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.

Ageas Bowl - IT20 England Vs Australia

Mens - Australia 248/6 beat England 209/6 by 39 Runs
Women - England 128/5 beat Australia 127/7 by 5 Wickets

On 29th August me and my wife travelled down to Southampton to see England take on Australia in the first IT20 match of the two match series.

The match was a double header with the Womens T20 match also against Australia which formed part of there new look Ashes series where all test, ODI and T20 count towards the overall Ashes success.

The Ageas Bowl home of Hampshire CCC is a ground in transition with a fair bit of building works ongoing and temporary stands used for these international games. But does have three nice looking main stands. The main stand that is home to the changing rooms has a roof that makes it look like a circus tent. This stand is situated behind the bowlers arm at one end of the ground, and is flancked by two matching stands The Shane Warne Stand and the Colin Ingleby-Mackenzie Stand.

The Womens started the days action in the afternoon knowing that a win would secure the Ashes. Bowling first they managed to restrict the Aussies to 127/7 off of there 20 overs and then went about knocking off the runs fairly easily helped by a good innings from Lydia Greenway who scored 80 of 64 balls. This sparked celebrations from the England team.

England Women celebrate regaining the Ashes

We then had a bit of time to wait before the main event started which we used to help ourselves to some rather decent fish and chips and a quick pint.

Before the mens match began the match ball was brought onto the ground by the RAF parachute display team.

The match itself started with a bang, Australia batting first put on a massive 248/6 with opener Aaron Finch doing most of the damage as he hit boundary after boundary off any bowler England used at him. When Finch was finally removed by Jade Dernbach he had managed to score an IT20 world record 156 from only 63 balls which included 14 maximums. It was a pleasure to see such an innings it was just a shame that it had been produced by an Australian against England.

England made a good go of it in reply but unfortunately fell 39 runs short despite a brilliant unbeaten knock of 90 off 49 balls from Joe Root.



The unfinished hotel



Next up I will be back at the football not sure where or when yet but probably sometime early to mid October

until then............

Essex County Cricket Ground

Match - Essex Eagles 104 All Out lost to Surrey Lions 165 All Out by 61 Runs
Competition - Friends Life T20 Group Stage

On the 31st July (my wedding anniversary) I took my wife along with her dad and nephew to Chelmsford to see the Essex Eagles take on Surrey Lions in the final group game of this years T20 competition, and before you say anything going was my wife's idea so I didn't drag her out to watch cricket rather than take her for a romantic meal somewhere.

This game was a winner takes all affair with a guaranteed place in the quarter finals up for grabs.

The ECG is a small but very atmospheric ground situated next to the River Chelmer in the centre of Chelmsford, which is made up of a number of stands. pics below.

The Lions won the toss and batted first and put a score of 165 on the board with scores of 54 from Steven Davies and 43 from Wilson.

The Essex reply was quite frankly awful being skittled out for 104 with Dutch international Ten doeschate the only Essex batsmen to get into double figures score a brilliant 60 from 39 including 4 sixes 2 of which almost ended up on balconies of the nearby flats.

Surrey as such were guaranteed a quarter final spot and luckily for Essex other results went there way and they joined the Lions as one of the best 3rd placed finishers.

My next visit will be to another cricket ground, The rose (Ageas) Bowl in Southampton to see the IT20 match between England and Australia. Hopefully I will remember to take my camera so should get some better pictures. After that I will be starting my football groundhopping again and I cant wait.