Written by Emma
Ground #43
Centenary Ground – Southwell City FC
Wednesday 28th September 2022
Southwell City FC 0 – 4 Hucknall Town FC – UCL Div. 1 (Step 6)
Attendance 178
Entry £3
Hello its me! I have a ring on my finger and a new blog for you all! This time we took the very short journey to see Southwell City FC who were founded in 1893. With a population of around 7000 you may wonder why this club are called Southwell “City” but that is because of the huge minster that towers over the town which could technically see it classed as a city. Another fact for you, in 1809, Mary Brailsford first seeded the Bramley Cooking Apple in the Town where a local nurseryman then cultivated it from cuttings of the tree.
The club have played for most of their history on a recreation ground in the shadow of the minster and have played in local Nottinghamshire leagues. In recent times the club has been looking to be more ambitious and in order to gain promotion to Step 6 they needed to move to a new ground. That’s where the risky move out of the town to a nearby field in Brinkley came about. Within one season of moving in the club gained the promotion they were looking for, winning the Notts Senior League, and amazingly in such a short space of time have got the ground up to standard and ready for pyramid football.
Today was the clubs first mid-week league match under their brand new floodlights and a bumper crowd was in attendance as they took on Hucknall Town.
The Zebras started well with two early corners, but sadly couldn’t make the most of these early opportunities. In the 11th minute the visitors came forward with their first real chance of the game and a tidy finish put them into the lead.
As the half grew on Hucknall continued to look the better team with plenty of half chances but couldn’t find the second goal. Just as we thought Southwell were going to hold on to just the one goal deficit at the break, Hucknall came forward once again and with the keeper trying desperately to stop the striker getting to the ball he took him down and the referee pointed to the spot. Former Nottingham Forest striker, Craig Westcarr, slotted it home to give the visitors a deserved 2-0 lead at half time. TIME FOR ANOTHER PINT.
After an even start to the second half the visitors once again showed their step up in class, getting their second goal around the hour mark. Hucknall were looking dangerous every time they went forward and with a swift counter attack saw the ball cannon off the post, the rebound was easily tapped in to make it 4-0. The game petered out after this and was a fair reflection of the game overall. A good result for the visitors who put in a professional display, and rather a wake up call to just how difficult pyramid football can be for Southwell!
Now to rate our evening at Brinkley Centenary Ground:
Location: 5/10
Centenary ground, the home of Southwell City FC, is actually located just outside of Brinkley which is south-east of Southwell itself. It has Fiskerton train station just a 10-minute walk away so is a good ground to get to if travelling on a weekend and you fancy a drink, although the road leading to the ground has no street lights of pavement so we wouldn’t recomend this for a night game!
Sadly there aren’t any pubs nearby but as you’ll see later the bar at the ground more than makes up for this.
Kit: 8/10
Something that you can you probably guess is that ‘The Zebras’ play in a black and white striped kit, with matching black shorts and socks. It has a red trim around the collar and end of the sleeves, which tie in nicely with the red number on the back and the red of the sponsor on the front. All in all a very smart kit and one to be proud of.
Facilities: 8/10
The clubhouse is brand new and very modern inside, it has lots of seating available and a big TV. We both liked the Southwell City branding throughout including a large logo on the front of the counter. There were also lots of photos of past teams throughout the clubs history on the wall showcasing the clubs past despite their brand new home.
There is also a beer garden area outside with wooden picnic benches which would be perfect on a warm pre-season Saturday watching a game with a beer in hand!
Look: 4/10
The ground here is very new and so far the club are doing a fantastic job with even more improvements on the way. They have hard standing down two sides with a covered stand near the dug outs. The ground is a work in progress but with a seated stand on the way and with new floodlights installed they seem to be making changes every day and we can’t wait to come back soon and see what else they have done.
Another thing we noticed was the amount of sponsor boards around the ground. Pretty much the whole pitch was filled with advertising boards which is fantastic to see and more proof of how entrenched in the local community this club is.
Food and Drink: 4.5/10
The bar at Centenary Ground is very nice and clean, they have plenty of drink options in the fridge along with soft drinks, hot drinks and snacks. There was quite a limited option for food today, the only offering for warm food was either a steak or chicken and mushroom pukka pie, neither of these stood out for me so I decided on just some salted crisps for dinner whilst Max went for a steak pie.
There was a wait for this and even though we did arrive early to have food before the game we were told there was a 20 minute wait. Max did say it was a good pie though which is to be expected of pukka. The drinks options were great too, they even had their own Southwell City branded beer on offer and DARK FRUITS (extra half point), I am not a massive ale drinker but Max said the ‘Stripes IPA’ was very nice and a good added extra that the club have to offer.
TOTAL SCORE: 29.5/50
We have been told by so many of our groundhopping friends to visit Southwell City and see what they have to offer and we agree with them in that the club has done a fantastic job in so little time to get the ground looking so nice. As we said above, the ground seems to be improving every week and we can’t wait to see how the ground develops going forward.
Southwell pride themselves on being a community club who do football “the right way”. They don’t pay their players and have a successful youth team which creates players for the senior side. Before the game the manager Jonny spotted us and came over for a quick chat and welcomed us to the club. Things like this are what make local non league football so great and is one of the reasons we have fallen in love with it over the past few years. You wouldn’t see Arsene Wenger doing that 10 minutes before kick off!!!
Tonight’s game was just £3 entry with a programme included which is ridiculously cheap for this level of football, we cannot praise the club enough for this! We wish them well going forward and I am sure we will be back very soon, so make sure you keep those dark fruits well stocked!
If you would like to see where this places The Millers in our Non League Leaderboard click here: NON LEAGUE
If you’d like to see the Football League grounds we have visited click here: The 92
Emma’s Ground Guide 