The Mariners

AN ARTICLE BY SUPERSUB

What can you get for £10 these days..??  Not much really although, for watching the Liverpool-Napoli game recently, I nipped over to Home Bargains & got 12 bottles of 0% Bavaria lager, 2 packs of Dorito Stax (the empty containers are great for storing spaghetti) & a selection of biscuits for the tin.  Luvvly.

£10 also recently got me a ticket for the FA Trophy 2^nd round match, between Marine & Scarborough Athletic & it was worth every penny.

Many will have seen Marine’s ground for the first time a couple of seasons ago, when they played Spurs in a televised FA Cup game.  There were no fans inside the stadium that day, due to the Covid pandemic, but the sale of over 30,000 ‘virtual’ tickets has had a positive impact on the club & they now sit in 4^th place in the Northern Premier League, just 5 pts behind the leaders Gainsborough, & with a game in hand .  They’re now just three promotions away from a place in League 2 & the regular home attendance is around the 1,400-1,500 mark.

Marine’s ground is in the relatively affluent area of Crosby, in the borough of Sefton. It’s a friendly place & fans mix freely before the game, sitting side-by-side having a beer outside Marine’s social club & local pubs.  I even saw this happen a few seasons ago, when they played FC United of Manchester, with no sign of trouble whatsoever.  A world away from Anfield, indeed.

Inside, it’s no less friendly & fans can sit watching the game & have a beer (or 3).  One bloke was telling me that he’s been coming here for over 50 years now & there’s a general optimism around the place, which he told me was helped immensely, by the money from the sale of the FA Cup tickets for the Spurs game.  £300,000 (ish) might be just a week’s wages for some PL players, but it can be a metaphorical life-saver, for clubs like Marine.

The game itself was very entertaining.  Both teams were ‘at it’ from the first whistle to the last, with no quarter given whatsoever. There was some decent football too & a host of chances for both sides & even an eleven-on-eleven melee in the centre circle.  One of the Marine players had to be stretchered off in the 1^st half & that led to a bit of a panic, when the stewards couldn’t find the key to the gate behind the goal & they had to carry him the long way round, after they’d worked out which way they needed to go, with some helpful suggestions from The Marine fans behind the goal.

Marine won 1-0 in the end, after a cracking goal from the substitute who’d only been on the pitch for about 15 seconds.  The place went wild.  Marine now travel to some place I’ve never heard of on the Yorkshire coast, to play Marske Utd in the 3^rd round. The final is held at Wembley.  Ya never know.

The funniest bit tho, were the blokes behind me, who had their own game of ‘Garden Bingo’ going.

The pitch has houses running along both sides & the ball ends up in someone’s garden quite regularly.  Each house has a number on the back of it, so they know which houses to go to & ask for their ball(s) back after the game.  £5 each & tick a number off every time the ball goes into a garden.  When the ball went into (I think it was) number 22 Rossett Rd, one of them celebrated like someone had scored a goal, which brought a few glaring looks from others in the stand.  Might have a game with them on the 10^h December, when they play Guiseley FC in the league.

Non-league football is an essential part of the football pyramid & it’s a great day out too. 

If you get the chance, I can fully recommend giving it a go.