WAKEFIELD AFC (Post Office Road, Featherstone RFLC)

YORKSHIRE CUP GROUP A, WAKEFIELD 0-2 BRIGHOUSE TOWN,
ATTENDANCE: 691

Well after a long, long wait I finally attended my first football back in an "elite" stadium. I had spent the past few Saturday's walking along public spaces to watch football thanks to the Government's bizarre rules on spectator sport. Hopefully that is now in the past and I can get back into the old routine.

Today's destination was West Yorkshire and the home of Featherstone Rugby League Club, Post Office Road, which is currently known as the Millennium Stadium for sponsorship purposes. The fledgling Wakefield AFC are currently playing their home games at this ground. An opportunity to see football at a rugby ground was not to be sniffed at! 

With the regular season curtailed once again, a tournament was created for clubs who wanted to play some game and local teams were invited to participate. Six put their names forward - Brighouse Town, Golcar United, Liversedge, Nostell Miners Welfare, Penistone Church and Wakefield.

I had been so looking forward to this game ever since this round-robin tournament was announced a few weeks back.  It was clear I wasn't the only one as there were loads of familiar faces in the crowd. According to the futbology app there were around 90 groundhoppers who checked in at the ground.

Wakefield were formed in 2019 to bring football to the largest city in the United Kingdom without a club. They are members of the Sheffield and Hallamshire County League, which sits at step 7 in the pyramid. Former Sheffield Wednesday and Manchester United goalkeeper Chris Turner is part of the business consortium behind the scenes. The programme notes set the goals of the club which is to, ultimately, reach the Football League by 2033.

I had seen previously seen teams with Wakefield in their name play at Belle Vue (Wakefield-Emley) and College Grove (Wakefield FC) but these clubs are no longer in existence, so it will be interesting to see how this latest Wakefield team progresses.

The stand at the Station Road of the ground were previously

situated at Scarborough's (now demolished) McCain Stadium ground

Brighouse Town, who play at step 4 Northern Premier League North West, were the visitors this afternoon and the gulf between the sides was there to see.

Jack Boyle burst through after 5 minutes and planted his shot into the top corner to give Brighouse the lead. Wakefield huffed and puffed but were mainly reduced to long range efforts. The rugby goals were still in situ and maybe there would've have been points on the board for the homesters if some of the efforts between those sticks counted!

Just before half time Wakefield missed a glorious chance to equalise when, clear through on goal, Harley Blankley put his shot over the bar. Almost immediately Zeph Thomas had the freedom of the pitch to race clear and shoot low into the goal to make it 2-0 to Brighouse. That was effectively game over.

The second half was a bit of a non-event, Wakefield did create a few half chances, and it would have been interesting to see what would have happened had one gone in, but Brighouse were able to close the game out and, in the end, were comfortable winners.

Prior to kick off there was a minutes silence to reflect and remember those lost in the pandemic over the past 12 months but unfortunately this was interrupted by the travelling fair on the car park blasting out loud music. The only thing missing was Ray Von screaming "Shabba" as the rides spun around!

Post match was spent having a beer and a catch up in Castleford with a few other people who I had not seen in months. It was good to have a little bit of normality again, if it was only for a few hours. Long may it continue.

ARMTHORPE WELFARE (Welfare Ground, Church Street)

NORTHERN COUNTIES EAST LEAGUE PREMIER DIVISION, ARMTHORPE WELFARE 1-5 BRIGHOUSE TOWN, ATTENDANCE: 62

It was the last Saturday of 2013 and I woke up with a serious case of "can't be bothered today" I eventually shook myself  out of my malaise and made a last minute decision to head across the Pennines for some NCEL action.

Armthorpe is a village near Doncaster and, like most villages in the area, was known for it's coal mining. The Armthorpe pit was named Markham Main and it was closed in 1996.   When the 1980's miners' strike finished in 1985, Markham Main was the last Yorkshire pit to return to work, three days later.

The football club was founded in 1926 and on their club badge a miner features predominantly. Armthorpe joined the Northern Counties East Football League in 1983 and were promoted to the Premier Division in 1985, where they have remained ever since.


Today was not Armthorpe's day and it was a comfortable win for the visitors, whose pace on break caused untold problems to the Wellie back line. The game was actually a decent end-to-end affair, the big difference being every time Brighouse broke clear they looked like scoring. They were 3-0 up at the break thanks to goals from Tom Matthews (3 & 13) and Joe Jagger (27) and it could have easily been double that such was Town's threat. 

The homesters performance in the second period restored a bit of pride and they actually began to test the Town 'keeper. They did score through Tony Hattersley (66) but this was, unfortunately for them, sandwiched between further goals from Jagger (58) and  Ernest Boafo (73).


A nice friendly club (the old secretary even gave me a call back to confirm the game was on) and the pie, peas & gravy were excellent! So glad I made the effort today.


This was my final ground of 2013, so may I take this opportunity to wish all readers of this blog a Happy and Peaceful 2014. Hopefully see you next year!