All Roads Lead to Borough Park

It's a 20 minute drive down the picturesque West Cumbrian coast through Allonby to Workington and Borough Park this afternoon for Workington Reds v Redditch United in the Blue Square Conference North.

I'm going with my eldest daughter's boyfriend's father who back in the mid-sixties was an 'A' team player with the Reds. He was signed on schoolboy forms by Ken Furphy and played under managers Keith Burkinshaw, George Ainsley, Bill Lievers and Frank Upton before moving into local soccer.

Today's game sees Darren Edmondson confirmed as the new Reds manager after a month as caretaker. Also new signing Matthew Berkeley from Altrincham will be in contention for a start. Matty played for us when on loan from Gretna and was a big hit with the Borough Park faithful with his incredible pace opening up defences.

Last week it was FA Cup action at Consett and Reds were able to progress through to the next round. I dropped Tina and the mother-in-law at the Metro Centre and then sped down the A692 to Consett. The ground was brilliant, still stuck back in the fifties. Lovely old grandstand and like Borough Park back then, the terracing was made of old railway sleepers and over the years these have become completely overgrown with grass. 7,000 filled the stadium in its heyday but there were just 400 to see Reds win 2-0 with goals from Kyle May and Johnny Wright.

Today's encounter will be a tense affair. Last season the game against Redditch was abandoned after their manager came on to the pitch and refused to leave. There had been a brawl involving most of the players after a potentially leg-breaking tackle from a Redditch defender. He was sent off and their manager came on to argue with the referee who then took the players off the pitch.

Thankfully the FA found in Workington's favour when the incident was reported and Reds were awarded the three points as they were leading 1-0 at the time and Redditch were heavily fined.

It's the same manager this afternoon so I expect there will be some choice remarks from our supporters behind his dug-out.