Thursday 31st July 2014 The Beeches Friendly
Having moved to King’s Norton ahead of my new job, I have a wealth of local teams to see when I get some spare time. Tonight, it was a trip 9 miles away to see Tividale (newly promoted to the NPL Div 1 South) and Halesowen (Champions of that league last year, now in the NPL).
The Beeches, Tividale FC
With trains every 10 minutes from King’s Norton, I had a lot of options but I was just venturing out the house when Nick decided to tell me he fancied going- deciding against Stafford v Telford a mere few hundred yards from his front door. I actually got on a delayed 1757 train so I was at New Street in good time, but the Walsall-Wolverhampton via Brum trains are ‘only’ half hourly, so I was waiting on the crowded Platform 8b for a short while before getting on what was surprisingly not a packed train.
Four stops later and I arrived at Dudley Port High Level station. Except it isn’t High Level anymore, as the Low Level platforms on the old South Staffordshire Line (Stourbridge-Lichfield) are all but destroyed (until the tram gets built there). I was only waiting on the island platform for a few minutes before Nick rolled in from the other direction and we ventured down the main road in what was comfortably not the best part of Birmingham I’ve seen in my week here.
Also, kudos to my amazing maps, they got us to the ground this time. Light work really for a 1.4 mile, 20 minute walk which involved the last leg being up a very narrow alleyway with a slop almost as steep as the climb to Buxton’s ground. But we were there!
Main Entrance
Apparently 4 houses had to be demolished to make way for the ground and local residents do get a close view of the action. There is a bar and some tables at one end, a small covered stand down the side with benches and standing room, but only 2 or 3 rows deep. This runs alongside the A4123. Behind one goal is nothing, just a narrow walkway. The other side was inaccessible but has houses backing onto the pitch, similar to Marine’s ground.
Bar End
Directors Box
Narrow walkway
Main Road Stand
Food was limited, though we didn’t go in the bar and Nick’s chips looked crispy enough. I just went with a 1/4 lb burger which had cheese, though it wasn’t too bad (even if it was £3). Coke didn’t cost much and at 70p for a cuppa, that was decent.
To be honest, the game wasn’t great. I can’t recall all that much action as Nick and I got talking about various things and then got talking to an elderly Yeltz fan (The Yeltz are Halesowen!), mainly about the huge striker they had up front, Iyesden Christie (ex Mansfield, amongst others). It was he who opened the scoring, when the home keeper Price missed a high ball into the box and Christie couldn’t miss the tap-in.
Price redeemed himself though with a string of good saves from Thompson-Brown and Christie before half time.
In the 2nd half, the hosts improved but the visitors should’ve had the game put to bed only for a bad miss from prolific striker Ben Haseley where his effort from 6 yards was straight at Price with the whole goal to aim at.
A raft of changes disrupted any flow the game had and we got talking to another Halesowen supporter about various topics, but it was still somewhat against the run of play that the host grabbed a late equalizer. Matt Jukes nodded in at the near post from a left wing corner, though I’m not sure the Halesowen keeper was overly pleased how he dealt with it.
On that evidence, neither will tear up any trees at their new levels, though it is likely there will be worse teams to stop them getting into trouble.
Deciding against jogging back, we missed the 2158 train (in part due to the game kicking off 6 minutes late) and had to sit for 25 minutes on a platform which stunk of weed and looked had an uncomfortable atmosphere about it, being asked if we had lighters by the local creatures.
Dudley Port Station. View West towards Wolverhampton
Still, it’s ticked off, both the ground and the station.
Tividale: Price, Parsons, Foster, Smith, Paskin, Johnson, Pearlman, Yan, Archer, Ashton, Fields.
Halesowen: Sargeant, Green, Griffiths, Forde, Hull, Tilt, Bragoli, Turner, Christie, Thompson Brown, Till
Att: 131
Match Rating: 5/10
Ground: 5/10
Under The Floodlights 