A BIASED POINT OF VIEW

DATELINE: Grouter Park, Troon, Saturday, September 21, 2019

MATCH: Troon AFC v Illogan RBL Reserves

CUP: The Cornwall Junior Cup, sponsored by Bond Timber

ROUND: First Round

PICTURES: See http://www.facebook.com/cupfootballblogger/ 

THE BLOG: Before I start to write this blog, I need to make a confession. Well, an admission. Well, explain something.

Normally, whatever cup match I am watching for this blog, I try to stay avowedly neutral. I try not to care who wins and who doesn’t, I just try to take in the occasion and then bombard you all with my random thoughts about what I have just seen. Of course, if the game is in a national competition and a Cornish side is taking on someone from “upcountry” then my affection will naturally lean towards the side from The Duchy. And if Millwall are involved, I want Millwall to win. Always and everywhere.

Sometimes you go to a game determined to be neutral but something that someone says or does annoys you and you decide to support whichever side is playing against the offender’s team. Funnily enough, it rarely works the other way around. You don’t support a team because someone says something nice (although a free cup of tea always helps, thank you Camelford – see previous blog) but you take against a team because something about them irritates you. Maybe that’s just me, maybe that’s just being a football supporter, but I think that’s just the way this sporting life is.

But none of these excuses for a lack of neutrality would normally apply to a Cornwall Junior Cup tie between two teams from the Whirlwind Sports Trelawny League Premiership (yes, this league for junior teams in the west of Cornwall now has a Premiership and a Championship, as well as the more conventionally named Divisions One and Two).

Illogan RBL has been a regular haunt of mine over the four and a bit seasons that I have been writing this blog and it has always been a lovely place to go and has produced decent games to watch. It has always been a pleasure.

But I didn’t want them to win on Saturday

I was definitely supporting Troon and wanted them to produce an emphatic Grouter Park home win. Why? Well, you see, I am now a fully fledged member of the Troon Army.

No, I haven’t signed my life away to the Cornish equivalent of the French Foreign Legion, nor have I taken on the arduous duties of helping to run a grassroots football club. No, I have signed on as a player.

Well, sort of.

At my age, I’m 56 you know, a comeback to the world of “proper” 11-a-side football is physically beyond me and my knees but I have discovered a new version of the beautiful game that suits me down to the ground – walking football.

Aimed at the over-50s, I have been playing and training with the Troon walking football squad since the turn of the year and I have loved every minute of it. It’s great to be playing sport again, it’s great to meet and chat with like-minded lads and lasses and it’s great to get the old competitive juices flowing again. I am loving it.

And last weekend was a big one for the club as, on Sunday, we were taking two teams to a walking football festival in Lanivet, near Bodmin, which was raising money for a great cause – the Bobby Moore Fund, which pays for research into bowel cancer. Football and fundraising – everyone’s a winner.

However, I felt that I couldn’t really blog about my own footballing exploits and so I needed a cup football game to visit on Saturday. And a quick glance through the Junior Cup fixtures threw up the obvious choice – Troon were at home. Why not make it a Troon-tastic weekend? I couldn’t resist.

Also, it was the Junior Cup, which is a big deal down here. It might only be for teams who play what the national FA deems to be “recreational” football, but it really does matter to the players and clubs involved. For many of the players, it is probably the biggest tournament they will play in, the biggest cup they could win.

It has all the elements that cup football is about – the joy, the excitement, the desire, the out-of-the-ordinariness that marks a cup day as a special day. It is proper cup football and everyone at this level of the game wants to win it. I love it.

And both Troon and Illogan would have gone into Saturday’s clash not only focused on victory on the day but with half a distant eye on the prospect of actually winning the thing. After all, they both play in the Premiership and so they are some of the big fish in this junior football pond.

Now, although I wanted the Grouter Park boys to win, I wasn’t overly hopeful. They have started their league season with two wins and four defeats in their opening six games, while Illogan have three wins and a defeat from their first four Premiership fixtures. The visitors were definitely the slight favourites but, as we all know, league form goes out of the window when it comes to cup football; always expect the unexpected.

In the showers and descending mist, which made it feel like the proper football season, Troon made an unexpectedly good start. They took the lead with a sharp finish from a corner after 15 minutes and it was no more than their bright opening spell deserved. Sadly, for me and for them, that was about as bright as their day was to get as the home side’s cup hopes mirrored the weather and gradually become gloomier and gloomier.

The visitors were level before half-time when the ball was adjudged to have crossed the line after a corner. Now, in the absence of VAR at Grouter Park, the adjudging fell to the linesman, and not just any linesman, it fell to the home linesman, one of the Troon subs. You see, at this level, it’s not only a plethora of TV cameras that are missing, it’s also neutral linesmen. The job either falls to a club volunteer or, as in this case, one of the subs. And he said the ball had clearly crossed the line.

He happened to be on our side of the pitch and, as he ran back towards the centre circle, we applauded his decision and his honesty. “Well, you have got to be honest about it, haven’t you,” he said. Yes, mate, in the spirit of the game you do have to be truthful but not everyone always is and so your actions deserved our applause. It also made me proud to be part of the Troon Army. Well done, lino.

Now, whatever game you go to, at whatever level, there are a number of traditional calls from the players which you always hear. “Man on.” “Left (or right, depending) shoulder.” “Away”. And one of my personal favourites: “How many ref?” That is an impossible question to answer. But, while defending set-pieces, Illogan came up with one I hadn’t heard before.

Whether it be a corner or an opposition free-kick, one of their number would yell “Toes” and they would all start bouncing up and down on the spot. I know it was a move designed to improve their defensive concentration but it just looked like they had all been given an electric shock or were auditioning for a particularly poor version of Strictly Come Dancing. It made me smile and we humoured ourselves with occasional shouts of “Toes” from the touchline to see what would happen. All that really happened was that it made us smile again.

However, there wasn’t much else for the Troon faithful (that’s me) to smile about as Illogan took control of the cup tie. They took the lead twenty minutes into the second half with a crisp low strike and, seven minutes from time, broke away to crack home a third and seal their place in the next round. To be fair, it was no more than they deserved and, on this evidence, RBL Reserves could have a fruitful and exciting season ahead of them. They looked a decent side.

For Troon, though, the early signs are not great. They looked a bit disjointed and will have to hope that, after a tough start to the season, things can only get better.

What the club really needed was something to perk them all up a bit. How about a walking football side that, at Lanivet, won four games out of four, scoring nine goals in the process and conceding only four? Would that help to brighten the mood? Obviously, it was only a festival, not a tournament, there were no winners and losers as such and it was all about raising money for a good cause … but four wins out of four? If there were winners, well, it would have been Troon. And that’s got to brighten the mood, hasn’t it? It certainly brightened mine, even if I could barely walk again on Monday!

FINAL SCORE: Troon AFC 1 Illogan RBL Reserves 3

 

THE BEAUTIFUL GAME

DATELINE: Trefrew Park, Camelford, Saturday, September 14, 2019

MATCH: Camelford AFC v Ashton & Backwell United

CUP: The Buildbase FA Vase

ROUND: Second Qualifying Round

PICTURES: See http://www.facebook.com/cupfootballblogger/ 

THE BLOG: Football supporters often argue over who is the greatest player of all time. Modern fans wonder if it is Barcelona legend Lionel Messi or the seemingly unstoppable Christian Ronaldo? Older fans will argue a case for the likes of Sir Stanley Matthews or John Charles. Some will cite Bobby Moore or Franz Beckenbauer.

It’s all a bit of pointless argument. Not because it is impossible to really compare players from different eras but because the whole thing has already been settled. To my mind, at least. The best player of all time was Brazil’s most famous number 10, Pele. Or Edson Arantes do Nascimento to give him his, er, given name.

For a boy who grew up in the 1960s and 70s, who fell irretrievably, impossibly, deeply, head over heels in love with football as a seven-year-old watching the 1970 World Cup, there will never be a better team than the Brazilian side who won the Jules Rimet trophy in the Azteca Stadium. And the star of that side, the indisputable best player, was the great Pele. There had never been anyone like him before and there has been no one to match him since. Pele is, was and always will be the greatest.

He also coined the best phrase to describe how we all feel about this fantastic sport. There is some dispute over whether he was actually the first one to use it but the title of his autobiography summed it up perfectly: My Life and The Beautiful Game.

The beautiful game.

That’s what it is for anyone who is a football fan.

Now, it’s a long way from the arenas and rarefied atmospheres in which Pele plied his beautiful trade, like the Maracana and Wembley and even New York, to the rather less celebrated football surroundings of Trefrew Park, Camelford, but the beauty of the beautiful game is still in evidence, even at this seemingly lowly level.

For a start, especially on a beautiful late summer/early autumn day such as last Saturday, Trefrew Park’s setting is, simply, quite beautiful.

The first impression on arriving on Saturday was the gorgeous smell of cut grass, more reminiscent of a cricket ground in the spring than a football ground in September.

And then there was the view behind the top goal. Standing stark in the sharp sunshine was the granite form of Rough Tor (pronounced row, as in argument, tor), sitting proudly above the glory that is Bodmin Moor. It is the second highest point in the whole of Cornwall, standing at 400 metres (1,313 feet) above sea level, and it is magnificent. I love scenery like that and there aren’t many grounds in a better setting. Beautiful.

So, even before a ball was kicked in anger, beauty was in the air. And, as it was to turn out, a moment of pure footballing beauty would ultimately settle this hard-fought FA Vase tie. But, before that, there was a moment of no beauty at all.

It happened ten minutes before kick-off and it happened to me.

I had just walked up the grass bank to the fence surrounding the pitch and was still taking in the beautiful view when the home keeper, right at the end of his pre-match warm-up, shanked a goal-kick towards the touchline. Immediately I saw that it was heading straight for me and prepared myself for an early moment of ball retrieval glory.

I got in line, judged the bounce perfectly and, as the ball bounced over the fence, I got into the perfect position and collected the ball with both hands. Perfect.

And then I fell over.

On to the hard concrete path that runs down the touchline.

I don’t know why I fell. I didn’t need to dive to get the ball. My feet, I thought, were planted. Everything was in the correct position. Maybe I just channelled my inner goalkeeper and threw myself down but, all of a sudden I was on the ground, with a concerned Camelford player leaning over the fence, looking at me prone on the ground and inquiring in a slightly worried voice: “Are you OK, mate?”

I nodded an embarrassed yes, refused his helping hand, crawled to my feet, and threw the ball back. I felt like a total idiot, but also slightly proud that I still had hold of the football.

As the players trooped off to get ready to come back on again, I wandered around to a different part of the ground in the hope that no one would notice that I had fallen, despite the blood on my elbow and the limp caused by bashing both knees at once.

Now, as I slowly regathered my equilibrium, I must admit that much of the first 20 minutes of the game passed me by a bit. This was the first-ever meeting between the two teams and they were clearly sizing each other up in that opening period while I concentrated on a stock-take of my injuries.

One of the great things about the FA Vase is that players and supporters get the chance to watch someone new, teams that they would never normally have the chance to see. Camelford play in the Kitchen Kit South West Peninsula League Premier Division West. Ashton & Backwell play their football at the same level, Step Six, but this time in the Toolstation Western League Division One and the two clubs’ paths had never crossed before. This was an intriguing tie, not only for the faithful followers of The Camels and The Stags, but also for the neutral observer – which was me.

However, I must admit that I was not entirely neutral. I have lived in Cornwall for almost a decade now and a little bit of Cornishness has seeped into my soul. So any contest between a team from the Duchy and a bunch from “upcountry” will see my sentiments lean towards the Cornish club.

But, still stronger than my Cornish soul, is my London one. That’s where I am from, where I grew up, and anyone who has ever read this blog will know that Millwall is my team. So when a team rocks up in what they describe as “maroon and blue” but which actually looks like the red and blue stripes of the hated Crystal Palace, I let irrationality take over and generally take against them. Ashton & Backwell United, The Stags, looked too much like The Eagles for my liking. That’s football fan logic for you!

Mind you, there wasn’t much to dislike about them in the first half. After the hosts dominated the first ten minutes, A&B United took control and really should have been ahead by half-time. However, their neat and tidy tippy-tappy football lacked a cutting edge and the chances they did create were wasted. For that, they were to pay a heavy price.

Half-time came with the game goalless and then something else beautiful happened. I got a free cup of tea.

This was given to me by the club secretary who I believe to be called Hilary. I never actually asked her name during our half-time chat but I found her name in the programme later. Apologies if I have got that wrong. Everyone else in the ground would have known who she was, though, as she has served the club for 30 years. Camelford is that sort of club. Manager Reg Hambly – the team is sponsored by Reg Hambly Insurance Brokers – is now in his 29th season as the gaffer.  It is a beautiful place so, once you are there, why rush to leave?

Another beautiful gesture was to provide the visitors with a cream tea to enjoy. “We wanted them to have something special, something Cornish,” said the secretary. “And we wanted them to know the right way to do it too, with jam on first.” Turns out it was a beautiful gesture with a point!

What wouldn’t have been beautiful for me would have been a goalless draw to add footballing insult to my actual injuries, but fears of that disappeared early in the second half.

Camelford were awarded a free-kick on the edge of the box, the direct shot from it was parried by the Ashton goalkeeper and Camels’ captain Adam Sleep was on hand to knock home the rebound – so 1-0 to the home side.

Ten minutes later, Camelford won another free-kick in an almost identical position. This time, though, taker Bobby Hopkinson needed no help to extend the lead. He curled an absolute beauty into the top corner, giving the keeper no chance and putting the hosts 2-0 up.

It really was a special moment. A lot of players at a much higher level would have been proud of that strike, of its precision. What a goal. Hopkinson just stood there with arms outstretched and soaked up the adulation of his team-mates and the crowd. Beautiful.

The Stags, though, were not done yet. They still believed that they could get back into the game and, with about 15 minutes to go, they were awarded a penalty after a trip in the box and halved the deficit with the spot-kick.

There then followed a properly nervy and frantic final few minutes as a real cup tie broke out. It had been a bit of a slow burner but now it really caught fire. Even I grew nervous, catching it from the jumpy people around me, I reckon, while the secretary said afterwards that she couldn’t watch the second half at all. Football really does matter, you know.

Ashton and Backwell gradually abandoned their short passing style and did what any self-respecting side should do when trailing late on in a cup tie – they lumped it forward into the box and hoped for the best. Now that’s proper football. But, however hard they tried, the boys from near Bristol could not find the goal to take the tie into extra-time and The Camels claimed their place in the next round.

Both sides were applauded off at the end, a beautiful moment at the end of a beautiful cup clash in a beautiful place on a beautiful day.

The beautiful game? Pele was spot on about that.

POST SCRIPT: Ashton and Backwell United was only formed in 2010 as the result of a merger between Backwell United and the senior and youth sections of Ashton FC. While writing this blog I saw a message on Twitter from Ashton Football Club, which said: “It is with great sadness to hear of the loss of Ashton Boys FC founder Terry Hazel today. Terry founded the club 25 years ago, something 100s of boys and girls still enjoy. Our thoughts are with all his family, friends and the football community in general. RIP Terry Hazel.” I echo those sentiments.

 

 

TIGERS, TIGERS BURNING BRIGHT

DATELINE: Treyew Road, Truro, Saturday, September 7, 2019 and Tuesday, September 10, 2019

MATCH: Truro City v Wimborne Town; Truro City v Tiverton Town

CUP: The Emirates FA Cup; The BetVictor Southern League Cup

ROUND: First Qualifying Round; Preliminary Round

PICTURES: See http://www.facebook.com/cupfootballblogger/

THE BLOG: Cornwall has always been a land of myths and legends, of giants and sea monsters and mermaids, with remote and isolated communities telling tall tales to try to make sense of the world around them as the mist rolls in and the wind howls across the cliffs and moors and the long dark nights stretch on into the infinity of the imagination.

Even now, when Kernow is more connected to the rest of the world than it has ever been, when the summer sun fades and the tourists retreat, it still has a has a feel of separateness, of being distinctly different to the lands around it, of being slightly otherworldly. Deep in its Celtic soul, Cornwall is different, Cornwall is still a land tinged with mystery.

And right here, right now, something mysterious is happening in the strange world of Cornish football. It feels as if Kernow’s capital is finally reconnecting with its football team.

I have lived down here for ten years, and in the wider South West for a few years more, and that period of history has coincided with the rise and rise of Truro City. From the nether regions of Cornish football, via an English record for the number of successive promotions, the White Tigers rose all the way to the National League South. Along the way, they won the FA Vase – in front of a record Wembley crowd for the competition – and reached the First Round Proper of the FA Cup, where they put up a respectable performance in defeat away to Charlton Athletic.

But they have also been beset by off-field chaos.  Financial woes saw them come within moments of going out of existence before being rescued at the very last minute, maybe even later. They then sold their Treyew Road ground for a supermarket development but a plan to build a ground of their very own never came to fruition. The shockwaves from that saw them play several “home” games 80-odd miles away in Torquay before returning to Treyew Road as the supermarket plan itself stalled.

City are now owned by the Cornish Pirates rugby club, who play at a lovely but outdated old stadium in Penzance and the plan is for both clubs to finally move to a new shared ground, the Stadium for Cornwall. But planning wrangles about that have also been going on for several years and it is still a project, not a reality. The wait goes on.

It all means that, for several years now, Truro City have been mired in uncertainty, leaving even their most die-hard supporters uneasy despite the footballing triumphs, worried that their bright-light race to the top could end up being a shooting star of success, rising quickly, shining intently and dying in a blaze of glory and wistful memory.

And their success on the pitch hasn’t always endeared them to large sections of the wider Cornwall football community. Many British people are not comfortable with success and so, while the White Tigers were taking all before them on the pitch, their off-field travails gave the naysayers the chance to mutter about financial fragility, about the lack of Cornish players in Cornwall capital’s team, about the lack of sustainability of their soccer success.

In short, in my time in this part of the world, it has always felt as if Cornwall hasn’t really taken its capital city’s team to heart.

Even the build-up to this season was a bit of a mess. Having been relegated from the National League South to the Southern League a whole rebuilding process was needed but then their new manager left before the season even started to take up the role as manager of Bury FC in League One. As we all now know, that wasn’t a great career move, with The Shakers being expelled from the Football League because of their own money misery, but it may also have been a major, major moment for the White Tigers.

In his place, they moved quickly to appoint a bright new manager, Plymouth Argyle legend Paul Wotton, who in turn quickly set about building a bright new squad which started the season in fine, flowing, winning style. They also signed a few players from Cornish clubs on dual-registration deals. Some of the cynics saw that as a way of trying to curry favour with the locals but it has given players in the Duchy the feeling that there is a way of progressing in their careers without having to leave Cornwall – something which generations of Cornish youngsters in all fields of employment have had to do in the past.

Watching from afar, it began to feel as if the tide had turned, as if the worry surrounding the club was beginning to lift, as if the atmosphere at Treyew Road was more positive, more friendly, more connected, more gentle. In short, better. So the chance of going to watch two cup games there in four days was too much of an opportunity for a Cornwall-based cup football blogger to miss. So I didn’t miss it.

The fact that the first of the two ties was in the FA Cup made it all the more attractive, even though the build-up to it showed that I had been labouring under a misapprehension for many decades. You see, the White Tigers were at home to Wimborne Town and I thought that would give me the chance to show off my knowledge of obscure newspaper printing terminology, garnered from working for more than 30 years in journalism. Stick with me on this.

One of the things newspaper designers hate is when a headline on one page clashes with another on the facing page. For example, a headline on the top right of page 2 might say:

POLICE IN HUNT FOR

DANGEROUS CRIMINAL

while one on the top left of page 3 could say:

PERFECT CHEESECAKE

BEATS ALL THE REST

This gives rise to the possibility of them being read as:

POLICE IN HUNT FOR PERFECT CHEESECAKE

and

DANGEROUS CRIMINAL BEATS ALL THE REST

Now, I always thought that newspaper designers called this sort of unfortunate error a “Wimborne”. But, despite days of internet research before the game, and chatting to print colleagues, I could find no evidence of such a term existing. It would appear that I had invented a new old saying!

It also ruined all the puns I was going to write about the Truro v Wimborne game, which was a bit of a blow. I had to, as they say, find a new angle. Well, if I was writing a headline about this game, it would probably be along the lines of A TALE OF TWO KEEPERS, as one of the custodians ended the day basking in glory and the other, well, didn’t.

There was no real sign of the drama to come, though, as the White Tigers dominated their Southern League rivals in the early stages and took the lead after 13 minutes with a straightforward set-piece header from centre-half James Ward, much to the delight of most of the crowd of 363. Decent as that attendance was, it was lower than their previous home league games this season. My campaign to persuade people that cup football is the purest, most exciting form of the game, looks like it still has some way to go!

Midway through the half, and in their first real attack, the bright – and I mean very bright – orange-shirted visitors were celebrating an unexpected equaliser, Sam Bayston sweeping home after a neat move.

From that point on, Wimborne were the better side for the rest of the first 45 and almost took the lead on 34 minutes but a powerful strike on goal deflected off an orange head and went over the bar. Queue smiles from the City fans, although they hadn’t had much else to smile about for much of the first half. Truro had dominated the first 20 minutes but, once Wimborne levelled, the White Tigers looked about as convincing as an England batting line-up. Shaky.

One of the things that attracted my attention during that first half was the colour of Wimborne keeper Cameron Plain’s shirt. Unlike the vivid orange of his team-mates, which could probably be seen from outer space, his soft purple-coloured top was beautifully camouflaged by the Tribute Ale advertising hoards which cover all four sides of Treyew Road. If I took my glasses off all I could see was a head and a pair of pale, disembodied legs wandering about!

However, sadly for the young keeper, there was no camouflaging his error which eventually settled the tie in the home side’s favour. Midway through the second half he tried to play sweeper-keeper as his defence left him to deal with a long Truro punt forward but, just as he went to head the ball away from five yards outside his box, he fell over and could only watch the ball bounce over his head. City centre-forward Stewart Yetton was left with the simple task of touching the ball into the net, his 230th goal for the White Tigers, although he did decide to hit it first time and, for a moment, I thought he might have touched it wide. That would have been the miss of the season.

That was just that start of the drama, though. Minutes later, Wimborne thought they had netted the equaliser. The ref had even pointed to the centre circle to indicate a goal but, after Truro protests and a long, long chat to his linesman, he changed his mind and disallowed it for a handball in the build-up. Wimborne were not happy.

However, deep into injury-time, they had a great chance to force a replay when they were awarded a penalty but home keeper James Hamon pulled off a magnificent save to preserve Truro’s place in the next round, when they will visit Hereford United.

On Tuesday night, the White Tigers also made progress in the Southern League Cup in a much less dramatic, much more low-key affair against Devon rivals Tiverton Town. Both sides made several changes to their “league” sides and the crowd was very sparse indeed. I haven’t seen a crowd figure published for the game but the low attendance did at least mean it was quick to get to the bar!

But there was still a nice atmosphere at the game, a real feeling of connection between the crowd and the team, probably helped by the debut of young goalkeeper Dan Stedman, who is on dual-registration from South West Peninsula League side Wendron United, and the second-half introduction of defender Andreas Calleja-Stayne, who is on the same sort of deal from Penzance. James Ward, who spent last season at Falmouth Town, has already established himself in the Truro side this season and also came on as a second-half sub, adding to the Kernow connections.

By then, City were 3-0 up and cruising. Rio Garside netted the first, man-of-the-match Moulaye N’Diaye cracked home a super second and then Ryan Law’s cross was deflected in for a third, all before half-time.

I decided to spend the second half standing by the goal that Truro were attacking, in expectation of more City goals but fearing that Tiverton would put up a better showing. My fears were realised as most of the second half took place at the far end as the visitors went in search of some redemption, although they never really produced the gung-ho charge forward that a team trailing in a cup tie traditionally should. In fact, they looked like they might be able to pass all night but never get a goal.

Young Stedman was largely untroubled, his main part in proceedings being a furious reaction as the ball dipped over his head from a looping header late in the game as Tiverton finally pulled a goal back.

But it was too little too late to trouble the White Tigers and, as the team happily trooped off at the end, the generous applause and reaction from the City supporters who had come along, was a lovely moment to watch, with a real feeling of all pulling together, of positivity, of a shared cause.

It really does feel as if the White Tigers have come home.

FINAL SCORES

Truro City 2 Wimborne Town 1

Truro City 3 Tiverton Town 1