Enfield Town 3 Heybridge Swifts 1

Isthmian League, First Division North
Attendance: 359

Call me a nerd if you like (and I’m sure many do) but I like quirky buildings as much as quirky football matches. What better way, then, to spend an afternoon while on half-term in north London than at the Queen Elizabeth II stadium in Enfield. “It’s a café with a ground attached,” is how my brother-in-law described it. And what a café. This is no tatty little tea hut but a splendid Grade II-listed, Art Deco affair dating back to 1953 and designed to mimic an ocean liner, the tower being the funnel. It was restored as part of a £6m refurbishment of the ground that culminated with its official opening with a match against a Spurs XI last November. Coverage of that match made the ground top of the list on a rare southern sojourn and the ideal place to make my Isthmian League debut. 

You enter the café building via a spiral staircase which leads to a fully glazed bar area. The burble of conversation made me feel like I’d wandered into someone’s retirement party. I almost found myself looking around for the canapés. A door leads to the open deck, so to speak, and just around the corner are a few terraces of tip-up seats. Even though there’s a running track between the spectators and the pitch the view is still pretty good (see below and click to enlarge) and, for those who want to get up close and personal, there are short stands positioned within the track and right up against each goal line plus a further stand on the far side.

We were glad of the cover. The rain slanted down, rattling on the corrugated roofs and providing a suitably Dickensian funeral feel to the minute’s silence for Ronnie Sturgess, former groundsman (who’s tractor boasted a personalised number plate). The downpour continued for the entire first half inevitably prompting those familiar “what the hell am I doing here?” thoughts. If you have the choice the QEII is worth saving for a sunny evening at the start or end of the season.

The conviviality of the bar extended to our shelter. There was lots of talk about developments at Bishops Stortford, Leiston, Cheshunt, Brentwood and, horror of horrors, how the league table in the NLP still erroneously listed Enfield as having forfeited three points for fielding an ineligible player. These boys know their non-league. Not that they were boys. In fact, there was a notable absence of youths in the crowd. There were no chants either but repeated calls of: “Oh, Leon!”, “Go on, Leon!” and “What the hell was that, Leon?” Sporting orange boots and gloves and a tidy little beard, Leon Osei looked like he really didn’t want to come out to play right from the off, lumbering around like a cross between a punch drunk Emile Heskey and ever-collapsing Bambi although he did hit the post late on. Never has a substitution been so unsurprising.

Enfield, lying in second place in the table, took the lead when one of their players was felled just inside the area and Hope put away the penalty. Shortly afterwards a pass back to the goalie prompted an indirect free kick right on the edge of the six-yard box. Always an interesting scenario – and, this time, one that resulted in a first-rate save from the Swifts goalie.

Enfield won the first half and the Swifts won the second. Well, they should've done. They deservedly levelled the match with eight misn to go when a free kick was nodded on and nudged in but went behind almost immediately after the re-start when an Enfield cross was blasted in by sub Ewang.To add insult to injury, Hope danced through the Swifts defence to stroke in a third (above). By this time the rain had eased. It had been a tricky crossing for Enfield. In the dying minutes the sun finally and shyly appeared like the harbour lights at the end of a voyage. One last word of praise for the QEII: the car park – just as trim as the ground ­– is free and we were immediately cruising away. That’s the way I like it.

Programme notes: Very professional publication, the sort you’d associate with a club higher up the pyramid. I was reminded where I was, however, by an item headed ‘Bread Pudding!’ It read: “Don’t forget that Gill has given her famous bread pudding to us to sell for her so don’t miss out. It’s 50p for each generous portion”. The programme also explains the origins of the Swifts’ ground (in a village near Chelmsford) as a carrot field. Sounds like another spot well worth visiting …

Ex-star turns: Seb Coe, Linford Christine and Daley Thompson all trained at the QEII during its previous heyday. This Flickr page has good pics of the ground and an interesting history of Enfield Town (the original fans’ club). It also links to a blog with pics of how the QEII looked pre-restoration.

Long runs: As you’re probably aware, Whitley Bay were finally defeated in the FA Vase today (1-2 at home to West Auckland in the fifth round) having won the last three competitions spanning a total of 24 ties. And, talking of long runners the fella behind this blog is going to as many FA Cup ties as he can this season and has already clocked up a mightily impressive 21.

Highlights: As well as the film below, click here for my film from the café side of the Swifts equaliser.

Sheffield United 3 Salisbury City 1

FA Cup, third round

Attendance: 10,488

Lowest ranked side still in the competition. First time ever in the third round. Drawn 200 miles or so away from home for the second round running. Salisbury deserved some extra support. “Oh,” said the chap at the club, bemused at my explanation for wanting tickets in the away end and explaining why, living in York, I wouldn’t be collecting them in person.

 You insert your ticket into the scanner at the turnstile; no pushing a grubby note towards an old man in a flat cap here. The only reason I bought tickets in advance was to avoid the potential queue at the two ticket selling points at the ground. Inevitably, this was far from a capacity match. In fact, the crowd was about half what Sheffield United attract ordinarily and the prices were £3 cheaper than the lowest graded league matches.

The away end was packed with 2,000 supporters who kept up the chanting right through the 90 mins. Above us was a curious cantilevered red fabric awning which is presumably there to catch anything thrown from the tier above (empty today). When it was illuminated from time to time by the scoreboard the drape looked like something you’d find inside the marquee at a wedding.

The stand to our right was full, the stand to our left was half-full and the stand behind the opposite goal was closed and occupied only by a single ball boy who sat (I suspect purposefully) at the bottom of the ‘U’ in the white ‘SUFC’ marked out in the seats. Like the Bolton/York tie 12 months previously you knew instantly where the party was and who, a little reluctantly, was laying on the spread.

Sheffield had eased through the first two rounds with simple home wins against Oxford and Torquay and immediately exerted their authority over further lower level opposition. Only some super saves from Salisbury goalie kept The Whites in the tie. (Duff nickname, by the way. Surely there must be better monickers linked to the city’s ancient heritage or even nearby Stonehenge). Porter opened the scoring for Sheffield when, unmarked, he slotted home inside the box. The Blades had sufficient chances to have put the tie to bed by half-time.

Salisbury – playing their sixth match in this season’s competition ­­­– came roaring out the blocks at the start of the second half. They were attacking toward us, an inflatable sheep was pinging around and the tie finally flickered into life. This is what we want! The purple patch came to an abrupt end when Sheffield got the second goal on 60 mins, a wicked deflection off a wayward shot (above). Further misfortune followed when Salisbury’s Webb (son of David Webb, who scored the winner in Chelsea’s FA Cup final replay in 1970) netted at his own end.

Showing great character, Salisbury rallied again towards the end with marauding Mackin capping a fine sub appearance by firing into the bottom left corner from the edge of the area (above). A deserved consolation but it was too little, too late, of course. By now the full moon, thinly veiled by clouds, hung high above the centre flagpole on the roof of the empty stand, maintaining its pristine symmetry. The sun had long set on Salisbury’s cup run – and mine, for that matter.

The experience of a professional football club made me hanker for a non-league ground and the sense of community and occasion that goes with it when the big matches crop up. My mind went back to the last time I was at the same match as Sheffield United manager, Danny Wilson – when he was in charge of Bristol City at Harrogate Railway in 2002. Ah, the memories. Perhaps I’m turning into an anorak but I think I’ll always prefer the third qualifying round to the third round proper. I left my heart in Barnoldswick. 

So. Salisbury plain? Well, not quite but – being the ultimate fair weather supporter, having no connection with the city other than a school trip there c 1974 and in the absence of an upset – the encounter was a little flat for me.

Happy hoppers: For another FA Cup blogger’s view of the match click here. This fella, like me, was at Barnoldswick and Staveley in the qualifiers and he’s yet to miss a round.

Programme notes: “I’ve just been out and bought a jockstrap so I’ll pad it all up and I should be OK to play.” Gillingham’s Chris Whelpdale declares himself fit despite suffering a split scrotum in a fixture against Crawley over the festive period. Um, do we really need to know this? The quote was included in the ‘Famous last words’ page.

The FA Cup problem: The perennial poser of how to reignite interest in the FA Cup is like family members deciding what to do with its elderly mother when she’s lost her marbles. We all love the old girl but she’s never going to be the same as she was and we can’t just leave her alone to die. So what could be done - other than arrange for legendary players to come out of retirement to score winning goals on their returns? The Guardian has some suggestions – and click on the thumbnail below for an amusing collection of third round TV commentary clichés.

Alfreton Town 0 Carlisle United 4

FA Cup, first round
Attendance: 1,488

“There are some things that tell you that you’re at a non-league ground” said my nephew and occasional Cup-anion Toby as he rejoined his brother Duncan and I on the terraces. “Dog footprints in the toilets”. Indeed. Welcome to the Impact Arena. Anything less arena-like it would be hard to imagine. This is a higgledy-piggledy, jerry-built ground but all the more endearing as a result of it. Only 10 years ago Alfreton were languishing in the Northern Counties League and it still shows. The narrow main stand – with three roofs at different levels – now barely has room for standard supporter accommodation. To walk the length of it is to weave in and out of the press box, Tommie Bradley terracing area and Lottie Bradley hospitality area – all shoehorned into what I imagine was previously terracing or seating. Along the way you also have to negotiate entrances to the changing rooms, bar, two hospitality suites and a sponsors’ lounge.

The opposite stand consists of thin metal poles supporting an equally flimsy roof. Behind one goal is uncovered seats plonked onto terracing and at the other end is a single, short cover that today demarked the exclusion zone between rival fans (not that it was needed). The fence badly obscured the view. Not surprisingly, the TV gantry took the form of scaffolding and plastic sheeting perched on top of one stand. Yards of multi-coloured cable festooned the terraces. Take away the breeze blocks enclosures, corrugated steel facias and hastily built brick kazis and this is a small ground inferior to most in the Conference to which Alfreton were promoted for the first time this season.

The arena (sic) is discreet within the outskirts of this north Derbyshire town (even the floodlights don’t stand out) and the muted mood matched. The Alfreton chairman described this tie as a “nice little diversion” from the fight to avoid relegation and the home fans seemed similarly unawed about the prospect of a visit by Carlisle, lying 10th in the third division. Perhaps that also had something to do with the fact that Alfreton were today appearing in the first round for the third time in seven years.

The Reds started promisingly but then conceded four goals in the second quarter of the contest as befitting the side with the worst defensive record in the top six divisions of English football. The pick of the bunch was a bicycle kick from a cross which, when I passed right in front of him, I heard the Radio Cumbria commentator liken to Rooney’s strike against Man City last season. (First goal pictured, below).

By half-time, then, it was all over bar the shouting but there wasn’t any. While understable to a degree, this was the most astonishingly quiet match I’ve ever been to. It was as if the minute’s silence for Remembrance Day before kick-off had been extended to cover the full ninety of the match. You could almost hear a poppy pin drop. Without exaggeration the players made more noise than the fans. In fact, there were more vocals at Barnoldswick back in August.

To their credit Alfreton put up a good fight in the second half. A penalty rattled the bar and the Reds tested the Carlisle goalie but it was all, inevitably, too little, too late. They deserved at least a consolation goal, though. In true non-league fashion, a woman with a peroxide beehive pushed her child around the pitch and we too were soon perambulating to the exit.

Streete map: Turning out for Alfreton was Theo Street, son of Floyd, who played for Wolves and Reading among others. Originally, I thought that it was Floyd on the pitch but he’s 52 now, as Duncan revealed from a quick Wiki. (Funny how iPhones have now completely replaced tiny, tinny trannies from Tandy on the terraces). Remie Streete, Theo’s brother, plays for Newcastle.

Stocking filler: You can buy a DVD of Alfreton’s pre-season 14-0 thrashing of a Sheffield Wednesday XI from the club shop. Now that would warm the cockles on a cold winter’s night …

Good thrashings: AFC Totton’s 8-1 win over Bradford Park Avenue was the biggest win for a non-league side in the proper rounds of the Cup for 66 years. Stranraer, meanwhile, bagged nine without return against Wigtown & Bladnoch in the Scottish Cup last month. The match was also notable not for being a rare Wigtownshire derby. Good blogtastic write-up by The Scotsman here.

My Cup doesn’t overfloweth: Faced with no suitable tie to go to in the final qualifying round, I made do with listening to commentary on Wrexham v. York. York lost having fielded a weakened team. “No matter: we can concentrate on the league” was the tenor of the post-match Tweets to the radio station. Oh, for goodness sake! Is the prospect of trips to Accrington and Torquay next season really more exciting than the potential of taking on a Premier League side (albeit their reserves) as, indeed, the Minstermen did last season? It’s a sad day for football if it is. At this rate the only knockout competition anyone will be serious about winning is the good old FA Vase.

And then there were eight: Another sign of the times is how few clubs below Conference North/South level made the first round this season: only eight (including just two from the north) out of 603 starters. Only sperm set off on a journey with less chance of reaching their goal.

Ex-pro in the news: Steve Claridge has signed for Gosport. Interesting little film about his debut here. And what a winner he scores too.