Monday, November 13, 2017
Go West
Westfield 1 Canterbury City 0
Take a walk around Westfield FC with me here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mt14-FWR0mk
I've now visited 569 grounds. Not a patch on some peoples totals, but I'm more than happy with my effort. But I'd never been to Woking!
I try to visit as many different leagues as I can each season and that means I still have clubs to see at Conference level. And for some reason, I've never done Woking FC.
So coming to Westfield, was a bit of a novelty for me as it's situated only a stone throw from Woking FC's ground.
Needless to say, my intended train to London was cancelled, but you can't teach an old dog new tricks and I'd checked the online departure board so was able to leave a shade early and catch the train before. Plenty of trains from Waterloo, although the one I caught seemed to crawl all the way.
It had been a fairly grotty morning and was still raining when I arrived in Woking. But I was eyeing up a Wetherspoon's and took the short divert to The Herbert Wells.
I'm not a curry lover, but for some reason I was drawn the the chef's special Chicken Balti. What a choice! Absolutely delicious and came with jasmine rice, 2 popadoms and a Naan bread, all washed down with a pint of Jouster.
Still raining when I left the pub and with time to kill, I diverted to Ladbrokes to idle away 30 mins. I bet each way on a horse at Wincanton which in a 2m4F race, was in the first three for the entire race until about the last 20 yards when it fell back to 4th.
The rain had finally subsided and it was surprisingly warm for November. I guss it's about a 20 minute walk from the station to the ground although I feel I probably didn't take the most direct route. My way did take me past Woking FC, so I can now at least say that I've seen it from a distance.
I actually somehow missed the entrance to Woking Park and ended up wandering along endless side streets.
When I did find Woking Park, it is quite an impressive facility. I saw a roller park, a boxing club and a scout centre.
The ground itself is a little odd, the bar is up a flight of stairs and there's a balcony where folk stand to watch the game. There's a section of seating under this and also a small isolated little stand behind the far goal. Friendly people though who seemed to take a real pride in keeping their club ticking over.
The scout centre was next to where I was standing and as the game started, a hoard of young children arrived for a birthday party. I was then treated to the thump, thump of disco music and children's entertainers desperately trying to get these kids to yell at the top of their voice. This kind of distracted me a little from the game for a while as it's difficulty to become engaged with the battle of a cup tie with agadoo assaulting your ear drums.
With a minutes silence being observed for Remembrance day, I was less than impressed to see the referee not even bringing the players on to the pitch until 15:03. We eventually kicked off 7 minutes late. Why????!!!????
The game itself was okay and Westfield deserved their win, the only goal coming in the 23rd minute.
as so often happens, the game was spoilt by the continual arguing, dissent and bickering of the players and benches. Something has to be done and quickly, if grown men want to spend the afternoon arguing, join a debating society!
Anyway, I enjoyed Woking and hope to be back before too long to tick off the town's senior club.
Take a walk around Westfield FC with me here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mt14-FWR0mk
I've now visited 569 grounds. Not a patch on some peoples totals, but I'm more than happy with my effort. But I'd never been to Woking!
I try to visit as many different leagues as I can each season and that means I still have clubs to see at Conference level. And for some reason, I've never done Woking FC.
So coming to Westfield, was a bit of a novelty for me as it's situated only a stone throw from Woking FC's ground.
Needless to say, my intended train to London was cancelled, but you can't teach an old dog new tricks and I'd checked the online departure board so was able to leave a shade early and catch the train before. Plenty of trains from Waterloo, although the one I caught seemed to crawl all the way.
It had been a fairly grotty morning and was still raining when I arrived in Woking. But I was eyeing up a Wetherspoon's and took the short divert to The Herbert Wells.
I'm not a curry lover, but for some reason I was drawn the the chef's special Chicken Balti. What a choice! Absolutely delicious and came with jasmine rice, 2 popadoms and a Naan bread, all washed down with a pint of Jouster.
Still raining when I left the pub and with time to kill, I diverted to Ladbrokes to idle away 30 mins. I bet each way on a horse at Wincanton which in a 2m4F race, was in the first three for the entire race until about the last 20 yards when it fell back to 4th.
The rain had finally subsided and it was surprisingly warm for November. I guss it's about a 20 minute walk from the station to the ground although I feel I probably didn't take the most direct route. My way did take me past Woking FC, so I can now at least say that I've seen it from a distance.
I actually somehow missed the entrance to Woking Park and ended up wandering along endless side streets.
When I did find Woking Park, it is quite an impressive facility. I saw a roller park, a boxing club and a scout centre.
The ground itself is a little odd, the bar is up a flight of stairs and there's a balcony where folk stand to watch the game. There's a section of seating under this and also a small isolated little stand behind the far goal. Friendly people though who seemed to take a real pride in keeping their club ticking over.
The scout centre was next to where I was standing and as the game started, a hoard of young children arrived for a birthday party. I was then treated to the thump, thump of disco music and children's entertainers desperately trying to get these kids to yell at the top of their voice. This kind of distracted me a little from the game for a while as it's difficulty to become engaged with the battle of a cup tie with agadoo assaulting your ear drums.
With a minutes silence being observed for Remembrance day, I was less than impressed to see the referee not even bringing the players on to the pitch until 15:03. We eventually kicked off 7 minutes late. Why????!!!????
The game itself was okay and Westfield deserved their win, the only goal coming in the 23rd minute.
as so often happens, the game was spoilt by the continual arguing, dissent and bickering of the players and benches. Something has to be done and quickly, if grown men want to spend the afternoon arguing, join a debating society!
Anyway, I enjoyed Woking and hope to be back before too long to tick off the town's senior club.
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