Date: Friday Dec 30 2011
Ground: Edgar Street
Comp: League Two
Match: Hereford United 1 Accrington Stanley 1 HT: 1-0
Arquin 5: Evans 72
ATT: 2,057
Additional: Entrance £14.00, Programme £2.50
Edgar Street in pictures
Ground Statistics (marks out of ten, maximum 40)
Character 8, Structures/Terracing 8, Hospitality 7, Backdrop/Scenery or aesthetics for larger stadiums 7
Total 30
Date: Saturday Dec 17 2011
Ground: Coronation Park
Comp: Conference North (step two)
Match: Eastwood Town 0 Workington 3 HT: 0-2
Caines 36 og, McNiven 41, Amison 50
ATT: 209
Additional: Entrance £10.00, Programme £2.00
Coronation Park in pictures
Ground Statistics (marks out of ten, maximum 40)
Character 7, Structures/Terracing 7, Hospitality 7, Backdrop/Scenery or aesthetics for larger stadiums 6
Total 27
Date: Saturday Dec 03 2011
Ground: The Muga
Comp: Welsh Cup third round
Match: FC Cefn (3rd Tier) 1 Aberystwyth Town (1st Tier) 6 HT: 1-3
ATT: circa 450
Additional: Entrance £3.00, Programme £1.00
The Muga in pictures
Ground Statistics (marks out of ten, maximum 40)
Character 7, Structures/Terracing 4, Hospitality 7, Backdrop/Scenery or aesthetics for larger stadiums 7
Total 25
Another Welsh odyssey and this time my first Welsh Cup tie. The Welsh Cup is a competition that pits village teams against European Cup entrants, such are the demographics of Wales.
Scanning the 16 third round matches, Cefn was the most attractive based on mileage and possible giant killing. Continue reading
Date: Tuesday Nov 15 2011
Ground: Millbank Linnets Stadium
Comp: North West Counties League (step five)
Match: Runcorn Linnets 1 Stone Dominoes 1 HT: 0-0
Hardwick 68; Lowndes 58
ATT: 245
Additional: Entrance £5.00, Programme £1.50
Millbank Linnets Stadium in pictures
Ground Statistics (marks out of ten, maximum 40)
Character 5, Structures/Terracing 5, Hospitality 7, Backdrop/Scenery or aesthetics for larger stadiums 3
Total 20/40
Linnets’ lineage goes back to the non league giants of Runcorn FC, founded 1918, who along with Telford in the 80s, were league clubs in waiting and oft-times FA Cup heroes.. Runcorn won the Conference (Alliance then) in 1981/2, missing out on league status by a vote.
The club started to go the shape of another type of Conference in 2000, when they sold their Canal Street ground, to share with Widnes Rugby Club at Halton Stadium. Further to the demise was their name change; ironically the new double barrelled name in Runcorn FC Halton, diluting their aristocratic non-league pedigree, making them sound more non non-league; princes to paupers. They were dissolved in 2006.
What has risen from the ashes of Runcorn is a much smaller entity in Runcorn Linnets FC, who play at their own custom built stadium, which holds 1,600. This was after groundsharing at Witton Albion for a few years. They are in the same division as Runcorn Town, who have arrived in the NWCL Premier upwards rather than downwards; from the West Cheshire League.
This Runcorn comes in at just under 40 miles, at opposed to their rivals right up by the Mersey Estuary. The Millbank Linnets Stadium sits a short diversion off the M56, off the very unlit Murdishaw Avenue. 
A perfectly fine and hospitable new build, if a bit bland – not helped by very little backdrop. Under the jaundiced glare of the floodlights, you can just about make out a low horizon of trees, but it does have a very bleak feel indeed, especially mid November.
The moon shines down on a bleak Linnets Stadium
No majestic industrial backdrop here, like at Runcorn Town. So far they have a small stand and diddy covered terrace behind one goal. These house the biggest average crowd in the division, of 200-300. They are much like Gresley FC in the Midland Alliance (also step five) who have also reformed from a former bigger non league club and attract crowds of 250+.
The game didn’t go according to plan with lowly Stone providing tougher opposition than imagined. I sensed frustration. The trouble with reformed clubs starting at a low level is that the crowd are not happy with anything less that wins, week in, week out, until they reach a more befitting division. I wonder if this takes away from the enjoyment of the game – such high expectations?
Stone took the lead on 58; bouyed up by still being on level terms at half time, they decided they could actually win the game. Runcorn got an equaliser 10 minutes later but couldn’t find a winner.
Plenty of former and current professional athletes have found their way to the poker tables but few can match the success that Teddy Sheringham has had. The star striker retired from competitive football at the end of the 2007-2008 season, giving him the perfect opportunity to get serious about another favorite pursuit: playing poker. He was already a rabid fan of the game from his football playing games — with poker one of the more popular ways for players to kill time when traveling and on the road — and began playing in international poker tournaments in the mid 2000s.
In an interview with online poker site PokerStars Sheringham had the following to say about how he got started with poker, playing with teammate Tony Cascarino (who’s had his own fair share of poker success) and catching the poker bug: “It’s all his fault. I’ve always played cards since I was little but it evolved from Kalooki into poker when I was at Millwall. Cas and I have always talked over the years but the topic has changed from football to poker. He’s a very good player and his knowledge of the game is far more advanced than mine because he’s played a lot more than I have.”
Teddy Sheringham began regularly playing in poker tournaments in 2005, with his best result in late 2010 in an European Poker Tour (EPT) event in Vilamoura, where he finished 5th for a payday of nearly $120,000. It was his third cash in 2010 at EPT events — with other cashes coming at EPT London and the EPT Grand Final at Monte Carlo — and capped an impressive run which saw him make the money in three of the first five EPT tournaments he entered. His best showing prior to EPT Vilamoura was a 14th pace finish worth just over $66,000 at the 2009 World Series of Poker Europe Main Event.
His success can’t just be chalked up to beginner’s luck, with several top pros that played with him at various tournaments commenting that he’s a very solid poker player and one of the better celebrities and athletes that play in top tournaments and cash games.
Date: Wednesday Nov 09 2011
Ground: Valley Road
Comp: North West Counties League (step five)
Match: Flixton 2 Maine Road 0 HT: 0-0
Matthews 73, Smith 90
ATT: 45
Additional: Entrance £5.00, Programme £1.00
Valley Road in pictures
Ground Statistics (marks out of ten, maximum 40)
Character 4, Structures/Terracing 6, Hospitality 6, Backdrop/Scenery or aesthetics for larger stadiums 3
Total 19
More Tuesday night fodder for me, with another sub 40 miler, the like of which I’m fast running out of. It’s only sub 40 if I enter surreptitiously by the A34 through the neck of Manchester, up the oesophagus and throat of the M60, past the tonsils and uvula of Sale and Stretford and out on to the tongue of Urmston, just up from Flixton. It is very near Irlam’s ground, lying the other side of the Manchester Ship Canal. Continue reading
Date: Saturday Nov 05 2011
Ground: Latham Park
Comp: Welsh Premier (Welsh step one)
Match: Newtown 2 Port Talbot Town 0 HT: 1-0
Penk 14, Boundford 82
ATT: 158
Additional: Entrance £7.00, Programme £1.50
Latham Park in pictures
Ground Statistics (marks out of ten, maximum 40)
Character 9, Structures/Terracing 8, Hospitality 7, Backdrop/Scenery or aesthetics for larger stadiums 8
Total 32
Newtown marked my completion of the mid-wales Welsh Premier clubs. Only three of them but it’s quite an exclusive triumvirate, the other two being Bala Town and Aberystwyth. They require some serious mileage through tortuous countryside. Newtown is no exception, with a lot of the 70 miles being Welsh miles, for which there are 2.76 to every English mile. Continue reading
