Tims 92

Sutton Coldfield Town

Coles Lane

Ground No. 101

Visited - Saturday 2nd September 2006
Result - Sutton Coldfield Town 3-0 Leek CSOB
Competition - FA Cup Preliminary Round
Attendance - 88

Continuing my quest to see a game in every round of the cup, the Preliminary Round presented a number of grounds that I was interested in going to, but with bad weather predicted, I decided that I wanted to stay close to home, and find a ground that offered enough cover! With all that in mind, the one tie that stood out was Sutton Coldfield Town’s home game with Leek CSOB. I’d wanted to visit Coles Lane for a while, so this seemed as good an opportunity as any.

The journey to Sutton Coldfield didn’t take long, with a quick change in Birmingham, and a short train ride on from New Street, with me arriving into the town at about 2pm. That gave me enough time to walk down to the ground, just as it started to rain!

On arriving at Coles Lane, there isn’t much to see at first, with the ground being set back from the road, and only a little driveway being visible between neighbouring houses. The turnstiles are adjacent to the Main Stand, so after going in, I quickly surveyed the scene, looking for the nearest cover!

The side on which you come in is dominated by the Main Stand, which stands tall in the middle of that side. Although only featuring seven rows of seats, and running for a quarter of the length of the pitch, it is quite imposing, being raised high above ground level, with the wooden stairs being tucked into the side of the stand. To the right of this is a section of disused terracing, which leads round to the far end, which has an old building (apparently unused) with hard standing in front of it, and a roof propped up against it in the middle. The far side has a few rows of terracing running the length of the pitch, but with a roof only providing cover for half of it. Finally, to the left of that was the Clubhouse, which was tucked away in the corner of a fair sized car park, which took up that end of the ground. In front of it was more hard standing and a rather unusual net behind the goal to stop the balls hitting the parked cars.

Having taken a few pics, and finding a seat in the Main Stand, it wasn’t long before the game got started, with Sutton kicking off. In the early stages, the home side were clearly the stronger, and it didn’t take long for them to go 1-0 up, when Phil Male found space in the box from a corner and was able to poke the ball home. After that, the game became more even, with Leek looking for an equaliser, but they couldn’t really make any clear cut chances and were punished right on half-time, when Davion Hamilton found himself unmarked in the box, and was able to stab it home for 2-0.

In the second half, it was much the same, with neither side really outplaying each other, before Sutton took their chance and made the scoreline flattering when Leon Doughty beat the keeper to make it 3-0 with only a few minutes left. With that, the game was over and only a small amount of injury time was played out, before the home side were confirmed of a place in the next round of the cup.

With the rain having briefly died down, when the final whistle went, I decided to make a quick dash back to the station, arriving just in time before it started coming down heavily again.

Overall, it hadn’t been too bad a day out. Coles Lane is a nice little ground, with the Main Stand in particular being fairly impressive, so I’ll be happy to go back there one of the days, quite possibly in the next round to see Romulus (who share the ground) play their First Qualifying Round game there, unless there’s a more interesting choice on the Sunday!