Watch two sports at the same time

Saturday 29 July 2017, Bungay Town 5 Belton 3 - PSF, Maltings Pavilion

Not a great game and the ref did well to control the second half where a couple of Belton players started to lose their heads. with their number 6 lucky to stay on the pitch.

The first half had seen Bungay take an easy lead but Belton had missed a couple of sitters, in the end Bungay had the better footballers and deserved the win.

Wanted to visit Bungay for a while as new they had a great old stand and the club had become quite famous for some unique match promotions (free punnet of mushrooms for all fans who went tone game!) plus their humorous twitter feed, someone close to the club may not have been so happy as they have decided this year that the twitter feed will concentrate just on football - not sure that is a good decision.

Loved the ground, cracking stand, railed pitch and dugouts plus a quality bar/pavilion.  What did surprise me is that they are going to build a new pavilion and clubhouse, to me the clubhouse they already have is far better than most at far higher levels in non-league football.

Other bonus today is you could watch both Bungay Town FC and Bungay CC play at the same time from the club bar!

Cracking view

Thursday 27 July 2017, St Margaretsbury 1 Barton Rovers 5 - PSF, Recreation Ground

Closer game than the score indicates, Barton took the lead early on but then the home side missed a penalty - if a competitive game, Barton would have been down to 10 men.

Home team had plenty of the ball but Barton broke quickly and had the better finishers.

Second half, Barton added one more but mainly down to poor finishing and getting caught offside too often. St Margaretsbury then got the best goal of the game from a direct free kick.

Nice set up with a shared clubhouse with the cricket club - very plush. The dug out side of the ground has the turnstile plus 2 stands, one of 100 seats and a covered terrace but the best feature of the ground is that both stands are on a raised bank - giving fans a great view of the game - so a plush clubhouse and a great view- what more can fans ask for?

We win the Alderton Trusler Trophy!

Tuesday  25 July 2017, Colchester United 0 Ipswich Town 1 - Weston Homes Stadium, PSF

West Bergholt looking good

Saturday 22 July 2017, West Bergholt 3 Wivenhoe Town 0 - Pre-season friendly, Lorkin Daniell Sports Field

A short trip to North Essex for this pre-season friendly. Nice set up, pitch behind the village hall which had it's social club open - with a full bar!

The set up was not surprising but what was a slight surprise was that West Bergholt won the game quite easy. They play 2 divisions below Wivenhoe but today they looked the higher placed side, they played good passing football, looked more of a team and were far fitter.

For Wivenhoe, they have very  little time to get a team together, and on their showing today it may be a very bumpy season ahead.

New home - almost

Wednesday 19 July 2017, AFC Rushden & Diamonds 2 Northampton Town 0 - Pre-season friendly, Hayden Road

This game caught my eye when I spotted it would be played at Hayden Rd and that Northampton were now sending their 1st team.

Football wise, a good game and Rushden were very impressive and should be looking to challenge for promotion - ground wise - still plenty to do to get Hayden Rd up to the correct grading, excellent ground for the level Rushden & Higham Utd play at. Large crowd of over 800 so the ground can cope - Only 3 car park spaces! But plenty of on street parking close by. Main stand is now closed- shell intact and looks in good condition but the rest of stand is waiting to be ripped out and replaced. A few steps of old concrete terracing on 3 sides of ground, 100 seat small stand on dug out side. Behind one goal has new hard standing and waiting for a stand to be built on that end. New turnstiles fitted but were not operating tonight. Portakabins from Wellingborough in place but not yet open. small club bar.

Small town but ground has a good old fashioned inner city feel, can see Rushden doing well on football pitch and they are hoping to be playing league games here by October (starting season at Kempston). Do worry what will happen to Rushden & Higham Utd in the future, maybe like Kingstonian they will find themselves homeless in the future - or is a merger best plan. Hayden Rd was the former home of Rushden Town who became part of Rushden & Diamonds in 1992.

Annual seaside trip

Friday 7 July 2017, Southwold Town 0 Ipswich Town U18s 2 - Friendly, The 'Common'

Lovely setting for a game, and we got see Kieron Dyer back in a blue shirt! Not a bad clubhouse either.