Beverley Town 5-1 Glasshoughton Welfare

Beverley Town 5-1 Glasshoughton Welfare

Northern Counties East League (Division One)

Tuesday 20th September 2022

Despite a full set of fixtures in the Papa John’s Trophy and a few games which looked quite attractive, a trip to Beverley (primarily for the chance to get another ground ticked off) got the nod for a midweek game.

Beverley is the ‘posh part’ of Hull and they're newcomers to the NCEL having won the Humber Premier League last season. Probably as a consequence of that achievement, plus a novelty factor for groundhoppers who haven’t been here before AND super-cheap admission which was only £3.50 for adults - making it one of the cheapest in the league, there was a bumper crowd of 301 for this meeting under the floodlights.

The ground is quite pleasant and far better than the ramshackle set-up at fellow divisional new boys Horbury Town. There’s hard standing on three sides, a 54-seat stand (I counted them like a saddo!) to satisfy NCEL ground regulations and, best of all, it’s not far from Beverley Railway Station - useful on the very rare days when trains operate in the UK!

On the pitch, Beverley got off to a fine start to life at Step 6 as they won their first three fixtures and, briefly, looked as if they might challenge for the title but results have tailed off since and that meant they were in a mid-table spot going into this game. Glasshoughton, meanwhile, are masters in perennial mediocrity, yet they found themselves in the drop zone at the start of play.

Although the scoreline ended up being a hammering for them, Glassy didn't actually play too badly early on and the outcome could have been different if they’d taken their chances during the first 25 minutes when things were relatively even.

Matt Semley had an effort blocked in the game's first proper chance and then Owen Thomas floated a clever cross towards the back-post on the quarter-hour mark where Jonas Ndombasi wasn't quite able to put the ball in the net. Glassy ‘keeper Alfie Hayes Daubney pulled off a couple of saves at the other end and there was also a goal-line clearance as it remained goalless.

The opener then came on 25 minutes via Ollie Baldwin, who went through the middle and finished well, and soon enough Beverley were in complete command as Reece Moody converted from the penalty spot. If that wasn't enough good enough for the home fans, the game was all but over as a meaningful contest just before half-time when Baldwin made it 3-0 with an acrobatic overhead kick (or so I'm told as I was queueing up to sample some of the local cuisine at the time).

Few teams in the NCEL can boast a better pitch than Beverley because it's fantastic and, after the re-start, the hosts played some decent stuff as they inflicted further damage. Moody made it 4-0 on the back of some positive build up-play in and around the box and, although the visitors quickly pulled one back through Kiyani Clayton's penalty, the scoring was completed inside the final 10 minutes as Lewis Gibson claimed his first goal in Beverley’s light blue colours.

Based on this performance, it's evident that Beverley are a good team. Yes, they were playing strugglers who might not have had a full squad to choose from given it was a midweek game, but it's easy to spot quality and if they play like this every week then they’re more than capable of putting a run together and challenging for a Play-Off spot. I’m sure the dream would be nice for Beverley, whereas Glasshoughton will need to grind out results from those around them in the league table if they’re to avoid the prospect of this being the season where they drop out of the NCEL altogether.

I've now got just seven grounds left to visit across the two NCEL divisions until I’ve completed the whole lot; three in the Premier Division (Barton Town, Golcar United and Knaresborough Town) and four in Division One (Campion, Glasshoughton Welfare, Nostell Miners Welfare and Selby Town).

I don't know which one I'll get to next although the plan to have them finished in time for the World Cup starting in November is probably looking a tad unlikely.