Cup specialists Hallam stroll to victory
The Road to Wembley has begun for Hallam Football Club. At the world's oldest ground, the world's oldest Cup winners (they won the Youdan Cup in 1861) coasted to an easy win against Bootle, from the North West Counties League, and earned a home tie against Atherton Collieries FC in the Preliminary Round in a fortnight's time.
In the old days Hallam used the Plough as their changing rooms. The pub, or at least a replacement, still exists across the road, but only just. Having failed to gain planning permission to turn into a supermarket, the brewery responded, spitefully it seems, by leaving it empty and fencing it off. That's Community Spirit for you, corporate style.
Not only is the Sandygate ground very old, it's exceptionally steep as well, as one of the pictures below indicates. You'd expect kicking downhill to give a team a distinct advantage, but in fact the home team seem more at ease when they are playing up the slope. I expect that the players are used to it and adjust their tactics accordingly.
Since last season finished, confrontational manager Ryan Hindley has left and gone to Worksop Town. On the downside, however, he took top goalscorer Michael Blythen with him, which tends to suggest that the Countrymen will score a lot fewer goals this time around. Not that Worksop thrived yesterday, mind, going out of the competition by losing 1-0 at home. Hindley's former side did much better this afternoon; after an even first half Tom Roebuck nodded them in front just before half time, and in the second half Bootle wilted. A cross from Foulkes landed inside the far post, and escaped through a hole in the rigging, to give Hallam a 2-0 lead just after the break, and the win was rounded off on the counter-attack when substitute Gibson scored a fine solo goal.
Here are a few pictures. Hallam are wearing what looks like last year's Hartlepool kit, which doesn't seem to know whether it is supposed to be plain or striped. Bootle are in their yellow change strip. The extra line in the penalty area at the top end marks the cricket ground's boundary.
Later, Bootle's website reported, very realistically, on their side's disappointing display.
http://www.pitchero.com/clubs/officialbootlefc/teams/52768/match-centre/0-3746118
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ReplyDeleteWhen Non-Pig News was reporting from Hallam I was at a FA Cup game between Highworth Town and London Colney. Highworth, just up the road from Swindon, lies on a hill top and is one of those Wiltshire communities which has a Cotswoldy high street enveloped by M4 corridor housing. Again there's cricket and football cheek-by-jowl. On the day of my visit wooden fencing separated cricket field and football pitch as Highworth played out a 1-1 draw against their Spartan South Midlands League visitors.
ReplyDelete174 people - classified as "adults" and "others" at the entrance - paid to watch including a number of "groundhoppers". I know this because they later recorded the experience in the marvellously quirky "Where did you go?" corner of the marvellously quirky Non League Matters website.
Highworth Town v London Colney may have been one of the more eclectic extra-preliminary round ties. The two clubs would have been barely aware of each other's existence. Highworth play in the Hellenic League which evolved from the Oxfordshire League in the early 1950s. Spread over three divisions the Hellenic has clubs stretching from the Forest of Dean to close by the M25. From Ascot unto Lydney you may say.
The Spartan South Midlands League is a cobbling together of two leagues. The Spartan was essentially a London league established in 1907 to cater for clubs missing out on the newly-created Isthmian League. You'll get the drift here. London and the South East has, at various times, also had Aetolian, Athenian, Corinthian and Delphian leagues. There may have been others.
But what of the South Midlands? Where be that? Bedfordshire may be the epicentre because this is where most of the clubs came when the league was formed in 1929. Accordingly you now have good old-fashioned Middlesex clubs playing in a league which contains "Midlands" in its title.
London Colney are the current champions and should, by rights, now be playing at a higher standard. Therein lies the rub. In many parts of the country the progression route upwards is clearly defined. In "borderlands" - such as the north western quadrant of the M25 - it's often less clear cut. London Colney wanted to head south and west into the Southern League. Geography and arithmetic are tricky opponents; Colney were instead invited to head north and east into the Isthmian League. Colney declined; Hertford Town took promotion in their place. It's possible the kerfuffle masked issues all along. Colney's committee resigned; the club teetered on the brink. Now there's one of those "new consortiums" headed by Ken Charlery who is also first-team manager.
Highworth Town won the replay 4-2 and now face Marlow in the preliminary round on Sunday 20 August.
Although Hallam and Bootle play in different leagues they're not too far apart in the football pyramid. This is one way the FA Cup has changed. There was a time when clubs were lumped together in regionalised zones which paid little respect to league standing. Each zone was its own knockout competition producing a regional "winner" for the latter stages of the qualifying competition. Then, if you made it to the First Round Proper one year, you might be exempt to the Fourth Qualifying Round the next.
ReplyDeleteNow there are exemptions at practically every stage; each set determined by league status. There are six rounds before what we know as the First Round proper. The real step 5 and 6 “minnows” (as they are invariably known) are in at the very start; then come the step 4 clubs followed by step 3 and step 2. Next there's a round without any new entrants before the National League Premier clubs enter the final qualifying round. I read there were 737 entrants this year. There were 185 ties over the first weekend; another 160 next weekend. That's 345 clubs eliminated from the FA Cup before the end of August.
Although the current system is more of a meritocracy it means there's no longer such an even geographical spread of clubs as the competition progresses. The league system
features more clubs south of Birmingham at steps 2, 3 and 4. The fact the balance of population lies in this direction is exacerbated by the so-called Southern League containing clubs from the Midlands but not the deep South East. This creates anomalies such as Bishop's Stortford and Gloucester City playing northern football once they've been promoted. Try finding a 3rd or 4th Qualifying Round game to watch and you'll find this is harder to the north than the south.
Reorganisation should help. For the 2018/19 season the top four steps of non-league switch from a 1-2-3-6 pyramid to a 1-2-4-7 structure.
But this looks like creating another problem should the current exemption system remain in place. New leagues will mean more exemptions from two of the rounds. Without major change this will necessitate fewer overall entrants to make the arithmetic work.
This would be at the expense of clubs at Hallam's level. The Countrymen, who qualified on the basis of last year's 5th place, may even need to be promoted (or come agonisingly close) if they are to be in next season's competition. Non-Pig News may wish to savour this cup run whilst it lasts.
I suspect it was the cricket that determined Hallam played Bootle on a Sunday as opposed to the customary Saturday. That's an issue every August and September up and down the country where countless football and cricket clubs share the same facilities. Cricket, good luck to it, usually takes priority.
ReplyDeleteAnother club similarly affected was Wellington down in Somerset. "Welly" have recently been playing at non-league step 6 (the tenth tier overall) which nowadays means that acceptance for the FA Cup depends on last season's league performance. To Welly's joy they won promotion last season ensuring their first FA Cup entry since 2011. Unlike Hallam switching to Sundays, Wellington have to seek an alternative venue for home FA Cup games in August. In the past this has been Elmore in Tiverton; on Saturday it was Witheridge which, for those who do not know it, is on the back road between Tiverton and South Molton. That should pinpoint it exactly for you. Welly lost just like they did on the two occasions they needed to play at Elmore.