Guisborough Town 1 Norton & Stockton Ancients 3

Attendance: 144
FA Cup, Extra Preliminary Round

This season I decided to start right at the beginning. Here you’re as many wins from the first round proper as teams in that round are from the semi-finals. Not so much at Everest base camp, then, as hoping to get through customs at Kathmandu airport. Five Live requests texts from players (there are more than 3,600 of them) on their way to these matches rather than fans. For ‘minnows’ read ‘plankton’.

In fact, so many teams enter the Cup that reading the draw takes about as long as driving to a match. In common with picking a winner at the Grand National, I made my selection largely on the basis of name. Oxhey Jeys, Concord Rangers, Coventry Sphinx, Sporting Bengal United, Lincoln Moorlands Railway and, the very silly, Nuneaton Griff, tickled my fancy but were playing too far away. Norton & Stockton Ancients, though, were drawn away to Guisborough Town (near Middlesbrough) which would also allow for sandwiches on the beach beforehand, something of a tradition on these jaunts. So Guisborough – preceded by an hour with Bertie at Salturn-by-the-Sea – it was.

The crowd was surprisingly large. Three figures, in fact. The noise wasn’t exactly deafening but there was a hubbub of conversation in the main stand that was as loud as the wind rustling in the trees. They surround the pitch on all four sides and make for a most attractive enclosure. The occasion was as understated as the ‘Guisborough Town’ sign on the stand, which is formed of seventies-style lettering attached to a beam and all but hidden from view. All those professional teams that emblazon their name across the seats take note. (Actually, Guisborough would barely have enough seats to do that and the Ancients, I daresay, would struggle even more so).

The home side went into the fixture on the back of an 8-1 opening day victory but the confidence that will have given them gradually ebbed away. The Ancients took the lead against the run of play and, as the game progressed, so the tide turned and they ended up worthy winners. For Guisborough, it really had ended before it began.

Glasshoughton Welfare 2 Maltby Main 1

Attendance: 400 approx.

Northern Counties East League, Premier Division

The Diggerland Stadium, home of Glasshoughton Welfare in Castleford, is not a big ground. “It’s over there,” the bloke at the petrol station gesticulated. “Beside the bumpy castle”. Only returning down the main road did I see the banner tied to the fence inviting passers by to ‘Come and watch Bruce Grobbelaar make his debut’. Yes, the 49-year-old local resident has signed for Welfare – cash-strapped and relegation threatened – albeit for a single match.

Anyone unaware of the occasion was clear as to why the attendance exceeded the club’s average of 54 as soon as they passed through the turnstile to see the Grobbelaar commemorative t-shirts and tribute programme and the man himself warming up in front of countless cameras. He was the only player with a name on his shirt but his identity was pretty clear.


The proximity of a bumpy castle was appropriate to the afternoon’s carnival atmosphere. Burgers sizzled on a barbecue and fans dotted around the perimeter rail baked in the pre-season-like heat nursing plastic glasses of beer. The turn-out was a little disappointing, the clash with the Grand National not helping. In fact, more money may have been raised from a Beat the Goalie competition.

Inevitably, the match was a bit of a sideshow. “The home side’s one nil up”, said one spectator into his mobile phone. My companion and cousin, Toby, mustered only a little more interest in the contest. “The most we can hope for is a penalty,” he said, thinking that a spot kick could lead to a reprise of Grobbelaar’s famous wobbly knees antics in the European Cup Final of 1984. The most we got was actually a pretty nimble and competent performance with a few maverick moments thrown in. Twice he roamed out of his area to dribble to ball away and he responded to Welfare’s second goal by doing a handstand. Moments later he forfeited his clean sheet when Maltby Main (they were the opposition, by the way) got a consolation goal. Their keeper then nearly upstaged Grobbelaar by coming up for a corner in injury time.

You certainly couldn’t doubt his commitment. He played the full 90 minutes and barked instructions at the defenders in his broad African accent in such a way that predisposed any spectators behind his goal from making cocky remarks about those match fixing allegations. Some of them, devoted to the last, wore Liverpool shirts.

“What occasions do you think I could wear the Grobbelaar t-shirt?” I asked Toby on the way back to her car. (OK. I bought one). “Gardening?” he replied. Indeed. At least when I’m not wearing my t-shirt from Socrates’s sole outing for Garforth Town just down the road from Welfare a couple of years ago. What next? Gordon Banks at Borrowash Victoria?

Click here for The Guardian's account of the afternoon.

Billingham Synthonia 1 AFC Totton 2

(3-3 on agg, Totton win 5-4 on pens)

Attendance: 2,386

FA Vase semi-final, second leg

The big match comes to Billingham. In the local paper the day before the chairman explained how he was getting in a burger van and printing a programme. He was anticipating a maximum of 1,500 fans but, in the event, 2,386 turned up, the size of the crowd compensating for the atmosphere-free layout of the stadium.

There’s a vast, rusting cantilever stand on one side and nothing but grassed banking on the other sides with a cinder running track around the pitch. The gap between the stand and the perimeter fence has a paddock feel and makes you think that horses will emerge onto the turf rather than footballers.

The away team sprinted out sporting pink and two of them wearing gloves. I was fully expecting a song including the lyric “southern pooftas” but sadly none was forthcoming. The Totton fans weren’t shy of their livery at all, chanting “Pink army, pink army” on more than one occasion. Synthonia were made of tougher stuff. One of their players left the pitch to have his head bandaged at which point all we needed for the makings of a vintage cup tie was a dog on the pitch. Instead we got a hat on the pitch, spinning on its rim like a wheel off a wagon for fully 30 yards. There can’t have been such a big cheer for the loss of an item of clothing since the last strip-o-gram at The Synners Bar. (Pic below shows said hat being removed from the pitch).

The incident was the highlight of a wind-blighted first half but after the break the action improved dramatically. Totton, having taken a lead in the first minute of the match, added a second with only about 10 mins to go. All over, we thought, but then, in injury time, a Synthonia man burst through to a one-on-one with the goalie and poked it home. "We" went wild!

In extra time Synthonia had a penalty saved and we kinda knew from that point what the outcome was going to be. Totton hit the woodwork too. And so to penalties which the away side indeed won 5-4. The winning kicker instinctively raced towards the corner flag but then realised there weren’t any remotely sympathetic fans there and so peeled away and back to his team mates in the centre circle. In fact, the total number of Totton fans, high up in the stand, only outnumbered the players two-to-one.

“Oh, well. That new Wembley’s shite anyway, isn’t it?” scowled a Synner on the way out. Cracking cup-tie - but what an anti-climax.

Celebrity footnote: Synthonia’s full back was Curtis Fleming who played for Middlesbrough against Chelsea in the FA Cup final 10 years ago and former Synners include Brian Clough.

And the name? Synthonia is derived from synthetic ammonia, a product of one-time club sponsors, nearby ICI.