The fourth best football blog in Cornwall
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”
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”
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”
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”
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”
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.
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”
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”
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”
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”
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”
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”
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”
