Aylesbury United 1 Barton Rovers 1

Southern League Division One Central, Saturday August 28th

I made my first trip to Chesham and The Meadow for a match up between Aylesbury United and Barton Rovers, and it saw a wonder goal from Christophe Regis cancelled out by a second half strike by Sonny French as this decent battle ended all square.

Before this bank holiday weekend I put out a tweet saying "Fancy doing some new grounds this bank holiday weekend, but where..." and got some responses, but the first one was from Dan Harvey (twitter handle @DanHarvey74), who said in response "Stand you a beer if you're at Chesham (Aylesbury v Barton) Pete..." and I thought why not and so began plans for a trip to the Buckinghamshire end of the Metropolitan Line for the Saturday.

After a smooth journey we agreed to meet in The Red Lion in the centre of town to watch the Man City v Arsenal game, and he did indeed buy me that pint as promised, and after the game had finished I walked down to the ground with two of his Aylesbury mates where they explained to me the background to their beloved club. It was very interesting to hear indeed and gave me a great hindsight and background to an historic club.

The club have been nomadic since 2006 when they lost their ground (the ground still stands there today in fact after many proposals to build on it have been rejected, so the club may one day go back if things fall in the right way, well they hope anyway) and they have played at Thame United, Leighton Town and now Chesham United, but they still have a core support who like to shout and holler there encourage to the Mighty Ducks.

The Meadow has such character too, I once remember watching a non league football season video of the 1990-91 season (the season I first got into watching football) and I remember one such game shown early on in it was Chesham United 8-2 Whyteleafe, and the ground hasn't changed much since then and although a bit old and showing its age a bit, it's a wonderful old ground and I love these grounds so much, so it was a pleasure to visit, and it has a nice clubhouse too with friendly faces to welcome you, so that was nice.

Anyway onto the actual football game itself, and the hosts so far this season had lost their opening game here at The Meadow 0-2 to Didcot Town, then won 5-2 at Kidlington before thumping Brimscombe & Trupp 8-0 away in the FA Cup, whilst opponents Barton Rovers, who had travelled over from near Luton way, had drawn their opening game at Wantage Town 1-1, lost at home to North Leigh 1-2, before they beat a familiar side to me in the shape of ESL side West Essex 3-0 in the cup last weekend.

So both had come into this one off the back of morale boosting cup wins, and added a few coffers to the pot in the process too, but how would this match up go?

Well, the hosts looked like they were going to have the perfect start when they were awarded a spot kick after just four minutes when Ezra Anthonio-Forde was brought down inside the box, but Max Hercules saw his penalty saved by Kyle Forster, meaning they could not grab that early advantage, and just past the quarter hour mark, they were to fall behind in spectacular style.

It was pretty much the first real attack Rovers had mounted, but it was all done by one player, Regis, who blasted past Ducks midfielder Mark Riddick who tried to pull him down just inside the hosts half but could not, and the Rovers attacker charged on to beat more players before slotting a wonderful finish beyond James Weatherall for a truly wonderful goal, stunning the hosts, and most of us inside the ground, to give the visitors the advantage.

How would Aylesbury respond? Well, they created quite a few openings with the best one a lovely interchange between Jamie Jellis and Anthonio-Forde, with the former running on and curling a left footed effort off the woodwork, but try as they might the hosts could not find the net and somehow went into the break a goal down.  It was time for a lovely cheese and bacon burger from Bill's Diner behind one of the goals, very tasty and a nice half time 'snack' before the action resumed and the hosts hoped they would be more clinical in front of goal, whilst Rovers were hoping for a second goal and a more routine second period and a first league win.

Five minutes after the break the hosts did finally find the net, and Anthonio Forde was involved again, as after the visitors had given the ball away, Anthonio-Forde fed strike partner French who slotted past Forster to send the home support wild and they now wanted their side to go on and maybe win this game now.

Instead of that they looked like they would quickly find themselves behind when sloppy play at the back almost let the visitors in, but then in Rovers next attack they were awarded a penalty when Bradley Bell was adjudged to have been brought down by Kuda Sangoya although to me it looked like they kicked each other, but a penalty it was, but Regis saw his spot-kick saved by Weatherall, the same end the hosts had missed their spot-kick at, maybe it was that end I don't know, but Rovers had passed up a huge opportunity to restore their lead.

The second period was a far more even affair it must be said, although the best chance other then that missed penalty fell to the hosts but saw the effort slammed over after one of many blocks by the visitors back line, which did not impress the noisy Ducks fans behind me who could not believe it!!! 

This was most certainly a highly competitive affair, and in stoppage time it threatened to boil over when Ducks winger Jellis felt an opponent (I cannot remember who it was sorry!!!) left a boot in whilst he was on the floor, and both ended up squaring up head to head, and it resulted in some heated exchanges and a yellow card for each, so all good in the end.

So the game ended all square, so one more point to each side, Aylesbury could and should have been out of sight after the first half, however a more even second period saw Rovers more of a threat so they may feel a draw was the fair result in the end, but fair or not, it was the result and it was certainly a hard earned one in the end by both.

A superb day though and thoroughly enjoyable, many thanks to Dan Harvey for suggesting this game and for the pint bought before the game. Hastings United on Monday and another superb old ground to visit, looking forward to that immensely...

Full Time Aylesbury United 1 Barton Rovers 1