Lightwater United play at the Lightwater Leisure Centre and Country Park, nice set up off the field. There was plenty

of parking. Thankfully on a freezing morning the coffee shop was open and £1.50 got you massive coffee and as

an added bonus nice clean warm toilets.

The pitch Lightwater use is 150 or so yards from the Leisure Centre. It is roped down one side and is surrounded

by trees on the other three, quite a rural scene except for the constant drone of the M3 in the background. One

corner of the pitch despite no rain/snow for a while was in a bit of a mess, quite surprising as the pitch is more

or less on a plateau. The complex has a rugby pitch next to the football one and two floodlit all weather surfaces,

one for football and other as tennis courts. I presume if the club ever wanted to progress there would be no

problem with lights as the all weather surfaces are floodlit.

On the field league leaders Shottermill were head and shoulders above the homesters. They won at a canter and

some of their players would not have looked out of place 3 or 4 steps higher. They played some delightful stuff

and a couple of their goals were outstanding. The home side were not bad but were well beaten. In fact it was a

very good game for step 8 and I have certainly seen far worst skill-wise at a much higher level.

Both teams were at the ground an hour before kick-off, warming up well in advance of the 11.30am start.

At 11.30am there was no sign of them, eventually they appear being lead by the referee. After various lectures

to club linesmen, a toss up the ref then remembered he had forgotten the "respect" handshake. So after the teams

had lined up he called them back to shake hands. At 11.37am we kicked off, after 5 or so minutes we had an injury

where a player broke his nose. The trainer treated the player for 3 minutes before  taking him from the field.

The first half finished at 12.27pm. Thankfully we only had 12 minutes for half time, I thought it would be more

as the ref and Shottermill decided to walk back to the leisure centre. The 2nd half saw 4 minutes of added time

so a game that could have finished at 1.10pm finished at 1.28pm.

As someone who likes to be at a ground at least 40 minutes before kick off and any new grounds would have meant using the M25 I decided to head back towards home. Despite a number of drivers on the M4 thinking that the 3rd lane was now the slow lane I managed to arrive at Abingdon by 2.20pm for my next game.