Dinnington Town v Grimsby Borough Saturday 24th September 2011 FA Vase Second Qualifying Round

It's Cup day and Grimsby Borough travel to Phoenix Park which lies somewhere between Worksop, Rotherham and Sheffield in South Yorkshire. I locate the ground very easily and after taking a few shots outside I head for the turnstiles.

Phoenix Park turnstiles

The turnstile operator seems surprised to see someone this early (its only just 2pm) and when I am inside I'm the only spectator to be seen. Excellent, no one to block my pictures. The turnstiles bring you in on one side of the ground more or less on the half way line. I head to my right. After a few yards there is gate which separates spectators from the players as they enter the pitch. Immediately after this there is a small covered seating stand with benches in it.

Covered seating stand

After the stand the hard standing runs down to the corner with a grassy area behind it with a white railing separating you from the pitch.

Looking back to the seated stand

There is the same arrangement from this corner running down to another seated stand behind the goal with a high fence separating the ground from the bowls club situated behind the ground.

View behind the goal

There was a bench situated in front of the goal at this stage and I wondered what it was there for as the players totally ignored it when they came out for the warm up and were all over the goalmouth. Later on it became clear why it was there as a team photo was taken using it.

The seated stand at this end is set to the right of the goal to give you a better view of the pitch as there is not much distance between the stand and the pitch. It has three rows of plastic seats with a capacity of 50 odd.

Seated stand behind the goal

The far side of the ground consists of a one level hard standing with some dodgy plastic flooring after that and plenty of weeds. The white railing continues along this side. There are three floodlights down this side and the dugouts are here too.

Far side of the ground complete with weeds

The far end of the ground is a narrow strip of hard standing bordered by a breeze block fence to separate the ground from outside and more breeze blocks also form the fencing between the pitch and standing too.

View behind the other goal

This brings me back to the side of the ground I came in. The wide area on this side of the ground is split between a single level of hard standing and a grassy area. It leads to another covered stand and the tea hut.

View of the side of the ground

The stand is a simple but effective affair and gives plenty of cover although we did not need it today as the weather was glorious. The tea hut is a brick building and offered the usual fayre.

View across the pitch of the stand

By now the Blue Army had assembled in the ground and an impromptu pitch invasion enabled a picture of the band of supporters to appear on the website with yours truly on it.
The game kicked off in bright sunshine and the first few minutes saw both teams testing each other out with Dinnington having the slightly better of it.

Boro's Scott Raworth on the ball

Boro then started to create some good chances with both Nathan Emson and Matty Hall seeing efforts come back off the cross bar.

Beats the keeper but hits the bar

Luke Hands in the Dinnington goal also did well to turn another shot round the post and Boro hit the post in another attack. The game then saw few chances running up to half time but there was no doubt that Boro had had the better of the first half.

A Boro attack broken up

But all that hard work was undone at the beginning of the second half. A good move down the left hand side by Hoyland and Pearce saw the ball arrive at Reet's feet and he fired home with a good finish. This put Boro on the back foot and it was all Dinnington. After 72 minutes a defensive mix up left debut boy Dachi Khutsishvili clear on goal and he finished coolly to put Dinnington 2-0 up. Boro did rally late in the game but were unable to carve out many chances and there were no Cup dreams left at full time.

Programme cover

More pictures of Phoenix Park here.

There are more pictures of the ground, action and the fans here.

Dinnington Town 2-0 Grimsby Borough
Att: 38
Admission: £4
Programme: £1.00