Cheadle Town vs Dinamo Bucharest - Mottram Hall
However, my introduction may be a little misleading – my first, hopefully of many, football game of the 2014/15 season would not be on a Saturday but instead on a Monday. Simply because of two reasons: firstly, it was the first game available to go too and secondly, it was quite possibly the strangest pre-season fixture I have (and possibly I ever will) seen since following football.
The game I would be kicking off my football travels with is… Cheadle Town vs FC Dinamo Bucharest. I kid you not, 18 time winners of the Romanian Premier League Dinamo Bucharest will play Cheadle Town of the NWCFL. Why? Nobody knows. How? Nobody knows. All that I do know is that it is one hell of a fixture to start my season with.
However, this game wasn’t easy to plan, allow me to explain…
The story starts with a tweet from fellow Blogger and Ground hopper Mathew Harrison (http://lostboyos.wordpress.com/) announcing that Cheadle Town will be playing Steaua Bucharest, not Dinamo, at Park Road, that is hoe I found out about this game. I replied instantly thinking this was surely a little pre-season prank. However, a short scroll up my Twitter timeline reviled that this was a genuine fixture, much to my surprise. Instantly, that moment I penned the fixture into my Pre-season calendar. I was on my way to Park Road to watch possible one of the strangest fixtures of all time along with quite a large number of people and ground hoppers.
However, there was a slight sense of precaution about this fixture on the NWCFL Facebook group – this was because last year’s pre-season offered Club Brugge vs Otelul Galati at Radcliffe Borough’s Stantion Park, only for everyone (including myself) to arrive and for it to be cancelled and played at Otelul Galati’s team hotel Mottram Hall. Many thought we would be faced with the same problem this time around. Suspicions grew when a day later Cheadle Town announced they had got it wrong, they would be playing Dinamo Bucharest not Steaua. Cheadle Town were insisting that this was a genuine mistake so I thought nothing of it – unlike some who already predicted that the game was never going to go ahead.
What didn’t help the situation was when on Sunday, a day before the game, Cheadle Town tweeted that the game was now going to be played at Mottram Hall instead of Park Road. Disappointing is the word that springs to mind. I had and still have no doubt that it wasn’t Cheadle Town who made or in fact wanted this to happen but still many people decided that this fixture wasn’t for them so weren’t going to turn up.
Funnily enough, I was one of these people and up until the Monday I wasn’t going to this fixture. The original Park Road plan was that myself and Gibbo would get the train to Stockport and meet Stew from Non-League Review where we would go on to record the first NWCFL/Non-League Review podcast but what with the change of venue this was no longer possible. However, somehow Gibbo had put together the last minute plan of the year and at 3:00pm I found myself walking down to Bromley Cross train station for the first time this season. How he had done this I don’t know, we’ll come back to my journey later.
To the day of the game, I awoke with a message from Gibbo saying that maybe, just maybe we might be able to get to this already interesting game. I replied and hoped that somehow Gibbo could actually pull this out of the bag. Several Facebook messages of planning late and we had done it. We would actually be going to Mottram Hall to watch Cheadle Town take on Dinamo Bucharest.
At 2:30pm I started getting my stuff together, the ground hopping essentials: Camera, Notepad etc. Knowing that prices at Mottram Hall can be a little expensive (understatement of the century) I put together a little pack lunch as well,
As I mentioned earlier, at 3:00pm I was walking through Bromley Cross making my way to the train station. Only for it to be swarmed with the students from Turton High School who finished at 3:00pm – great! Luckily, they weren’t on my train for long, getting off at the next stop along, I wasn’t on for long either getting off at Bolton, changing there after a 30 minute wait to hop onto the Manchester Airport train, that’s right, Manchester Airport, the reason being that from there we would get a lift of Lewis Dunwoody and this location was easier for him to get to as he was travelling from Runcorn. Now normally, the airport train service is ran by First Transpennine, a good, comfortable service, compared to Northern Rail anyway. So, no one will ever understand my disappointment when a Northern Rail train came rolling into Bolton train station instead of the much preferred First train. You can’t win them all as Connie Mack once said. Gibbo joined me at Salford Crescent and for the remainder of the Northern Rail special we talked about the upcoming season, European trips away and University.
The train soon reached its destination, Manchester Airport, so now we faced the small problem of locating Lewis and his car, after being shoved out of the way by a woman clearly running late for her flight, me and Gibbo decided to take to the big tunnel thing which stretches from terminal to terminal at Manchester Airport, as I write this I’m starting to think it’s probably the most interesting place possible I could’ve started my football travels this year, I’m also starting to reconsider my life choices. As Gibbo said on Facebook, I suppose we start as we mean to go on. A quick phone call revealed that Lewis and Olly (who was joining us on this adventure) would pick us up outside the Radison Hotel. That was fine it was only a short walk away but instead of just going down the escalator, outside the doors and walk across the road we decided it would be best if we walk through the 3 and a half star hotel, safe to say the receptionist wasn’t too happy – they have good lifts though. Eventually, we found Lewis (our driver for today) and Olly but now I faced the task of getting into Lewis’ car. I’m not going to lie, at 6ft 1 I’m not the smallest so I did find it difficult to squeeze (and I mean squeeze) into Lewis’ C1. Once in it, it was plain sailing and the comfort of Lewis’ car offered a nice spot for plane spotting as we drove out of Manchester Airport.
We soon found ourselves surrounded by the leafy location in which Mottram Hall is based, and my word it is a nice place. We got out of the car and made our way down to the pitch. Gibbo knew the way; he came last year after following Brugge’s team coach across Manchester. As we crossed the golf course the pitch opened out in front of us. I felt I was about to watch Arsenal or Manchester City train not watch Cheadle Town play a game of football. The pitch was in superb condition and I was told that it’s the same size as the pitch used at the old Wembley because Germany demanded they made it so; they trained here for the Euro 96 tournament, I don’t blame them to be honest it’s a beautiful place – good choice! Anyway, only the Cheadle Town officials had arrived so far so we practically had best choice on where to sit or stand but with Gibbo and Olly wanting a tan they decided to lie at the side of the pitch catching the best of the sun.
The pitch at Mottram Hall doesn’t contain any stands so there really isn’t a lot to write about. It’s literally a pitch with a banking down one end, this is where we were sunbathing, and a river running at the back of the opposite side. To our tight, behind the goals, was a giant mound of hay, Gibbo suggested that if Cheadle do charge admission for tonight’s game (at this point, there was still some confusion about admission and refreshments etc.) then we sit on top of that, good call if you ask me. To out left, behind the other goal, there is a golf course, I’m sure this would of provided good entertainment if the game didn’t live up to expectation.
Three Romanian camera men soon arrived and asked if they could play with the old Runcorn Linnets ball Lewis had brought along, not wanting to spoil the mood of these Romanians we said yes and were entertained as much as they were watching them play, or at least attempt to play. Lewis, Olly and Gibbo decided they were hungry and not wanting to spend £3500 on food at Mottram Hall Gibbo suggested Lewis and Olly drive to the local McDonalds in Maccelsfield – they agreed and off they went. Whilst they were away we were joined by two more ground hoppers, James Lobley who myself and Gibbo will be working with next season at Atherton Collieires and also Stew who runs the site Non-League Review. It was great to finally meet both of them!
I saw that they were selling programmes for tonight’s game so I went to get one. Only costing £1 it wasn’t a bad programme, it looked good it just lacked a bit of length, it was only 8 pages long so there wasn’t a lot of readable material. Walking back to my sunbathing spot I was asked by the Romanian camera crew if they could look at my programme, I agreed and handed it over only for them to record it page for page, so ladies and gents if you see a Cheadle Town programme on an obscure Romanian YouTube channel (trust me there’s lots of them), it’s mine.
Cheadle Town were formed in 1961 as Grasmere Rovers by a 14 year old boy asking his neighbours to help him and his friends form a football team. They joined the NWCFL in 1983, one of the earliest clubs in the league having started out in the Manchester Junior League in 1967. They got the name Grasmere Rovers from the name of the street Barry Dean (the 14 year old lad) lived on – Grasmere Road. Since joining the NWCFL the club has mainly spent its time moving up one division then back down for the past few years, never breaking out of the NWCFL.
With the two teams now ready to start the game, we made our way round to the opposite side to get a different view of the pitch.
Surprisingly, Cheadle started the game well and defensively were strong with their right back Darryl Mason impressing me the most. However, on the twenty third minute Dinamo opened the scoring from a corner, beating the Cheadle defence to the ball and strongly heading in.After Dinamo scored they controlled most of the rest of the first half but they couldn’t find a way past the strong looking Cheadle defence. Dinamo went in at half time with only a one goal lead, surprisingly.
During the first half I had spotted three, yes three, Dinamo Bucharest fans so me and Stew decided to wonder over and speak to them but unfortunately the Romanian TV crew had the same idea and beat us to it but, it was entertaining listening to the interview taking place, even though both of us could not speak one word of Romanian. I spotted the refreshments stall (a box of chocolate bars and drinks on a golf buggy) so Stew walked over and got himself a drink, I didn’t, I only had a £10 note, I might have been able to get half a chocolate bar for that.
The second half soon started and the sun was still shining, it truly was a beautiful night for football.
Both sides had changed their eleven for the second half and you could certainly tell as during the second half Cheadle Town couldn’t cope with the much superior Dinamo Bucharest side, and two minutes into the second half Dinamo found they had doubled their advantage through 24 year old Valentin Lazăr. I actually missed this goal because I was concentrating too much on the Dinamo ultras.
From then on it was a case of how many Dinamo would score and score they did. Soon it was three, and then four, then five, they were bossing play, as many of the 150 crowd had expected them to do.
About fifteen minutes into the second half myself, Stew, Gibbo and fellow Blogger George (who we had met up with during the second half) wandered over to behind the goal Dinamo were attacking to record the first ever Non-League Review podcast. That’s why I’m not able to describe the goals above at all because I was so engrossed in the recording of the podcast I missed more or less every one of them.
I’d like to thank Stew from Non-League Review for having me on the first episode of his sites podcast which, at the moment is not available so when it is I’ll post the link on the Blog for you all to listen to.Thanks to the recording of the Blog the second half went by really quickly so I was surprised when the referee blew his whistle for full time. When both sets of players shuck hands with one another we decided to used Lewis’ ball and have a little kick around, why not? That’s when I realised I was having a kick around on the same pitch that the German National team has trained on and many other European footballing greats. According to Aaron on the NWCFL Facebook group teams such as Napoli have trained also on this pitch.
Eventually, Lewis’ announced we should be getting on our way, which we agreed with until Stew decided to take a selfie in front of the Romanian TV cameras who were interviewing Dinamo manager Flavius Stoican, me and Gibbo couldn’t resist so we joined in on the fun. Since the idea of a selfie is a common thing in our world today, why on earth not?
Anyway, we said our goodbyes to Geroge, James and Stew and soon were on our way to Bolton where Lewis would be dropping me off before then going onto drop Gibbo off in Atherton.
Once dropped off in Bolton I handed over £5 to Lewis for petrol money and said my goodbyes to Lewis, Gibbo and Olly and made my way towards Bolton Bus Station to catch the 539 which drops me off practically on my door step.
Since I have now left school getting up at 6:00am is now not a thing for me so when I got in at 22:45 it didn’t matter one bit.
Overall, I had a great night out and I had met some great new people, I loved the quirkiness of that Monday night – starting as we mean to go on at Manchester Airport and then handing over my programme to the Romanian TV crew for them to record it. It was a good laugh and would like to thank Cheadle Town/Mottram Hall for hosting me and the other 149 people who turned up. I’d also like to thanks Lewis and Gibbo for a) Lewis driving me and b) Gibbo putting together the best last minute plan of century. Also, credit to Cheadle Town who didn’t charge admission that night but instead just asked for a small donation.
One last thing, you can see us record the NLR podcast on Romanian TV, take a look - http://www.sport.ro/amicale/dinamo-a-reusit-ratarea-anului-bilinski-l-a-scos-din-sarite-pe-stoican-cu-faza-asta-super-video.html
Ground: - N/A
Programme: - 5/10 – Glad they did one, nice design but not a lot to read.
Food: - N/A
Match: - 8/10 – Good game.
Distance Travelled to Ground: - 30.9 Miles
Money Spent: - £9.40
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