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The descent into regional football brought with it a whole range of new places to visit in the cause of following County. There were 14 clubs never faced before in 1st team competitive action, and another one, Gainsborough Trinity, when the previous encounter was over 100 years previously. It promised to be a tour of places more than unfamiliar. And none was more far flung than Histon. Of course Cambridge had been a regular port of call, but the team on the outskirts of the University city was more than an unknown quantity.

Histon were one of those teams during our NLN days which sat on a geographical fault line. Teams like them; Brackley Gloucester; Oxford City and (ludicrously) Lowestoft found their divisional positioning season by season varied between NLN and NLS dependent on how many more teams lay to the South. Histon only featured of the one season, but having been down there for the one game, I did feel for their players who knew that every fortnight they would be making round trips of the order of 300 miles or more. I have come to the conclusion that the National league structure should have three divisions below the top division – north; midlands and south. It simply cannot aid financial stability to ask what are primarily volunteer run clubs to face the sort of costs that a simple north / south divide incurs.

As to Histon. Before our visit I recalled having seen them play, (and indeed beat), Leeds United in a televised FA Cup game. The record books tell me that was back in 2008 and in in intervening period between then and October 2013 it had been an up and down period. The season they beat Leeds Histon were within reach of a Football League spot. losing to Torquay in the play-offs. That was the highspot for them, and at the same time as County were falling out of the League in 2011, Histon were relegated from the Conference into NLN. With County’s descent to that level in 2013 our paths then crossed.

I liked Bridge Road as a ground, but far less so the game. It was a truly dire affair. A somnabulant first half ended goalless. Two minutes into the second half a corner from Iain Howard fell invitingly in the 6 yard box and was headed home by Scott Duxbury. A couple of half hearted penalty shouts and long range shots from Howard were all that we had to offer in addition. It came as no surprise to the travelling band, (who had seen just a single victory, at Barrow (†) on the road that season), when two poor pieces of defending gave Histon the winning points. It made for a long trip back for Jeff, Mark and myself. A ground visited once – one of the 46 venues I have visited and never had the chance to return to.

† Mentioning Barrow at this point makes my point earlier in this piece about the need to rationalise football below National League level. Google tells me that a visit for 90 minutes football requires a round trip of 535 miles – absolute madness for regional football.

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Memories of a single visit to Bridge Road

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THE GAMES

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Where the date is in bold click for highlights of the game

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	Date	Venue	Ground	Competition		F	A	Att:
Sat	26/10/13	a	Bridge Road	The Skrill North (Tier 6)	L	1	2	508
Sat	25/01/14	h	Edgeley Park	The Skrill North (Tier 6)	W	1	0	2,070

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