Half Man Half Biscuit

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All I want for Christmas is a Dukla Prague away kit. After the blog title, the initiated would have expected these as the next words. However, we are not in Prague. We are in Grantham. I find myself photographing a man dressed as a biscuit giving me the thumbs up. He would be disappointed by later in the afternoon.



The day had started in the town centre outside Margaret Thatcher’s birthplace. We moved on from Grantham’s famous daughters to the famous sons. The Kings Grammar School is just round the corner. It was here that Sir Isaac Newton was educated. The modern school on Manthorpe Road hides the older side of the school. A blue plaque adorns the side of the original school building on Church Street, where it is widely recognised that the young Isaac was taught between 1655 and 1660. As was tradition, boys carved their names into the stone walls. Whether that can be authenticated, it anybody’s guess. After Grantham, Newton nipped down to Cambridge and amongst his many achievements formulated the laws of motion and gravity.



The house next door to the School Hall is probably one of the most impressive in the whole town. We headed across through the ground of St Wulfrans Church. A book, England’s Thousand Best Churches suggests it has the finest steeple in all of England. It could be right. The steeple is the 3^rd highest in England at 86 metres, but falls behind one at Louth so doesn’t get the accolade as the highest in Lincolnshire. We walked round to the front to admire the full glory and ate our sandwiches on a bench in the grounds.



The main shopping street is also full of fine buildings, but is perhaps not quite the draw of yesteryear. The Marks and Sparks is now a distant memory and there are quite a few “To Let” signs around. I had never really noticed that the street is sprinkled with art deco buildings in between the more traditional Lilncolnshire stone. The Angel & Royal is still functioning, but the George Hotel is now a shopping complex. A blue plaque marks where a young Isaac lodged, whilst he was attending the school in town. His family lived a few miles south. In the old days, Grantham was a stop on the old Great North Road and the coaching inns thrived. Today, cars wiz past on the A1 without giving the town a second thought. Charles Dickens is supposed to have stayed at the George marks the fact and that he makes reference to it in his Nicholas Nickleby novel. The small blue plaque this time is only available to intrepid investigators on the first floor.





The George Shopping Centre also has an entrance on Westgate and a market was in full swing. The market place was bathed in sunshine, as the punters went about their shopping business. A mix of stalls was selling anything from vinyl to plants to artisan bread. I was taken by a large coal shovel hanging high above one shop – the original business long since gone. In the market place itself, most of the buildings were closed and turned over to some form of night club entertainment. Isaac would have appreciated a bar called Gravity. We decided on a coffee at the Picture Café – a spacious eatery and coffee establishment with a big picture window from which to gaze on the street. I have subsequently read a review that comments, “stylish in every way”. I would agree and recommend. The good folk of Grantham clearly agree, as a healthy flow of customers kept the place busy.



Coffee over, we cut back through the Morrisons Superstore shopping area. It is actually the Isaac Newton Shopping Centre and conveniently leads out on to the square in front of the Guildhall - conveniently featuring a statue of the Newton boy. The blue sky made a good backdrop to the photograph. The statue is a bronze, dating from 1858, which ironically pre-dates the gothic Guildhall behind it. The Guildhall is now an Arts Centre. South Kesteven District Council lodges next door. Alas, I totally missed the photo opportunity presented by the Beehive pub. The average British pub called The Beehive has a sign outside - not this one, it has a real beehive. I can't be sure whether it contains bees - bees have had a hard time recently in the UK - but it certainly makes it original. We completed our circle by going under the railway line for a look at the new retail parks you can see from the mainline trains speeding north and south.



The town is known for Gingerbread biscuits, which were first made in 1740 by William Eggleston. He was a baker by trade and producer of a totally different biscuit like a rusk. Anyway, word has it that he made a blunder with his recipe and the ginger biscuit emerged. It proved a great success and became Grantham Gingerbread. The Gingerbread is apparently quite unique, but as about an elusive as that beehive proved earlier. There is no obvious Grantham Gingerbread shop or retail outlet and the only people who seem to regularly use the name are the football team, Grantham Town. It always comes back to football. Yes, correct. The reason we are here in the first place. Grantham are well below league standard and despite being founded in 1874, have known no significant signs of ever changing that status. A stepping stone. Martin O'Neill started his managerial career here and then became a Chairboy, a Canary and a Fox with some success before going north of the border. I thus found myself with the Gingerbread Man outside the South Kesteven Sports Stadium on the western edge of town. It is more commonly referred to as the Meres and sits next to a sports centre. Gareth Gates was shortly due to play there - the sports centre and not the Stadium - which perhaps says something about Pop Idol or whatever the programme he found fame on was called. The Meres is basically an athletics stadium with a covered stand of terracing on one side and covered seats and terracing on the main western side. I think it is fair to say that the capacity is not stretched on a regular basis.





This is the new Darlo .... as the town is known. The original club went bust in 2012, after a brush with tax man. There was a large travelling support of perhaps 500. It was an easy run down the A1 or a direct high speed train. At 135 miles though, this was a sizeable travelling gang at this level of football. We felt at home, as the north eastern accent took over. The Other Half - our lass - didn't take too much persuasion to attend this one, as she always used to enjoy a trip to Feethams to see Little Brian's gang in the mid 1980s when I couldn't muster the money to waste in pursuit of glory in SW6. It was the 2nd time we had seen Darlo since their reincarnation - the 1st happens to be the record away win in 2012, when Billingham Town were disposed of in the Northern League by a margin of 7 - 1. We could therefore be a lucky omen. Darlo totally dominated this one too – on and off the pitch. There was no segregation and both sets of fans mingled happily. The first half took a long time to warm up. A blustery wind swept through the wide open stadium. This didn’t look like a great place to be come December. A bad injury to a Grantham player caused a long delay in the 1^st half whilst an ambulance was summoned. 0 – 0 at half time. Darlo poured forward in the 2^nd half, encouraged by league leaders Blyth who were stumbling to defeat further nort. 3 Darlo fans ignored health and safety advice by standing on the grass bank behind one goal. They celebrated the opening Darlo goal by rolling down it, having made sure they didn’t spill their pints. It finished a comfortable 2 – 0. A significant number stayed behind to applaud their team, before taking over the bar to watch the Grand National on the big screen.

Appendix 1


Evostik Northern Premier League


Date: Saturday 9 April 2016 @ 1500 Hours


Venue: The Meres (or South Kesteven Sports Stadium), Trent Road, Grantham, Lincolnshire





Grantham Town FC 0 - 2 Darlington 1883 FC

Attendance: 701


Scorers: 0 - 1 Thompson (Darlington) 65 Min, 0 - 2 Hardy (Darlington) 87 Min

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Comments

[Rainyb]

Tee hee....... You say biscuits, we Canadians say cookies ;o)