The Season that never was
I’ve never been a groundhopper. In fact I’d never even thought about it until recently. I’ve always loved going to football but being a Crewe fan in Nottingham brings about a few problems. My Dad was always busy at weekends, and if it didn’t involve Forest or the Premier League on Tele my mates weren’t interested. A couple of years ago one of my mates asked me if I wanted to go with him to see Grantham Town play away at Coalville on a Tuesday night as he knew one of the players. It was out of the blue but I went along not really knowing what to expect. I loved it! The journey there was a laugh, a couple of pints in the club bar pre match, followed by actually being able to take another beer outside to drink whilst watching the game! During the first half my mate got his hat thrown on top of one of the bus stop like shelters behind the goal and the groundsman came along with a ladder so we could get it down. It doesn’t get much more nonleague than that! The match itself was a cracker. Play off hopefuls Grantham scored a late winner which sent the 60 or so travelling fans into raptures. Grantham went on to lose in the play offs later that year, but this game will always stick with me as the one that introduced me to the wonders of non league.
Onto June last year, and me and my Girlfriend Emma had just moved into a flat in Newark-on-Trent. One of the first things I did when we knew that was where we wanted to move was check to see if their were any local non league sides to follow. I was in luck! No more than a five minute drive from our flat was Lowfields, home to newly promoted step 5 club Newark Flowserve. Funnily enough their first home pre season game was against Grantham so we went along. What a game it was. Flowserve started off fantastically. You would have thought from the first half performance they were the team two divisions higher. They raced to a 2-0 lead before half time and looked great value for it. In the second half the superior fitness of the Step 3 gingerbreads began to show and they ended up coming away 3-2 winners on the night, but me along with the majority of the 300 plus crowd in attendance must surely have been excited by what they had seen and I couldn’t wait to come back for more. By the time the season was stopped due to the corona virus outbreak we had been back to Lowfields 8 times for league matches, and followed them away to West Bridgford for a 5-4 goalfest in the early stages of the Notts Senior Cup. I was very much looking forward to travelling to Carlton to see them in the semi final of this competition before the season was ended.
Talking of the Nottinghamshire Senior Cup brings me nicely onto Newark’s other team, Newark Town FC. Another ambitious team that were looking to emulate what Flowserve had done in getting back to back promotions up from the 11th to the 9th tier. Before the season ended prematurely, they were 11 points clear at the top of their division with only 2 games to play and must have been gutted by the Null and Void verdict given by the FA. The potential for this club was shown in the Quarter Final of the Notts Senior Cup when a crowd of more than 750 flocked to the brand new YMCA facility to see a valiant display as ‘The Blues’ lost 3-1 to a youthful Notts County.
During this season we also saw Crewe a total of 12 times, including seeing them away at Northampton, Walsall, Oldham, Middlesbrough, Salford, Grimsby and an awkward day sat in the home end at Emma’s home team Scunthorpe. The Alex have been fantastic this season and currently sit top of the League 2 table. As I write this it is looking like we may finish second and get promotion through the Points Per Game method which is the least the boys deserve after a great year, although it is a shame they wont be able to finish the season and fight for the clubs first ever league title.
Having seen FC United of Manchester the season before playing away at the fantastic Northolme, ground of Gainsborough Trinity I jumped at the chance to see them and their fantastic away support when they played Basford United. Although the ground at Greenwich Avenue looks more like a Leisure centre training facility than a football stadium we saw a close game between two sides fighting for promotion ending 1 each.
In total over the 2019/20 season we saw 23 matches at 12 different grounds seeing 85 goals. I cant wait now for next season to start, of course hoping we as fans will be allowed back in stadiums as soon as possible so we can get this blog started properly!
Until then stay safe, and hopefully before we know it we will be back watching football again! See below some more images from the season just gone….
Emma’s Ground Guide 