St Ives Town - Westwood Road

Match - St Ives Town FC 2-1 Potters Bar Town

Comp - Southern League Division 1 Central

Admission - £8

Attendance - 241

Scarf - Sold Out

Food - Chicken Slice 6/10

Ground No. 118

Ground Rating - 6/10

I'M BACK

On the 12th October I was finally off to my first football match of this 2013/14 season, and the chosen match was the Southern League division 1 game between St Ives Town and Potters Bar. That's St Ives Cambridgeshire not Cornwall.

   

St Ives Westwood Road ground is a ground that I had been to before quite a few years ago back in my refereeing days but for some reason hadn't noted it down on my grounds visited list. As they were promoted last season into the Southern League this gave me the perfect excuse to go back and being only 9 miles from home made it even easier.

Westwood Road is a small but relatively tidy football ground which is mainly made up of open hard standing, with two small stands on either touchline.

The stand on the nearside touchline consists of a few steps of covered terracing attached to the club house building with a small number of seats in the centre for club officials. This is where the majority of fans congregate probably due to the easy access to the bar. This building also houses the changing rooms to the rear of the building and the refreshment counter.

 The small stand on the opposite side of the pitch is a covered seated stand and is named the Lance Everdell Stand. The stand has 3 rows of mainly flip type seats made out in red and blue (I'm unsure why as St Ives play in Black and White) although a large number of these seats are in a bad state of repair. This stand did come in handy though as it started to rain late in the second half.

Both ends are open hard standing areas.

The game itself started with a bang. A rank 1st minute Potter Bar free kick taken on the half-way line managed to be volleyed in from the edge of the penalty area into the bottom left hand corner of the home sides net. This woke St Ives up who then took control of the game and scored twice in the next 20 minutes to take the lead. During this period they were taking Potter Bar's defence apart, as well as the two goals they had another disallowed for offside and two strikes that crashed off of the woodwork.

With all the play they were unable to add to there goals and slowly started to let the visitors back into the game with the sides ending the first half 2-1.

The second half continued as the final 15 minutes of the first with Potters Bar growing in confidence and were at this point playing by far the better football. Although St Ives looked very dangerous on the counter attack and had another goal disallowed for offside.

In the last 10 minutes Potter Bar should have had the opportunity to draw level, but appeals for a penalty were waved away by the referee. The game finished 2-1 to St Ives and I think Potters Bar would think that they should have got something from the game but is was not to be.

Not one of the best grounds I have been to at this level but not the worst either, but as always I enjoyed my day out and glad I have got my season up and running, with goals and a very good attendance for this level.

Next up Aveley V Cheshunt in the Isthmian league Division 1N on 16th November.