On a beautiful sunny Spring evening I decided to take advantage of the lovely warm weather and attend my first end of season midweek game. My destination was Bridgham, a small village, located some five or so miles to the east of Thetford Forest and easily accessed from the A11 trunk road by following signs for Harling (B111). The early evening kick off saw Bridgham United host Talcolneston in an eagerly awaited Central and South Norfolk Football League Division 1 clash. Not for the first time in recent weeks I had picked a game from a league that was completely new to me, never having seen a game in this competition before. But would I enjoy the new experience? You bet I did!

The tidy little ground is found at the playing fields off The Street, the main road pasing through the village. The basic, tree-lined site is bordered by local housing on the entrance side with expansive open fields surrounding the others, creating the impression of what is a most rural venue. A small encased wooden noticeboard (with an up to date fixture list for April affixed to it) is found next to the main driveway. Parking is available behind the nearside goal with the (only) pitch running lengthways from here. Unusually at this level two permanent brick built dug outs are positioned along the touchline to the left. A large wooden storage shed and three potakabin-style changing containers are hemmed into the far left hand corner beyond. Players use the two on the left with the third allocated to the match referee. Interestingly a number of wonderful old framed team photos adorn the wall of the home club. A nice touch. Immediately to the right are some fixed children's climbing frames and swings as well as a fully operational zip wire on the far side. As you would expect there are no dedicated spectator cover or amenities here. It's also worth mentioning that the pitch (unroped), which has a distinct upward slope towards the far end, is in terrific condition at the moment boasting a well manicured surface. 

As we parked up at pitchside we were pleasantly surprised not only to see the goal nets and corner flags in place but that most of the players were already warming up on the pitch just after six o'clock, a full fifteen minutes before kick-off. Most impressive! Tonight's game featured two clubs who still have plenty of fixtures left to play. A combination of cup games and poor weather during the winter months had contrived to this enforced backlog. At the time of writing the hosts unbelievably have ten games left (six at home). Yes TEN! They currently occupy fourth place in the fourteen team league which is headed by Thetford Rovers Reserves. By contrast Talcolneston (pronounced Tacolsten) have six games left and find themselves in seventh position in the table. So with loads of points still to play for each side could, in theory, still aspire to win the title.

Sadly United had seven regular first team players out of action (due to work commitments or injury) and fielded a much weakened side. The visitors took full advantage of this and looking the much better team throughout won the game by a comfortable 3-0 scoreline. Joe Reid (32) opened the scoring dispatching a beautiful strike from all of twenty five yards that left home keeper Matt Wade looking on as a spectator. The second goal was the result of poor communication as defender Adam Haylett and keeper Wade both dallied, leaving the ball for each other and in doing so allowed a quick thinking Chris Hayley (71) to get there first and tap in easily from two yards. The third and final goal was a bit controversial to say the least, leaving both players and fans with plenty to talk about afterwards over their post match pint. A long through ball from halfway found away attacker Chris Sparks (79) in an offside position (by some three yards). Without hearing the whistle he continued his run towards goal and calmly slipped the ball under Wade. The assistant referee who (at the time of the initial pass) found himself behind play (by at least ten yards in my opinion) raised his flag to signal for offside. However the young referee overuled him and allowed the goal to stand. He explained clearly to the club assistant that because he wasn't level he couldn't correctly call the decision. In other words the player was in an offside position but the assistant could not make an accurate judgement of the situation to merit this. So should a goal have been allowed? I must admit that although feeling sympathy with the lino, the referee had probably got it right! Any opinions from readers would be appreciated! On the overall balance of play (and despite this controversy) the visitors thoroughly deserved their victory and the three points.

The game watched by 23 spectators was played on an excellent, flat and well maintained playing surface. Interestingly even though the conditions were fine throughout, the referee decided to allow 40 minutes of play for each half. It was certainly light enough afterwards (just) to have played the full ninety minutes but hindsight is a wonderful thing as they say! We were joined pitchside by a number of home committee members who were all dressed in smart club warm up tops. They made us feel very welcome and proudly informed us that the club had won the League Benevolent Cup beating Morley Village (former members of the Anglian Combination League) last month in the final at Aldiss Park, home of Dereham Town FC.

Bridgham United FC has its own website (a link to this excellent resource is shown below). This deseves much praise being regularly updated with the latest club news, results and match reports. In fact details from tonight's game was uploaded within 24 hours of our visit! According to the club history section the earliest evidence of an official Bridgham football team comes from an old photograph depicting the players from the 1922-23 season. The club was loaned a meadow (Bridge Meadow) on Bridgham Hall Farm. One of the handicaps was sharing the pitch with a herd of milking cows, so members always had the pre-match job of removing the large amount of cowslips from the pitch, until new tenant farmers took over the farm!! 

Bridgham United previously played in the South Norfolk League and the Bury & District League before joining the Central & South Norfolk League in 1978 and have always played in either Division 1 or 2. The team's last honours were in 1998 when the league and cup double was achieved by winning the Division Two Championship and the Primary League Cup. The club also played at Hockham, Shropham, Coney Weston and Thetford Sports Centre in the 1990s for a few seasons, whilst the present pitch was prepared (1990-3) and then re-done (ploughed up, levelled, new topsoil added, de-stoned and re-seeded) between 1998 & 2000.

The present club is run by a group of dedicated and long-serving people. These include Reg Bezants, the chairman, who has been involved with the club since 1947, not only as a player for over 30 years but also in many other roles including secretary for 32 years; Tom Marlow, president since 1984 and the current secretary, Simon Bell, who has filled this position as well as being the club's player-manager since 1993. Simon is also the current longest-serving player with 22 years of service. He is also a member of a select group which includes Reg Bezants, Rod Forder, Brian Odey, Fred Norris and Dick Rutterford who have all played over 500 games for the club.

Travellers may also be interested to learn that the C&SNL is a most hopper friendly competition providing loads of information through its own official website. This is one of the best local leagues for promoting itself and the website tells you everything you need to know about the constitution, clubs, ground addresses, fixtures, results and tables, links to clubs etc. There's even a facility to Tweet, Twitter - you know what I mean! If that's not enough further statistics can also be found on the Full-Time site which covers the league programme as well. With all of this data at your finger tips it couldn't be easier to take in a game (see links below). It certainly helped in planning our visit to Bridgham. Give it a go some time! You may even enjoy it, we certainly did! The joys of journeying to new places continues!!              

FGIF Match Stats

                   Scorers: (H) N/A and (A) J Reid (32); C Hayley (71); C Sparks (79)

Attendance: 23; Admission and Programme: None; Match rating: 2/5; Ground rating: 3/5.

Links

http://www.clubwebsite.co.uk/bridghamunitedfc/

http://www.csnleague.co.uk/

http://full-time.thefa.com/Index.do?league=552112