TT No.42: Andy Gallon – Sat 4^th September 2010; Handsworth v Barton Town OB; Northern Counties East Lge Div 1; Res: 2-0; Att: 262; Admission: £2; Programme: £1 (12pp); FGIF Match Rating: **  

Matchday images (25) http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/footballgroundsinfocus/HandsworthFC

What is it with (so-called) bands at football matches? We had the ‘pleasure’ for this game on National Non-League Football Day of the tuneless, repetitive England Supporters’ Band, which was at Olivers Mount to publicise the Football Association’s bid to stage the 2018 World Cup. Now, I began watching live football in 1971; we didn’t need bands then – and I’m damned sure we don’t need them now. Lost in a crowd of thousands (assuming you’re not in the next row to the infernal drummer or trumpeter), they’re just about tolerable. But, at Northern Counties East League level, the din is both unbearable and inescapable. Let me start a campaign: Bands Should Be Banned. Everywhere. After all, if you can’t take the cap from a plastic bottle of water into a big game these days, why on earth should a drum or a bugle make it through the turnstiles? Attention seeking clowns, the lot of them. The members of the England Supporters’ Band are old enough to know better. Grow up, shut up and crawl beneath the stone from which you emerged in the first place!

Handsworth, formed in 2003 and promoted via the Sheffield & Hallamshire County Senior Leagues, are new to the NCEL this season. But it seems their stay will not extend beyond 12 months if they don’t build some dressing rooms next to the pitch. At present, the players get changed in the clubhouse a couple of hundred yards away, accessing the pitch via a taped off walkway. The grading police deem this unacceptable, though the club have at least been given due warning of the consequences if they fail to rectify the situation.

Olivers Mount (no apostrophe, I’m reliably informed) is a pleasant set-up in a fairly unattractive part of Sheffield, though the traffic roar from the adjacent A630 spoils an atmosphere rendered semi-rural by the presence round the ground of tall trees. I noted, with some dismay, the leaves were starting to turn – and some being shed already. Was that really our summer? The pitch used by the NCEL team is at the foot of a sizeable complex built into a slope. The club encompasses a huge range of junior and senior teams playing football and cricket. There are two pitches, worked in with a cricket square, at the top, where the clubhouse is located. A golf course lies beyond. There is a floodlit artificial surface lower down the bank and then the main pitch, with another beyond that. Have a look at this last one – it boasts a wonderfully overgrown and decrepit main stand; larger than the one Handsworth use.

A portable building to the right of the artificial pitch houses the turnstile (rather posh, with sliding glass windows) and a surprisingly well-stocked souvenir shop. Down a short path and you’re into the ground’s west corner. The pitch seems huge, despite the surrounding trees. A boxy stand – a simple propped cover over two broad steps of terracing – straddles the halfway line on the near side. It’s set back from, and no higher than, a gravel area for standing spectators, and the resulting poor view isn’t helped by the positioning directly in front of a floodlight mast. The loathsome ‘band’ used it to amplify their racket for a while before cheering everyone considerably by disappearing midway through the first half. Go! I would not have you back! There are two particularly sturdy dug-outs opposite the stand. Concrete hardstanding has been laid behind the near goal and along the far touchline, behind which vehicles on the dual carriageway barrel along noisily. The far end, behind which the other (roped-off) pitch and stand can be explored via a gate, is out of bounds to spectators because there isn’t any room between the dead ball line and the perimeter fence. Handsworth’s ground is a bit short on space for further development, and it’s hard to see where any new changing rooms could be squeezed in. The lights are masts; three per side. Railings form the pitch barrier.

This was well-supported Handsworth’s first Saturday home fixture of the season, and attracted their biggest crowd. Something had to give. Barton Town Old Boys, for whom golden oldie Dean Windass scored a hat-trick in their last outing, had a 100 per cent record from four games (all at home), while the hosts had won each of their two games at Olivers Mount. So, two teams in form. Result? An indifferent, scrappy game. Groan. It sparked into life only in the last 15 minutes, which featured more efforts on goal than the preceding 75. Handsworth, the better side, were deserved winners. They took the lead in the 29^th minute when Lee Shilleto comically diverted a cross into his own net, and Adam Fretwell clinched the points with 14 minutes left when he sidefooted in from 12 yards after indecisiveness in the Barton defence had been capitalised upon by Ryan Johnson.

contributed on 05/09/10