Athletic

My occasional tour of the sporting legacy of the South Yorkshire coalfield continued at South Elmsall, the home of Northern Premier League Division One South (NPLD1S) team Frickley Athletic, whose origins (1910) lie in the Frickley Colliery Athletic Club.

Frickley were hosting Hyde United, Of NPL Division One North, in a pre-season friendly. As a geographer, it would be remiss of me not to point out that the team in NLP1 South is in fact some way further north than the team in NLP1 North; the regional allocation of teams in the football pyramid is not renowned for its coherence.

Both teams have had better times. Frickley were in the top tier of non-league football for much of the 80s, but otherwise have spent the last 40 years in the Northern Premier League, with relegation to NPL1N last season. Hyde United were in the Conference Premier (now National League) as recently as 2013/14, but three successive relegations have brought them down to NLP1N where they survived last season.

A three figure crowd saw Frickley eke out a narrow 1-0 win. For a friendly it was a decidedly ill-tempered affair, much like the wedding reception fisticuffs that I'd had to tiptoe around on my walk up from the station.

Today's image is from near the end of the match as I edged off to catch the last train back. From the foot of the main stand we're looking out as Frickley (blue) defend an attack from Hyde (red). Frickley Country Park, on the former colliery (closed 1993) site, provides a gentle backdrop to the action.