The fourth best football blog in Cornwall
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”
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”
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”
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”
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”
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”
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”
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”
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”
For a while, a few years back, when a big live match was televised by the BBC there was the option of pressing the red button to eliminate the commentary. Suddenly it felt as though you were watching a real game of football again, free to work out for yourself what was happening on the pitch without the Continue reading “The Thing About Grassroots Football”
