Thursday, 21 July 2022

Linby Colliery Welfare - Church Lane

Linby Colliery Welfare FC
Church Lane Ground
Church Lane
Linby
Nottingham
Nottinghamshire
NG15 8AB









Ground Number: 1092
Wednesday 20th July 2022
Linby Colliery 2-1 Blidworth Welfare
Friendly







LINBY COLLIERY FC - A BRIEF HISTORY

There is no clear year in which the club was formed, but the earliest estimate dates back to 1892. A team known as Linby Church Institute plied their trade in the Notts Alliance as early as 1903.  They disbanded in the early 1930s, reforming again in 1946 following the end of the Second World War. They enjoyed their best years during these times and honours included winning the Notts Alliance and Central Alliance. The 1960s & early 1970s saw a drop-off in form in the Central Alliance and East Midland League. The club made the step up to the newly-established Division 1 of the Midland League in 1975, though this has no connection with the modern league of the same name. They were runners-up behind Staveley Works in 1978. The league would go on to be part of the Northern Counties East League in 1982 but a year earlier. Linby Colliery had left to return to local football. The loss of their Gatehouse Ground had contributed to this with the club sharing at Annesley Welfare until moving to their present home in 1985. The club changed their name in the 1990s and 2000s, adding the 'Welfare' suffix. They joined the Notts Alliance in 1991 and finished as runners-up in Division 2 in 1993. The Division 1 title followed in 1997 which earned them promotion to the Senior Division. The league became the Notts Senior League in 2004 and Linby Colliery Welfare were runners-up the following year. In 2012, the club joined the Central Midlands South where they remain to this day. Their record has been unspectacular, last season's 6th place finish was the best so far.

Linby Colliery had a number of good FA Cup runs in the first half of the 1950s. Their best campaign came in 1950 when they beat Parliament Street Methodists, Retford Town, Shirebrook, Boston United, Spalding United and Nuneaton Borough before losing to Gillingham in the 1st Round in front of a record crowd of 6,850. The club reached the semi-finals of the Notts Senior Cup in 1905 before losing to Nottingham Forest, who went on to win the cup. They would go on to win the cup themselves in 1950, 1952 and 1954. An astonishing 20,500 supporters saw Linby beat Retford in the first of those Notts Senior Cup Finals, a record for the competition. They were also Notts FA Intermediate Cup winners in 1995 and CML Buckingham Insurance League Cup Winners in 2022. The small village of Linby has a population of just 232 and is located a couple of miles from Hucknall. It won Nottinghamshire's "best-kept village" award in 2013.

The above information was gathered from Wikipedia, the FCHD and the official site.
MY VISIT

Fellow hopper Chris & I had organised this visit a couple of weeks ago when he had looked at upcoming games on Malcolm Storer's 'On The Road' blog. I was happy with this, with it being a railed pitch, it was more than good enough for me. The 7 PM kick-off was also ideal - enough time to get up there from work but also a good chance to get a head start on the way home. It had been a good weekend off work, but a boozy one and an expensive one too. As ever though, Sunday was the worst day of the lot, too hot, and the worst game of the weekend. mediocrity and lots of inconveniences. Thanks to the heatwave, I'd spent a couple of football-free days despite being off work. I'd had games planned involving Dodworth Miners Welfare and Oxhey Jets, however, sensibly and understandably, the games were called off. I instead spent the day at home researching this blog and planning future games amongst other things.
The day of the game came and I was back to work after five days off. I was quite organised for once in the morning and had plenty of time to get to work. It had said on the radio that petrol had gone up 42% in a year. Sadly it was a lot slower to come down. In June it went up 18p a litre in ten days between fill-ups and stuck at 187.7 for a good while. There was a slight reduction to 185.7 today but it's still ridiculously high. The day was an extremely busy one but the break had done me good and the day went fairly quickly. I left at 3.10 and headed to Milton Keynes. The journey over there wasn't great, whatever route I took there were delays and I encountered queues on the M25 and M1. I got to Chris at 4.30 and luckily our journey was better. We got to our pre-match takeaway of the Star Palace Chinese at 6.10. I had my usual of Salt and pepper chips along with the Thai Sweet Chilli House Special. The chips were excellent and the Thai dish nice, though I wish I'd opted for my usual Thai Green Curry. We'd eaten it in the car outside the ground. By the time we had finished, it was 6.50 and time to go in.

It was a very reasonable £3 entry and the perfect weather conditions to watch a game. It was a nice setting to watch a game too. Linby lined up in their usual red kit, whilst Blidworth, who had recently been promoted to the United Counties League following their title win last season, were in blue. The visitors were the better side early on, lots of possession but not testing the home keeper too much. The players were doing plenty of whinging, despite it only being a friendly. The referee had a word with one player who complained that bit too much. Linby forced the best save of the opening half-hour with a chance on the break. Blidworth had a good chance from a free kick just before halftime after a player was pulled down whilst bearing down on goal. The ref only gave the Linby man a yellow as he said there was defensive cover and the free kick was spurned. After going in at halftime goalless, Blidworth took the lead on 52 minutes. A corner was put in and only half cleared. A visiting player controlled the ball well and curled the ball home from out wide. It was 1-1 after an hour. There was a foul in the area and Trem Lindo stepped up to level from the spot. The referee was doing a decent job, but the players weren't making it easy for him. He had to ask Blidworth to substitute their man following a foul and from the resulting free kick, Linby hit the post. There was also a home player booked for diving. The hosts had improved greatly in the second half and they got their winner four minutes from time. A good reaction by Josh Baldwin saw him best the keeper to a loose ball which he tucked in the net for the winner.


It had been a good competitive game, probably the best I'd seen this season so far. There had been around 75 there to witness it, as well as a few four-legged friends. We left at 8.50 and made good progress home. As usual, it was Greatest Hits Radio Guess the year show. Chris guessed 1986 but I went for 1988 and was correct. Chris is better at knowing the music years but I got my guess as they said it was the year that Gazza joined Spurs. I dropped Chris off at 10:30 and was home myself by 11:25. I sat up watching TV for an hour before going to bed, looking forward to my next game at Amersham the following day.

THE GROUND

CHURCH LANE is a decent venue for the level. The pitch is fully railed and has a concrete walkway most of the way around. There is also a small area of cover on one side, plus one on the other side although it has lost its roof. There's further cover next to the clubhouse. This does food and drink, although I'm not sure what. Parking is quite limited and there's not a lot in the village itself thanks to the small population. Hucknall is less than two miles away and has a great range of places to visit. These include the Beer Shack, a great pub I visited a few years ago.
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