Travelling through North Nottinghamshire into the Derbyshire border town of Shirebrook (population 9760 at the 2011 census) on a foggy day, you pass through an industrial estate located on former coal mining land and are confronted by a massive complex of grey enormous buildings.

This is the home of Sports Directs Head Quarters, Distribution Centre and home to circa 4000 employees. Even the employee car park has to be reached by a bridge over the road. This is one of the fiefdoms of Mike Ashley the successful entrepreneur, owner of Newcastle United football club and billionaire.

Mr Ashley’s collection of brands has created a vast sports and retail empire that grows and grows.  He has in the past 24 hours become the major shareholder in Game and in March took control of 29.7% of Debenhams.

Although there has been plenty of historic bad press over wages and conditions there has been a positive response to these. In April 2017 the Diocese of Derby organised with Sports Direct for Church of England, Methodist and Catholic local clergy to offer support in the canteen on Mondays for 90 minutes at the middle of the day. In the wider community the fears regarding the swamping of local history by such a large company and with a considerable amount of imported labour has not happened.

John Humphrys revisiting after 10 years reported for the Radio 4 Today program on 20^th May 2017 and one of his summing up comments was:

“Obviously, you can’t get deep into the heart and soul of a community after a couple of short visits. But what’s clear is that the worst fears have not been realised.”

What is also on this extensive site is a Sports Direct Store and Factory Outlet which is a cathedral to sports goods and clothing of their own brands and the major iconic brands.

New to the site is an enormous Everlast Fitness Club and a new warehouse box called Brand Ex. Brand Ex is a designer outlet like a TK Maxx on steroids. Is Brand Ex the future for Debenhams.

Love them or hate them you have to say that Sports Direct have provided a huge amount of employment much of which is being invested locally. Is this the retail future!

Visiting Villa park for the second time this season I was cheered by everyone’s good mood and expectation.

The 4-1 defeat of Wolverhampton Wanderers 3 days earlier had raised expectation of regaining promotion to the Premiership through automatic promotion rather than by the nail biting lottery of the play offs.

Villa Park looked as immaculate as ever and a crowd of over 30000 had turned up to see them play Lower Table Queens Park Rangers in this rearranged game.

From the start Villa looked lethargic and seemed to have no shape or purpose. QPR won just about every header in attack and defence and it was no surprise that they took the lead through Ryan Manning after 12 minutes when he ought fought John Terry to head home a net uncontested cross.

Villa did little to respond and when they did high crosses into the box were dealt with easily. It was no surprise that QPR’s left back Jake Bidwell, who had provided the cross for the first goal, scored with a well placed shot to the right hand corner of Sam Johnstone’s goal. His shot was made easy by the poor headed clearance by the Villa defence.

Surely Villa would come back in the second half playing into the Holte End. The introduction of Kienen Davis and Scott Hogan did have an initial impact but with everything going through Jack Grealish who was receiving the ball further and further within their defensive half it was not surprising that substitute Luke Freeman who had only been on the field for a few minutes made it 3-0 with just 98minutes from time.

Birkir Bjarnason’s late introduction on 81 minutes for the very ineffective Connor Hourihane did spark some more direction and James Chester’s 88th minute goal and 4 minutes of added time gave unjustified hope but Villa’s 61% domination of play did not reflect QPR’s domination of the score, chances and commitment.

Aston Villa manager Steve Bruce told BBC WM:

“We’ve choked tonight. We’ve made a mess of it. Now we need to put it right at Bolton on Saturday evening.

“From experience, I always feared it might be ‘After the Lord Mayor’s Show’ following the weekend. I toyed and toyed with changing it, making five or six changes, and in hindsight, I should have done.

“We never got started. Mentally, we weren’t at it. We didn’t get anywhere near the heights of Saturday. But that’s what this league is all about, any team can beat you.”

Quotes from Steve Bruce from BBC WM printed on the BBC sport Website.

With other results going against Villa it looks highly unlikely that they will go up automatically. To be any football fan has its ups and downs but the last 6 years with Villa have been a roller coaster that has had more downs than ups.

Some fans left early but most left the ground still hopeful that the team can regroup and win their last 9 remaining games.

While many would have considered Manchester United v Liverpool or Aston Villa v Wolverhampton Wanderers as their match of the day with chasing teams gaining the upper hand, a worthy alternative was Hereford FC v Kings Lynn.

Hereford FC are rising from the December 2014 demise of Hereford United. The newly formed club, keeping the Bull mascot, the club colours and the Edgar Street ground have started to bounce back and hope to eventually regain Football League status.

What is impressive is the fan base they have kept and grown. With over 1500 season tickets they have deserved their success having won the Midland Football League in 2015/16, the Southern League South and West League in 2016/17 and now sit top of the Southern League Premier Division. In between all of this was a trip to Wembley for an FA Vase Final.

Hereford 0 Kings Lynn 2 – March 10th 2018

Hereford started the game 10 points clear at the top of the league against their nearest rivals Kings Lynn who had played one game more. A win would have left them out of sight in the league with only Slough with games in hand any threat to their ultimate promotion.

Hereford however never got into their stride and although hitting the bar once in each half never looked like taking control. The very wet pitch made keeping control of the ball difficult and gusting winds made for some high balls straying from their intended destination.

At half time the 0-0 scoreline looked the most likely final outcome to the game but some head tennis in the Hereford goal mouth lead to Ryan Fryatt beating Hereford’s goalkeeper Martin Horsell on 58 minutes. With the home side trying to push forward Toby Hillard received a through ball which he ran onto to slot home for 2-0. Hereford never looked like coming back from this and the game petered out for Kings Lynn to inflict the double over the league leaders.

Hereford need to regroup to continue their rise up the leagues and the 3424 who attended was a bigger crowd than at 8 Football League games some three and four leagues above this level. I’m sure that Hereford will get their reward this season. Everyone at the ground was so friendly when buying a ticket a few hours earlier and two Kings Lynn fans decided to chat to me all of the match. This was Non League football at its best although I believe the conditions did not give me the end to end football I had hoped for. Great day out.

The EFL trophy has been known by many names and in its 34th year is now named  ‘The Checkatrade Trophy. Checkatrade.com is the internet location where you can search through nearly 30000 recommended, vetted and monitored trades and service providers to find the right one for you.

It has for the last two seasons included not only teams from Leagues One and Two of the English Football League but also an additional 16 invited sides from Premier League and EFL Championship clubs with Category One Academies.

One of the Semi-Finals was Lincoln City v Chelsea under 21’s and making my way to the ground I was feeling I was on my way to watch a game of little importance in a Mickey Mouse Cup. Two hours later my views had changed and maybe a trip to the final beckons.

Lincoln City’s Ground has not moved to a new concrete structure on the outskirts of town but remains true to its fans nestled amongst an area of terraced housing south of the city centre. There on one street corner very close to the ground is not Arkwright’s shop but a local chippy doing brisk business before the match. It is aptly called ‘Back of the Net’, 17 Scorer St, Lincoln LN5 7XE.

The match was competitive and immediately you could tell that Lincolns’ players and fans wanted to get to Wembley.  The stadium was full and the nearly 9500 kept singing and chanting constantly. Lincoln harried every ball and made good use of the wings and their aerial supremacy in the box. Chelsea seemed more hesitant and found it hard to deal with the constant pressure and were unable string many passes together. Matt Rhead was a constant niggle to the Chelsea defence through his football skill, challenges and constant chat. The teams went in 0-0 at half time.

Chelsea started brighter in the second half but Lincoln came back at them and deserved their lead through Luke Waterfall on 72 minutes after a corner. The lead didn’t last long and within 6 minutes some classy play on the left moved the ball to Daishawa Readan who finished clinically from ten yards out curling the ball to the goalkeepers left. Lincoln had the best chances to win the game in the remaining minutes but Chelsea held out and it was down to penalties.

Chelsea were in front in the shootout after Lincoln left-back Sam Habergham saw his penalty come back off the underside of the bar but it was ruled not to have crossed the line.

Chelsea’s Ethan Ampadu hit the post and Jacob Maddox saw his penalty saved by Ryan Allsop to allow Lincoln to come from 1-0 down to progress 4-2. It was Lee Frecklington who stepped up to take his penalty with the crowd chanting ‘he’s one of our own’. Lee has spent all of his career at Lincoln and it was fitting for him to score the winning penalty and put them through 4-2 to their first Wembley appearance in their 133 years on 8th April where they will meet either Shrewsbury or Yeovil.

My man of the match was Ryan Allsopp Lincoln’s goalkeeper who not only saved the penalties but also had a very solid game. His kicking length and accuracy from hand and dead ball situations was outstanding. For Chelsea Ethan Amapadu was the only Chelsea defender who matched Lincolns commitment and aggression. The only downer on the crowds outstanding performance was when they sang ‘Where’s your caravan’ to Ethan (Ethan has very long hair) in response to him being their pantomime villain of the night. Even good humoured racism is not acceptable.

At the end the crowd enthusiastically ran onto the pitch and the singing went on for a further 15 minutes.

Thank you Lincoln.

Thank you Checkatrade Trophy

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A weekend away in Norfolk and Suffolk gave me the opportunity to see Norwich v Sheffield United (20th Jan 2018) and visit a ground I had seen but never been to a match there.

This is a friendly club whose facilities are good, very clean and offer quick friendly service. The walk from the city to the ground via The Riverside shopping complex was busy with a mix of fans and what appeared a low key police presence.

The week previous I had read an article about football programs where fans were lamenting that their collections were not wanted by anyone. I mused whether the program was going to go digital like other parts of the game. The printed fanzine seems to have been mainly replaced by the blog and now the podcast, my ticket was printed at home and all I needed was the bar code to get in ( I could have used my phone for the bar code) and just paying on the gate is not possible. I have now registered on line with 4 Championship a 1 Premiership club as a fan to get tickets inflating their fan base and proving that there is no strict control over who sits where. I suppose they know who is sitting in each seat so they can get back to you if there is any trouble in your area of the ground.

I watched one of the program sellers outside the ground for a while and noticed he wasn’t making that many sales and those he did were to an older audience.

The program was a revelation to me, 108 pages of articles and stats on all of their teams and reviews of the Sheffield United team and previous encounters as well as articles about previous teams, managers and players. There was an article by a fan and a review of Norwich’s community involvement plus much more. Certainly more than I expected but in a few years this I’m sure will be replaced by the Norwich City Program App.

One of the first football songs to be sung at a football ground was reputably at Norwich ‘On the Ball City’, which is still sung today. It is said that as early as 1902 while the fans were waiting for the half time scores, then displayed against letters corresponding to each game as printed in the program, they sang the song to amuse themselves. Now scores are updated instantly on your phone.

Before the game I found this book in a second hand bookshop:

Nothing as exciting in 2018.

The game was exciting but Norwich always seemed to be second best. United’s inter-passing was crisper and created more opportunities. Norwich could have been reacting to their midweek FA Cup extravaganza at Chelsea. Maybe it was just that Sheffield’s league position showed why they are currently superior.

James Wilson recently signed loanee from Manchester United put the Blades 1 nil up after only 6 minutes and they continued to dominate play in the first half.

Norwich started the second half more brightly and against the run of play Clayton Donaldson made it 2-0 in the 68th minute. Norwich continued to push forward and were rewarded only 2 minutes later through a headed goal by Ferreira Mendonca Pinto.

Although Norwich searched for an equaliser they created few chances and the game petered out giving the Blades their first win since Boxing Day. Next up for them a home game against Aston Villa and a real test of their promotion hopes.