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”
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”
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”
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”
If You Build It, They Will Come
Halsetown v Camborne School of Mines, Trelawny League Premier Division
When Londoner Bob Pratt moved down to Halsetown, a little village just south of St Ives that’s a gateway between the tourist town and the badlands of West Penwith, he was missing his football. This was the mid-seventies and, while Bob was enjoying watching the beautifully named and now long-defunct team Continue reading “If You Build It, They Will Come”
The Kids Are Alright
St Columb Major v Saltash United, Duchy League Division 2
It’s not an exaggeration to say that Cornish junior football, and indeed the grassroots game across the country, is in something of a crisis. Three clubs from the Duchy and Trelawny Leagues have already folded this season and player registration is down year on year. The finger is routinely pointed at the Continue reading “The Kids Are Alright”
Family Affair
Altarnun v Saltash United, Duchy League Division 2
Kevin Sandercock, Altarnun FC’s self-styled ‘secretary-cum-everything-else’, is doing the pre-match changing room tidy up. At most clubs this would involve a once-over with the cloth and broom but for Kevin it’s a hellish fortnightly ritual of sweeping up great mounds of flies – literally thousands of Continue reading “Family Affair”
Keep On Keeping On
Lostwithiel v Gerrans & St Mawes, Duchy League Premier Division
“There’s been a distinct lack of trophies”.
Lostwithiel chairman Ken Cook sounds almost apologetic as he describes the club’s less-than-phenomenal history. Their highest honour in recent memory Continue reading “Keep On Keeping On”
The Modern Age
Grampound v North Hill, Duchy League Division 1
In a global, digital age it’s frustrating that so many grassroots clubs don’t seem bothered to engage with a wider world beyond their immediate community. Some make a go of it, but the web’s littered with the long-dead websites and social media pages of Cornish clubs. They start enthusiastically, with a flurry of Continue reading “The Modern Age”
Out of the Mystic
Tintagel v Lanivet Inn, Duchy League Division 2
There’s something incongruous about the existence of a football team in a place that’s famous for something entirely different. The village of Tintagel, due purely to its ruined castle’s spurious link with Arthurian legend has, somehow, thanks to the dumb logic of our dumb age, seen its old centre Continue reading “Out of the Mystic”
Man Out of Time
Madron v Stithians, Trelawny League Division 4
Almost every football phone-in radio show you listen to seems to feature an Arsenal fan calling in to moan about their underachieving team. They’re invariably followed by a call from a supporter of mid-table Championship club x, who will let the Arsenal fan know that they don’t know they’re born, that Continue reading “Man Out of Time”
Abide With Me
Constantine v Threemilestone, Trelawny League Division 1
Brian Jorey, Constantine chairman and ex-player, is looking over some old team photographs in the social club by the ground. As with most clubs the pictures capture the occasional highlights, the trophies and promotions, and the long fallow spells in between. Brian has a realist’s acceptance of the way a Continue reading “Abide With Me”
The Lizard Kings
Lizard Argyle v St Day, Trelawny League Premier Division
There are few more satisfying moments of happenstance than chancing upon a game of football when you’re on holiday. When that happens on an August day as warm as this, when the ground happens to be overlooked by the best pasty shop in the county and when the clubhouse just happens to be hosting a Continue reading “The Lizard Kings”
