Spartan South Midlands League Division One
Ampthill Park, Ampthill
Admission: £5.00
Programme: None
Attendance: 103
For my destination in search of a new ground today, the trains favoured shortlisting one of three grounds in the Spartan South Midlands League Division One, all within Bedfordshire, with a choice from Shefford Town & Campton, Stotfold's new ground, or Ampthill Town. All would require a fairly lengthy walk from the closest train station, not a bad thing but making them better to visit during British Summer Time. Ultimately, a trip to Ampthill Park won the day, as it looked the most interesting of the grounds, and the game promised plenty of attacking football.
Ampthill Park is about a 40 minute, two and a quarter mile walk northwards from Flitwick train station, with the last section through a nature reserve, and finally passing alongside the grounds of Ampthill Rugby Club, who play in the second tier of the rugby pyramid, before crossing the road to find the football ground. Entrance to the ground is gained through a wooden turnstile hut, and Covid precautions were the most extensive I have encountered so far, with plenty of hand sanitizer gel dispensers and NHS track and trace QR codes to scan available, and for the first time for me in 21 games this season, my temperature was taken. Once inside, there is much to really like about the place, starting with its setting, naturally enclosed by tall trees around all four sides, and a glimpse of the surrounding Ampthill Great Park is visible, including the Katherine's Cross monument standing proud in the distance. There is only hard standing around three sides of the ground, but quite a long stand straddles the half way line along the remaining length, smartly painted in club colours of yellow and blue, and offering an elevated view of the action as it set above pitch level. Inside, there are four wooden bench tops, and plastic seats, to sit on, whilst about a third of the area is for standing. A fairly new clubhouse, constructed in 2017, is located behind the entrance end close to the corner flag, and is smart and easy on the eye with a pleasant design, with a dark wood fascia and dark tiled roof, and French windows along the front of the bar area, which was inaccessible today due to Covid restrictions, but refreshments including alcohol were available from a hatch to one side. Unfortunately, the club no longer produces any kind of programme, but probably the last they did produce, against New Salamis last season for a game that never took place due to the start of the Covid lockdown, can be found here .
Both clubs have had good starts to their embryonic seasons, with seemingly plenty of goals in them. Ampthill won 3-5 at Milton Keynes Irish in their only league fixture so far, before dispatching Dunstable Town 4-1 at home. Today would be New Salamis' fixture away from home, having beaten won their opening league fixture against Shefford Town & Campton 5-1, and enjoying a great run in their debut season in the FA Cup, beating Colney Heath 1-0, West Essex 5-1, before narrow losing to Brentwood Town (two steps higher in the pyramid) 1-2. New Salamis were one of the clubs with the most reason to have felt particularly aggrieved at the decision to null and void last season as they were looking good for promotion in their first season in senior football, top of the table and 11 points inside the top four promotion spots, and they had averages over four goals a game, impressively notching up 117 goals in 29 games. Ampthill were in a comfortable 11th place.
Well the weather was certainly something of a shock to the senses this afternoon, some ten degrees less than last weekend, and a far cry from the warm and sunny conditions I enjoyed on Sunday, as today the thermometer barely reached double figures. This turned out to be a very lively game, full of energy but with a cutting edge surprisingly lacking from both sides. New Salamis had the better of the opening quarter, with Ampthill coming back into it as the half wore on, and both sides had good efforts to open the scoring, but it remained goalless at the break.
Into the second half and Ampthill were the better team now, doing most of the attacking and if anyone was going to score, it felt likely to be them. But it was the visitors who finally broke the deadlock on 77 minutes when a long ball forward from the back was misjudged by an Ampthill defender, allowing Charles Georgiou to run through on goal before lifting the ball past the keeper and into the net with a cool finish. But within two minutes, Ampthill were awarded a penalty for a shove towards the edge of the area, and Jamie Cerminara struck the ball low into the right side of the goal, sending the keeper the wrong way. Both teams pushed hard for a winner, neither happy to settle for a point, but in the end the points were indeed shared.
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