Diary of a Ground Hopper
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 23RD WORMLEY ROVERS 0 HALSTEAD TOWN 1
THE weather is predicted to be better in the south than anywhere else today, so fixture research is focused in that area. When my eye alights upon Wormley Rovers in the Eastern Counties League, Division One South, I suddenly remember a promise I recently made to myself.
At the start of last season, I went to May & Baker in their first season in the league. The visitors that day were Wormley. In the clubhouse before the game, a couple of Wormley’s officials came over to chat. Their enthusiasm and friendliness was so marked, I immediately added them to my must-visit-soon list.
I leave the rain and mist of the East Midlands behind and dutifully follow Jane SatNav to the Enfield postcode. To be honest, I don’t really have a clue where Wormley actually is. Ninety minutes later, I find myself in Hertfordshire!
The massive car park at Wormley Playing Fields is bursting to overflowing. Also, cars are parked either side of the roadside verges for about a hundred yards either side of the car park entrance. This can mean only one thing: Wormley football teams of all ages, genders and sizes are enjoying the facilities here this morning. It isn’t just football either; there is a netball match just finishing too. What a testament to how important Wormley FC is to the local community!
I pay a fiver at the entrance hut and enquire after a programme. “I’m afraid we only do an online version: I don’t like it but that’s the way it goes these days”. I tell him I don’t like it either and hang around to see how many fans ask the same question when they arrive. Every away spectator does just that.
The hub of the stadium is the large clubhouse immediately adjacent to the turnstile. Attached to the clubhouse is a large café serving a wide range of food, including all day breakfasts. I am not too happy about the large dog running around while people are trying to eat, though!
As the players emerge from the dressing rooms, the rain starts to fall. A fair proportion of the spectators huddle into the single, small corrugated and iron stand for shelter. It is here I get talking to two gentlemen from Halstead. They are not impressed by Wormley’s ground and invite me to visit Halstead’s 500-seat stand for comparison. I point out that Rovers are a new team and are improving facilities surely but slowly: the right way about going about things rather than bankrupting themselves in one go. My two new Halstead friends are amused to find the club’s physio running one of the lines this afternoon. They immediately start giving him some light-hearted stick! Someone has worked extremely hard on the Wormley pitch. The surrounding grass is more akin to a mud bath but the first team’s playing surface shows no bare patches and is free of water. Of course, the turf cuts up during the game, but the ground staff should be commended.
The match itself is the sort that makes me wish I should have chosen another venue! Rovers thump the ball upfield at every opportunity. Their manager even berates them for trying to make “far too many passes”! Halstead, on the other hand, should have been well ahead at the break. It is lesson in how to miss as many gilt-edged opportunities to score as is physically possible.
In the end, the previously superb home keeper gifts Town the winner with a poor clearance in the second half. Maybe I should still award him my MOTM being as he rescues me from the ignominy of a dreaded 0-0!