Our latest away day saw us take a trip to Nottinghamshire to visit our good friends at Carlton Town who were taking on North Ferriby in the Northern Premier East Division clash, with Carlton Town still having an outside chance of reaching the playoffs and North Ferriby sitting in a playoff place, this game had all the makings of an intriguing game.
When arriving at the Bill Stokeld Stadium, you are greeted with a nice sized car park, always a good start, you enter through the turnstiles which I must say look like museum pieces, proper old school, I loved them!
I found out later they were donated by Leicestershire County Cricket Club.
As you come through the turnstiles, you have a large clear tarmacked space to the left of the Chuck Fowler suite that houses the board room, changing rooms, Snack bar and Club shop.
To the right is the clubhouse, which is a nice size with 2 screens showing football and a well-stocked Bar.
The stadium itself consists of a covered area on the side of the Chuck Fowler suite, a small covered standing area at one end of the ground with a covered seated stand at the other end, there is a covered area overlooking the pitch with tables and chairs just in front of the clubhouse and the club's colours of yellow and blue are very prominent around the stadium, all in all, a nice tidy little stadium.
Carlton Town is a member-owned club, and the success of this club on and off the pitch comes down to the blood and sweat of its membership and volunteers, all credit goes to Mick Garton (Chairman) and his team for all the efforts and many cases, financial support that they give to this wonderful club.
The North Ferriby team bus arrived, also bringing with it approximately 30 away supporters; well done to them!
On arrival at the Bill Stokeld Stadium, the Ferriby Supporters did their best to make their presence felt. I counted a dozen flags around the ground, and yes, the obligatory drum made an appearance.
A good friend of Proper Football and an absolute Football legend, Ian-Storey-Moore had popped in after attending the Forest vs City game up the road at the City ground; I managed to catch up with Ian, touching on his role as ambassador for Carlton Town/Nottingham Forest and the late great Dennis Law of whom Ian had the pleasure of playing with.
It has become a regular theme on our journeys that we like to shine a spotlight on the community aspect of football clubs and Carlton Town is no exception, they have a youth academy system which also encompasses a scheme in which deprived children from inner-cities have the opportunity to join the club and have a potential route to the first team as well as being part of an educational program.
The main pitch at Carlton Town is grass; however, they have a 3G pitch at one end of the ground as well as a smaller pitch, which in the near future will become a 4G playing surface as it is currently grass.
Once again I found as I do on all my journeys the importance of clubs at the grassroots level as they are not just football clubs in many cases they are the hub of their local community, they provide both young and old, male and female the opportunity to play football or be involved in other ways, and for the young, it teaches them life skills, teamwork which gives them a sense of achievement and something to look forward to, it’s quite ironic that today the club attended an anti-knife crime rally and without the contribution of this and many other non-league clubs many more children would potentially be roaming the streets with nothing to do and we know too well unfortunately what that leads to, so my message to the FA and the government is that you underestimate the importance of these community clubs, they need more support and financial help for a sport awash with money much more could and should be done!
I had the opportunity to catch up with Gary Clarke, AKA Boatsy, who puts so much time and effort into this club, all credit to him! Very interestingly earlier in the morning Gary and others attended an anti-knife crime, and we also touched on his beloved Nottingham Forest who had just beaten Manchester City to give them a real chance of Champions League football next season.
With the game finishing Carlton Town 1 North Ferriby 0, the table now looks like this:
A big THANK YOU to both teams and we wish them both all the very best for the rest of the season.
A big apology to Andy (assistant Manager of Carlton Town) and Mick (Chairman of Carlton Town), who both gave me great Interviews, only for me to wipe the SD card and lose their interviews, as they say, "sacked in the morning, you're getting sacked in the morning!"
Part 2 Carlton Town v North Ferriby THE FANS VEIW
will be released Sunday 16/3/25
You can watch the highlights of the game below courtesy of Carlton Town TV.
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