Wednesday 29 June 2016

Invaluable Help in Catching a Match

Finding fixtures to tweet about for Affordable Football is made a lot easier by the following sites, all of which will keep you up-to-date with pre-season (and plenty of other) matches in various parts of the country.

For those games involving Non-League clubs in England there is a comprehensive pre-season friendly list at the Pitchero site which also contains news and views from all levels of the game outside of the Football League (which I may grudgingly start calling the 'EFL' at some point but not yet).

The London Football Guide is getting into gear for the new season and will be providing their weekly list of matches in the capital that catch the eye, at all levels from Arsenal to Wealdstone and beyond.

Out into the garden of England and Kentish Football provides news and views from the county as well as a full fixture guide.

And, Scottish Football Fixtures does exactly what it says on the tin with daily listings of games to get to north of the border.

Sunday 26 June 2016

Beer & Football in Leek and Lowestoft

Two weekends of pre-season friendlies that have beer festivals attached…or vice versa depending on your preference.

Leek Town host a Beer Festival at Harrison Park on Friday 22, Saturday 23 and Sunday 24 July with beers provided by the Lymestone Brewery.

On the Saturday, the Blues will take on a Stoke City XI at 2pm with admission priced at £5 Adults, £3 Concessions and free for Under-11's .There will be music and entertainment afterwards.

The following day it is the Chris McMullen Memorial Trophy match against Leek CSOB, kick-off at 2pm again and with admission priced at £3 Adults and Concessions and free for Under-11's.

I’ve covered this fixture before on Affordable Football and it marks the contribution that Chris McMullen made to both clubs.

The 2016 Lowestoft Town Beer Festival takes place at Crown Meadow over the weekend of 15/16 and 17 July, supported by the Green Jack Brewery and with plenty of music and entertainment across the three days.

Included as part of the festival, the Trawlerboys will play a friendly against Wroxham on Saturday 16 July at 3pm while LTFC Ladies will take on West Ham United the following day at 1pm.

Thursday 23 June 2016

Ten Clubs Where It’s £5 or Less in Pre-Season

This article is a pulling together of various tweets and notes from the past month or so and hopefully gives a flavour of the pre-season games that are to come over July and early August.

Except in a couple of cases I haven’t specified the dates of the matches but there are links to all of the home clubs so please have a look at those and also check for changes to dates/kick-off times as these can happen at short notice in pre-season.

I’ll start at home, or in my home town to be more precise. I spent many happy times at Butlin Road as a youngster watching Jimmy Knox’s excellent VS Rugby side when the Sky Blues were either away or not playing.

The club, now known as Rugby Town FC (although still ‘the Valley’ to supporters), will host a Coventry City XI, Kettering Town and Grantham Town in pre-season with admission prices set at £5 Adults and £3 Concessions.

Hendon FC
have home friendlies scheduled against Hemel Hempstead Town, Potters Bar Town, Margate and Dagenham & Redbridge for which admission prices have been set at £5 Adults and £1 for Under-18’s.

It is ‘Pay What You Want’ admission for the visit of a QPR XI on 18 July while admission prices for the four-team tournament, also involving Carshalton Athletic, Farnborough and Slough Town, over the weekend of 23/24 July are just £5 per day for Adults and £1 for Under-18’s which cover both games played on that day.

The Dolly Blues are busy at Giant Axe over the summer. Confused? That means that Lancaster City have four friendlies scheduled at their home ground, against a Morecambe Development XI, Working FC, a Preston North End XI and Northwich Victoria with admission half-price for all those games at £4 Adults and £2 Concessions.

It is £5 Adults, £3 Concessions and free for Under-16’s at Ramsgate FC in pre-season with four matches arranged.

Ashford, Folkestone Invicta, Canterbury City and Margate in the Thanet derby provide the opposition at the Southwood Stadium.

Staying in Kent and Hythe Town FC will take on Canterbury City, AFC Hornchurch and Folkestone Invicta with the club looking to arrange another home friendly on Tuesday 2 August.

The Folkestone match on Saturday 6 August will also be a testimonial for defender John Walker as he marks 10 years with the Cannons and admission to pre-season matches is priced at £5 Adults, £3 Concessions and £1 Under-18’s.

The Yeltz of Halesowen Town FC take on Kidderminster Harriers, Redditch United and Gresley FC at The Grove in their final three warm-up matches for the new campaign.

Pre-season admission has been reduced to £5 Adults, £3 Concessions, £1 Under-16’s and free for Under-12’s.

Ashton United and both Morecambe and AFC Fylde XI’s will travel to Clitheroe FC over the summer for matches which have been priced at £5 Adults and £3 Concessions.

Grays Athletic FC are aiming to increase supporter involvement in their club and will be releasing details on Wednesday 29 June of their community share offer.

Adults and Concessions can watch pre-season matches against AFC Hornchurch, VCD Athletic, Tilbury FC and Ramsgate for £5 while it is £1 for Under-16’s.

AFC Rushden & Diamonds host Peterborough United, Wellingborough Town and Didcot Town, the last game being played for the Dale Roberts Memorial Cup.

Entrance prices are £5 Adults and £3 Concessions.

And finally…There are seven home matches scheduled for St Neots Town this summer starting with Whittlesey Athletic and ending with Soham Town Rangers.

Cambridge United, Chelmsford City, Haverhill Rovers, Aveley and Stevenage FC also visit. The news page on the club website states all admission will be £5 and free for Under-16’s when accompanied although the home page does mention free entry to the first and last games.


Please do tweet with details of what your club is doing for pre-season.

Tuesday 21 June 2016

West Auckland Town FC

Founded as West Auckland FC in 1893, ‘West’ have a greater claim to fame than most clubs having won the Sir Thomas Lipton Trophy in both 1909 and 1911 to become unofficial World champions.

The competition was one of the first international tournaments to be held and while there is some doubt as to why West Auckland were invited there is none at all about their triumphs.

Taking part came at a financial cost and the club were reformed in their current guise in 1912. 

Recent seasons have brought two trips to Wembley for the FA Vase finals of 2012 and 2014.

I’ve not managed to see as much football as I would have liked in the North East but West Auckland, like many clubs in the area, feel familiar to me from Harry Pearson’s brilliant ‘The Far Corner’ in which he documents his travels around the region’s grounds in the 1993/94 season.

Season tickets, if purchased before 1 July, are priced at just £60 Adults and £40 Concessions and these include entry to all pre-season friendlies.

Plenty of these are scheduled, starting with the visit of Willington (who also feature in Harry Pearson's book) on Friday 8th July, Easington Colliery on Saturday 9th and Darlington RA on Tuesday 12th.

Individual pre-season admission is priced at £3 and £1.50

Sunday 19 June 2016

Europa League Draw on Monday

The eyes of Welsh football supporters will mostly be on Toulouse tomorrow (Monday 20 June) as Chris Coleman's national team aim to secure a place in the knockout stages of Euro 2016 with a positive result against Russia.

But for Gap Connah's Quay Nomads, Bala Town FC and Llandudno FC there is also the small matter of the draw for the First Qualifying Round of the Europa League which takes place in Nyon, Switzerland.

The Nomads in particular have featured on these pages regularly since I started writing the blog, offering free admission for example to the play-off game against Airbus UK that secured their place in European competition for the 2016/17.

I'll post details of the admission prices for the various home matches on Twitter as soon as they are available. First qualifying round games take place on 30 June and 7 July.

Other British representatives at this stage are Cliftonville, Glenavon, Aberdeen and Hearts while The New Saints carry the flag for Wales in the Champions League.

Friday 17 June 2016

Hayes & Yeading United

Having looked recently at Hendon FC and their imminent return to a stadium of their own, Hayes & Yeading United are also gearing up to go home after five seasons of ground-sharing, most recently at the York Road home of Maidenhead United. 

The current club was formed in 2007 from a merger of Hayes FC and Yeading FC, incorporating a long history from both and initially playing at the Church Road ground of Hayes. 

With a realisation that the long years of ground-sharing have taken their toll on those supporters who have continued to follow the club and also that local community involvement is vital, prices for the 2016/17 season have been reduced with season tickets priced at £99 Adults, £49 Concessions and with one free Under-16 season ticket available per Adult or Concession ticket brought.  

Matchday admission has also been reduced to £10/£6 and £3. 

Safety certificates and ground grading requirements still need to be confirmed before league matches can be played at the SkyEx Community Stadium but an opening friendly has been pencilled in against Hendon for July 29.

Wednesday 15 June 2016

Back To The Action In Women's Super League

A mid-season break in Women’s Super League but a productive one for England who secured their qualification for Euro 2017 in some style thanks to a pair of 7-0 victories against Serbia.

Mark Sampson’s team have one more home qualification match to come, against on at a venue yet to be announced. Keep checking the FA website for details of this.


In WSL1, champions
Chelsea Ladies will be looking to ignite another title charge over the next few weeks and will certainly be looking to take maximum points from a trio of home fixtures in July against Birmingham City (Sunday 10th), Arsenal Ladies (Sunday 17th) and Doncaster Rovers Belles (Sunday 24th).

A special ticket offer for these three matches is available, costing £10 Adults and £6 Juniors/Seniors.


Durham Women FC get back into competitive action on Sunday 26 June when Yeovil Town Ladies make the long trip up to New Ferens Park.

To provide a football fix to anyone in the North-East who can’t wait for pre-season to begin, Durham are offering admission to the game for just £2 to anyone who can show a match programme or season ticket from any of the region’s Non-League clubs.


As well as the resumption of league action, the Continental Cup also gets back underway and there is an excellent opportunity to catch two matches on the same day on 2nd July.


London Bees host Chelsea Ladies at the Bees home stadium, The Hive, kick-off 2pm before the same venue sees Reading Women take on Arsenal Ladies at 5pm. A combined admission ticket to both games is available for just £4 Adults, £2 Concessions and £1 for Under-14's. 




Saturday 11 June 2016

Free Football At Aylesbury FC & Other Pre-Season Tournaments

Aylesbury FC of the Evo-Stik Southern League host the Jartazi Cup tournament on Saturday 23 July with free admission to Haywood Way for all spectators.
Egham Town, Harrow Borough and Greenwich Borough will also compete with all four clubs set to wear Jartazi kit in the forthcoming season.
Four 60-minute matches are planned with the action kicking off at 12pm.

Other tournaments scheduled for the summer include the Jimmy Hill & Geoff Harvey Memorial Trophy at Corinthian Casuals.

Casuals will be joined by Hampton & Richmond Borough, Hayes & Yeading and Tonbridge Angels to play two ‘semi-finals’ on Saturday 9 July at 11am and 3pm with the losers of the games meeting at 11am on Sunday 10 July and the winners battling for silverware at 3pm.

Admission is £8 per day or £12 for the weekend – working out at just £3 per match. Seniors are half price and under-16s are free with an accompanying adult.
Gretna FC host the Raydale Cup over the same weekend, 9/10 July with the hosts, Ayr United, Queen of the South and South Shields FC taking part.

Two semi-finals take place on the Saturday with 3/4th place game and the final on Sunday. A weekend ticket for the action costs £12.

Newcastle United, Leeds United and PSV Eindhoven will send teams to the Steel Park Cup at Corby Town which this year takes place on 23/24 July with all of the clubs playing two matches each over the course of the weekend.

A discounted ticket for all of the games is available for £25.

Friday 10 June 2016

Lowestoft Town FC, Northwood FC

Lowestoft Town will kick-off the new season in the Premier Division of the Ryman League after relegation from the National League North in heartbreaking fashion on the final day of the 2015/16 campaign.
The Trawlerboys location will always mean a degree of travelling but it was a really tough roll of the dice that placed them in the northern division of Non-League's second tier when they were promoted in 2014.
That meant a steady stream of lengthy away trips and a consequent struggle to attract players given the work/football balance that always has to be taken into account at that level of the game.
A Suffolk Senior Cup triumph at least ended the season on a positive note and, as always, pre-season marks a new beginning for the club.
Home friendlies against Waveney on Tuesday 5 July at 7:15pm and against Wroxham on Saturday 16 July at 3pm will have free admission to all spectators.
The Wroxham match takes place at the same time as the LTFC Beer Festival and on the Sunday, the club's Ladies team will take on West Ham United in a friendly at 1pm with free entry as well.
Having finished in the top ten of the Evo-Stik Southern League Central Division in each of the last three seasons, Northwood FC are aiming for a play-off place in 2016/17.

The Woods, in existence in their current guise since 1926, are offering season tickets for the whole of their league campaign at just £30 per person thanks to support from local business Oscar and Hunt Residential.

£30 is the cost for all categories, Adults, Concessions and Juniors and the season ticket also includes social membership to the newly-refurbished clubhouse and any league games played by the club's reserve and youth teams at Chestnut Avenue.

Tuesday 7 June 2016

Hendon FC

An exciting summer ahead for the Ryman Premier League club as, after eight years of groundsharing including the past three seasons at Harrow Borough, their new Silver Jubilee Park ground opens for business and Hendon FC finally return to a home of their own.

There is plenty to keep an eye out for during both pre-season and the campaign proper as the Greens continue to be innovative on the affordable football front (last season offering 'virtual admission' to a Pay What You Want game for those who couldn't make it).

A Queens Park Rangers XI will visit SJP on Monday 18 July at 7:30pm and admission will be on a 'Pay What You Want' basis with the club set to announce a similar offer once the league fixtures for 2016/17 have been finalised.

League admission prices have been held at £10 Adults, £5 Seniors and Students and £1 entry now extended to Under-18's.

A student season ticket is available for £25 and season ticket holders of Premier League and Football League clubs will pay just £5 for league matches, the same price applying for members of the Armed Forces, Emergency Services and NHS employees on production of the relevant ID.

Saturday 4 June 2016

A First Look At Pre-Season Friendles

An additional name has been added to Corinthian Casuals annual pre-season tournament as the club’s former president Jimmy Hill is remembered along with former chairman Geoff Harvey.

Hill, who died in December 2015, was president of the Casuals from 1997 onwards and expressed his pride at holding the position at a club where the official website states ‘The aims…are to promote fair play and sportsmanship, to play competitive football at the highest level possible whilst remaining strictly amateur and retaining the ideals of the Corinthian and the Casuals Football Clubs.’

For the seventh year of the Memorial Tournament, Casuals will be joined by Hampton & Richmond Borough, Hayes & Yeading and Tonbridge Angels to play two ‘semi-finals’ on Saturday 9 July at 11am and 3pm with the losers of the games meeting at 11am on Sunday 10 July and the winners battling for silverware at 3pm.

Admission is £8 per day or £12 for the weekend – working out at just £3 per match. Seniors are half price and under-16s are free with an accompanying adult.

There will also be a tournament at Clapton FC to commemorate Walter Tull, Britain's first black professional outfield player, with 60-minutes matches between the hosts, Hackney Wick FC and AC London. This takes place on Saturday 9 July from 12:30pm with admission to the Old Spotted Dog priced at £4 Adults and £2 Concessions.

Clubs offering a ticket package to their pre-season home matches include King's Lynn Town where three games, starting with the visit of Spalding United on Tuesday 12 July, will cost £18 Adults (usually £8 per match), £14 OAP and Student (£6 usually) and £7 Under-19's (£3 usually). Under-11's go free.

Macclesfield Town entertain Wigan Athletic, Rochdale and Stockport County at the Moss Rose and a pre-season season ticket costs £20 Adults and £10 Concessions with single admission prices £10, £5 and free for Under-18's.

And admission to home friendlies at both Hythe Town and Halesowen Town will cost £5 Adults and £3 Concessions (£1 for Under-18's at Hythe, £1 Under-16's and free for Under-12's at the Yeltz).

Wednesday 1 June 2016

Great Yarmouth Town FC

Great Yarmouth Town FC

Great Yarmouth Town FC


My yearly trip to Great Yarmouth is normally just to late to catch the Bloaters in action but a walk to the Wellesley Recreation Ground is always in order to catch a glimse of the fine old Grandstand that dominates the setting.

GYTFC featured on the pages of Affordable Football last season with 'Pay What You Want' and reduced admission for Norwich City season ticket holders and I'm sure they will again in 2016/17 after being promoted back to the Premier Division of the Thurlow Nunn Eastern Counties League.

Pre-season friendlies start on Saturday 16 July!