Allexton & New Parks FC
New College
Greencoat Road
Leicester
LE3 6NZ
Ground Number: 1233
Wednesday 4th October 2023
Allexton & New Parks 4-3 FC Khalsa GAD
Leicestershire & Rutland Senior Cup
ALLEXTON & NEW PARKS FC - A BRIEF HISTORY
The club was established in 1996 to provide football for youngsters in the New Parks area and other surrounding places. The Allexton Centre was offered as a meeting place and New Parks Community College provided playing space for the members – hence the Club name. Former Leicester City player Frank Worthington became our Club President and was succeeded in 2008 by Martin Morley (Emperor Scaffolding) a local businessman and long-term Club supporter. The club now has 27 teams of varying ages and genders. The area of New Parks is a suburb of Leicester which has a population of just over 17,000.
MY VISIT
Wednesday is usually a night off for me as I tend to go quite far on Tuesday. If I do something, it is usually with Milton Keynes based hopper Chris, but we'd exhausted all the options. Tonight was a case in point, with him having been to all of Allexton & New Parks, Newark Town & Southwell City. However, my other regular hoppers Anwar & Colin were pretty keen with us having gone to the same area for Friar Lane & Epworth on Tuesday. The fact that this was considered 'local' by me was a sign of how many grounds I'd done. This was helped by the fact that step 7 games were being added to the Futbology app which got me the two games for this week. However, I was restricted to games with floodlights for midweek games at this time of year.
It had been a great game at Friar Lane & Epworth the previous night. But it ended on a disappointing note with us getting back to the car just as Portsmouth hit a winner in the 9th minute of injury time to win 2-1 against Wycombe. There was then a 15-minute delay in getting on the road to the M1 thanks to lane closures. Of course, there was not a single workman in sight. It was then a decent journey back to Anwar with him getting back at 11.30. Thanks to the main road being closed, I had to take a back route to Colin's, dropping him off at midnight and getting in ten minutes later. S spent half an hour catching up and getting my blog up before getting into bed and watching TV. It took me ages to get to sleep and in the end, I only got five hours of sleep. I was OK the next morning though and it was a pretty easy day at work.
I finished at 3 and had the chance to go home and have around 40 minutes of rest before leaving at 4.10. It was good getting to Colin but Anwar's was the usual battle through Aylesbury's inadequate road system. We had a slow getaway from Aylesbury but once we got to the M1, it was all good. I stuck the cruise control on at a speed which was a compromise between speed and fuel economy. There was then traffic in Leicester but we got to our pre match takeaway of Amir Tandoori at just after 7. It was busy but we put our orders in, in my case, chicken shashlik and chilli chips. Time was tight and service was not the quickest so we took it to the ground, just a minutes drive away. It took us longer than expected due to the entrances being dark and unclear and some selfish driver in a Land Rover taking a space and a half due to the ridiculous size of their vehicle and extremely bad parking with a huge gap at the front of the space. I was parked up eventually and got in just as they were kicking off. We ate our dinner pitch side, not the best but good for the £9.70 I paid.
Allexton & New Parks were second in the league but could go top if they won their game in hand. FC Khalsa were in 13th but some distance off of the bottom. The hosts had won four games in a row and were unbeaten all season. AFC Kilworth were the only side to take points off of them when the sides drew 1-1. Their latest win came on Saturday as they triumphed 3-1 at fellow high fliers Ellistown. The visitors form was all over the place, they had drawn 1-1 at AFC North Kilworth on Saturday. They'd also lost 3-2 to Burbage & Huncote and 7-1 at Aylestone Park Reserves and their last victory came on 9th September as they won 2-0 at Barrow Town. It was all Allexton early on, the game was played completely in the Khalsa half. The hosts took the lead after ten minutes, a close-range effort by Mason Smith though as I was up the other end, I didn't have the best view. It was 2-0 on 16 minutes, a penalty was converted by Ryan Charles following a foul in the area. Khalsa pulled a goal back with their first serious attack on 26 minutes, an attack down the right was bundled home by Savjani. From barely threatening, the visitors had a good spell and they equalised on 41 minutes, a Muganda header into the top of the net from a right-sided corner. They looked the most likely to score as half-time approached. Khalsa started the second half well but on the break Allexton had a chance, the striker and keeper collided but nothing was given after a minor scuffle and long consultation with the ref. This led to a good spell for the home side and Ayrton Carter-Fell converted from a corner to make it 3-2. Khalsa then equalised, Topliss scrambling home from a free kick with twenty minutes to go. As the game approached added time, Allexton had been enjoying a good spell. They went ahead 4-3, Jake Wain rifling a shot into the roof of the net in the last minute. Soon after the whistle blew to bring the end to a brilliant game.
Excellent game so far, FC Khalsa equaliser at Allexton & New Parks makes it 3-3 with just over 20 minutes to go. pic.twitter.com/g7ueDtCHgk
— ⚽Russell Cox💙 (@RussWWFC) October 4, 2023
The attendance looked more and deserved more than the 31 headcount by another hopper. We got chatting to the friendly linesman and amazingly he'd been at our game at Friar Lane and Epworth last night. Both were great games and very feisty affairs. The officials did a brilliant job in both cases, but it's a shame that the same can't be said of the people who run public services in this country. We got going at 9.40 and the first couple of miles were fine. However, the last mile was a disgrace, taking well over an hour. It was bad enough but fair enough that Highways England had closed the M1, bad timing with it being so early. But those drivers had to compete for space with local traffic. The idiots had closed off two lanes despite absolutely no work going on for the second night in a row. A total lack of respect or consideration for drivers and the environmental impact. Thankfully, the trip down the M1 and onto Aylesbury was decent and I dropped Anwar off at 12.20, Colin, via yet another road closure at 12.50, getting in myself at 1. I watched TV in bed for a bit, taking a while to get to sleep. I was tired the next morning with less than five hours of sleep, not ideal for a nine-hour mega shift. Thursday is my second least favourite day of the week so it was a long old day.
THE GROUND
NEW COLLEGE is a decent setup for step 7, the pitch is fully railed with mostly hard standing. There's also a covered area of flat standing in one corner. It's about more than the first team though. This is a community club with multiple pitches. There's a smart club room with Sports TV and seating plus refreshments, though these were closed upon my visit. There's a decent amount of parking and it's on bus routes. A few minutes drive or ten minutes walk away are a Premier convenience store, chippy and Indian takeaway.
No comments:
Post a Comment