BACK ON TRACK

DATELINE: Kimberley Stadium, Saltash, Saturday, August 10, 2019

MATCH: Saltash United v Clevedon Town

CUP: The Emirates FA Cup

ROUND: Extra Preliminary Round

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

THE BLOG: So here we are again, season five of this blog about cup football in Cornwall and, occasionally, a bit beyond. Five seasons! A lot of highly-rated US TV shows don’t get a fifth season so I must be doing something right. Either that, or am I am just showing sheer bloody-mindedness in the face of reality. You decide.

Saturday, August 10, was almost exactly three months to the day since my last blogging game which also featured Saltash United and their Carlsberg South West Peninsula League Walter C Parson Funeral Directors League Cup cup final victory over Falmouth.

Nice to get that competition name in nice and early again this season!

And this season it has got just a little bit longer and, if anything, marginally quirkier, as it is now the Kitchen Kit South West Peninsula League Walter C Parson Funeral Directors League Cup.

But I digress. (Didn’t Ronnie Corbett used to say that while sitting in an oversized chair and telling a long-winded joke on The Two Ronnies TV show back in the 1970s and 1980s? You don’t know what you are missing, kids). After all, Saturday’s tie was not in the cup with the best name but simply in the best cup of all, the FA Cup.

It is, without a doubt, still the most coveted domestic cup competition in the world, despite its trials and travails of a few seasons back. OK, last year’s horribly one-sided final, which ended Manchester City 7 (seven) Watford 0, was a proper damp squib, but the grand old lady of knockout football is certainly starting to find her feet again.

There is life in the old girl yet – certainly for the 300-odd teams who kicked off this season’s competition in the Extra Preliminary Round. It offers the chance for glory, perhaps a bit of a pay day a little bit further down the line, and is something out of the ordinary, with every tie feeling like a special occasion. In short, it provides everything that a cup tie should. Which is the way it should be as this is THE cup after all. So what better way to start another cup football blogging season?

In fact, my nerves were jangling as I headed off to the Kimberley Stadium. Not so much because I was anxious about who would win the game – I am meant to be neutral after all – but because my own “Road to Wembley” was actually starting on the railway and not on the road as my trusty old Peugeot was lacking in the brakes department and waiting in the garage to be repaired.

I might have been able to make it to Saltash if I had driven, but I wouldn’t have been able to stop when I got there! However, could I really rely on the train to take the strain and get me there on time?

As Wembley is also unlikely to be the final destination of my own FA Cup journey this season, unless a side from Devon or Cornwall does something truly remarkable, my Road to Wembley should more accurately be called “Various Modes of Transport to an Unplanned and Unknown Final Cup Tie Destination.”

Not as catchy, is it?

But, however and wherever I am ultimately going on this journey, it all began on Saturday at the excellent Kimberley Stadium, Saltash.

The first time I came here was for a midweek league match in my pre-blogging days and, for some reason, it immediately reminded me of a Rugby League ground. Whether it was the sloping row of terraced houses just across the road outside the ground, whether it was the good, earthy, working-class feel to the surroundings, or whether I had just been watching Super League on the TV, I wouldn’t have been surprised if, instead of a football match, we had been treated to the sight and sound of 26 burly blokes bashing into one another at high speed, to the background of a man in the middle of the melee counting out loud: “That’s four! Fifth and last!”

On Saturday, it didn’t feel like that at all. It felt strange to see Kimberley in the bright sunshine (the rain showers having stopped just before kick-off although the wind meant it was definitely a “hold on to your hats” kind of day) but the light revealed it for what it truly is, and that’s a cracking little football ground, well-appointed, well-presented and, for this particular game, well-attended. That’ll do for a kick-off to my season.

Now, I tend to take notes throughout the games I watch, recording goal times and incidents and sometimes just random impressions of the moment. The first such thought that found its way into my notebook this season was: “Red and white stripes v blue and white stripes: it looks like a game of bar football in an amusement arcade by the seaside.” For those of you new to this blog, that’s a warning – my mind can wander away from the action and down some strange alleyways at times. Hold on tight!

Not that the action on the pitch wasn’t engaging. Saltash United ply their footballing trade at Step Six on the Non-League Pyramid, this season playing in the newly reorganised Peninsula League Premier West, while Clevedon Town are from the Toolstation Western League, which is at Step Five, and so there was the possibility of a cup upset, which always adds an edge to things.

The blue-and-white-striped visitors started the match on the front foot and it looked very much like their superior status would be reflected in the final scoreline. However, their finishing was not, it must be said, of the highest order. One particular effort from the Clevedon number eight was so high and so wide that even players and officials on his own side took the mickey!

The home side soon found their feet in the game, though, and their slightly more direct style looked as if it might well be more suited to the blustery conditions as they pushed Clevedon back and threatened to take the lead themselves, including going very close in one proper cup goalmouth scramble.

However, neither side could break the deadlock in the first 45 minutes and we went into half-time with honours even at 0-0, which was probably a fair reflection of the action. It did worry me a bit, though, as I have got used to seeing a glut of goals in my cup matches and starting this season with a goalless encounter would be a bad omen for the months ahead.

I needn’t have worried.

The second half produced some cracking goal action and lots of cup drama but I have to say that the biggest cheer of the afternoon came midway through the half when an agricultural clearance from a Clevedon defender not only cleared the fence around the ground, it also cleared the road running alongside the ground, cleared the front gardens of the houses on the other side of that road, bounced on the roof of one unsuspecting football ground neighbour and then flew over the house and into the gardens behind. The crowd loved it.

One of my proudest playing moments, as a no-nonsense centre-half, was playing in a works game at Alnwick Town’s ground way up in Northumberland and managing to clear the small grandstand there with one of my determined clearances. But that had nothing on Saturday’s superb “ave it” moment and – remarkably – they almost managed to do it again later on but this effort bounced back on the football ground side after hitting the roof again. Close!

But the real story of the second half was not balls being thumped clear but three cracking goals being scored. If I see a game with three better goals in it all season I will be a very lucky blogger.

The first of them came midway through the half when Clevedon’s tricky and skilful George King smashed home an absolute pearler from long distance. It was definitely, as they say, a goal worthy of winning a game. But would it?

Er, no.

Just two minutes later, Saltash’s Chris Menhenick curled home a fantastic free-kick from the edge of the box to level up matters at 1-1.

That goal caused me a bit of a conundrum. I was standing on the bank behind the goal into which he was shooting and tried to have my phone camera ready to capture the action as he took the kick. However, he struck it so well that I think I was one of the first three people in the ground – the others being the taker himself and the Clevedon keeper – to realise that the shot was arrowing into the net. So mesmerised was I by the footballing beauty of that moment that I forgot to take a photo until after the ball had hit the net. I will never make a great photographer as the football fan in me tends to take over as the major incidents of a match unfold. Sorry about that.

So, while I berated myself for missing my photographic moment, and Clevedon conducted an inquest into what had just happened, Saltash celebrated and the home fans wondered if they could go on to complete a minor cup upset.

They had their answer on 85 minutes. Saltash lost possession near the halfway line and Clevedon’s Lucas Vowles pounced on the loose ball, surged forward and smashed the ball home for a superb solo goal. Great stuff.

And then, right on 90 minutes, we had a VAR moment. Well, we didn’t actually have VAR but we could have done with it. There was an almighty scramble in the Clevedon box and The Ashes were convinced the ball had crossed the line before being clawed back by Clevedon keeper Tom Creed, but the ref and linesman on the far side thought he had done enough to keep it out.

From where I stood, ten yards behind the goal, it looked very, very close but the officials only get the one look and I wouldn’t have wanted to have had to  make their decision. So no goal was the verdict and no cup upset was the result.

With fellow Cornish side St Austell also going out, 2-1 away to Southern League Willand Rovers, Cornwall’s interest in the FA Cup now rests with Truro City, who don’t enter the action until much later in the piece. I am definitely hoping for a home draw for them otherwise my Road to Wembley might just have been a Train to Saltash, and that would be a shame.

FINAL SCORE: Saltash United 1 Clevedon Town 2.

 

THE FINAL COUNTDOWN – PART THREE. THE FINAL PART.

Falmouth Town 0 Saltash United 1

Carlsberg South West Peninsula League Walter C Parson Funeral Directors League Cup Final

Championes, championes, ole, ole, ole. I think that song will be in my head as they take me to my grave! The latest rendition of this musical ode to footballing triumph came from the players, officials and supporters of Saltash United after their 1-0 win over Falmouth Town in the final of the Carlsberg South West Peninsula League Walter C Parson Funeral Directors League Cup

DATELINE: Blaise Park, St Blazey, Saturday, May 11, 2019

MATCH SUMMARY: This was the second cup final between these two Carlsberg South West Peninsula League Premier Division sides in a matter of weeks and it ended with a measure of revenge for Saltash United, who had lost 2-1 to Falmouth Town in a controversial RGB Building Supplies Cornwall Senior Cup Final on Easter Monday. That match probably turned on a red card for an Ashes player early in the second half and was settled by a Falmouth headed goal with ten minutes to go. This time, it was Saltash who scored the decisive goal with a header from a set-piece, David Barker proving the hero on the day with his late, late winner.

THE BLOG: As a gentleman of a certain vintage, now well in to my sixth decade on this planet, the phrase “cup final” conjures up a wealth of thoughts and images in the footballing part of my brain.

Back in the day, THE cup final, the FA Cup Final, was just about the only live game on the telly all season. That might be hard to believe for those of you brought up on a diet of wall-to-wall small screen football but such was the way of the world back then.

And so the excitement around the cup final for a young football fan was palpable with a pre-match TV build-up from 9am all the way until the kick-off at 3pm. Ah, do you remember the good old days of 3pm kick-offs?

Wembley Stadium was always a riot of colour, with flags and banners and marching bands. All the dignitaries were dressed in their finest as they were introduced to the nervous players and the strains of Abide With Me echoed around the glorious old stadium.

And always, always, the occasion was bathed in a golden glow of sensational spring sunshine, adding to the colour and the sharpness of the picture and the feeling that this was something very different to your run-of-the-mill muddy and wet mid-winter encounters. It was the cup final and it was special.

Well, we might not have had the Twin Towers or, now, the Big Shiny Arch, at St Blazey on Saturday but Blaise Park looked an absolute sun-drenched picture for the final of the cup contest with the best name of them all – the Carlsberg South West Peninsula League Walter C Parson Funeral Directors League Cup.

We didn’t have the Band of the Coldstream Guards marching up and down the hallowed turf but we did have Falmouth’s noisy band of supporters, F-Troop, marching to the gates in full voice a few minutes before kick-off.

And we did have flags and banners, which is always a novel sight at matches at this level of the game, plus a few red flares from the outnumbered Saltash contingent and a host of what looked and sounded like mini-vuvuzelas for the youngsters, which greatly added to the infectiously delightful din.

We also had a crowd of just under 600 people – 585 paying punters to be precise – which is a pretty good effort for two Step Six sides. As we crowded on to the grass banks around the ground, most in T-shirts, some in shorts, there was a proper cup final buzz, that festival feeling of a big sporting occasion.

To top it all off, we were bathed in the wonderful May sunshine, exactly as we should be on a day like this. Yes, it felt like a proper cup final.

The appointed kick-off time was 2pm and I rocked up at about 1.25pm, easily the earliest I had been to a match all season (with the possible exception of an East Cornwall League Division One Cup tie at Roche when I got the kick-off time wrong and had time for a proper wander around before the action began). This was to be my last cup game of the blogging season, my third cup final in a week, and I didn’t want to miss anything.

Sadly though, I did miss something. A pasty.

Rumour has it that the Saltash coach turned up at Blaise Park at midday, a full two hours before kick-off and, by 12.30pm, all the pasties had gone. Here in Cornwall, a paucity of pasties constitutes a proper crisis. No big occasion, or small one for that matter, is complete in the Duchy without a pasty. It’s part of the culture.

Just before I sat down to write this, I walked up to the little shop in town and there, on the door of one of the neighbouring businesses, was possibly the most Cornish sign I have ever seen: “Back in 5 mins. Just popped up the shop for a pasty.” This hiatus in the commercial process might have caused consternation in other parts of the world but here people would have said to themselves: “Fair enough,” and then wondered about wandering off to get a pasty themselves while they were waiting.

But to be fair to cup final hosts St Blazey, that was about the only thing missing from the day. I had a chat with groundsman Paul before the game and he was rightly proud of how the ground looked, especially the pitch, which glowed an immaculate green.

The club have hosted a number of cup finals and semi-finals over the past few weeks, including Wednesday night’s Charity Cup final between St Dennis and Illogan RBL (see blog below, The Final Countdown – Part Two) but there were no signs of wear and tear. Blaise Park has long been one of my favourite football grounds in Cornwall, it looks and feels like a “proper” football ground, and I only grew to love it more on Saturday.

Appeals for a foul are waved away at a sun-drenched Blaise Park as Saltash United, in red, and Falmouth Town met in a cup final for the second time in a few weeks, this time the Carlsberg South West Peninsula League Walter C Parson Funeral Directors League Cup.

But which club, which set of supporters, would love it the most come the final whistle, that was the big question? Saltash already had great memories of St Blazey, having beaten Mousehole here in the final of last season’s Cornwall Senior Cup, while Falmouth Town had already beaten the Ashes in one final this season, taking the Senior Cup title from them, but were now defending the CSWPLWCPFD League Cup title that they claimed last year.

Easter Monday’s Senior Cup Final had been thoroughly entertaining, with three goals, one red card, loads of chances at either end and, ultimately, a late Fal winner. Would Saturday’s final live up to that?

The truth is that, although it was always absorbing, it was not a thriller. You kept feeling that you were right on the edge of something truly dramatic happening but it never quite got there. It was an altogether a more cagey affair than the Senior Cup Final.

Falmouth, loudly urged on by the big majority in the crowd who had come along to make a proper day out of it, certainly started the brighter and, for much of the first half, kept the Ashes pinned right back. They struggled to create many clear-cut openings though, with probably the best chance coming late in the half when a shot from the right-hand side of the box whistled just wide of the far post.

In fact, one of the highlights of the opening 45 minutes was an overheard exchange between opposing players. After another appeal for a foul had fallen on excellent referee Stuart Ash’s deaf ears, one player launched into yet another complaint about the man in black’s performance.

“Oh shut up moaning,” came the reply from a member of the opposition.

“Shut up telling him to shut up,” intervened an anguished third party.

Oh the level of footballing debate. It does make me smile.

So, 0-0 at half-time but no need for me to worry. I always see goals in the cup games I blog about across Cornwall and beyond. The capricious gods of footballing fate wouldn’t let me down on the last day of the season, would they? Would they?

Well, for a long time, a very long time, it looked as if they would.

Falmouth started the second half seemingly determined to make their possession superiority count and kept pushing forward, but the goal wouldn’t come as chances were missed and the Ashes defended stoutly and intelligently.

Hmm, still goalless going into the final quarter. What was going on here?

Then, almost imperceptibly, the tide began to turn. Saltash made a couple of substitutions which gave them more of an attacking threat and they began to have a few more goal chances of their own. Falmouth were still a threat going forward but there was a growing feeling around Blaise Park – well, OK, I had a growing feeling – that if anyone was going to nick it, then it would be Saltash.

But I think most people were beginning to settle for extra time and, perhaps, penalties, to decide the destination of the cup, when up stepped David Barker with a storming header into the top corner as the match counted down towards injury time. 1-0 to Saltash. Would it be enough?

In the few minutes left Falmouth valiantly tried to grab that elusive equaliser but, in truth, it never looked likely to come and, at the final whistle, it was the Saltash players and fans jumping for joy and the Falmouth followers who were left to rue what might have been.

And that was that for my cup journey this season, my fourth year of blogging about the joys of the beautiful game in its knockout form.

As I lingered by the gate watching the celebrations and listening to the hum of cup final conversation, I thought back to games I had watched earlier in the season, mainly to the beginning of my journey through the Carlsberg South West Peninsula League Walter C Parson Funeral Directors League Cup for 2018-19.

It all began in an absolute downpour at the wonderfully named Lantoom Park as Dobwalls edged out St Blazey in a First Round tie and then ended in glorious spring sunshine at St Blazey itself on Saturday. The end of any long journey is a poignant moment of memories and reflection and I didn’t really want to leave Blaise Park, I didn’t want the season to be over.

But, for me, it was and I consoled myself with the thought that, in August, it will all be starting all over again. Who knows, the sun might even still be shining then.

Blaise Park, St Blazey, was in fine fettle for the Carlsberg South West Peninsula League Walter C Parson Funeral Directors League Cup Final between Falmouth Town, in yellow and black, and Saltash United. The stand was sparsely populated as most of the crowd of 585 paying souls elected to bask in the glorious sunshine.

NB: For more pictures, see my Facebook page. Search for Peter Harlow @cupfootballblogger

CONTACTS AND COMMENTS: If you have any thoughts or observations about this blog, comment on my Facebook page (search for Peter Harlow), get in Twitter contact via @cupfootblog or email me at thecupfootballblogger@hotmail.com