Chatham Town - Maidstone Road Sport Ground

Match - Chatham Town 2-4 Waltham Forest
Competition - Isthmian League Division 1 North
Admission - £8
Scarf - £7
Attendance - 127
Food - Hot Dog/Chips  7/10
Ground No. 112
Ground Rating - 7/10

On Saturday I went back to the town of my birth and went to see Chatham Town play against Waltham Forest. Both teams were sitting in the lower regions of mid-table and could really do with a win to start pushing themselves up the table.

The journey to Chathams Maidstone Road ground was a simple one and there was plenty of parking in the club car park just outside the turnstiles. The entrance to the ground shown below looks new with the sign above the turnstiles welcoming you to the ground.

The ground itself is like a lot of grounds at this level made up of old and new stands. On entering the ground the stand on your left is the new club house/stand which incorporates everything. At the near end of the stand is the Bar and Snack bar. Further along the stand there are around 5 steps of terracing and at the back of the stand are the Changing rooms, Club Shop and toilets. The players and officials enter the playing surface by walking down steps through a small fenced tunnel.

On the right hand side after entering the ground is an older looking seated stand running down the near touchline consisting of 4/5 rows of wooden bench type seating it looks as though this stand used to contain the players tunnel. The opposite touchline has a small newer seated stand that has 4 rows of red plastic tipping seats with the area in the middle reserved for home and away officials, this stand is someway back from the barriers surrounding the pitch and with the team dugouts this side of the ground the visibility from these seats is quite poor. The far end of the ground just consists of some hard standing with one small step behind the goal.

Stand on far touchline

Me and my Dad arrived at the ground around 2pm and went straight to the snack bar, this was still shut so went for a pint in the nice new club bar, the bar has two TVs which were both showing Sky Sports News, the walls are covered in old photos and memorabilia that has built up over the clubs 130 year history. The club have quite close ties with the Royal Engineers FC, who my brother currently plays for while serving as a bomb disposal expert in the Engineers (Chatham is the RE Headquarters), my dad was also in the Royal Engineers for 24 years but was never able to play football to the level required to make the core squad, and local League side Gillingham (Who are my Club) and this is shown within the memorabilia adorning the walls.

When we left the Bar we headed to the snack bar which had opened and I opted for a hot dog and chips, the hot dog consisted of 2 sausages in french stick (Very Nice) then went to the club shop to get my scarf before the match started.

Before the match started we had a minute silence to remember those who had given their lives in the line of duty defending our freedom, this is quite prominent at the moment in my family as my brother has just returned from a 6 month tour in Afghanistan where his troop sadly lost 3 men. A wreath was laid in the centre circle by the captain of Chatham's under 10 side.

The match started badly for Chatham as during the warm-up there captain and centre back pulled up injured and was unable to play, this got worse as after 30mins they had lost 2 more of there defenders through injury, one with a large cut to his head and another with a dislocated shoulder. This played havoc with an already ragged looking back line. Waltham Forest were playing some nice attacking football and took full advantage going in at half time 3-0 up, this could have been a lot more.

Chatham played a lot better in the 2nd period and started to put some pressure on Waltham Forest and were rewarded half way through the half when the visiting keeper upended a Chatham attacker and a penalty was given. The penalty was saved though but after trying to get to the loose ball the visiting keeper again took out the attacker and Chatham were awarded another penalty which with a different taker was scored to give Chatham hope of a comeback.

Sunset behind new stand during second half

Although Chatham were playing better in the 2nd half Forest still looked dangerous while on the attack, the front 3 were all quick and strong and with a makeshift backline Chatham were still finding them a handful and with 10 Min's to go Forest were awarded a penalty of there own which they duly converted putting the game beyond any doubt. Chatham managed to score a very late consolation goal but Forest more than deserved there 4-2 win which probably flattered Chatham a bit.

I enjoyed my day out at Chatham with a nice ground a good game of football, who could ask for more.

Tilbury FC - Chadfields

Match - Tilbury FC 1-1 AFC Sudbury
Competition - Isthmian League Division 1 North
Admission - £8
Scarf - N/A
Attendance - 110
Food - Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese & Chips  7/10
Ground No - 111
Ground Rating - 4/10

We are almost 2 months into the new season now and I was finally going to see my first game of it. My main target for this season is to complete the Ryman League Division 1 North, I have 9 to get to including this one at Tilbury FC. Today's game was a league encounter against AFC Sudbury.

Tilbury play at Chadfields a small ground with a capacity of around 4000 located right next to a Gypsy site in the town of Tilbury just up the road from Grays in Essex. We arrived at the ground at around 2.15 and once we had parked up in the small club Car Park headed to the Tilbury FC Social Club for a quick pint before entering the ground.

The Social Club seemed quite dark and dingy and many of the windows had there metal shutters pulled down. Inside there was a TV and a projector screen on which they were showing the early Premier league match between Arsenal and Chelsea. There was also a large Tilbury FC Flag in the corner below the TV screen.

In the entrance there were plans detailing a possible new ground for the club which would be built on ground adjacent to there current location, which after seeing the ground was obviously required.

Chadfields is an old stadium which looks as though it receives minimal maintenance, probably due to the planned move. There are two seated stands at the half way line on each side of the ground. The Main Stand is down the touchline from the turnstiles. This stand houses the Changing Rooms which are at ground level with seating above which is accessed by a set of stairs to the side of the stand. The stand has a number of supporting pillars that would obstruct your view of the action. Each side of the Main Stand there are small uncovered terraced areas.

On the Opposite side of the ground there is another small seated stand with around 5 rows of seats (and a broken roof), this stand has covered terracing at each side of it. The team dugouts are on this side of the ground meaning that managers, Physio's etc have to walk across the pitch before each half to reach them.

The near end of the ground is where the turnstiles and Snack Bar are located  with just a path running behind the goal in front of the social club building which is inaccessible from inside the ground. At the far end there is some uncovered terracing. At both ends of the ground metal fences have been erected directly behind the goal, to stop balls flying out of the ground, this though means that anyone wishing to stand there has to look through the fences to watch the game.


Far End Terrace

   The game itself started reasonably brightly with Sudbury creating a couple of decent chances, but with the rough playing surface any type of passing football went out the game and both sides started playing very direct football with the centre halves clearing any aerial balls very easily, limiting any real goal mouth action.

The deadlock was finally broken though when Tilbury attacker Emiel Aiken received the ball around 30 yards out turned and hit a cracking shot into the bottom right hand corner of Sudburys goal leaving the keeper little chance.


Sudbury came out in the second half and tried to play more of a passing game which helped them build some pressure on the Tilbury back line. They were rewarded ten minutes into the half when former Tilbury man Tom Webb was released on the left hand side of the penalty area and scored the equaliser into the far corner of the Tilbury goal.

The remainder of the match was a bit bland with nobody really getting hold of the game which reverted back to route 1 stuff, until the last 5 minutes when both teams realised that the game was there for the taking and had a number of good chances to claim a winner but a mixture of poor finishing and good goalkeeping particularly from Howe in the Sudbury goal meant that the game finished level.

A draw in the end was a fair result from a game where both teams I'm sure were far from there best.

In conclusion a poor stadium matched by a poor game of football, but at least the season is underway (for me) and hopefully things can only get better from here

Olympic Park - Paralympic Games - Various Dates

Olympic Stadium

Paralympic Opening Ceremony 29/08/12
Paralympic Athletics 08/09/12

Copper Box

Goalball - 30/08/12
                Team GB 1-11 Lithuania
                Finland 5-6 Brazil
                Turkey 9-2 Sweden

Aquatics Centre

Paralympic Swimming 07/09/12

Over the past couple of weeks I have been lucky enough to attend a number of events at the London 2012 Paralympic games.

Firstly I attended the Opening Ceremony at the Olympic Stadium this was an incredible night I have uploaded a small portion of photos below. I didn't understand what was going on half the time but it all looked spectacular. Although the near 2 hours of watching the teams enter the stadium did drag a bit until Team GB entered and the stadium erupted.



                   

 

 

                   

                  Team GB Enter the Stadium

 



 

The next morning I went to see some goalball, this is yet another sport that I went to see during the course of the Olympic and Paralympic games that I had never seen or really heard of before.

Goalball is played by two teams of 3 at each end of a small court where they have to roll the ball into the others goal. The difficulty in this sport is that all the players are either blind or partially sighted and wear eye masks so that they are all on a level playing field. The ball has bells in and therefore players are listening for the ball rather than looking for it. As such the crowd must remain silent while the ball is in play but are able to cheer when a goal is scored which isn't as often as I would have thought as the players hearing must be incredible.

Goalball was played in the Copper Box on the Olympic Park. The Copper Box is one of the Smaller Venues on the park holding around 6000 Spectators in two tiers of multicoloured seats. It is a permanent venue and will be transformed into a sports hall after the games.

The first game in the session was between Team GB and reigning world champions Lithuania

We were only entered into the tournament due to being the host nation and the class difference definitely showed in this match. In Goalball a game is stopped if one team goes 10 goals ahead and this one was with still 8 minutes to go of the second half (each half is 12 minutes long) with the Lithuanians leading 11-1.

The second match was what was to be the final of the tournament between Finland and Brazil. Brazil just scrapped a 6-5 win. Finland gained revenge in the final winning 8-1.

Match action Brazil attacking

The last game in the session was between Turkey and Sweden with Turkey winning comfortably with a score of 9-2.



Eventual Champion Finland Defending

 

 

The next week we went to the Aquatics Centre to watch the Paralympics Swimming, the night we went involved all finals.

 

 

 

The Aquatics Centre is probably the most impressive looking stadium on the Park and holds around 20,000 spectators. The seats inside the venue are located on either side of the pool with big screens at one end and the diving pool at the other. From the top tier of seats you are unable to see most of the seats on the opposite side of the pool due to the roof that curves down low towards the pool.

 

View from seats



 

One of the most impressive races of the night was the T11 men's 400m Freestyle. T11 is for blind swimmers who are tapped on the head with a long stick with a foam ball on the end when they get to each end of the pool so that they are able to complete there turns perfectly. The winner was an American ex Navy serviceman, who I believe was injured in action.  

 

T11 Men's 400m Medal Ceremony

 

The last race of the night was the Women's 4x100m medley relay, Great Britain were in the race. They started slowly but with 50m to go were catching the leaders very quickly and the noise within the Aquatics Centre while they were doing so was incredible, of all the sporting events I have ever been to I have never heard a noise like it, it was deafening and I was unable to hear my own shouting. Unfortunately Team GB were just pipped to gold by 0.03 seconds. But the race ended the night perfectly.

 

 

The next day I was back at the Olympic Stadium to watch the last night of the Athletics. The stadium seats 80,000 in two tiers with large screens at each end between the two tiers. The stadium is due to be decreased in size after the games but to what nobody is entirely sure until it has been decided who is to occupy the stadium.  There were very few Brits involved in any of the finals I saw, but did get to see the Paralympics poster boy Oscar Pistorious win the T44 400m Final.The best event of the night though was in fact the High Jump, with the eventual winner from Poland breaking the current world record by jumping 2.12m. his was not the only world record of the night though as every race seemed to break a World Record there were at least 7 on the night.

 

 

 

Now that the Olympic/Paralympics are over I will now concentrate back on the football. My aim this season is to complete the Ryman League Division 1 North. I have 9 clubs to get to. I also want to complete the London based premier league clubs of which I only need to get to QPR's Loftus Road ground.

 

My first game will be at Tilbury on the 29th Sept. But until that time I will leave you with one more picture of the Olympic Park.