Barrow Town 2 Kimberley Miners Welfare 2
Admission: £3, Programme: free!
Refreshments: At the game - £2.00 bacon butty, £2.00 hot dog, £1.80 J2O. Tuna and mayo sandwich and pint of milk from the Barrow upon Soar Co-op £2.49
Attendance: 41 (h/c)
One of the lengthier and more pleasurable trips today to the wilds of the Charnwood Forest in north-eastern Leicestershire; the lands of the Rhomaleosaurus Megacephalus, otherwise known as the Barrow Kipper.
Actually, it’s nothing like a kipper. I certainly wouldn’t want it for breakfast, smoked or not, neither would I want to meet one on a dark night! It’s a plesiosaur, unearthed in a lime-pit in the village of Barrow upon Soar in 1851, and both the village and the football club have adopted it as their emblem. The actual skeleton itself is on display in New Walk Museum, Leicester ….https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrow_up ... Museum.JPG
My only previous visit to Riverside Park (the River Soar is navigable and there’s a huge caravan park cum moorings next to the football ground) was back in August 2014. It’s easily reached from Birmingham by car up the M42 to Ashby North junction, then east on the A512 to Loughborough, round the town centre on the A6004 ring road to pick up the main A6 to Leicester, and the sliproad for Barrow upon Soar is about ½ mile down that road. It only takes roughly an hour, and as I arrived hideously early, I first popped into the village Co-op for light refreshments before diverting back across the A6 into Quorn, firstly to locate their football stadium which I’ll earmark for a visit some time next season, and secondly to drop in on the Great Central Railway at their Quorn & Woodhouse Station. I’m always happy to donate money to preserved railways, but as nobody seemed inclined to serve me (or others) in the café, I decided not to make any contribution to their coffers today.
There were more than a few items of interest for the railway enthusiast, including an old 1960’s diesel locomotive being refurbished in the yard – and judging by the voices and muffled swearing coming from inside the engine compartment, not without some difficulty! Barrow Town have quite an attractive ground set in an extensive acreage. There’s three small stands / shelters on the far side of the main pitch from the clubhouse, two being of the ubiquitous pre-fabricated metal Atcost-style (one of these containing the usual plastic bucket seats) and the third stand a simple brick construction. The clubhouse is a neat, modernish brick and tile affair, the loos (when I eventually tracked them down) are inside behind one of the unmarked fire exit doors, and the clubhouse kitchen has an outside hatch for all the usual fayre – burgers, hot dogs, chip butties. There’s very much a rural aspect to the ground, ample parking once you’ve bounced over a couple of cattle grids in the driveway, and there’s still a few locals preferring to watch the game from the high pedestrian bridge across the A6 which overlooks the ground, rather than pay the modest admission charges.
Neither Barrow Town nor Kimberley Miners Welfare (Kimberley is a small town about 5 miles north-west of Nottingham, originally known for its coal mining and hosiery manufacturing, both of which are no more) have set the EMCL alight this season, and they came into the match 15th and 14th in the table respectively. This was a game of honest endeavour rather than skill, plenty of action nevertheless, but rather too many wayward goal attempts and a draw was a fair result. Barrow twice took the lead, and twice were pegged back, conceding goals through poor defending at set pieces. Probably the main talking point would be the five minute hold-up right at the end after a Kimberley attacker had a minor bout of pushing and shoving with the home keeper; the referee needed three long consultations with his linesman before eventually booking the Kimberley player, and the Barrow no.3 for some reason. All a bit overblown and unnecessary, really, at the conclusion of a fairly average sort of game!
Then there is GAPA. We had performances by GAPA all last season. GAPA is the Godiva Academy of Performing Arts who provided a youthful and exuberant cheerleading section, together with contemporary dance performances. Now don’t get me wrong, as a long-time resident of the South-West, I’m well versed in cheerleading, majorettes and the Somerset Carnival Circuit. But there’s good and there’s … well …
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