Ilkley Town - MPM Stadium

Ilkley Town FC

MPM Stadium

Leeds Road

Ilkley

West Yorkshire

LS29 8AW

Official Website

NWCFL Page

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Ground Number: 1047

Sunday 6th March 2022
Ilkley Town 0-0 Garstang
North West Counties D1 North

ILKLEY TOWN FC - A BRIEF HISTORY

Although a previous club called Ilkley Town existed, the current team came into being in 1995, joining the Harrogate & District League upon formation. They joined the West Yorkshire League in 2004, changing their name to Ilkley Town a year later, having previously been known as Ilkley. They were runners-up in Division 2 in their first season, winning promotion to Division 1. They'd remain there until 2016 when they finished 4th in Division 1, which was deemed good enough for promotion to the Premier Division. Ilkley Town gradually improved after a 12th place finish in their first season. They didn't complete the 2020/21 season, owing to the pandemic but they had already been accepted into the North West Counties Division 1 North at step 6 of the non-league pyramid.

Ilkley Town played in the FA Vase for the first time this season, losing their first game 2-1 to Penrith. The town of Ilkley is in West Yorkshire and has a population of just under 15,000. Ilkley's spa town heritage and surrounding countryside make tourism an important local industry. The town centre is characterised by Victorian architecture, wide streets and floral displays. Ilkley Moor, to the south of the town, is the subject of a folk song, often described as the unofficial anthem of Yorkshire, "On Ilkla Moor Baht 'at". The song's words are written in Yorkshire dialect, its title translated as "On Ilkley Moor without a hat.". Famous people with links to the town include author Gilly Cooper, golfer Colin Montgomerie and gardener Alan Titchmarsh.

MY VISIT

Following the penultimate game of the hop at Steeton, I needed cash. I made my way to an ATM a mile up the road and got £20 out. What followed was a pretty rubbish journey as my diversion took me through the centre of Ilkley with a section where a mile took around 25 minutes. As a consequence, a lot of the parking was taken up but I eventually found a space further up the road. The official hoppers coach had only just turned up too, so it wasn't just me. After paying to get in, I made my way to look for food. All the stalls were down a narrow alley and it got very crowded. There was a chip shop in a garden shed operating as a kind of satellite version of the local chippy, the Ilkley Plaice. With such restricted space, service was very slow. They'd also grossly underestimated demand and pies and sausages were sold out long before kickoff. They also ran out of change. I helped out my paying by card and my gravy and chips were excellent for £2.90. The chips were lovely and crispy and some of the best I've ever had so they were worth the long wait.

Ilkley Town were in 15th, but had won their latest two games - beating Golcar United 2-1 and progressing on penalties at Steeton in a local cup. They'd lost 2-1 to the same opponent in the league and also by the same scoreline to Bury and Campion. They'd also lost 3-2 to Nelson. Garstang were in 9th and had beaten Steeton 5-0 in their latest game. They'd also won 2-1 at Ashton Town. They'd drawn 2-2 with both Pilkington and South Liverpool but lost 2-1 at Cleator Moor Celtic and 4-1 at Bacup Borough. The game kicked off ten minutes late and I still missed a fair bit of the first half thanks to waiting for food. It was a dull game with the hosts the better and more pro-active side. It livened up near the end and both sides hand chances. It still finished 0-0 much to the charging of Dan who hates goalless draws and wants teams not to get any points for them.

It was just after 4 by the time I left. It was a slow start on small roads until I got to Leeds. It was decent going from there, but at over 200 miles, it dragged a bit. Various podcasts and audiobooks kept me company on the long journey south. I tried to get petrol on the way home, but there was a huge queue at ASDA and my local garage had added 12p a litre to the price since I filled up last week. I was in at 8,45 and had plenty to do. I spent the Sunday night sending eBay parcels, sorting photos and catching up on finances amongst other stuff. I had the day off on Monday and managed to get all of my blogs done. It had been a really good hop with a good catch up with several familiar faces. The main thing was that all the host clubs did really well out of it which is really the main objective of these events. One hopper, Tony Incenzo of TalkSPORT was plannng to come to the game but was thwarted by a car breakdown. He's a bit 'Marmite' amongst the groundhopper community having a reputation for blocking people on Twitter for multiple reasons. He does however give a lot of publicity to the game which can only be a good thing.

THE GROUND

The MPM STADIUM is a very compact venue in a cage with not a lot of space. I'd imagine that the capacity is a little over 500 due to it being three-sided. The main thing is, they are fairly close to Ilkley, albeit in a small place called Ben Rhydding. There are two areas of cover, one seated and one standing, holding around 50 each. There's a basic bottle bar and merchandise. The stand out feature is a mini chip shop that offers some great food options. Although overwhelmed on my visit, it would probably cope OK on a normal game and the parking should suffice under normal circumstances.