TT No.109: Andrew Gallon - Wed November 7th 2007; South Kirkby Colliery v AFC Emley; S&H Senior Cup Rd 2; Res: 0-3; Att: 35; Admission: £2; Programme: None; FGIF Match Rating: **  


We're in Yorkshire, so let's call a spade a spade, eh? Nobody in their right mind would choose to live in the post-industrial wilderness bounded by the tough towns of Doncaster, Wakefield and Barnsley. When the coal industry flourished within this triangle of black gold, at least work, though back-breaking and health-shattering, was plentiful and a living, of sorts, could be eked from the ground. What people do to earn a crust in this scarred landscape now the collieries have closed, I simply can't imagine. The lights have gone out - something no amount of enterprise zones can deny. There is an oppressive air of stoicism in the face of incalculable odds. It's (if you'll excuse the pun) the pits. 

South Kirkby takes its place on a seemingly endless conveyor belt of battered and bruised communities. It's a forlorn place, sprinkled with chippies, bookies and boozers. Hardly stardust. But it does have the one saving grace of being never quite as ghastly as neighbouring South Elmsall, one of the most depressing towns in the North - as surely anyone who has been to watch Frickley Athletic at Westfield Lane will testify. 

Before the Industrial Revolution brought a sea change to these backwaters, South Kirkby was a rural village amid farmland. The colliery's daily grind got going in 1881, with its football club formed soon after. More than 3,000 laboured down the pit at its peak but decline set in and the last cage ascended the shaft in 1988, four years after the Miners' Strike. Nothing of the workings remains but the football club is determined to retain the name as a mark of respect to those who gave so much for so little in the Stygian bowels of the earth. 

The ground is called Old Mill Playing Fields. The mill, first recorded in 1229, lasted until 1875 but was not demolished until the 1950s. It was located where Stockingdale Primary School stands, to your right as you turn down the cul-de-sac of Millars Walk - a thoroughfare of poky new-builds - to find the ground at the bottom. It is, of course, the miners' welfare. Typical of the breed, it's a spartan, brick building which gets the job done. From the tarmac car park, the no-frills bar is to the left and the dressing rooms and ground entrance to the right. Down a narrow alley and you emerge into a vast, open space - a bit like coming up to the pithead after a spirit-sapping shift in the dust and gloom. The cricket ground is ahead and the football pitch over to the right. To the immediate right is a long, low building which serves as a tea bar. Disappointingly for a number of locals, pie and peas is not on the menu tonight because it hadn't been certain the facility would be available for this second-round tie in the Sheffield and Hallamshire Senior Cup, a Mickey Mouse competition in the Disneyland of obscure county FA knockout tournaments. One young chap, already running to fat, tells cheerfully how he pigged out on three helpings of pie and peas at a recent, ahem, social function. No wonder the drama of obesity is rapidly becoming a crisis.

In normal circumstances, a programme would be available but club secretary Bob Dutton has been away in Ireland on business and did not have time to put one together. Shame - County Senior Leaguers South Kirkby Colliery surely can't get many better attendances (officially 35; head count 83) in a season than this for the visit of relative glamour boys AFC Emley, from the dizzy heights of the Northern Counties (East) League First Division. Stalwart Bob, who reveals he has a garage full of back issues, might have sold a few more than usual to reward his hard work. 

It's a 200-yard stroll for spectators and players alike across damp grass to reach the football pitch. Passed to the right is a floodlit bowling green and a tarmac oval, complete with tiny cantilever stand, for remote control cars. The latter hasn't seen much use (real men round here tend to prefer pigeons for their racing thrills) and is about to be razed to make way for an artificial surface. The ground doesn't consist of much. The sole cover is a 20-yard propped cantilever sheltering six broad rows of concrete terracing. It is positioned just to the right of the top end goal, oddly marooned in the middle of a wide strip of grass between the black and white-painted post and rail pitch surround and the tree-fringed concrete panel perimeter fence. The National Coal Board, as was, must have used a standard design for these stands at miners' welfares because it looks identical to those at Kiveton Park and Worsbrough Bridge Athletic. The near side abuts the cricket pitch and there is another wide, grassy sward to the rear of the bottom end goal. Miniscule dugouts, providing seating in comfort possibly for two, face each other across the halfway line. There is no hardstanding - just grass which, on the far side, is rather tussocky. This feels a long way down the pyramid. One curiosity is the amount of spare turf between touchline and spectator. The floodlights, switched on in 1998, are traditionally spindly non-league pylons. They seem quite low and have four disproportionately large lamps on each. Not all are working but the shifty radiance is enough to illuminate a rather scrappy contest spoiled, certainly in the first half, by a stiff breeze. 

AFC Emley are much the better team. They even look more like footballers than the home lads. You know that feeling? I'll deal with the South Kirkby highlights first. Ryan Williams gets away on the left side of the box in the first minute, shooting across advancing keeper Jamie Green and inches wide of the far post. He does exactly the same thing during stoppage time at the end of the second half. In between, it's pretty much all AFC Emley. Allan Laud's inswinging corners are a constant menace for a South Kirkby defence at whose heart skipper Keith Mayne, in terms of manoeuvrability, is a juggernaut among go-karts. The hosts fail to clear a Laud corner in the 17th minute and Nick Jagger, no doubt endlessly seeking satisfaction, twists acrobatically to head in at the near post. A minute after the break, the Pewits double their lead up the noticeable slope with a beautifully executed goal. Mark Townsend, in central midfield, finds Phil Mann in space on the right flank and his low cross picks out an unpoliced Matt Neesam, who, from 12 yards, glides a low shot wide of Graeme Nevison. The home keeper then
does really well to foil Jagger twice in quick succession but the respite is merely temporary because, in the 67th minute, more sloppy defending sees a loose ball fall to Steve Kenworthy, who capitalises on Nevison being prone already to fire past a defender guarding the line. Nick Maniosous should have added a fourth three minutes from the end but somehow blazes over from six yards after Kenworthy's cross had put the chance on a plate. 

There remains only the negotiation of a tortuous escape route via Moorthorpe, South Elmsall, Brodsworth and Doncaster (I'd arrived through the deathly Dearne Valley from the Rotherham direction). None of it is pretty. At such times, I remind myself that only the grace of God stands between me and calling places like this home. Thank heavens. 

amended & contributed on 08/11/07