Campion Not So Champion - Welfare Fare Well !!!

And so to the FA Vase Second Round Qualifying and two teams given byes in the First Round, Campion AFC based at the Manningham Mills Sports Association on Scotchman Road in Bradford, and Sunderland Ryhope Colliery Welfare.

Campion AFC was established in 1963 by Michael Mahoney, taking players from the St Edmund Campion Youth Club. By 1975 the club had joined Division 4 of the Bradford Sunday League and in the following year entered a team into the Red Triangle League, a Saturday league.

By 1979 Campion had reached the league's Premier Division, before moving up to the West Riding County Amateur League in 1981. The club dropped out of the league for one season for the 1985/86 campaign due to financial difficulties but returned the year after.

As champions of Division 2 in 1990, Division One awaited which was won in 1992/93. The team were also Premier Division Cup winners four times between 2004 and 2008, and West Riding Challenge Cup winners in 2006/07.

Campion applied for promotion to Division One of the Northern Counties East League, and by finishing third, duly went up at the end of the 2015/16 season. Last time they sat 5th at the point of curtailment, but with four straight wins this season they currently sit second, a point behind AFC Emley with a game in hand.

Ryhope Colliery Welfare FC was founded in 1892 by coal miners, playing in local leagues and winning their first league title in 1927/28. The team enjoyed most of its success in the 1960s, being crowned champions of the Wearside League four times and winning the Monkwearmouth Charity Cup twice.

Between 1988 and 1992 the Welfare was known as Vaux Ryhope FC after a merger with Sporting Club Vaux (formerly South Hetton FC). After reverting back to Ryhope CW 2010 saw another Monkwearmouth Charity Cup triumph, but this was just a forerunner to an extraordinary 2010/11 season....

Ryhope won the quadruple - the Wearside League, Monkwearmouth Charity Cup, Sunderland Shipowners Cup and League Cup. 2011/12 produced a repeat quadruple performance resulting in promotion to the Northern League.

In their first campaign Colls finished runners up, gaining promotion to the 1st Division - but due to ground grading issues ended up being demoted back to the Wearside League.

A year later, as runners up and with ground problems resolved, Ryhope were promoted back to the Northern League Division 2. Two seasons later, this time finishing runners up to South Shields, and Welfare ascended to Division One and Step 5, under the tutelage of managerial duo Gary Pearson (still in charge) and Stuey Gooden (now serving a 10 year prison sentence for his part in an organised drug dealing ring).

Steady progress has ensued, although last term's 13th place at the season's abandonment was a disappointment, and they currently languish near the foot of the league this time.

An autumnal, showery morning awaits as I walk to Brooklands - Scissorhands seems to have had its final cut, Mamas Cakeria its final bite and the journey is over for Mayar Travel... A powder blue Bentley GT04 GAL is sat, incongruously, outside four sheltered housing maisonettes and other registration plates today feature F4VE X and L8 NVR (presumably a private hire vehicle).

Then to Metrostink and Manchester, with queues outside Albert Halle Musik and Dirty Martini before I reach the cathedral, Mahatma Gandhi statue, Chethams and the ornate sign outside Victoria, which amongst all other things advertises the wonderful destination of Goole...

A deserted train departs, passing waterlogged fields, before I reach wind turbines at Littleborough, then the leonine sign at Todmorden and its WW1 Railways War display, followed by eclectic Hebden Bridge and the Halifax Flour Society and to Bradford Interchange. It's evident that this is a city of impoverishment, epitomised by unoccupied retail outlets, obese shoppers and a large Poundland...

Past the Alhambra, Bankrupt Sofas and Beds, Dial a Roti, and into depressing terraced streets and then by derelict and dangerous buildings as I reach the Players Cars Stadium on Scotchman Road in Manningham.

£5 in, track and trace (I'm number 15 - the crowd eventually swells to 90) and in the shadow of the iconic Lister's Manningham Mills I'm in, to a ground supporting a cricket pitch next door - flooded but still capable of allowing the Red and Blacks to warm up. Nearside are the changing rooms and clubhouse, with an electronic scoreboard that continues to advise the score is 0-0 (more anon !!). To my left is a raised one step terrace and a small two row seated stand extending from the corner flag to the half way line. A walkway and the dugouts to the right, and up top are leafy residences and out of bounds...as I later find out ☺

Grey skies give way to patchy sunshine with Campion in red and (faded) black stripes, Ryhope in change purple and white, with red and black goalnets and an uneven, sloping pitch. The linesmen are complete opposites - one young, slim and with his arms tattooed to within an inch of his life, the other short, fat and bald.

Sunderland curiously start with players wearing shirt numbers 14,15 and 19 (no 5, 7 or 9) but the home side start the brighter with Aidan Kirby forcing a smart save out of James Winter. Thereafter Colls start to dominate the game and the excellent Robbie Bird draws a splendid stop from Stephen Kerr, then smites the crossbar.

Five minutes before half time a meaty challenge and afters results in a huge, angry and violent confrontation; when matters calm down the referee issues a red card to Campion's Ben Bodie, and, despite plenty of splenetic verbal aggression from the away bench, to Ryhope's Denver Morris too.

The free kick goes Welfare's way, is pumped into the box and recycled back to Bird whose strike flies into the top corner. Half time, a smidgeon of rain, and a word with the Ryhope video man elicits, begrudgingly, that the two red cards were the right decision...

The second period sees Ryhope in charge, adapting much better to going down to ten men. Ten minutes in James Ellis feeds in Kyle Davis who shoots across Kerr and the lead is doubled. Roles are reversed on 66 minutes as Davis lays off to Ellis, in acres of space, and he calmly sidefoots past Kerr for 3-0.

Welfare create a host of opportunities, spurned, and the Red and Blacks look a beaten side; but they rally and captain Aiden Day hits the bar and then his swerve inside results in a shot fingertipped onto the inside of post by Winter, with the ball squirming along the goal line, and then desperately hacked away. Campion then win a spot kick with five to go but Day's penalty is comfortably saved by Winter - just not his, or Campion's, erm, day.....

To add insult to injury in the final minute Ollie Hotchkiss lumps a free kick into the Campion box and Ben Riding, unmarked, heads home. A comfortable 4-0 win for the higher placed Ryhope at the death, despite the scoreboard still proclaiming 0-0, and the teams depart to an obsidian sky.... and that iconic mill.