Sandygate Road, the World’s Oldest football ground home to Hallam FC, the World’s 2nd Oldest football club who had been playing there since 1860. 11th October 2014 and it was the visit of Shirebrook Town to Sandygate. Having lived in Sheffield for a year at this point for University, I found it hard to make time to watch Shirebrook but this was a fixture that I highlighted at the start of the season as one that I would be attending and attend I did. This would be one of my last times watching Shirebrook Town.
Located near Crosspool, Sheffield, it was just a simple bus journey away. This would be my second visit to this ground with the first one being with Shirebrook in an FA Vase tie the season before with Shirebrook winning 2-1. Hallam had made the worst possible start to a season losing every single match and being rooted to the bottom with a massive 0 points!! Shirebrook had won 6 out of their last 7 games, Who’s your money on? However, Hallam had recently appointed a new manager and brought in new players but that didn’t stop the Shirebrook faithful from believing it was to be their day.
£5 to get in to this one, why can’t all football matches be priced at that? The pitch is on a slope, not a fan of that particularly but I’m sure if Shirebrook were shooting downhill second half I wouldn’t mind it. The match kicked off. A fairly end to end start to the game with the home side posing more danger out of the 2. With 15 minutes on the clock, the extra danger posed by the home side was rewarded when Simon Mirfin gave the home side the lead. The lead was short lived as Shirebrook were awarded a penalty on 19 minutes. Kieran Watson stepped up and made no mistake, 1-1 now. After that, the game seemed to die down with no real clear cut chances and the game was deadlocked at 1-1 at half time.
The second half started as bad as the first half had ended with nothing to get any fans out of their seats. After 65 minutes, Shirebrook started to take control and ask more questions of the Hallam defence, but with no real conviction, the Hallam defence remained unshaken. Shirebrook dominance continued and as they created chance after chance, you could probably guess what was about to happen next. 83 minutes and a ball hit long into the Shirebrook half was flicked on towards Daniel Flynn who was through and he found the net… Oh Shirebrook. After all that pressure, it looked almost certain that Hallam would be about to pick up their first points of the season and this made me and the rest of the traveling Shirebrook fans less than happy.
It wasn’t all done and dusted for Hallam yet though, more pressure from Shirebrook followed and they won a corner in the 90th minute. The corner came in and was headed back to the corner taker who fired it in again towards Shirebrook’s Matthew Plant who won the header….. GOAL!! 2-2 and Shirebrook look like they have snatched a point after all. 5 minutes of stoppage time followed and more pressure from Shirebrook, they couldn’t could they?
Shirebrook won a corner in the 93rd minute… surely not! The corner was whipped in and was poorly dealt with by Hallam and the ball fell to Kieran Watson who got down and headed it across goal to Matthew Plant AGAIN…. IT’S THERE!!!!!! IT’S 2-3!!!! WOULD YOU BELIEVE IT!!!!! Shirebrook fans on the pitch and the goalkeeper running the length of the field to join in the celebrations! Scenes!!!!! You have to feel for Hallam being bottom after leading the match with a minute to play, but I didn’t care, I was buzzing! Hallam couldn’t find the equalizer after the match restarted and the game finished, but what a way to win a football match!! I’ll say it again, “This is why we love football!!!!”
FT: Hallam 2-3 Shirebrook Town
Ratings
- Atmosphere: 5/10 – Not much noise from either sets of fans but plenty of passion shown by both sets of supporters.
- The Ground: 4/10 – Not a particular fan of pitches being on hills and slopes but aside from that, a decent stand for this level and a great clubhouse with plenty of history.
- Expense: 10/10 – £5 to get in and automatic entry to the half time raffle, always good to have a chance of winning something and with 5 goals and unprecedented drama, for entertainment value that was incredible!
- Overall Experience: 10/10 – One of those games that don’t come around very often that leave you mentally drained going through the motions but nevertheless that is the life of a football fan and it is always good when you’re on the winning side of a match like that! One of my favourite ever games.
29/40