VISITING HEATH HAYES...

At Last, My First Visit To Heath Hayes in March, 2011…

I had seemed to have been unfortunate with visiting Heath Hayes, having been denied the opportunity to see a match during that season but finally, on March 1^st, 2011, I made my visit. Hayes were playing Ellesmere Rangers, where I had hoped to visit on the following Saturday and thus I parked my car near a roundabout I knew well from my visits to Hednesford’s ground.

The turnstile was an unhinged, dismembered triptych of brown and grey plastic and metal, which actually meant two chairs and a vacuum flask: a real contender for the Turner Prize. A sturdy chap with a very large yellow coat and black woolly hat sat upon one chair, placed his box of money and the match programmes on the other, drank a mug of tea and became a gateman. I liked that.

Cages were seemingly everywhere. One enclosed area was a zoo for endangered machinery species, another protected what seemed like the back of sand dunes, reminding me of Rock in Cornwall. The main stand looked like it had been constructed for a Subbuteo game and I felt like I had entered a stadium in one of Gulliver’s travels and that a giant centre-back would be lurking nearby… The tea was palatable and the Kit-Kat fresh. I liked it there…

I met a groundhopper from Tranmere, who should have been at Exeter, he reckoned. He was at Heath Hayes though… It’s what they do, I guess. There was a small local chap there too, who chatted to my right ear for most of the evening. He wanted to know how to walk to Highgate’s ground from the local railway station. As you would. He was smaller than me. I liked that. He reckoned that on a game-day, he spends around £100 on a non-league game! Mind you, he feeds and then drinks too, so the £4 or £5 entrance fees don’t impinge upon his enjoyment too much.

He was also an ex-Villa fan, who watched Chasetown and Hednesford too; he reckoned two of the three teams declared their jealousy when he watched the third team play. Hmm… 

He was irritated and cynical about Birmingham’s Carling Cup Final victory over Arsenal and I suffered his complaints about that for several minutes, then he informed me that Villa’s staff had casually allowed him to swing the League Cup around in the club shop, following the victory over Manchester United in 1994, after which I had lost my car and my teddy bear in one fell swoop. But that’s another story…

Ellesmere Rangers were unfortunate to lose 1-0. I enjoyed the game, I liked the surroundings and there was even a proper pink towel in the toilet. I warmed to the solid, yellow-jacketed, black-hatted gateman, as he trundled round the ground like a nightwatchman around a molehill but when the local chap told me that he collected badges, I made a mental sign of the crucifix. 

He had pinned non-league badges on one end of a long Villa scarf and league clubs’ badges at the opposite end. I was afraid, very afraid. However, I was mentally touched (some say permanently, although my mum didn’t drop me on my head when I was a baby, yet reckoned she’d fallen down the stairs whilst pregnant) by the horrors of the condition called ‘ground-hopping’. 

However, it is what they do…