onionbagblog

Wivenhoe Town 1 CRC 1, 19/03/11

To Broad Lane on a fabulously sunny spring Saturday afternoon to watch Wivenhoe Town take on CRC. Little was / is known about the opposition. An online search reveals Cambridge origins, with a nickname of the Scholars. I don’t think that this was a reference to ropey ’70s cheapo lager.

But anyway - it wasn’t all about the opposition. Making my return to Broad Lane for the first time in seventeen years (blimey) I was reassured to find that little has changed.

This must be the dilemma for any community based local club, balancing the tradition with the need for progression. As the current Broad Lane Future campaign has highlighted, our local football ground has seen better days. New facilities are urgently needed, but the trick is to deliver these whilst still keeping what is special about the community club.

Attracting more supporters would be a start. I confess my guilt here in taking almost six months to make an appearance at Broad Lane since the Great Escape. Fixtures have been pencilled in, but house moving, and the subsequent setting up of a new home, tends to eat away into your weekends.

No worries. We’re *almost* there now. With three more Saturday home fixtures coming up for the Dragons, it looks like my Saturday afternoons have been returned to watching non-league football.

The standard of play on Saturday afternoon was remarkably similar to my decade down at Champion Hill watching Dulwich Hamlet. You’d be a fool to fork out the supporter friendly price of six quid, and then expect to see a Barcelona inspired team performing on the North Essex estuary.

Instead we saw commitment, pride and plenty of community passion around the ground and clubhouse. Much like moving to a new area and then discovering what your new patch has to offer, we’ve still much to learn about the Dragons. It was clear that this is an incredibly young side, which must be the sensible option to progress further under a tight budget.

Youth indeed seemed to be the theme of the afternoon. @AnnaJCowen and I weren’t quite reduced to wrinkly status, but with a ref yet to start shaving, and a healthy turn out of local kids coming along to support their local team, this is a game for those young at heart.

An early goal for the mysterious CRC, and in true Crap Match Report style (it’s a South London thing…) it will come as no surprise to hear that I missed it. I was arseing around with my SLR camera, and then looked up to find the away team celebrating.

Bugger.

As for the camera - well that was a little crap as well. I’ve still not taken to my Nikon D300. A trip out in glorious estuary sunshine to catch some sport was supposed to show me some more love. The bloody battery failed after five minutes, and I was left with only the four photographs below. At least it gives me another good reason to return to Broad Lane.

We took in the bar at half time - you don’t say. A pint of lager for £2.50, and a large glass of red for the lady. This just wasn’t non-league football etiquette. We were entertained with the local kids playing table tennis outdoors, which is something that you are unlikely to see down at Stamford Bridge.

The second half saw Wivenhoe continue to chase the game. The reward came right on the final whistle with a late, late equaliser. I admit to even admitting a rather loud cheer, an act that was later vindicated when I saw the full time result of, ahem, *my* team.

So yeah - seventeen years away, and it looks like we’re back in the Wivenhoe Town run of things.

C’mon the Dragons!

*please don’t take offence - it’s a South London thing…