St Columb v Newquay, pre-season friendly
I’ve never considered myself a football obsessive. I’ll watch my team if they’re on TV or listen to their games on the radio, but I hardly ever watch a televised Continue reading “Back In My Arms Again”
Pass It On Down
Dobwalls v Perranporth, Cornwall Senior Cup 3rd round
Sometimes it’s the solid markers of success and security, the bricks and mortar, that mean more to a grassroots football club than the end-of-season points tally or the thrill of a cup run. For Andy Walker, groundsman, treasurer and ‘doer of a multitude of other things’ at Dobwalls FC, the highlight of over Continue reading “Pass It On Down”
A Thing Well Made
St Newlyn East v Polperro, Duchy League Knockout Cup
There’s a slightly tired, commonly accepted image of all grassroots football clubs as wholesome, salt-of-the-earth, welcoming institutions. That’s not exactly a myth, but there are plenty of clubs out there who seem to consider themselves as self-contained entities, insular and indifferent about the idea of Continue reading “A Thing Well Made”
Standing in the Way of Control
Penzance v Wendron United, South West Peninsula League Premier Division West
Imagine a parallel universe in which, say, Tranmere Rovers found themselves newly owned by a minted sheikh. Ready to conquer European football, but with their immediate grand ambitions constrained by their location and the Continue reading “Standing in the Way of Control”
I’m Still Here
St Merryn v Saltash United, Duchy League Division 1
It’s a bleak fact that the average tenure of a manager in professional English football is about one and a half years. The current longest serving Football League boss has been in post for less than eight years. Ross Osbourne, St Merryn FC’s chairman, in a feat that is almost unimaginable at any level in Continue reading “I’m Still Here”
In It For The Long Haul
Mevagissey v St Stephen, East Cornwall League Division 1
Some football clubs rise and fall spectacularly, with periods of exceptional success and dramatic decline. Others follow a less noticeable trajectory. Mevagissey, a fishing village south of St Austell now more renowned as a Continue reading “In It For The Long Haul”
Letting in the Past
Rosudgeon v St Erme, Trelawny League Division 3
Rosudgeon, a little village on the Penzance-Helston road probably most famous for its massive car boot sale, has a sports ground that is a testament to what a community can achieve with determination and hard work. Continue reading “Letting in the Past”
Autumn Almanac
North Hill v St Breward, Duchy League Division 1
I can’t think of any better time of year to watch a game of football than on a warm, calm Autumnal day with the late October sunshine on your back. It’s even more satisfying when it’s in a place like North Hill, a little village in a valley Continue reading “Autumn Almanac”
Nowhere to Go but Dead
St Just v Falmouth Town, Cornwall Combination League
A young Rod Beer, his interest in football triggered by the 1966 World Cup, first watched St Just play at the age of seven. He immersed himself in the team with the singular passion of the football-besotted kid, assuming his first club role as unofficial ball boy. “I was very fast at jumping over dry stone walls,” Continue reading “Nowhere to Go but Dead”
Fashioned in the Clay
Foxhole Stars v Gorran, Duchy League Knockout Cup 1st round
There’s something about Foxhole that, for me, makes them the classic Cornish village football team. It’s certainly something to do with their long history and periods of success, but it’s also about their integral place in a changing community.
Stormy Weather
Storm v St Agnes, Trelawny League Division 3
Tony Howard, who took on the player-manager role at Storm FC at the start of the season, is on the touchline of the Roskear pitch waiting to see if he’ll have enough players to fill the teamsheet for today’s game. These are troubled times for the club. Relegated last season, now after just seven games in the Continue reading “Stormy Weather”
The Thing About Nanpean
Of all the idyllic spots that host football matches in Cornwall – the seascapes of Boscastle and Pendeen, the chocolate box riverside backdrop of Calstock, the rolling farmland of Week St Mary and Altarnun – there’s one whose renown Continue reading “The Thing About Nanpean”
Power, Corruption and Lies
St Keverne v Goonhavern Athletic, Trelawny League Division 1
“Football stinks, to be honest. It stinks. But I’m here because I still want to see St Keverne have a football team.”
Most people involved in the grassroots game will allow themselves the occasional moan about the state of the sport today, but for Morris Thomas, St Continue reading “Power, Corruption and Lies”
‘We Need Voices!’: The Ritual of The Talking
When I’m taking photographs of grassroots football it’s one of the few times I enter the mythical ‘zone’, senses focused entirely on what’s going on before me, the rest of the world elsewhere. Obviously I’m concentrating visually, but Continue reading “‘We Need Voices!’: The Ritual of The Talking”
West of the Fields
St Buryan v Camborne School of Mines, Trelawny League Premier Division
A place can get a bad name. St Buryan, a village midway between Penzance and Lands End, surrounded by the ancient landscape of West Penwith, is perhaps most renowned, among cineastes at least, for being Straw Dogs country. It was the location for Sam Peckinpah’s infamous 1971 film about Continue reading “West of the Fields”
Travellin’ Man
Tregony v Looe Town, Duchy League Division 4
The village of Tregony, ‘the gateway to the Roseland peninsula’, despite lying only a mile or two south of the main Truro-St Austell road, can seem a bit out on a limb. In footballing geography the Roseland lies on the south-western Continue reading “Travellin’ Man”
Steady As She Goes
Mawnan v St Buryan, Trelawny League Premier Division
For Leon Prynn, Mawnan FC committee member and vice president, the idea that a club has an established identity and a sense of what it stands for is important. And at Mawnan that understanding of the character of the club is deep-rooted. Leon himself played for the club in the 1970s and went on to be Continue reading “Steady As She Goes”
Workers’ Playtime
Holman SC v St Ives Town, Cornwall Combination League
There can be few towns and companies more inextricably linked historically than Holman Brothers Ltd and Camborne. At its peak the mining equipment manufacturer employed over 3000 people in the town, and a Holmans apprenticeship was a standard route into a skilled trade for generations. With its choir, sports and social clubs the company fostered a camaraderie among its workers, and for many Holmans was Camborne. Continue reading “Workers’ Playtime”
Bring The Boys Home
Threemilestone v Hayle, Trelawny League Division 1
As places to play football go, Boscawen Park in Truro is not too shabby. The pitches are reached via a walk passing through the park’s tidy flower beds and kids’ playground. To the east are tree-lined hills and to the west the tidal mudflats of the Truro River. The southern edge of the park, where the river Continue reading “Bring The Boys Home”
Absolute Beginners
St Eval Spitfires v Delabole United, Duchy League Division 3
In 1938 the hamlet of St Eval, out on the winding B roads between Newquay and Padstow, was compulsorily purchased by the War Office. All its houses, bar the Norman church, were completely demolished in order to clear the way for an RAF airbase, and a brand new village was constructed for RAF, and later Continue reading “Absolute Beginners”
