I've lived only an hour or so from Salisbury for a large portion of my young life, but it's one of the many cities that I've simply never got around to properly exploring. Monday was going to be different however. I was going to explore the whole city before the big game in the afternoon. That was until I overslept and caught the train from Brighton an hour later than I'd planned, meaning I didn't arrive in Salisbury until half 1. No matter, Skinner and Joe had already located a good pub, leaving me no other option than to postpone my day of tourism in Wiltshire's cathedral city.
With pints supped and taxi booked, we began the short journey from Salisbury town centre out into the fields of Wiltshire in search of the Raymond McEnhill Stadium. The ground is only a ten minute drive, so allow yourself the time to enjoy the boozers and sights in town, you wont find anything worth doing near the ground. Unless you fancy some lunchtime horse-tipping, that is. Truthfully, the ground is based in a suburb of houses on the way north towards Amesbury, but it didn't seem particularly happening, so we spent as little time there as was possible. Our driver was far more interested in discussing political correctness, and that's a damn sight more interesting than the pre-teens we saw smoking on our wander through the suburb, anyway.
Salisbury FC are of course the phoenix club that formed following Salisbury City's downfall, a club that played in the Conference intermittently during the 2000's, but that's as high as they got. Continuous financial irregularities and poor ownership saw the club wound up, before eventually reforming and being placed into the Wessex League Premier for the beginning of the 2015/16 campaign, four promotions away from their history in the top tier of English non-league football. |
Ultimately, my friends over at Tiverton emerged triumphant, goals from Michael Landricombe and Tom Bath either side of the break taking the Devon side back to the Southern Premier League for the upcoming 2017/18 campaign. It was a keenly contested fixture, and could have gone either way in hindsight, but the visitors converted their chances and will leave Salisbury behind to slog it out at step 4 for at least another season.
Salisbury really let themselves down in my book, as you know that had it been the home side winning promotion, a pitch invasion would have been perfectly acceptable. Instead, Tiverton fans were man-handled and shown no respect, before the trophy presentation was dished out in a number of seconds, and everybody told to piss off and go home. Appalling lack of grace, and the club has gone no way to restoring any credibility they'd lost having reformed. That's okay though, the club will be immune to criticism because they had the biggest crowds at step 5.
The three of us left following a conversation with a couple of their fans, and went back in search of some further refreshment in the town centre. After all, what else are you supposed to do on a drizzly, bank holiday afternoon?
Cheers!
Sheridan