were placed in their current division during a reshuffle of the Scunthorpe & District League. It is felt, almost universally around these parts, that they've been allocated a place in the pecking order of things that is probably above and beyond their punching reach and weight and results, including this one today, do seem to add a considerable weight to such a theory.
Given a couple of seasons, they appear to have the potential to reach the required standard... and I sincerely hope that they do, but for the time being, league tables seldom ever lie, and the teams who are expected to do well: Limestone Rangers, Barnetby United, College Wanderers and Scotter United are going to be too strong for today's visitors.
Hopefully the season will be more of a character building exercise than a belittling experience for the Manor Park lads, because they were a friendly bunch, who in spite of being on the end of a drubbing, didn't visibly let their heads drop or start finger-pointing and apportioning blame onto their team-mates once things started to go wrong and then rapidly went downhill. They're playing football because of their love of the game and a few big heads and the ego has landed merchants that I've exchanged a few cross words with these past few seasons could learn a lot about humility from turning out to watch a game such as this one.
Rangers had been closing the Scunny lads down to good effect and effectively pinning them in their own half before they eventually took the lead in the nineteenth minute, when Ben Crawford found himself a yard or two of space to operate in and rolled the ball into the bottom right-hand corner of Connor Wilson's goal.
It would be remiss of me not to mention Wilson at this point, because whatever the final score might suggest about the Manor Park custodian, he had already pulled off a string of impressive saves before Crawford opened the scoring and had it not been for his defiance, the home side would have been out of sight by half-time, instead of being restricted to just the four goals. When the game kicked off Wilson had been wearing a red goalkeepers shirt, which the referee pretty quickly spotted and made him change due to the obvious colour clash, hence Wilson played the remainder of the game in a short-sleeved black t-shirt.
Mickolaj Balcerzak added a quick brace of goals for the hosts, his first attempt on goal was parried away by Wilson but 'Nick' (not Mick for reasons best known to his teammates) netted the ball when it rebounded back to him. His second goal was a well placed shot beyond the reach of the visitors keeper after Balcerzak had been afforded enough space to turn a barge around in by the AWOL Manor Park defence. "Chin up keeper, you can't play them all on yer own!" shouted out a kindly man stood on the touchline near the visitors bench. Well, I say bench, but it was actually a pile of coats, bibs and water bottles, as is the norm in this league. Another regular feature of the Scunny League, is that the match referee was the only official on duty, who was assisted by one of the subs from each team running the line.
Shortly before half-time, the ref stopped the game and spoke at length to the Manor Park 'linesman', who'd just ruled two Rangers goals out for offside offences. I suspect that the conversation revolved around explaining the offside rule and suggesting that the 'culprit' should just stick to awarding throw ins from now on in, because both decisions had appeared to be just a touch on the contentious side.
Where's that effing VAR when you really need it, eh!?
Regardless of feeling badly done by the hosts were cheered up when Max Batty got on the end of a right-wing cross to steer the ball past Wilson inside the six-yard box.
HT: Limestone Rangers 4 v Manor Park 0
The second half was just six minutes old, when Rangers elder statesman (and manager) David Betts connected with a sweetly struck half-volley, from a left-wing corner, that bulged the back of the visitors net. I was beginning to suspect that a home win was probably on the cards by now and that Manor Park hadn't merely been luring their hosts into a false sense of security before battering them in the second half. I also suspected that somebody was winding me up, when I was told that Betts was always trying that sort of thing and had been since 1987, but that was the first one that had ever gone in. I didn't believe such a thing, of course, but it would've made for a great story.
Apologies in advance if I've posted any inaccuracies, but without access to either team sheet, a small but significant point that was compounded by a referee who possibly had a time-piece that ran at a different speed to mine (and everybody else's), I had to do quite a lot of detective work to fill in the blanks that occurred frequently within my hastily scribbled notes; which appeared to be penned in some strange kind of hybrid variant of shorthand that had been conceived during a particularly messy coupling between Indo-Aryan Sanskrit and Traditional Mandarin Chinese. One day I'll get thee hang of writing while looking in completely the opposite direction. 'Maybe you could voice record your notes' suggested mien spouse, but I was already using my mobile phone to take pictures and communicate with the outside world, from my chosen isolated spot of choice.
Young Tyler La Rocca (a family surname that a couple of generations on non-league fans in the region will be all too familiar with) entered the fray and announced his arrival onto the scene with an array of flicks, tricks and ball skills that will probably grace a much higher level of football than the Scunny League in the not too distant future.
You quite often see these sort of youngsters, demonstrating bags of ability on the ball, but have to question if they can harness it for the good of their team. But La Rocca was bringing his colleagues into the game with a great range of passing and moved just as naturally off the ball as he did on it. And... he netted a hat-trick within six minutes of coming on, the third of which he chipped over Wilson from outside the area after the never say die Manor Park keeper had done well to push Kev Davies' shot away in his general direction.
Mickolaj Balcerzak (above) almost claimed a hat-trick too, which he probably deserved for having the bottle to appear in public sporting such a magnificent mullet hairstyle, Just you wait until there is an 80's revival... he'll be the envy of every High Street, from here too, err... Grayingham.
There was still time for Philip Spindley to claim a tenth goal for Limestone Rangers, when his deft prod from the edge of the area wrong-footed Wilson as it rolled over his goal-line. And a couple of minutes later the ref blew for full-time, possibly a little bit on the early side, or perhaps I need to change my watch battery any time soon. Either way, a small time discrepancy was hardly going to make much difference to where the three points would be heading this afternoon.
FT: Limestone Rangers 10 v Manor Park 0
Just twenty-five minutes after the game, even taking into account the speed gun-toting police officers at Corringham, the never-ending roadworks on the Gainsborough bypass and that lengthy stretch of average speed cameras on the last leg of the journey; I was back at home in East Retford upon Idle.
Hopefully, I'll be able to return to Willoughton in the not too distant future, to see how the season is progressing... and I'm trying to find a slot in my hectic schedule to get along to a Manor Park (and Baltic Boys on the adjacent pitch) home game at the Co-op Ground in Scunthorpe.
Enjoy your football... I certainly am doing.
