Whitehawk 5-3 Lincoln City (2015)

Whitehawk 5-3 Lincoln City
FA Cup First Round
Sunday 8th November 2015

The programme.

Every year, the FA Cup is capable of throwing up ties featuring a team that very few people have ever heard of previously.

In 2015/16, arguably the team of choice for those football followers that choose not to look outside of the Premier/Football League were Whitehawk. A small, yet hugely ambitious, club who play on the outskirts of Brighton. Their opponents for the day were Lincoln City.

The Hawks are infamous in non-league circles for being the opposition when a crazy guy from Wealdstone made his equally infamous 'you've got no fans' comments. Only, I can assure you that Whitehawk DO have fans - noisy, irritating and probably the loudest I've ever heard which support a club that plies it's trade in the Conference South. More of that later...

After whizzing down to London in the early hours of the morning, thanks to National Express, I enjoyed breakfast at McDonalds in London Victoria before heading over to London Bridge and completing the second leg of my journey down to the south coast.

A station which looks much nicer than it did 10 years ago.

The game wasn't scheduled to kick-off until 2.00pm, which left me with some three hours to spend exploring Brighton. In the end, I couldn't resist an impromptu 20-minute trip to Lewes' Dripping Pan ground - a venue where I'd seen a really enjoyable game between the Rocks and Kettering Town, back in Lewes' only season in the top flight of non-league football in 2009.

The weather was dreary, depressing and dismal as you may expect for November, but thankfully the rain managed to hold off - at least when I was outdoors anyway.

Lewes' Dripping Pan - the best named ground in football?

After spending 20 minutes looking around the Dripping Pan, I quickly hot-footed it back into Brighton and caught a connecting bus from just outside the main railway station which took me more or less straight to Whitehawk's Enclosed Ground. Unlike Lewes, where I'd been before, once I stepped off the bus I had no idea where I was going. Neither did the dozen or so Lincoln fans who had also been on the same bus, but after asking a few locals, we collectively ventured down what resembled some obscure footpaths inside a public park - wondering what on earth we were walking into, before arriving outside the ground some 15 minutes later.

First impressions usually count for a lot and the Enclosed Ground didn't make a particular good one. It seemed to be a mess of temporary stands (using seats from the Withdean Stadium) that had been constructed in a hurry to keep up with the club's rapid rise through the non-league pyramid. The rest of the three-sided venue seemed unable to cope with the 1,000 strong crowd and already, a good hour before the game was due to get underway, terraced areas and seating sections were filling up quite quickly.

The Enclosed Ground left a few memories.

Having taken up a seat in the covered seating stand behind the goal, I was quickly joined by every weird and wacky local character. Whitehawk's fans are definitely something special (and worth experiencing at least once) and they created a non-stop racket - rattling just about every musical instrument you could imagine - from at least half-an-hour before kick-off. Characters amongst their motley crew included a guy sporting a Danger Mouse jumper, a couple of Hell's Angels and Boy George, and the noise they made was incredible.

The game itself was your typical cup tie featuring an underdog and the 'noisy' support paid dividends as Whitehawk quickly capitalised on some woeful defending by the visitors to race into a 2-0 lead inside half-an-hour with Danny Mills and Jake Robinson on the score-sheet. Lincoln, however, refused to give up the fight and Matt Rhead's well-placed penalty on the stroke of half-time halved their deficit.

Check out the slope on the pitch.

In the second half, the Imps upped the tempo and looked the more likely team to find the next goal, but on 58 minutes they paid for another defensive lapse in concentration as Sam Deering managed to get the better of Lincoln 'keeper Paul Farman to make it 3-1. However, that lead only lasted four minutes, as Matt Rhead took advantage of sloppy defensive play at the other end and emphatically blasted the ball into the net from a few yards out to reduce arrears for the second time.

With the higher division outfit once again threatening to turn the screw and find an equaliser, Whitehawk went and re-established a two-goal cushion through Dave Martin's strike, only for the big, burly handful known as Matt Rhead to complete his hat-trick and leave Lincoln trailing by just one goal, at 4-3, as the game entered injury-time. Incredibly, there was still time for one more goal, with Sam Deering effectively wrapping up a cup scalp for the Hawks with a strike from the penalty spot, just moments after Alan Power was red carded. Whitehawk 5-3 Lincoln City.

Getting ready to make a quick exit in stoppage-time.

All in all, it had been an enthralling cup tie and well worth the admission fee, lengthy travel and day out. If only ever random football match was as incident-packed as this one.

Arguably the finest cloud arrangement you may ever see.

The sun sets in Stranraer

Stranraer 3-2 Dumbarton
Stair Park
Petrofac Training Cup, First Round
Saturday 26th July 2014

The programme

For anyone that wants to visit every football ground in the country (or even a division) you can guarantee there will be at least one club which poses a ridiculously long trek and sometimes makes you even question why you want to do visit them in the first place.

In England, it may be Plymouth, Hartlepool or Yeovil - the latter of which always seems to take an eternity find, no matter what. In Wales, the problematic club might mean a jaunt over to Aberystwyth - or finding a sensible budget-cost way to get to Bangor City. Scotland, arguably, is the toughest of the collections to complete, given that as soon as you venture away from the grounds in the central belt, you come across some pretty weird, wacky and wonderful locations. For example, Peterhead is some 35 miles from the nearest station (Aberdeen) which is at the end of the East Coast mainline, whilst Stranraer, at the other end of the country, is even more obscure with just a handful of trains going there per day - and not all at hours which makes it feasible to 'tick it off' within a day. And that's before you even consider how difficult it might be to get to Brora Rangers (some 60 miles NORTH of Inverness) or Formartine United, if either of them gain promotion from the Highland League at any point in the future.

If you don't drive (or can't find anyone gullible enough to be convinced by your reasons for going to some of these places), then it becomes an even bigger issue, as you have to rely on public transport.

So, with that in mind, I'd already began thinking 'outside the box' as to how to do a visit to Stair Park.

Stranraer in all its glory!

After much deliberation, I decided that there mouth-watering Petrofac Training Cup, First Round, clash at home to Dumbarton on Saturday 26th July was just too good to miss. After all, this is the competition that dreams are made of, right?

Having researched several travel options (and discounting many of them due to cost), I eventually plumped for the sensible option of getting a National Express coach up to Stranraer from Manchester, having a day there, and then catching the coach back to civilisation after the game.

Sensible, I hear you say? The only issue was the coach wasn't scheduled to depart Manchester until 1.00am, arriving in Stranraer at 6.30am. Then, I wouldn't be leaving Stranraer until 10.30pm at night - and the game was a bog standard 3.00pm Saturday afternoon kick-off. Undeterred, I went ahead and booked tickets at a very reasonable £32 for a return ticket. This was it, I was going to that place Brian Potter screamed about on Phoenix Nights and I couldn't contain my excitement.

The entrance to Stair Park, with the main stand just visible.

The day before the game I'd been to watch Sheffield United vs Dundee at Bramall Lane and, thankfully, apart from a guy with greasy hair sat right in front of me, the journey up to Scotland went smoothly - arriving in what resembled a ghost town on time.

My sightseeing tour of Stranraer lasted all of five minutes, before boredom took hold and the fact that kick-off wasn't for another eight hours suddenly dawned on me. After spending well over an hour in Subway, (very) slowly scoffing a lovely 12-inch sub, I improved my time-killing techniques by visiting a nearby supermarket, treating myself to another sightseeing tour, before eventually stumbling across the Stranraer FC Supporters Social Club in the town centre. Open at 11.00am, with live sport on TV, and a good friendly atmosphere, I'd managed to save myself from boredom.

Three hours later, I eventually took the ten-minute or so walk up to Stair Park in anticipation of the Petrofac Cup 'classico'. My initial impressions of Stair Park was exactly what I'd expected - it's your typical Scottish lower league football ground. The large all-seated main stand dominates things and it's a pleasant enough venue.

The view from the main stand as the teams warm up.

The game itself exceeded expectations with the visitors, plying their trade one division above their counterparts, racing into what seemed a comfortable enough two-goal cushion at the break. Nevertheless, Stranraer weren't about to go down without a fight and after deservedly leveling things up, just as it seemed that extra-time was about to happen, they snatched a goal in injury-time to make it 3-2 - leaving some of Dumbarton's directors looking VERY gloomy faced.

Afterwards, it was back to the social club for a few more drinks, before visiting the supermarket to grab some essential supplies (that means Scotch pies - undoubtedly the best part of every trip north of the border), ahead of the journey back to civilisation.

Sunset over Stranraer, taken from the coach window.

Having been fortunate to sleep all the way back to Manchester, the four-hour wait for my connecting train seemed to pass relatively quickly, and I arrived back home just shy of midday.

The adventure was over, but one of the most difficult grounds was off the list at last.

All the fun of the Fylde

A seaside trip to the wonderful Fylde coast is always meant to be this exciting, right?

Some people have a drug addiction. Not me!

A trip to AFC Fylde. The sort of stuff you dream about as a kid.

The game obviously wasn't interesting enough for some!

Time to start blogging...

I've always been told that I should write a book!

Having spent far too many years traveling around the country watching pointless football matches (Inverness Caley Thistle versus Motherwell on a bloody cold evening a couple of years ago is everyone's cup of tea right?), I've finally decided to take the plunge and join the cyber-blogging community.

I've endured the craziness of West Ham vs Millwall, been soaked to the bone at Bishop's Stortford before destroying a brand new carpet three hours later, dodged slippery seagulls excreting their bowels on a midweek night in Aberdeen, and survived a full day in STRANRAER! (as Brain Potter would say).

I can assure you, the latter of those experiences changed my life forever.

My 92 is almost complete, barring one club, and I've only got a handful of grounds north of the border left to visit. I've also visited the same amount of South-West Peninsula League titles as Lance Armstrong has won Tour De France titles.

But what's the fun in saying that and starting a blog? I may as well just visit all these weird, wacky and wonderful places again!