The steward kept a beady eye on me, as I photographed the old ticket collection point. It was FA Cup 3rd Round weekend. In yesteryear, it was possibly one of the highlights of the football calendar. The modern game and the rise of the Premier League has seen the top clubs fielding weakened teams and treating with a degree of contempt. What was the steward doing there just after midday on this cold, bright winter Saturday? The ticket collection point was all locked up. The turnstiles remained closed. Inside the home team had scored after a few minutes of this early start. A rare goal of quality in this stop / start season, but there would be no crowd adulation today. A few club officials and members of the press would the only ones present to witness slim victory over their Welsh visitors.
We are back in lockdown again. The Tiers For Fears had been abandoned once more, in favour of stricter measures. There would be nowhere to go for the foreseeable. Stay at Home was the message, but exercise was permitted within limits. A nearby local Constabulary had an unusual interpretation on the powers, but so
far the tactics akin to stop and search techniques hadnt reached our locality. We followed the route of the Grantham - Nottingham Canal, that winds a path towards the River Trent from near the house. The canal was originally constructed to transport coal to the Grantham area and meanders 33 miles through the Vale of Belvoir. The return boats ferried agricultural produce in the opposite direction to feed the industrial city. The canal opened in 1797, had a brief heyday in the years up to 1841 and succumbed to the power of the railways. It finally shut in 1936, though boat traffic had ceased in 1929. It is now the subject of attempts to reopen it in a meaningful leisure way. The ice lay thick on some of the slow moving water. The overnight temperatures had dropped and had not climbed back above minus 3 degrees Celsius, as we walked. The moorhens busied themselves on the unfrozen water and a few early arrival swans were staking a claim to the best waterside nesting spots. The male Mallard ducks looked majestic, as they do at anytime of the year.
approached the Trent. We circumnavigate the old Boots sports facilities. Boots are predominantly associated with the Beeston area in the west of the city, but their second oldest store was on the approach to Trent Bridge. has now been sacrificed and is now known as the Nottinghamshire Sports Club or something similar. The main tenants are the 2nd Division club, Nottingham Rugby. They have added some temporary grandstands, but would require some serious development to increase the standard capable of hosting a higher level of rugby. We walk down to the River Trent, skirting the enclosed fields at the far end of the Sports Club. The signs on the fence give notice of the occupation of this area by Notts County Football Club. The financial woes of recent times had left them with a rather nomadic approach to training, but they have now set up home on the old pitches once used by their neighbours, Nottingham Forest. East Midlands rivals, Leicester City, have just unveiled a multimillion pound, multi acre state of the art - apparently essential to challenge for honours these days and impress your latest prospective overpaid transfer target. However let us not forget
it was on these rather scruffy looking training pitches, a man from Middlesbrough masterminded possibly the greatest feat ever in English football - notably winning the European Cup with a provincial team. This was at time of course, when you had to actually win something to get to play in the premier European For good measure, it was retained the following year in the Bernabeu in Madrid against a Keegan inspired Hamburg SV. As the Man in the Middle often quips, We went to Europe, We won the Cup Twice!
The riverfront was quite hectic with others out walking. The blue skies had tempted out the masses.
