Crook Town 4 Holker Old Boys 4

FA Cup preliminary round
Attendance: 98

August 11^th was just too early for the football season to start – even if it is the FA Cup and certainly while the Olympics are on. A match at the same time as all those running races was like contemplating dessert before you’ve finished the main course: too much to even think about let alone digest. So I bypassed the extra preliminary round a fortnight ago. Pleasingly, the club I’d planned to visit, Crook (in Co Durham), won their tie and were drawn at home in the following round. This is likely to be their final season or two at their ground – the most highly rated in the Northern League – and I wanted to visit in the Cup while I could.

The Millfield does not disappoint. For a start it has two tunnels. The away team snake down a passageway that looks more likely to lead to a sheep dip than football pitch while the hosts step out through a pair of upside down garden gates. The ground’s record attendance is an astonishing 17,000 who packed in for an Amateur Cup quarter-final in 1952 (see ‘Recommended bedtime reading’, below). It would’ve been a squeeze but it’s relatively easy to imagine how the ground could’ve held such a number. I suspect that the two sides that are now grassy banks were once terraces and the area behind one goal still is - and with robust-looking crash barriers to boot. There are nine terraces too in a bizarre stand around the corner that’s roof is so high and upward pointing that it looks like it was specifically designed to catch the wind and allow rain to sweep under it. Huge painted arrows on the back of the stand direct navigationally challenged spectators to … well, the tea hut, I suppose. Pride of place goes to the 1925 grandstand astride the half-way line with painted wooden bench seats and a floodlight pylon sprouting through the roof like a weed through matting.

Crook were the stronger team and, when they took a two-goal lead after about 20 mins, you felt that the tie was over. The Old Boys (great name, by the way, and they’re from Barrow) then struck back to score with two goals from their first two chances. Crook nudged ahead again to make it 3-2 and spent most of the second half failing to take the opportunity to put the tie to bed.

Meanwhile, they left themselves open at the back and paid the price when the Old Boys scored twice as they’d been promising to do. The goal of the match was Crook’s equaliser: a spectacular overhead volley by hat-trick man Byrne from a cross after which he again revealed his undershirt which bore a message about chips. (I couldn’t read all of it). My man of the match was Kev Devine. Barrell-chested and getting on a bit, Kev writhed and rolled his way around the pitch like an angry bull. All we needed was the winner from him – but, sadly, it never came.

“We don’t want to go to Holker,” bawled a fan. “They’ve got outside netties!” Later someone said to the Crook manager: “Here. Gary. Get that left back off!”. Gary replied: “He’s coming off in a minute.” The fan/club contact couldn’t be closer at this level. Another fella was recalling a cup tie in 1952, when he was five and among a 4,000 crowd around a snowy pitch. He won’t have been the only spectator with such memories given that the average age of the attendance was about 75. Several had stoops, wore wooly hats (in August) and looked like they should be called Tommy. You can always rely on the good ole Northern League for a really retro experience.

What a way to start this season’s FA Cup trail. I doubt I will see a more entertaining and passionate contest. Just a fortnight after the Olympics my faith in football (at least, non-league) is restored. I was originally saving Crook for a grim, slate grey winter’s day to give me the full feel of one of those vintage black and white photographs. Towards the end of today’s match the drizzle and mist thickened and I zipped my cagoule right up. My afternoon was complete. (Holker won the replay 3-1).

Recommended bedtime reading: I’ve bought the Crook AFC Chronicle. The club’s history is extraordinary. It includes 10 matches against Barcelona; a former player whom went on to manager Barce and Peru; regular five figure crowds during a run of Amateur Cup triumphs in the 1950s and 60s; a tour of India in 1976; and recent £50k donation out of the blue by local boy and former president of Arriva group, Sir Tom Cowie, after whom the ground was partially re-named. Click here for a brief online history. Love this pic – of the 1962-63 side with a game dame.

Recommended online reading: Alderney played Sealand, a principality that is a former World War fortress in the North Sea, in an international friendly today. Click here for report and pics.

Stars in their eyes: Wembley has signed five ex-pros viz Ray Parlour, Martin Keown, Brian McBride, David Seaman, Graham Le Saux and Claudio Caniggia and appointed Terry Venables as advisor for their FA Cup campaign. It’s base a ruse conjured up by competition sponsors, Budweiser. All that was missing was a couple of EastEnders and an X-Factor reject. Dunno if this is really what the spirit of the Cup is all about but it certainly added considerable interest to their opening match. In this video clip their manager says that only Parlour and Keown are hanging around for the next tie.
 

Mad hop: A groundhop in Wales this bank holiday weekend took in 11 clubs (most with unpronounceable names) in three days. They do say that groundhopping has a lot in common with trainspotting …

 

L’Île Rousse 0 Calvi 2 (aet)

Corsica Cup final
Attendance: approx 1,000

So there I was on holiday with the family tucking into wild boar with sweet polenta in a restaurant at Calvi in northern Corsica when I noted that the waiter wore a t-shirt with “Finale!” emblazoned across it. Below were the words ‘Coupe de Corse’, the crests of Calvi and L’Île Rousse football clubs and the date ‘6.6.12’. That was the next day. Soon I was asking about more than the bill and, having found out the match was taking place in L’Île Rousse just 22km away, re-shuffling our itinerary. What serendipity: I had to go. Euros? What Euros?

The rivalry between Calvi and L’Île Rousse dates back over a quarter of a century. The latter was developed by Pascal Paoli, leader of independent Corsica, in the 1760s as a “gallows to hang Calvi”. He needed a port for the export of olive oil since Calvi was still in the hands of the rival Genoese who’s naval blockade was stifling the economy of the fledgling government. Today Calvi is the superior football club. Cup holders, having won the competition for the first time in their 78-year history last season, they play in the fourth tier of French football while L’Île Rousse, three times cup winners in the mid-80s, compete in the top division of the Corsican league (tier six). The scene was set, then, for a fiery Balagne (that’s the name of the region) derby. Think Everton playing Liverpool in the FA Cup final and you’re about right – in Mediterranean island terms.

I had no problem finding the ground. It was bang on the main coast road just as the waiter said, the road was bunged up with traffic and the tinny PA blared across the entire neighbourhood like a Muslim call to prayer. My fears about this being a one man and his dog final were unfounded; the attendance was about a thousand. Among all the smoking Gauls I suddenly I felt like an Englishman very abroad. I paid my eight Euros to a couple sat at a table and chairs. All that was missing from a Northern Premier League-type admission was the offer of a raffle ticket. All free vantage points were taken: trees, walls, mounds and the roofs. 

A track leads below pitch level and along one of the two empty sides of the ground, around the back of a large pavilion-style clubhouse with first floor viewing area and to the far side of the pitch where there are five deep concrete terraces for sitting on. The artificial 3G pitch is tightly enclosed all round with a 12ft high fence which means the only way to get an unobstructed view is to stand on the top terrace. The vista extends far past the clubhouse over to the lighthouse perched on the red (at sunset) island that gives the resort its  name.

The teams came out to a riot of flares and air horns from the Calvi fans (clip here), many wearing black wigs and their faces painted black and white. It was more like the fall of the Bastille than the preamble to a game of non-league football. Thereafter, though, the fans strangely fell pretty much silent other than for the general murmur of chat. The fireworks were over in more ways than one; the standard of football and quality of the contest were woeful. Throughout the game the pattern was that Calvi dominated possession but were feeble in the final third while L’Île was restricted to a few breakaways. The best of them was when a striker flicked the ball over the keeper only for the ball to be booted practically off his toe by a Calvi defender appearing from nowhere. “Sacrebleu!” we all called. (Well, I did). 

Things sparked up briefly just before half-time when the tackles started flying in. Lots of ‘handbags’ followed and the Île coach had to be twice be restrained as the teams headed for the clubhouse. Right: this is going to get tasty in the second-half, I thought. But it didn’t. The game was as dull as the last few FA Cup finals  you watched before you gave up. Youths entertained themselves by lighting their last flare in the car park, two girls took pictures of them together on an iPhone and the fella in front of me twisted a blade of long grass between his fingers. It’s funny how you only get extra-time when you don’t want it – and this was always shaping up to be one of those matches. The ennui of the crowd of the crowd had spread to the teams who, by now, were like two weary boxers slugging it out having long abandoned the game-plan.

To practically everyone’s relief, then, a few minutes into the additional period Calvi finally broke the deadlock when a striker managed to round the keeper without getting the ball trapped under his feet as he looked about to do. I let out half of a relieved “yeah!” before remembering I was among the Île fans. Thankfully no-one noticed. Such a pity we never had a home score as that would surely have got the game going and resulted in the sort of ding-dong derby this final should always have been. Just before the turn-around and again on the break a Calvi striker fired home from just inside the box. Game over.

The trophy presentation was a shambolic affair conducted on the pitch which I managed to reach via the clubhouse. I think I can safely say that I'm the only spectator for whom the celebration brought back memories of Tadcaster Albion's finest hour. The smell among the flag-waving celebrants was a strange mix of sweat and champagne. And with that I joined the convoy of honking mopeds on the N197 back to Calvi, contributing a couple of cheeky little toots in my Focus hire car. Poor match, yes, but I wouldn’t have missed the total experience for, well, all the olive oil in the Balagne. 

Back home: Here’s what Calvi’s ground looks like. I trod the turf at dusk after that fateful dinner and while some lads were having a kickabout on it then returned for pics the next day.

The other final: I went to York’s Conference play-off final against Luton at Wembley. Not quirky enough to be blogworthy – but a grand day out nonetheless.

The big picture: The size of pics on Blogger always frustrates me. Click on any of the pics to view the full album.

The days before 5.15 kick-offs and Denis Wise collecting the FA Cup with his son

I’ve bought the above book off eBay. First published in 1966 I owned a copy as a small boy and turning the pages is pure nostalgia of the sort when you keep remember things you’d forgotten. I particularly like the pictures, each a little work of art. The footballers – all epitomes of vitality – have chiselled, Dan Dare-like good looks, lustrous locks and Colgate smiles. Their laces are tied after two loops of the instep. Fans wear colourful rosettes and bulging scarves and they’re always smiling too. The text depicts a much simpler, more inclusive and less ostentatious era of the game (although I daresay this impression is partly because it come from a children’s book). Three pages are devoted to the FA Cup and, to coincide with today’s final and round off another season of blog posts, I reproduce them here.

“The FA Cup competition which is now so famous was first begun in 1871. It is a knock-out competition. The winning team is given a large silver cup which it keeps for a year. In 1895 the FA Cup was won by Aston Villa. When the team took the cup back to Birmingham it was placed in the window of a Birmingham shop so that everyone could see it. During one night the cup was stolen from the shop window. It was never discovered who had taken it so a new FA Cup had to be made.

“Soon there were so many professionals clubs that they always won the FA Cup from the amateur clubs. So the Football Association began another competition with another FA Cup just for amateur clubs. The Football Association is now so large that it is made up of more than 60,000 clubs. This means that there are more than a million players. There are usually large crowds at cup-tie matches. Many of the spectators wear rosettes, made in the colours of the team they support. Some of them carry bells and rattles to make a noise at the match.

“Every footballer longs to play in the final of the FA Cup at Wembley. The Queen or some member of the royal family usually comes to the cup final at Wembley. At the end of the match the queen presents a cup to the captain of the winning team. She then gives a medal to every member of the two teams. It is a wonderful moment for them. The men in the winning team often carry their captain to the dressing room on their shoulders while he holds the FA Cup high above his head.”

This last pic accompanies the text about media coverage of football and the publication of football papers on Saturday evenings. Delivering the Sports Post in Reading circa 1980 is as close as I’ve got to sports journalism.

When the Cup was king: Players were chairing their trimphant skipper off the pitch long into the seventies, of course. Here Billy Bremner looks remarkably at ease with the somewhat ungainly posture at the end of the centenary FA Cup final which took place 40 years ago this weekend. The pic accompanied a story about the day in today's Yorkshire Post. What a legendary side that was. Bet you can remember them all: Harvey, Reaney, Madeley, Charlton, Hunter, Lorimer, Bremner, Giles, Gray, Clarke and Jones.

King of the cup: I again take my hat off to this blogger who today is due to complete a remarkable FA Cup odyssey which has seen him attend a tie and replay in every round of the competition, 26 in all. Good blog too - and now available as an e-book.

A question of sport: Who are the four players pictured in this fine Cup final pic (which I used to have framed in my flat)? And what was the year? Answers in the comments box.

Summer soccer curiosities: Three weeks today marks the 30^th anniversary of Aston Villa’s triumph in the European Cup. I loved this story which did the rounds a couple of years ago – about the disappearance of the Cup and its recovery at a Birmingham police station. Clearly Villa are a somewhat cavalier with cups.

This time of the year also reminds me of a wonderfully arcane warm-up match for the 1988 European Championships – between England and Aylesbury United. Click here for an account of it from When Saturday Comes and see below. On YouTube you'll also find a peculiar film of the England players – complete with Gary Lineker in his jockstrap – in the dressing room  before the match. You can almost smell the embrocation.

And finally ... talking about summer football, hands up who gives a fig about the Olympic tournament? Hmmm, thought so. Me too. Anyway, good luck to Psycho.