Steve B the Groundhopper

1pm 20 July  2025 Burnley Summer League Dewhurst 1 Pendle United 5 (att 10) Back when it was just plain Prairie Playing Fields I saw games on various grass pitches, including several in an earlier incarnation of a Burnley Summer League. One of those grass pitches is now broadly covered by one of two 3Gs, and the whole site has had an impressive makeover to become Prairie Sports Village. Reliable fixtures for the current Burnley Summer League aren't easy to find, but as the information I had suggested that both pitches would be in use I thought it'd be a good chance to 'tick' the other 3G. It's probably the lesser of the two as, unlike the other one, there's no barriered spectator area and no dugouts. But on a day of torrential rain showers the artificial surface at least meant no problems getting the game completed. Both these sides play in the Burnley and District Sunday League over the winter, and both use Prairie as their home ground. Although keeping up to d...

12 noon 8 June  2025 Burnley Summer League at Nelson and Colne College Dewhurst 6 Peel Park 1 (att 11) The Burnley Summer League, or at least this version of it, is a new addition to the off season this year.  It provides competitive football for 10 teams in a league format that will also determine the qualifiers for cup competitions later in the summer. A previous Burnley Summer League was a short-lived and ultimately doomed attempt to keep the town's Saturday league going, by switching to a summer season, more than a decade ago. This incarnation features predominantly, and possibly entirely, local Sunday league sides. Both Dewhurst and Peel Park were in the 2024/25 Burnley and District Sunday League, although the latter played as AFC Accrington, before recently coming under banner of Peel Park. As both sides had spent the season in the same division, finishing just three points apart, I expected a close game, but it turned out to be a stroll for Dewhurst. They scored three g...