Park View 0 v 4 London Lions

Saturday 26th October 2019
Spartan South Midlands League Division One
New River Stadium, Wood Green
Admission including programme: £5.00
Attendance: 20

I had booked a Megabus coach ticket to Leicester for today, but with heavy rain forecast overnight and throughout today, with a yellow weather warning at that, I decided to abandon those plans - a good call as it turned out, with all three games I could have visited, at St Andrews, Oadby Town, and Saffron Dynamo, indeed postponed. Whilst the weather was not forecast to be as grim in the south-east, rain was still forecast to fall on sodden ground, so I decided early on to take the safe option and head for this match to be played on a 3G pitch, but also in the knowledge that the ground had a large stand to take shelter in from the forecast persistent rain.

The New River Stadium is about a 15 minute walk from Wood Green tube station, and is little more than a stone's throw away from Haringey Borough's home ground Coles Park, where I watched a couple of games in the 2018 ConIFA World Football Cup. The stadium is part of a large community sports complex, and amongst the various other sports clubs that play their home fixtures on the stadium pitch is London Skolars, who play in Rugby League's third tier. The wide array of sports that are played on the pitch does create a bit of an issue, with lots of different lines present, albeit in different colours for each sport. Access to the ground is via the main entrance to the sports centre, through a turnstile next to reception, and then up flights of stairs to reach the top of a large all-seater grandstand. Although the seats are far from comfortable, views are excellent and unobstructed, with the good elevation (and leg room) compensating to a large extent the distance spectators are from the pitch, thanks to a running track. Along the opposite length there is an uncovered terrace consisting of ten steps, which extend (with fewer steps) around the end closest to the low building which houses the changing rooms, whilst there is just a slightly overgrown path around the remaining end. Colourful trees give a surprisingly pleasant backdrop to the ground, and to a large extent it is hidden away from the surrounding urban landscape. A club official walks around the stand shortly before kick-off to take the admission fee from the sadly very sparse crowd in exchange for a 16 page programme, which introduced both clubs and had some basic reading material, but it did lack a league table and fixtures/results.

After a solid first season in senior football last season, finishing in 13th place in the 20 team division - and I watched them win a very entertaining game 3-4 at Rayners Lane towards the end of last season - Park View have had a disappointing start to this season, coming into this game rock bottom in the table, following just one win and three draws from their opening ten league games. A quirk of the fixture scheduling meant that today's fixture actually offered Park View with the opportunity of completing a double over today's visitors, with their only win coming at London Lions a month ago, with the game ending 0-1. After two sixth placed finishes since their return to senior football, London Lions came into this game in 12th place, following four wins and a draw from their opening 12 league games.

With the rain falling with varying intensity throughout the game, Park View had the first good chance of the match, on 5 minutes, when a ball over the top sent the striker clear and as his eventual shot hit the keeper and went wide. On 18 minutes, the visitors had their first clear chance, when a cross shot was parried over the bar by the keeper, but from the resultant corner, they took the lead. The ball was floated in from the corner, and the keeper claimed it but then let it squirm out of his grasp, and the ball was hooked home. On 38 minutes, a London Lions shot was deflected over the bar, and from the resultant corner, there was an almighty scramble on the line but the ball couldn't quite be poked home. But the visitors did double their lead on 42 minutes, when the ball was headed home from a corner, brushing a couple of players on its way through.

So a fairly comfortable half time lead for the visitors, and there wasn't much threat of a goal either way for the first half an hour of the second half, until London Lions sealed the three points on 77 minutes. There was a large slice of fortune though, an innocuous looking curling shot should have been routinely caught by the keeper, but the ball went through his hands and into the net. The visitors then had a couple of really good chances that they should of converted, but they did finally score their fourth on 90 minutes. A long distance floating strike was just saved by the short keeper's fingertips at full stretch above him, but the ball fell to a London Lions player, and he struck the ball low across the keeper and into the net, to seal a comfortable win for the visitors.