ALTRINCHAM (Moss Lane)

FA CUP 4th QUALIFYING ROUND, ALTRINCHAM 1-0 CHESTER, ATTENDANCE: 1,603

The road to Wembley continued with a visit to a club with a long, proud FA Cup history. Altrincham have sixteen victories against Football League clubs to their name. The club history page lists them as follows:

1921/22 Tranmere Rovers
1965/66 Rochdale
1973/74 Hartlepool
1974/75 Scunthorpe United
1979/80 Crewe Alexandra and Rotherham United
1980/81 Scunthorpe United
1981/82 Sheffield United and York City
1982/83 Rochdale
1984/85 Blackpool
1985/86 Blackpool and Birmingham City
1988/89 Lincoln City
1992/93 Chester
1994/95 Wigan Athletic

Altrincham's win at St Andrew's was the last defeat of any First/Premier Division team at their own ground by a non-League club in the FA Cup. Other notable games include drawing with Everton, at Goodison, in 1975, before losing the replay at Old Trafford and drawing with Spurs, at White Hart Lane, in 1979, before losing the replay at Maine Road.

When the draw was made, throwing up a Cheshire derby with Chester, a Blues supporting mate of mine suggested a day out on the train to Altrincham, as it had been over decade since I last visited Moss Lane I thought "why not".

To the best of my recollection, the ground hasn't changed much in the intervening years. Segregation was in force today and, as I was with my Chester mates, I ended up on the open terrace, fortunately the predicted heavy rain held off.

The game was largely forgettable but there can be no complaints with the result.

The winner came in the 51st minute when a Jordan Sinnott a free kick (pictured below left) was saved by Jon Worsnop but the ball was parried into the path of Damian Reeves who fired the ball home.

There was a bizarre incident shortly after the goal when Worsnop rushed off his line to prevent Simon Richman getting an effort at goal. The Chester goalkeeper got there first but took both ball and man.

Referee Richard Wigglesworth pointed to the spot and the Altrincham player stepped up to take the penalty. The Chester players protested and the referee then changed his mind! I can't recall ever seeing that in all the years I have been watching football. The game restarted with a drop ball.

Chester naturally increased the pressure and although Altrincham goalkeeper Tim Deasy made a couple of decent saves, the Robins were able to comfortably see the game out, ensuring they were in the hat for the first round draw on Monday evening.

Altrincham is a top place for a beer or two so, as the train was taking the strain, it would have bad form not to have one or two! Pre-match was spent in Costello's Bar, the Brewery Tap for Dunham Massey, which was excellent and post-match it the Old Market Tavern was so we could watch Everton slump to their annual defeat at the Arsenal live on TV.

WORCESTER CITY (St George's Lane)

CONFERENCE NORTH, WORCESTER CITY 0-1 CHESTER FC, ATTENDANCE: 4,072

Today saw the final ever league game at Worcester City's iconic St George's Lane. The ground has been Worcester's home for the past 108 years but today saw it's last hurrah as it prepared to be bulldozed for housing, a fate that has befallen too many a classic ground.

I had previously visited here in 2005 for Worcester's live TV game with Huddersfield Town in the FA Cup, which they narrowly lost 1-0, and I just had to come back one more time.

Next season Worcester City will be exiled in Kidderminster as they attempt to try and build a ground back in the city. The chairman's programme notes were upbeat about survival eventually returning to Worcester, but some of the supporters in the ground were rather more sceptical.

There are plans in place to build a new ground on Nunnery Way, close to the M5 but, at this moment in time, those plans appear no further forward. The City Supporters Trust have therefore submitted their own plans to the council for a new ground next to a Leisure Centre in Perdiswell.

Whatever the outcome, for the time being it just hoped that the club can survive in exile at Aggborough. The club are hoping initiatives such as £100 season tickets will help them to do so.

Going back to today's programme, I must commend the club for for a superb 108 page issue. I'm not a Worcester fan but reading the tales from old players and life long fans about classic games at the ground, such as dumping Liverpool out of the FA Cup 2-1 in 1959, made an old cynic like me feel desperately sad. Most of the snippets of information in this blog come from the programme and I can certainly recommend it's purchase (click here).

I suppose the romantic in me would like to say the ground, which was packed to the rafters, went out with a bang as the homesters responded by beating the champions Chester, however it wasn't to be.

A George Horan header after just 8 minutes sealed the win for Chester, and in the process gave them a Conference North record 107 points. Worcester responded well and dominated possession, their cause helped by Chester's Matty McGinn recieving a straight red card just before half time, but they could not find a way past John Danby in the Chester goal. The closest they came to an equaliser was a shot from Ethan Moore which hit the post and then fell into the grateful arms of Danby.

Today though was all about bidding farewell to St George's Lane, sadly, in this modern age, we won't see the likes of it again. There was a Dylan Thomas poem quoted in the programme and I will end on those words "Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light"

The final walk to the ground



These famous gates will be held in storage by George Goode's son and

returned to the club when the new ground is built

 

A packed Brookside terrace

Blue skies over the Main Stand

 

The emotion of the occasion proves too much for one supporter

CORBY TOWN (Steel Park)

CONFERENCE NORTH, CORBY TOWN 1-2 CHESTER FC, ATTENDANCE: 768

Today was a trip to "little Scotland" for the completion of a little milestone in my groundhopping journey.

A visit to Corby Town's Steel Park today meant I have now visited all the grounds of the Conference Premier, North and South.

Corby is known as "little Scotland" due to the influx of Scots coming South to find work in the Steelworks. Stewarts and Lloyd's set up the steelworks in the 1930's and it was the main source of employment until the early 1980's when steel making in Corby was phased out.

The references to the steel industry though run deep throughout Corby Town Football Club. The steelworks had their own football team, Stewarts and Lloyd's (who are still playing today in the United Counties Premier) which effectively represented Corby but in 1948 it was decided the town could sustain another team, hence Corby Town were born. They adopted the nickname The Steelmen in honour of their roots.

Years were spent in the various divisions of the Southern League before reaching the Conference South in 2009.

After playing at Occupation Road, they moved to the Rockingham Triangle sports ground in 1985 before moving to Steel Park in 2011. Steel Park is actually adjacent to their old ground and the main stand of Rockingham Triangle backs onto Steel Park to enclose the ground. The changing rooms underneath the old stand are still used and it is from here the players emerge.



View of Main Stand at Corby's old Rockingham Triangle
Ground.This stand now forms part of the new ground.



View of stand, behind which the new ground is located. The players still emerge from this stand.



The is a covered terrace behind one goal and a 500+ seated main stand on one side of pitch. The main bonus though, in comparison to the old ground, is there is no bloody athletics track! For a new build, I was quite impressed.

One thing that hasn't changed is the Wetherspoons across the road from the ground, where a pre-match Grainstore 'Rutland Beast' and a Hopping Mad 'Cor Blimey' went down a treat. Time was also spent in 'Wethers' talking to a local Corby chap, who indeed had a strong Scottish accent.

The game was a comfortable win for Chester as they continued their relentless march towards the Conference North title.

Dave Hankin headed home after 13 minutes to give Chester the lead before Nathan Jarman doubled the lead after 17 minutes. Chester were always in control but Corby kept plugging away, but to no avail.

On the hour mark a Josh Moreman effort was deflected onto the underside of the crossbar by Chester Skipper George Horan, if that had gone in then maybe the remaining minutes could have been interesting. Corby did eventually get themselves a goal when Paul Malone headed home in stoppage time, but it was too little too late

As the Chester fans filtered out, news came through that Vauxhall Motors had beaten Guiseley 2-0, which meant the Blues were now 16 points clear at the top of the league. Surely this is now an unassailable lead....