Belstone

Belstone FC is a non league football club, who were formed in 1982 and are located between the villages of Elstree and Radlett over the Hertfordshire border, and are located around fifteen miles north of London.

The club was formed in 1982, starting out life as a Sunday club and playing at the GEC London Sports Ground in Preston Road, near to Wembley. The name Belstone is derived from the fact that the players came from Belmont Circle and Wealdstone areas of North West London.

Belstone joined the Harrow Sunday Challenge Football League, winning three consecutive Premier Division titles before progressing to the Marathon Sunday Football League (MSFL) in 1988. 

Again success followed as promotion was won at the first attempt by way of the Division One title, before the club went on to win the Premier Division title eight times as well as lifting silverware in cup competitions.

From 1989 the club played its games at Harrow College and the council venue at Headstone Lane. In 1992 Belstone secured a lease on the Medburn Ground, which had originally been a rugby pitch. A local football team had used it until leaving in 1990. Lord Aldenham, who owned the land, gave the club permission to tidy up the site and use it as their base.

In 2003 Belstone returned to play in the Harrow Sunday Challenge Football League after the demise of the MSFL, where they continued to win trophies, while a youth section also started along with a veteran’s side.

In 2009 the club decided to also play Saturday football for the first time and entered the Herts Senior County League under manager Joe Sheridan, where they joined Division One. The team clinched promotion to the Premier Division after finishing runners up at the end of the 2011-12 campaign.

After a season of consolidation, Belstone ended as league runners-up in 2013-14 before becoming Premier Division champions in 2014-15. Twelve months later the side came agonisingly close to retaining their title but had to settle for second place.

Lee Maddison had a spell as manager before the appointment of Aaron Lincoln as Belstone put together another couple of top six finishes before ending 2018-19 in ninth spot before the disappointing 2019-20 campaign was ended early owing to the outbreak of Coronavirus.

Belstone FC will compete in the Herts Senior County League Premier Division in the 2020-21 season.

My visits

Belstone (Sunday) 7 Manor House 2 (Sunday 17^th November 2013) FA Sunday Cup Round Two (att: up to 30 but fluctuated throughout the game)

The decision to visit Belstone for my debut national Sunday Cup match was made in the Wetherspoons pub in Stanmore the night before. I had an extra day allotted from my annual leave, and had my pal Gary Griffiths staying with me for a few days, which was also unexpected until the Thursday evening.

Anyway, as a real veteran of groundhopping, Gary reckoned that Belstone would be around his eight hundredth ground he had seen a game on. Our drinking partner, my Middlesex cricket friend and avid West Ham fan Tony Foster thought that we were joking. 

The pair of us had just been to a decent tea time kick-off between Edgar David's Barnet and Cambridge United at The Hive, while Gary had taken in an under 21 game at Wingate & Finchley earlier in the afternoon.

The weather was quite mild for the time of year as we set off on Sunday morning and caught a bus to Edgware to buy some supplies from Greggs before hopping on the 107 bus to Elstree. We had to do a double take as we both broke out in laughter as we passed what looked like a pub in the affluent hamlet. 

We were positive it was called The Shtiebel. We both thought it said Shitebel. I later researched it and found out it was formerly a pub called The Artichoke, but it was now a Jewish place of prayer. We definitely needed to adjust our goggles!

It was a nice link that the walk to the ground was up Watling Street as my fellow Scarborough fans had been on the same road a couple of miles further north the day before to watch the Seadogs heavy defeat at Telford. We arrived around twenty minutes later just as the teams were shaking hands. 

No-one was taking admission and we didn’t see any programmes for sale, although 'grumpydwarf' a poster on the excellent Non League Matters forum told me that he was mistakenly sold one the day before before returning it, so there may have only have been a few printed to satisfy the competition requirements. He kindly sent me a copy of the edition he ended up with.

As the game kicked off we decided to partake in a pint of Fosters, which was the only beer they had on draught at the time. As it was a pleasant day we decided to sit outside on the patio at one of the tables. 

As we saw another couple with beer we presumed it would be OK? However, shortly after, a harassed club official asked us to go inside with them. We were closely followed by the other two chaps, who happened to be former Belstone players.

We had seen one bloke in the small shelter on the half way line and initially thought he may have been a fellow ‘hopper’. However, he turned out to be an FA official and he demanded no beer be taken outdoors under FA competition regulations.

It seemed such an incredibly petty rule. It confirmed that common sense and grass route football are uneasy bed fellows. Our fellow drinkers were also shaking their heads at the madness of it. The Belstone members couldn't have been more apologetic.

They told us how the club had progressed after one of them while captain drove past the Medburn Ground each day on the way to work and how they eventually obtained their lease. They were delighted to have neutral visitors at their pride and joy.

The ground really was something to be proud of. The pitch was in tip top condition and surrounded by a post and rail fence. The smart brick clubhouse showed Sky TV and also contained the changing rooms. 

There was a hard standing path down the side to the shelter and behind the near goal. The large car park was to the rear of that end by the entrance. Three sides were surrounded by lovely trees giving the arena an enclosed feel. There was a small grass bank behind the far goal.

Our friends informed us that the club had just taken over the land behind the dug outs, where a junior game was about to start and that the Saturday first team were top their league and would probably look to take promotion into the Spartan South Midlands League.

Although the score was only 1-0 at half time, Belstone were well on top. The Manor House keeper had an excellent game throughout and had saved an early penalty.

The second half was dominated by the home side as the visitors, who hailed from Hainault in Essex had a defence that parted like the Red Sea. There were some good goals in there as well as an own goal of simplistic quality, which we at first thought had led to a horrific injury to the Belstone centre forward. 

He chased the ball top the by line and crossed it fr the defender to poke home before smashing into the railing head first. He got up after a few seconds much to everyone’s relief.

To give Manor House the credit they deserved, they never gave up and were rewarded with two consolations at the end of good quality. However, we agreed the final score was about right.

We trudged back towards Elstree. Poor Gary’s feet were giving him some real pain following his month around Europe watching football. Typically we saw a 107 bus depart in either direction as we approached, but our luck was in as another service came so we took it to Elstree & Borehamwood station and returned to Kingsbury via National Rail and bus.

All in all it had been a most enjoyable early afternoon out.

Belstone 2 Amersham Town 1 (Tuesday 4^th August 2020) Friendly (att: c50)

My return visit to the Medburn Ground would also see a plethora of regulations surrounding it, this time down to COVID-19. Although reading Twitter and different football forums, you'd think that the FA were the culprits once again.

Fans were not being permitted to go to football at the grounds of the top 6 Steps of non-league football, or anything above it in the professional game. It was a thoroughly miserable time as a regular attendee as the government continued to make a hash of a difficult situation.

However, there was a glimmer of consolation. Belstone played in Step 7 and therefore didn't come under the jurisdiction, or so everyone thought. In hindsight, it was probably more to do with a lack of communication between the FA and government department making rules who had no real knowledge of the workings of non-league football.

This was the night after a staggering exchange as I went to the Vale Farm home of Wembley FC to hopefully see a friendly match between Cricklewood Wanderers and Lopes Tavares, just before they changed their title to Newham Athletic.

I went towards the gates to see if there was any chance of admittance when a Wanderers official asked me what I was doing. I told him I was hoping to watch the match. For some reason he went into a ridiculously defensive mood.

He asked me what match and wouldn't accept that I knew that there was a game even though I told him I saw it advertised on Twitter. To begin with he even denied that a game was taking place, until the arrival of the away side scuppered that line.

Finally he said it was taking place on an artificial pitch in the sports centre and nobody was allowed to watch. No problem. I understood, but I reminded him that I was just a football enthusiast, not the police and I might want to spend money at his club one day. 

Anyway, after a fairly depressing morning shift at work the next day, watching plenty of the usual suspects break C-19 rules to add to their persistent antisocial behaviour on top of the previous evening's attitude, I was cheered by reading on Twitter of a game that would include some exercise.

Belstone were advertising that all were welcome to their friendly against Amersham Town, from a division higher. I had a brief siesta, a bite to eat and set off on my way with renewed enthusiasm.

The 107 bus dropped me at the top end of Elstree before I retraced my footsteps from last time, arriving a few minutes after the 6.45pm kick-off to find a busy car park and reasonable crowd in attendance.

Admission was free and I was asked to put down my details on a form for track and tracing purposes. Amazingly, little Belstone FC seemed to be ahead of the government in that department. Plentiful bottles of hand sanitizer were available and everyone adhered to social distancing. It was bliss.

I must have been in a good mood, as I bought a bottle of Budweiser. The clubhouse was closed but the staff had a couple of large buckets full of cold bottled drinks and snacks on offer. Everyone I encountered was friendly and fans were delighted to have such luxuries. What a difference from twenty-four hours earlier.

Players were required to arrive in kit or change in the car park. The dressing rooms were open so everyone could use the toilet facilities. The ground looked an absolute picture on a lovely early evening and was about as perfect as could be managed under the circumstances. 

Going to non-league is always more about having a walk or travel, chatting, laughing, learning and broadening the mind to me. With respect, you only understand if you are a regular attendee rather than a TV fan.

I sat there with my ice cold Bud, and even that beer tasted beautiful. I know how the gang must have felt on the drinks break from tarring the roof at Shawshank. Decent football people all enjoying themselves in safe surroundings.

Out on the pitch we were treated to a match of reasonable standard. The hosts went close with a couple of efforts, one from number 4 going narrowly past the far post. They took the lead when a low free kick was cleverly flicked on to number 11 who controlled the ball and smashed home from just inside the box.

Number 7 missed a guilt edged chance to double the lead as I had a wander and bumped into Dulwich Hamlet, Peckham Town and Surrey CCC supporter Duncan who I'd got to know from bumping into him at various football and cricket games.

The visiting Magpies put some attacks together without really worrying the home side custodian, though a jinking run by 11 in the red of Belstone could easily have been rewarded with a penalty as I thought he was brought down.

Amersham's number 14 should have restored parity when shooting wide after being teed up by number 20 as the half drew to a close which gave me the opportunity to give my flask a try out at a match for the first time in the new season.

It would soon apparent that squad numbers would be the order of the season in non-league, so players kept the same shirt to minimise the risk of spreading Coronavirus, but the introduction of an Amersham sub wearing number 83 did make me laugh.

Both sides probed in the second half before the visitors equalised. Some dogged work latched onto a goalkeeping error from a back pass to square to number 41 who rolled the ball into an empty net.

A brilliant last ditch tackle from a Magpies number 6 denied Belstone's number 16 who not for the first time, dallied slightly. However the forward did the business when scoring at the second attempt after the keeper made a fine initial stop with his feet.

The game became slightly feisty towards the end but was well refereed. I reflected that Step 6 might be as good as it would get for some time if I wanted to watch live football, but so be it if it was similar to this experience.

After the game I walked all the way through Elstree, forgoing The Waggon & Horses on Watling Street who were showing the play-off final between Fulham and Brentford. I was enjoying the exercise and my MH was brightened considerably.

And then I got home and got into bed. I thought I'd check Twitter before turning in to see of there was any breaking news or reports from the game I'd been to. My mood dipped in an instant.

The FA had announced that no fans could attend any football, regardless of standard. I was beyond the pint of being shocked anymore. I honestly thought that this government were the most clueless administration in my lifetime, but the FA seemed to be giving them a good run for their money.

I had come into contact with far more people on my way to work before 6.15 am than I did going to a football game. But there was no chance of shutting down work or transport though as those in power required minions to create productivity. 

The pubs had been busy last night with people scoffing themselves daft on cheap meal offers under the government's 'Eat Out To Help Out' hair brained scheme which would help in a further rise in infextions. 

I could go to a busy the next evening instead of a Step 7 pre-season friendly in an open field while improving my own physical and mental health in the process. I was half expecting someone to chop my limbs off next or install hammocks at work so we can stay here full time and not mix with people in transit. 

It's fair to say that I was absolutely gutted and seething. And that was a shame because everything I'd experienced at Belstone FC had been wonderful. 

A young groundhopper filmed the game and edited it for YouTube and can be seen here.