Step On

---

I climbed into the stand and sat down in my red seat. It was deja vu. I had been here before, but I hadn't. East Durham had previously been bypassed. The seat I was sitting in came from the old Ayresome Park, enjoying a new lease of life 20 odd miles to the north. The previous evening I had also seen plenty of red seats. This is not an unusual experience at the Awesome Park these days. Season Cards or whatever they call them do not exactly fly off the shelves. I would have said "new" Awesome Park, but we are now 20 plus years down the track. However, this was not Mr Monk and his rebuilding job. It was Scotland U21s, who were in town to face the young prima donnas masquerading as Young Lions. Scotland surfaced in fetching pink, but were hindered by their star man having a serious dose of attitude. It took him 3 or 4 minutes to give up and start shrugging his shoulders at the incapacity of his teamates to provide a quality pass. All that is is wrong with the top level of football was summarised in a fit of petulance. A spell in Leipzig and a couple of large transfer fees had seemingly gone to the head. Fortune favours the brave. Scott Gemmill made a courageous decision and the tartan army made a whole better fist of the 2nd half, even though it ended ultimately in defeat.



I stared out in disbelief at the view in front of me. Horden Beach wasn't quite the golden sands vision. I walked towards the sea. A cliff of 3 to 4 feet stood between me, the sand and the water. The information board at the car park edge described a Turning the Tide project, but it seemed that nearly of century of mining would take some turning. The waste product was sill disguising the sand beneath. I retreated back towards town, passing the huge Horden Comrades Club. A series of taxis waited outside their HQ for the next customer. The grill gate was on the door of the dog grooming parlour on the corner of Third Street. I don't think I saw one dog - posh or otherwise - on the streets all afternoon, so they must have been otherwise occupied.



I parked up by Welfare Park. "Welfare Park 1929" was inscribed in the gates. Welfare Park stretches over quite a considerable area in the centre of town and when opened had cost the princely sum of £21,800 to lay out. A small fortune in the day. A series of benches each diplay a plaque with information, helping the visitor piece together the history of the town. It was very effective. There was nobody sat on any of the sequence to hinder my reading. A small coal wagon lies near the entrance as testimony to the mining heritage. However, the centrepiece is "Marra" - a statue of a miner - unveiled in 2015 to focus on the now lost heritage of the town. It reminded me of giant "Tommy" on Seaham seafront on a much smaller scale. The beach earlier had similarly reminded me of Seaham. I drew my information from the aforementioned benches. Mining started in Horden in 1900 and by 1928 the park was being finished. The mine employed 4,500 at that time and the next bench informed me, it was one of the highest producers of coal in Europe. The town population peaked at 15,000. The next bench pointed out that there were 3 cinemas in town in 1964 - the Ritz, the Empress and the Picture House - all are long gone. In the 1970s, the National Coal Board saw the pit as a "super pit" and a jewel in the crown. The industrial disputes of the 1980s changed all that and in a few years, the lifeblood of the population was gone. The Iron Lady can could add the East Durham coalfield among her victims. I wandered back into town. The streets near the park have numbers. First Street through to Twelfth. There is some complete nonsense on the internet from well respected newspapers, which suggested I was running a risk treading these pavements and the pieces probably fell somewhere in the middle between gross exageration and fantasy. Yes things were a bit run down, but it was hardly unique. I walked past the imposing Parish church of St Mary and into the War Memorial Park.It has to be said Horden does a park well. It was neatly maintained on a par with Welfare Park. A flowerbed trained the eye towards a whitewashed clock, honouring the dead of the World Wars I moved on towards the town centre.



A sign on the side of the first shop proclaimed Now Open. It wasn't. The offer of services on the other side was therefore somewhat irrelevant. The large central building looked like it was the former Co-op. The cake shop was doing brisk business. Similarly, a motor cycle showroom was bustling with activity. A queue of customers waited in the Turkish barbers. The Independent Methodist Church was locked up. It was approaching kick off, so it was time to get back to the purpose of the day. I circumnavigated Welfare Park again. The far end is the rugby club or not as the case maybe. A local filled me in on developments. Despite the pristine surroundings, the rugby club have now been tempted to go up the road to the garden of Eden Lane in Peterlee in search of a "development" plan and a longer lease. The fairly impressive looking floodlights remain - seemingly unused. The cricket sits between rugby and the football club at the far end. After my encounter with a local keen to enlighten me on the sporting history, my next conversation wasn't quite so friendly and taking photos of the looming stand of the distant football club seemed to be viewed with unnecessary suspicion.



The focus of my afternoon was Horden Community Welfare Football Club. A club revived. I read that Horden Colliery Welfare Football Club ceased to exist in a dispute with the Parish Council over unpaid rent and utility bills. A sign on the edge of the former Colliery Welfare Club ironically still states No Ball Games By Order of HPC. The football club morphed into Darlington 1883 Reserves, so they could nab the place in the Wearside League and left town. The shutters were still down on the adjacent supporters club, but the football is back with a slight name change and the team established in the Durham Alliance Combination League. The days of the Northern League and Wearside League are temporarily behind them. The club which launched Colin Bell is back. How much would he be worth in the current market? Today, Cup Fever was in the air. The Durham County FA Mnior Cup was being contested and had brought the curiously named Farringdon Detached down to Horden from nearby Sunderland. There was no admission charge, but a bucket was strategically placed at the entrance to encourage contributionso. The Cups have brought the best out of Horden over history with an appearance in the 2nd Round of the FA Cup before the Second World War and the last of their appearances in the 1st Round as late as 1981.....They lost 1-0 to Blackpool in a game I believe that was played at the Victoria Ground in Hartlepool. Whatever the troubles of the club in the recent past, Welfare Park remains pretty impressive. A large wooden stand rises over the pitch. The bright red roof glowed each time the occasional glimpse of the sun sneaked out from behind the clouds. It reminded me of a similar structure at Shildon. The 5 step terrace round the top have of the ground still looked in good order. Atmosphere reverborated from the Stan Anderson Enclosure of the stand. Stan was a local lad, who went on to captain Newcastle, Sunderland and Middlesbrough. He was later Manager when the red seats in his enclosure were were still probably in situ in the TS postcode area. "Everywhere we go" boomed out using the acoustics of the roof, in a show of vocal support that many clubs would die for in the sterile world of the Football League. Alas, my camera proved generally about as popular as it had at FK Sarajevo. On the field, the team swept aside Farringdon after taking advantage of a gift first goal. Stan Anderson had an eye for a centre foward - he brought "big" John Hickton and Hughie McIlmoyle to Ayresome Park - so he would have been impressed by the current Horden centre forward Crawford, who bossed the Farringdon defenders all afternoon. The star man though was the young Horden Number 11 Sean Ryder. The goal by Harbord would have graced anything England U21s managed the previous night. It finished 6 - 1 with Horden safely into the next round.



Appendix 1

FIFA Under 21 World Cup Qualifier

England U21S 3 Scotland U21S 1

Date: Friday 6th October 2017 @ 1945 Hours

Venue: Riverside Stadium, Middlesbrough, North Yorkshire

Attendance: 20,126

Scorers: 1-0 14 Mins Onomah (England), 2-0 Abrahams Penalty 49 Mins (England), 2-1 Cadden 78 Mins (Scotland), 3-1 Solanke 69 Mins (England)



Appendix 2

Durham County FA Minor Cup 1st Round

Horden Community Welfare FC 6 Farringdon Detached 1

Date: Saturday 7th October 2017 @ 1330 Hours

Attendance: Est 51

---

Photos

Horden Community Welfare FC
...............old Ayresome Park seats

England U21 V Scotland U21
..... Scotland in fetching pink