2.30pm 7 April 2018
Essex Olympian League, Division One
FC Hamlets 0 Hutton 1 (att 11)
I was in London for the weekend and on a tube train heading for Frenford FC when a Twitter message alerted me that visitors Newham United were unable to field a side for their Essex Olympian League Cup semi-final.
I got off at the next station, Leytonstone, and rapidly worked out a plan B. Hackney Marshes was near enough, and on a bus route from Leytonstone, and so I headed there hopeful that neither FC Hamlets nor Hutton had suffered the same player apathy as Newham.
There were barely five minutes until kick off when I arrived, and so I was relieved to find the referee on the pitch waiting for the teams to emerge to start the game.
FC Hamlets use 'show pitch two' at Hackney Marshes, which is immediately adjacent to 'show pitch one', which was staging a Sporting Hackney home game, and which I visited in 2012.
You might expect the 'show pitches' at Hackney Marshes to be something special, but in fact they're merely taped off on match days. They are closest to the pavilion building though, and the grass looked better maintained than elsewhere in the huge complex.
A few other matches were being played on pitches in the distance, although the biggest crowd-pullers were rugby matches being played close to the Hamlets and Sporting Hackney games.
I counted just 11 of us paying close attention to the FC Hamlets match, and a taped off pitch next door to another I pitch I've been to previously didn't make for an exciting groundhop. The game wasn't great either, Hutton's fourth-minute goal enough to win a scrappy game.
Still, while it might not have been my most memorable Saturday afternoon of the football season, it was a lot better than getting all the way to Frenford and then finding out there was no game to watch.
Essex Olympian League, Division One
FC Hamlets 0 Hutton 1 (att 11)
I was in London for the weekend and on a tube train heading for Frenford FC when a Twitter message alerted me that visitors Newham United were unable to field a side for their Essex Olympian League Cup semi-final.
I got off at the next station, Leytonstone, and rapidly worked out a plan B. Hackney Marshes was near enough, and on a bus route from Leytonstone, and so I headed there hopeful that neither FC Hamlets nor Hutton had suffered the same player apathy as Newham.
There were barely five minutes until kick off when I arrived, and so I was relieved to find the referee on the pitch waiting for the teams to emerge to start the game.
FC Hamlets use 'show pitch two' at Hackney Marshes, which is immediately adjacent to 'show pitch one', which was staging a Sporting Hackney home game, and which I visited in 2012.
You might expect the 'show pitches' at Hackney Marshes to be something special, but in fact they're merely taped off on match days. They are closest to the pavilion building though, and the grass looked better maintained than elsewhere in the huge complex.
A few other matches were being played on pitches in the distance, although the biggest crowd-pullers were rugby matches being played close to the Hamlets and Sporting Hackney games.
I counted just 11 of us paying close attention to the FC Hamlets match, and a taped off pitch next door to another I pitch I've been to previously didn't make for an exciting groundhop. The game wasn't great either, Hutton's fourth-minute goal enough to win a scrappy game.
Still, while it might not have been my most memorable Saturday afternoon of the football season, it was a lot better than getting all the way to Frenford and then finding out there was no game to watch.
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