Garforth Rangers v AFC Horsforth
Garforth Town v Liversedge
After a couple of weeks away, I decided to keep it local today, with a few Yorkshire games.
I headed to the station for the the 0742 Leeds service but the 0726 was a few minutes down so here is an excellently composed shot of me interrupting the dispatch of an already late train.
We headed into Leeds with the sun blazing over the Bowling Valley.
Into Leeds.
My onward Harrogate move appeared to be a second generation unit fest, with a seven car formation of 153/142/150-1/150/2.
However, a late split meant we went out as a two car.
Signs of activity from Harrogate Town ultras? More likely Huddersfield or Halifax. Or Halesowen or Hendnesford. Or Horncastle. Or Henley or Harlow.
Into the ever strange Harrogate station.
My service departed for York, passing the home semaphore and gantry.
I was down to the bus station.
For a lesson in Yorkshire dialect.
And also a bus bound deep into Nidderdale AONB at Pateley Bridge.
The trip lived up description, through the rolling dales.
However, we soon encountered the modern scourge of weekend rural bus services, IT workers who think they are Team Sky. These solid gold wankers spend weekdays 'blue sky thinking', then on Saturdays, get on their three grand bikes, find the busiest, narrowest road possible, and ride at the same speed as a tectonic plate, but three abreast so that nothing can get round them.
This crowd were a text book example of it, as we followed them for a good ten minutes at walking pace, at no point did they even think about going into single file so we could get past them. Every time I see petrol station flowers sellotaped to a lamp post, a small part of me hopes that it symbolises one less of these fuckers in existence. Why can't they do what everyone else does; just buy the cheapest bike at Halfords, ride it once and then stick it in the garage for eternity, next to the foot spa?
When we eventually got passed them, now running ten late, we headed through Birstwith, with its gentle waterfall...
...and very ornate tennis club stand.
Oh for fucks sake, now the walkers are getting in on the act!
You are ramblers. You ramble. Across fields. Not idle down main roads directly into oncoming traffic. If my parents description of their U3A walking clubs are accurate, then you have a ten minute stroll around some woods, then go to a pub and all order hot drinks individually, which you make last for an hour and a half as you moan about immigration, largely by starting sentences with "I don't necessarily agree with UKIP about everything, but...".
Somehow we reached my destination of Darley. This is very small village on the river Nidd, from which it grew up around the mill that was located here.
It seems the villages main accomplishment in the last hundred years has been changing its Parish council name from Menwith and Darley, to Darley and Menwith, the latter apparently being festooned with immigrants from the RAF base. I bet there were a few "I don't necessarily agree with UKIP about everything, but...." conversations when that was being debated. Perhaps I'm being unfair, as any place that shared such thoughts would probably proudly display artefacts of ancient barbaric treatment of non-conformists.
Oh.
Well, at least it has nice flowers.
The football club is located down towards the river valley, with strangely, the changing rooms now shared with the village post office.
The game was meant to be Mowbray Community Church versus Destiny, which although sounds like the day of reckoning, the latter are actually a church football team from Wakefield. The match was in the Yorkshire Christian Football League, which seems to be one of the steadier church leagues, without the wife-swapping scandals or mass brawls that the others can attract.
However, arriving at the ground, and amidst the stunning setting, there was no sign of activity.
A quick enquiry in the Post Offices resulted in a truckle of ginger Welsleydale, but also the information that the game had been called off yesterday evening due to the condition of the pitch, which looked fine to me.
So it was a quick march to the bus stop, to get an earlier bus back to Harrogate.
With a longer than expected connection onto my train, there was time to take in the oft described weirdness of the architecture around the station. Firstly the neo-classical Vitruvian meets B&Q, with stone facade of the Victoria shopping centre, topped with a plastic panelled roof and infamous statues, described by Bill Bryson in Notes from a Small Island, as “two dozen citizens of various ages, about to commit mass suicide”.
Then the crossing to the multi storey car park being half Rialto Bridge, half Ramsgate ferry terminal link-span.
And with the old station building now a pub, the 1960s replacement, which has been given a vibrant contemporary feel with plain grey panelling.
My onward move was another York bound service.
Back over the River Nidd at Knaresborough.
Into the north bays at York.
And over to the south bays for a Blackpool bound service.
This was taken to Micklefield, with the staggered platforms giving a good view of the same service, stopping in the other direction. Micklefield is a mining village that hasn't had a mine since the 1980s. About a quarter of its Wikipedia page is devoted to describing the evolution of broadband speeds in the village, which having now visited the place, I am surprise it is only a quarter.
The football ground was just across the road from the station.
It is located in the village recreation ground, which was formerly owned by the coal board, Peckfield Colliery being located just across the railway.
A thoughtful new addition is a vandal proof crack den.
Though good to see an old-skool painted goal and cricket stumps on one of the houses in the corner.
Garforth Rangers 2 v Horsforth 1, West Yorkshire League.
Garforth Rangers were formed in 1996, initially for juniors, but as they aged, a senior side was started in 2006 in the Selby league, before moving to the stronger Wakefield & District, and now in the West Yorkshire AFL with a reserve team in the Yorkshire Amateur League.
Horsforth is a north west suburb of Leeds, although the locals will try and convince you it is a south east part of Guiseley. These days, it is gradually being taken over by the campus of Leeds Trinity University, an establishment that even people in Leeds have never heard of. Anyway, they provide most of the players for the football club, which joined the West Yorkshire league this season, from the Harrogate & District League.
The ground was previously the home of Micklefield Miners Welfare FC, who were in the Yorkshire league, but gave up the ghost in 2004.
The only structure is this stand. I've been passing this ground on the train for many years, and this is the second incarnation of this stand, the first disappeared around about the time the original club did, and it was surprising to see that a replacement emerge about ten years ago, but in a more resilient form.
The railings followed a particular flamboyant course, with long, curving, and ultimately unnecessary, detours.
It was a Utopian fantasy for the @keepers_towels connoisseur, with the away keeper spoiling himself with one grounded one for mud, and a net hung one for drying.
Here is the story of the game in @nonleague_train.
1401½ - a TransPennine Express reliveried class 185 on 1P34 1233 Manchester Airport - Middlebrough, today starting from Manchester Piccadilly due to a set swap off Ardwick due to the incoming working being down to one engine, is the backdrop to kick off.
1410 - 2K29, a Northern Rail class 144 on 1352 Leeds - Selby, running bang on time, passes a Horsforth corner.
1415¼ - 2W77 the 1354 Selby-Huddersfield, running +5 due to awaiting 1P41 at Micklefield Junction, and formed of a three car 144, gets to see a Horsforth player trying to trap a ball, which results in it then bouncing over his head.
1417¼ - A Cross Country class 221, forming 1S43 the 0725 Plymouth to Glasgow Central, a minute down on its booked time of 1416½, but having recovered from being ten minutes late at Derby, gets to see the home keeper retrieve the ball from an ambitious shot that was, with an estimate erring on the kind, at least 20 foot wide.
1422¾ - TPEs 1K17 1339 Hull to Manchester Piccadilly, running a whopping 15 seconds early, passes the referee pointing out to the two club provided linesmen, that neither of them had ventured more than ten foot from the half way line.
At some point, I found that there were views of the pitch that didn't involve trains. Here is one. Dull, isn't it?
I think the home side then scored.
Deputising for dug outs were vandal proof benches. Street furniture that would withstand a nuclear winter seemed to be the theme of the park.
I'd managed to leave my rucksack on a train in Slovakia, so a Great Western branded shopping bag was deputising today, which meant I looked like a green party councillor on their way back from a farmers market.
This game was always a bit of a fill in move of which I could only attend the first half, so I left at the break. It finished 2-1 to Garforth.
I departed to the seemingly not unfamiliar sound of the police helicopter hovering over one of the local estates.
Very conveniently, the trains passing the football ground in either direction had been sounding their horns. In the down direction, due to a foot crossing, in the up direction due to the presence of a track gang doing some prep work at the junction as it is being relaid at Easter.
I was on the following York-Blackpool service after the one I'd arrived in on.
This was taken for a whole three minutes to the next shack, East Garforth.
Crossing over the station footbridge, and the venue for my next game could be seen on the horizon.
Garforth was a mining area, put its pits shut relatively early in the 1950s. This gave it a head start in becoming a commuter village for call centre workers in Leeds to live way beyond their means. A ten minute walk took me up to the football ground.
This was again located in a large recreation area, but this time, was fenced off from the rest.
Signs that needlessly contain the word 'strokes', number 1 in a series of not that many.
I m increasingly of the opinion that Slimming world are clandestinely infiltrating the non-league scene, with views to a complete takeover. Every club seems to be hosting fat fighters meetings.
The ground also hosts Leeds Ladies.
Garforth Town 2 v Liversedge 0, Toolstation Northern Counties East League
Garforth Town were founded as a pub team in 1964, called the Miners Arms. They progresses to the West Yorkshire League in the late seventies, then the Yorkshire league, which became the Northern Counties East in 1982. They had a few moments, but gained notoriety in the early 2000s when the bloke behind Brazillian soccer schools and UK futsal bought the club and somehow persuaded Socrates to play for Garforth. I'm sure his substitute appearance at Tadcaster Albion is up there with the 1982 World Cup in his career highlights. Anyway, they rose up to the Northern Premier league, but have since dropped back down to the NCEL.
Liversedge I covered in December.
Wheatley Park was formerly a rubbish tip, before the football club took it over in the 1970s. They originally played on the surrounding pitches, but have moved since my last visit. From what I can make out, the approach road now goes through one of the old goal mouths.
It houses one of the most distinct stands in non-league.
This contains some lower pockets of terracing.
Above them is this very steep bank of seating, with a high roof above, which doesn't offer the greatest shelter.
There was limited cover at the old ground, and it appears some of it has now been re-erected behind the far goal.
There are five a side pitches in what are now the club colours of yellow and blue. Before the Brazillian influence took over, the club played in red and white.
There was another @keepers_towel on display.
Liversedge had a very perculiar font for their shirt numbers. The keepers '1' looked like an upside down version of Juventus' new badge.
With other numbers looking like they were set outside the print area.
As well as the main stand being very tall, it is also located on the highest point in the locality, giving views out over a huge area. The market garden behind the far goal.
South over the former coal fields of Kippax and Castleford.
And out to the high rises of east Leeds.
In the very far distance was perhaps the most microscopic @nonleague_train, the 1309 Edinburgh - Plymouth Voyager passing between the hillside and the market garden.
Garforth took the lead late in the second half.
There was a club record at stake for the home side, as their forward, Mark Simpson, had scored in eight consecutive league games, to equal the previous best. In injury time, he duly scored, to give a 2-0 finish and him a place in Garforth history.
I headed off, complying with both of these requests.
It was back to the station for yet another Blackpool bound service, this one stopping at Sowerby, to give a direct service home.
This week I seemed to be plagued by Northern Rail's 158757. I'm a creature of habit and usually choose the same seats if they are available. On Tuesday I'd noted that the window had this mark on it, which gave a great opportunity to re-enact the Father Ted scene.
Well, I was back on the same unit and sure enough it was still there.
After picking up a load of Bolton supporters at Bradford, who in a dedication to alliteration, were heading home via Burnley and Blackburn, I alighted back at Sowerby.
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