DAISY HILL
Well with what finally looks like another re start for Prestwich Heys in the North West Counties Division one North commencing 19 December with a maximum 150 spectators permitted in tier three I thought it would be a good time to have a recap on the season so far......all four games of it.
The green light was finally given to start the season on the 3rd October and the fixture list presented us with an away trip to Daisy Hill, a short hop on the train from Manchester Victoria and always a favourite on the calendar for Heys fans.
Unfortunately for us already sat in the Rosehill Tavern close to Daisy Hill station enjoying pre match beers, the weather had caught on that non-league football was back, it rained solid from the minute we got on the train to 2pm when the call came through the ref was having none of it and back to Manchester we went, although it has to be said, a good night was had.
A shuffle in the fixtures meant we got to 'go again' at Daisy Hill the following Saturday returning to the said Rosehill Tavern with us now on first name terms with the landlady who was utterly confused at seeing the same group of lads going to watch the same team at the same time the following week.
With the weather dry and the beer flowing talk of the upcoming campaign was optimistic as the opening day should be even if we were in October! and I hoped after such a long wait we would come flying out of the blocks and start the season as we mean to go on.
We arrived to find a large gathering of Heys fans already in place ready for kick off, and a head count came in at 41, a magnificent effort as that's more than some teams get for a home game in this league.
Our opening day optimism is rewarded as the boy's race into a 3-0 half time lead, Niall Sultan kicking off Heys league scoring campaign with fellow wide man Jamie Hill scoring an absolute peach 25 yards out for the third on the stroke of half time.
I pop in the clubhouse for a half time Guinness and catch up with former manager John Lyons who is stood at the bar, the vibe is really good today and Jack Coop soon adds a fourth after the break. Daisy Hill rally in the second half but we run out 5-2 winners and its smiles all round for the 41 of us in a crowd of 139, which I was told was Daisy Hill's biggest attendance for quite some time.
Back in the clubhouse after the game it's time for another can of Guinness, or is it?, as my mate Steve informs me that they had 'run out', must have been someone else drinking them as well surely?, I didn't drink them all did I?....think it's time to move on!😉.
Move on we did to the Grey Man round the corner from the ground, covid restrictions were well and truly underway by this point and so six of us as permitted by the rules found a table in the corner and this new regime of the bar staff coming to the table was certainly working well as our host Michelle looked after us noting whenever our glasses were nearly empty and coming over to replenish...several times.
We are also informed the close by jukebox is free all night which worked fine until Conrad got up and spent a good 15 minutes putting tunes on, hardly any of which anyone had ever heard of prompting shouts of 'play us one we know' from the bar staff and indeed most of his heckling mates in the corner.
A 10pm curfew under the new rules meant it was time to go, two of our party (Conrad and Nick Fitz) decide they are hungry and go on ahead into the local Chinese takeaway with the rest of us heading back to the station. Some 20 minutes or so later the train is due and I call Conrad to advise, but he informs me they were still awaiting the order (what was it a banquet for two??) and would get the last train, 'not a problem!' he explained. So, we were down to four and headed home via Manchester no chance of a late drink as everywhere closed at 10pm.
It was a full week later when on the coach travelling to the Holker Old Boys game that Conrad announced to the hilarity of all on the top deck of the bus that himself and Nick after finally picking up the said Chinese feast and walking to the station that good old Northern Rail cancelled the train and they were stranded with a big bag of food, only one thing to do, order a taxi which they did and it cost them £40 to get home!......I still don't know what they ordered to this day.
The Grey Man Daisy Hill after match pint and said free jukebox behind, anyone fancy a Chinese?
HOLKER OLD BOYS
Onwards a week now it's another away day and the 1 hour 45-minute trip up to Holker Old Boys another fans favourite. The day starts well when we see our mode of transportation is a luxury double decker bus and a large part of the journey was spent laughing at the above exploits of the previous week and wondering....just how much Chinese food did two men order that night?.
We arrive early but its a sad sight in Holker's usually lovely clubhouse as due to the recent restrictions all the tables and chairs had been stacked high and we were asked to stand outside to drink and no food was available after our long journey, not great and a tad frustrating but so much confusion was around at the time about what you could and couldn't do...who knows? but it wasn't the welcome we were used to.
We stand outside, luckily it was dry and surprisingly mild as previous visits here took me 24 hours to thaw out afterwards!, and spirits were well and truly raised when a seagull from high above decided to deposit a little present on Tony's right arm of his coat. Did we rush to get him a cloth for him to wipe up the mess?, nar we all stood and took photo's (see below) while laughing hysterically, anyway such incidents bring good luck don't they say?.
It was a theory that proved to be a myth as despite a great start with a goal from Jack Coop just 7 minutes in what followed was a mad 20 minutes from our back four meaning we 3-1 down soon after. Coop pulls one back but today just wasn't our day, tired and hungry we head back to Prestwich and the sanctuary of the Frigate for a few beers before the 10pm shutdown, as for Tony he was last seen wandering round the Holker area trying to find that seagull to issue it with a dry-cleaning bill!.
Spot the present left on Tony's sleave.
AFC BURY
Much had been said about the emergence of AFC Bury into the Counties set up this season, they are a Pheonix club created from the sad demise of League one side Bury FC largely because of miss management from owner Steve Dale. Whilst on the one hand a group of supporters decided admirably to 'go it alone' and form a new club, the fact they went into Division One North at the first time of asking and so 'jumping the queue' rather than starting one step below in the Manchester League caused controversy because of teams in said Manchester League who had spent money getting grounds up to standard in order to apply for counties status.
Whatever the politics Heys fans were excited to come up against this reformed club so early on in the new season as we travelled to Radcliffe FC's Neuven Stadium where they will be based for home matches this season.
Bury had made an electric start winning the first two games scoring 9 goals in the process and with covid restrictions the capacity was set at 300 and in bizarre fashion at this level the game had been made 'all ticket' of which our hosts issued an allocation of just 30 tickets which were quickly snapped up faster than the coronavirus was allegedly spreading at the time!.
The lead up to the game had been very interesting as the previous week Bury had beaten Darwen 6-2 in a game that ended in controversial circumstances and having heard on the grapevine that the atmosphere had been a little on the intimidating side that day, we knew the majority of us in our allocation of 30 tickets would have to be in full voice and that the 'twelfth man' was going to be needed tonight more than ever.
With this in mind a few of us met in the excellent Royal Oak pub in Radcliffe (so cheap for a pint in here by the way if anyone is passing) and a few beers were consumed chatting about our chances for the game, this was a big night for Heys, a chance to inflict a first ever defeat on a side that had quite a bit of money injected into its new squad on players from higher levels and we would need focus from the first minute to get any kind of result. A quick look at the watch meant it was time to drink up and a taxi was ordered as in all the excitment we lost track of time and were in big danger of missing the kick off.
We enter the ground and the first job was to try and find the others which was difficult as our two flags always pinned up at away games were nowhere to be seen as the home support had already taken all the spaces!. We located the others stood near the half way line with minutes to spare to kick off and by the time the first chant of 'come on Prestwich' was aired a James Dwyer free kick into the box finds Coop who flicks it home to put us 1-0 up in the 6th minute!. A fantastic start and quickly we could see our game plan was taking shape. Bury came forward but were rarely testing Saunders in goal as the back four were closing down brilliantly, quicker than I had ever seen with centre half Aidy Bellamy using his years of experience alongside captain Jacob Holt organising communicating and giving Bury little time on the ball.
Half time we go in a goal up but worrying slightly if we can keep this superb performance and fitness levels up for 90 minutes .
I buy a souvenir match badge as a memento and get promptly slaughtered by Lloyd and Conrad who say I'll be buying a half and half scarf next!, think I got carried away being a goal up!. As the second half starts, we find a few more Heys fans that were scattered round the ground in the first half and we now had around 20 of us stood together.
The banter with the Bury fans at the far end of the ground was exchanged the 'man with the drum' was hard at it (thank god we banned drums at Adie Moran Park, nothing more annoying than football fans with instruments, if you want to play drums join a flippin band!) and it really was great to see some of our fans who don't normally sing really going for it. The only chant Bury had for us was the inevitable 'who are ya?' and this soon died down when the songs of ' you've only come to see the Prestwich!' and 'you're just a small town in Radcliffe' was our response and we soon realised we were not being intimidated at all, if anything it was the other way round!.
The same could be said on the pitch and while Bury had most of the ball they had no clear-cut chances to speak of and several times we caught the home side on the break without converting a chance, this continued until the 85th minute when Tom Greaves looped a header over Russ Saunders into the net.
Gutted we thought but if you were being honest before the game any of us would have taken a draw and now the hope was,we held firm to see it out for 1-1.
Bury continued to press but again we cleared and caught them on the break, they couldn't cope with our pace even at this late stage and with a minute to go Alfie Belcher is clean through on the right he shoots, but hits the post agonisingly and we think that will be it, but just a minute later Bury have still not fathomed out our counter attacking threat and Aidy Bellamy clears the ball, then via Dwyer to Shawcross down the right flicks inside to Belcher then across to Coop on the left who fires it past the keeper and into the net, surely not??? yes, in the dying embers we are 2-1 up the players engulf Coop on the pitch and the 20 of us stood together in the stand engulf each other.
I will never forget the hilarious site of Beth our club photographer trying frantically to take photo's while leaping up and down like a loon, you can't beat a last-minute winner but the chance to inflict the first ever defeat on a newly formed team away from home in a new 'derby' was a special moment I will never forget, non-league football at its best sharing it all with your pals on the terrace.
With barely any time to re start the final whistle went and that was it we'd done it, Bury's first league defeat and home defeat was against Prestwich Heys, the players come over to celebrate at the end (see photo below) heroes to a man, and they join in our song about a 'plant pot' 😉.
We leave the ground the adrenaline pumping and all we wanted to do was return to the Royal Oak to wind down with a pint, but remembered we cant covid rules meant pubs shutting at 10pm and it was indeed 10pm, gutted! and so it was a can or two of Guinness at home for me and I sat unwinding thinking that it was job done both from the players on the pitch to the fans on the terrace off it, and even if we don't play another game all season, no one will ever take that night away from us and it will go long down long in the memory as a great night for the club.
Lets all do the....yer...
GARSTANG
The following Saturday we were due to be away again at Garstang but the rain set in, this and the Lancashire League Trophy final against Lancaster City left over from last season ( will we ever play this game?) set to be played the following Tuesday were called off, but we did manage to re arrange the Garstang game the following week switching it to Adie Moran Park in what turned out in this crazy season to be our first home game.
It was a strange atmosphere and we all knew from the news that the second covid wave was coming and this would be the first and last home game for some time. The sad sight of all the tables and chairs stacked high in our clubhouse and the pubs shut meant we could watch the game but with no chance of a pint afterwards, however Heys signed off with a very important win and after going a goal down just after half time turned on the style with a quick double from the on-fire Jack Coop and a third from Alfie Belcher put us 3-1 up. Garstang set up a nervy last 15 minutes pulling one back and throwing everything at us but we hold firm for the three points.
RESTART
So here we are in mid-December with just the four league games on the board three wins one draw one defeat and sixth in the table it's a good solid start and hopefully on the 19th we restart with another derby away at Chadderton kick off 3pm.
It is said football will restart with limited fans in grounds in tier 2 or 3 so we have to hope and pray not only this rule sticks over the next few days but also the rain stays away which is the other big issue for getting games played.
Where it will all end up nobody knows, these are strange times but I'm sure wherever and whenever we play, we will all be singing from the terraces making up for lost time watching the game we love.
Up the Heys
Rick
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