One Two Magazine Edition 1 December 2015 One Two Magazine Edition 1 December 2015 | Page 22

Long Eaton United

Non League Day
visit to Long Eaton
United for the FA Vase
Blogger Peter Briers took
a break from doing the
92 league grounds to
visit his local club to
support Non League
Day.
With a break from Premiership and
Championship football coupled with the
new spread out format on international
fixtures to maximise TV revenues and
exposure the usual Saturday packed full of
Football was looking rather sparse. Step
forward Non League Day, set up in 2010 it
has grown to be an extremely popular
nationwide event that gives clubs at the
grassroots of English Football a real
platform. Seeing as my local team Long
Eaton United of the Midlands Football
League Premier were at home I decided to
make the short trip to Grange Park that i’d
been meaning to make for a few years.
I hadn’t been to game beneath the
Conference since my old man took me to
Wimborne Town in the mid-nineties. From
what i remember Long Eaton United’s
ground Grange Park is quite similar to that
of the Magpies. The ground has a tidy main
stand named the ‘Big Jim’ Stand, opposite
to which is a smaller older stand, housing
the ‘directors box’, the majority of the rest
of the perimeter is standing behind the rails.
The club house seems fairly new and from
the looks of things the Blues have a brand
spanking new turnstile.

half just before the break as striker
Craig Meakin broke through and got to
ball before home keeper Josh O’Brien
but poked the ball just wide.
The home side looked a different team
after the break and took the lead on
51. The Arnold Town right back almost
headed a cross into his own net –
however from the resulting corner
Blues centre half Adam Burton
powered a towering header in giving
the keeper no chance. Seven minutes
later the lead was doubled, half time
sub Cooper-Richards, sprung the offside
trap and raced through to dink over the
advancing keeper.
Arnold looked stunned and despite
pushing to get back into the game
could only muster a couple of half
chances as the home side looked to
close the tie out. As the clock ticked
into injury time tricky winger Blair Anderson
who had earlier headed narrowly over and
was playing as a lone front man got hold of
the ball and ran at the Arnold defence – his
pace was too much as he burst through the
middle, held off his man and cooly slotted
past the away keeper to put the icing on
the cake.
As per our reviews I thought i’d put Grange
Park through our usual the92.net rating
criteria:
Atmosphere 3/5: Bit of a difficult one to
judge due to the numbers, but there was
some good noise at the right times. An
attendance of 119 compared to the usual
65-75 is great for the club. I for one know
this won’t be my only trip to Grange Park.

The ‘Big Jim’ Stand
The ga YH]