Eastern Counties League Division One North
Weybourne Road, Sheringham
Admission: £6.00
Programme £2.00
Attendance: 90
It is always a pleasure for me to head to East Anglia, and Sheringham has been on my radar ever since they were promoted into senior football in 2019, being something of a geographical outpost, at a nice seaside location. Fares on the Greater Anglia network are usually exorbitant unless bought well in advance, so when Greater Anglia announced a sale, offering tickets from London Liverpool Street to virtually any destination on their network for a fiver each way, less than half the price of even their usual cheapest Advance fares at £24 to Sheringham, I soon started booking various trips to Norfolk, starting with this one today.
Weybourne Road is about a 15 minute, less than a mile walk from Sheringham station, although I took a rather more indirect route, along the charming high street, picking up a delicious crab sandwich en route before walking along the seafront, to the side of a golf course and to the ground, tucked behind a sports centre, which is currently in the final stages of redevelopment. A short lane takes visitors along the side of the sports centre, into a small car park, with the football ground to the left and the brick clubhouse building to the right, which contains a reasonably sized bar area and a tea bar hatch on the first floor. The clubhouse also serves the town's cricket club, whose field is located behind the pavilion building. Access to the football ground is gained up a flight of steps, paying the admission fee at a hatch in a black wooden hut in one corner of the ground. There is hard standing behind the end closest to the entrance and along the far length, where a fairly large and sturdy stand occupies the area around the half way line, with a row of seating along the front, and two deep steps to stand on behind. The remaining two sides do not have hard standing and are not intended to be accessed by spectators, apart from the area between the entrance and the dug outs. The ground has quite a nice setting, with a grass bank lining the end behind one goal and housing just behind, and the pleasantly designed sports centre, steep headland and a glimpse of the sea can all be viewed behind the other end. A very good 28 page programme is produced by the club, printed on good quality paper and in full colour, it contains plenty of interesting articles to read, and even a page welcoming groundhoppers, which was a nice touch indeed.
This promised to be a decent game between two clubs who have made great starts to their campaign. Sheringham came into this game in fourth place, following seven wins and a draw from their opening ten league games, with games in hand on the three clubs above them. After a one season stay in the Eastern Counties League Division One North in season 2018/19, in which they finished second but were demoted due to ground grading issues, Harleston spent the two Covid related unfinished seasons in the Anglian Combination League Premier Division, before being elevated back to step 6 football for this season. And very well they are doing too, topping the table by eight points following ten wins and a draw from their opening 12 league games, and beating the then second placed Whittlesey Athletic 4-0 at home.
On an overcast and slightly chilly afternoon, this was certainly a lively, competitive and entertaining game, played at a high tempo, and with some strong tackles flying in, tempers did threaten to boil over on a couple of occasions. Sheringham scored what turned out to be the winning goal as early as the seventh minute when the ball was played to the edge of the penalty area, and was laid off for Ben Boyce to drill the ball home low inside the left hand post. Sheringham had slightly the better of the first half, but on 31 minutes, the visitors saw a powerful close range shot superbly parried by the Sheringham keeper up onto the crossbar and away. Sheringham retained their narrow lead at the break, but with a feeling that this game could still very much go either way.
Into the second half and the visitors had a couple of great chances to get back on level terms in quick succession, on 56 minutes, when Sheringham were again indebted to their goalkeeper for preserving their lead. First he just managed to just get his fingertips to divert a low cross shot just beyond the far post, before parrying a fierce shot shortly afterwards. Within a minute of that, Sheringham came close to extending their lead, when a header following a corner dropped on top of the crossbar. Both teams continued to look a threat, but as the game wore on, Sheringham's players seemed to become content with what they had, employing plenty of time wasting tactics to kill the game and see it out. They succeeded, quite comfortably in the end, earning a hard earned three points, which they just about deserved on the balance of play despite their keeper having to make a couple of outstanding saves to preserve their early lead. The win lifted them to second in the table, six points behind Harleston but with two games in hand, and it looks like there should be a good tussle between the two clubs towards the top of the table over the coming months.
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