St Austell 1 Exmouth Town 0
Carlsberg South West Peninsula League Walter C Parson Funeral Directors League Cup final
Played at Lords Meadow, Crediton United
Sunday, May 7, 2017
Cup Magic Moment: Finding out when I got home that Walter C Parson Funeral Directors had renewed their sponsorship of the league cup until 2020. The best name in cup football will continue!
WHEN I first moved to the South West, just over a decade ago, Crediton United on a Monday night was a fairly regular destination for my football fix.
I lived in Okehampton and so followed the fortunes of Okehampton Argyle in the Carlsberg South West Peninsula League Division One East (they have now slipped into the Devon & Exeter League, sadly) but there were no floodlights at Simmons Park so, in midweek, I had to look around for a game.
Tavistock, who have just been crowned as Peninsula League champions, had lights, as did Launceston and Bodmin if I fancied crossing the Tamar for a match. But the nearest team to my home was Crediton United and so their Lords Meadow ground became a familiar haunt for me.
Sometimes it was cold and wet, sometimes it was cold and frosty, sometimes it was cold and foggy. In fact, it was once so foggy that the game was abandoned at half-time when the far side of the pitch finally disappeared. Occasionally, very occasionally, the weather was passable and, on a rare Saturday afternoon outing, the sun actually shone. On that day, I managed to get an already-booked home player to realise that, if he kept loudly mouthing his forceful opinions, he would get sent off.
As he started another tirade about the antics of a particular opposition player, I shouted at him to shut up or he’d get booked again and sent off. He turned to me and shouted back: “He’s effing winding me up.” I pointed out that that was probably what he was trying to do. I watched the penny drop, ever so slowly, and he finally went quiet. He had a good game after that. I took all the credit.
Lords Meadow, as well as being in a marshy area and attracting unusually horrible weather, is also on the edge of an industrial estate and always felt a bit dark and gloomy. It didn’t ever feel like a cup final venue and I was surprised when the cup competition with the best name in football, the Carlsberg South West Peninsula League Walter C Parson Funeral Directors League Cup, decided to stage its 2017 final there.
I wasn’t the only one.
When you get a Cornish team and a Devonian one meeting in the final, there’s always going to be a bit of a row over where it is going to be played and it was certainly a much longer trip for St Austell than for Exmouth Town – 71.5 miles as against 25.3 miles, if Google is to be believed. All in all, it felt like a strange place to have a cup final.
I was wrong.
Lords Meadow looked absolutely resplendent. The trees around the ground were beautifully green, the pitch looked in tip-top condition, if a bit bumpy, and the goal nets looked as if they been newly washed in Daz. They were whiter than white. Even the sun was shining. It looked like a proper cup final day and venue. Drink had also been taken in some parts, livening up proceedings, and there was a generally an excited and exciting atmosphere. Crediton was doing itself proud.
When the game kicked off at a fantastically frantic pace it looked as if the unexpectedly excellent venue might have a suitably excellent final. There were six corners in the first five minutes, three to Cornwall and then three to Devon, which had the statistically-minded wondering what the world record for flag-kicks in one match was – well, I wondered anyway.
But the one set-piece which really mattered in the end came in the 21st minute and was a free-kick not a corner kick. St Austell left-back Martin Watts has a powerful left foot and, when he lined up a free-kick from about 30 yards, the Exmouth alarm bells were ringing. The shot, however, looked more speculative than powerful but it was still too much for the Town keeper and ended up nestling in the net.
Cue Cornish celebrations and Devonian despair.
For Exmouth, it must have all begun to feel horribly familiar. Just five days before, they had taken part in another cup final, this time in the Devon St Lukes Bowl, the county’s premier cup competition. They were beaten 3-1 by Tiverton Town. Now they were trailing again. How would they respond?
Well, not too bad for the remainder of the first half. The game was pretty even and there were chances at either end but, as a neutral, you would have to say that St Austell were still just edging it. Then, at half-time, there was a big decision for me to make – should I go to the clubhouse for a beer or not?
In all my visits to Lords Meadow, I had never set foot inside the clubhouse. It is out of the ground on the other side of a fenced-off five-a-side court and, when we used to go there in the evening, it was along a poorly lit path. It just wasn’t worth the effort. This time, though, I was determined to try.
But I was in a good position near the halfway line, there was an outstanding cup final attendance of 334, and the queue for the bar might have been a long one. Nah, I couldn’t be bothered this time either. I promise I will go there on my next visit. Probably.
The second half was a tense affair but the football failed to hit any great heights. St Austell had an effort disallowed for offside soon after the break and Exmouth missed a good chance as they tried to work up a head of steam to get back into the game.
Yet the Devon side looked tired and struggled to get going; the Cornish club were generally able to keep them at arm’s length. There was a scare for St Austell 10 minutes from time when an Exmouth corner clipped the top of the crossbar and, five minutes into injury time, the Lillywhites’ keeper was stretched properly for the one and only time when he clawed away a header that was heading for the top corner.
But that was all Exmouth could muster and the best-named trophy in local football was heading back down the A30 and over the Tamar to a deserving St Austell team.
Ok, sing along now: Championes, championes, ole, ole, ole!
FOOTNOTE: If you have any comments about this blog, email me at thecupfootballblogger@hotmail.com, find me on Twitter via @cupfootballblog, or search for Peter Harlow on Facebook. There are two of me on there. For football-related matters, you want the one with the hat.
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