Chelmsford City, Hornchurch, and when the only way is Essex

Chelmsford City's biggest league crowd of the season turned out for a match with little at stake beyond local pride.

While I do understand the rationale behind the hatred, there's something about a football pitch with an athletics track around it that I do kind of like. When I was in my twenties, the company that I worked for had a football team, and when they arranged matches they were usually played at Westminster Lodge, the athletics track opposite our office that had a football pitch in the middle of it.

With a pitch that was surrounded on two sides by a large grass bank, an athletics track and floodlights, it wasn't difficult to imagine that you were playing away to some 'crack' Eastern European team in the early stages of the UEFA Cup when you stepped out there. For anyone who never otherwise got to play in front of a crowd or at a 'proper' ground, it was as close to playing the game that they saw on the television that they might ever get.

Of course, the perspective of the player and that of the supporter are very different, and if your only interest in the game is as a watcher, then athletics tracks are a problem. The distance from the pitch is substantially greater along at least the sides. I remember being at a match between Croydon and St Albans City in about 1989 when a fog descended. We couldn't see anything, but the rules state that the referee only has to be able to see both goals from the centre spot. When City scored their second goal, we only became aware of this as a result of small cheer from on the pitch.

Chelmsford City's pitch has an athletics track around it, and I'm sympathetic. They lost their ground to property development in 1997 and it took them eight years of playing home matches ten miles away at Billericay before a return home became viable thanks to Melbourne Park, an athletics track on the northern outskirts of the city. They've been there for almost two decades now, and it is somewhat surprising that there don't seem to be any plans to build a ground of their own, though there are understandable reasons why this may not be feasible.

This particular Saturday afternoon was, at least, an easy journey. For reasons too complicated to go into here, my girlfriend is staying in Shenfield, on the north side of Brentwood, at the moment and Shenfield is only ten minutes by train from Chelmsford. My walk to Shenfield station is twice as long as the train journey, and my walk to the ground from Chelmsford railway station is something like three and a half times as long. It's a lopsided sort of a Saturday. She's staying home this week to do paperwork, but at least I shouldn't get lost on my own.

The walk to Shenfield station is down a private road in which every house seems to indicate that people become paranoiacs as soon as they get some money. Every other house is gated off. There are more burglar alarms visible than people at any point on the walk. And, in news that bodes ill for the rest of my journey, I get mildly lost trying to find the - extremely obvious - entrance to Shenfield Station. I'm still on the train, chuckling at Newcastle letting Bournemouth tickle their tummies, in plenty of time to make the walk to the ground in plenty of time for kick-off.

Chelmsford should be familiar to me, albeit through the mists of time. A quarter of a century ago I had a girlfriend who lived here and spent every other weekend here at dive bars with names like "Dukes", taking in the barely-in-control vibe of a Friday night out in Essex.

But it's been a long time and the house she lived in is in the opposite direction to the ground, so I'm effectively on my own with Google Maps here. When I turn out of the railway station and without prompting Maps decides to try and re-route my journey to add 15 completely unnecessary minutes to it, I'm briefly tempted to find the River Chelmer and chuck my phone in it.

Still, this is a walk through some fairly typical south of England suburbia. Chelmsford has been inhabited for a couple of thousand years - nearby Colchester was, of course, a major Roman settlement - but it wasn't incorporated as a municipal borough until 1888 and its cathedral wasn't built until 1913. Its population has grown four and a half times since the 1921 census.

The very formation of Chelmsford City FC was a reaction to that growth. There had been an amateur club called Chelmsford FC in the town since 1878, but they were still rattling around the county league by the mid-1930s, a time by which it was increasingly becoming clear that while they might continue to run it for a long time, the amateurs were never going to win this ultimate battle against the professionals. City were formed as a professional club, to play in the Southern League with the ultimate aim of getting into the Football League.

And goodness, did they ever try. In the years when you had to curry the favour of club chairmen to have any chance of getting voted in, Chelmsford applied. They had business cards and pamphlets. They even had a plenty capable team for a while. They won the Southern League in 1968 and 1972, but on the latter of those two occasions Hereford United were voted in, replacing Barrow on account of their FA Cup run, while the Clarets missed out.

Indeed, Chelmsford City applied on 17 occasions to join the Football League, more than any other club, and missed out every single time. And their bad timing could be spectacular, at times. They were relegated from the top division of the Southern League in 1977, their first ever relegation, meaning they missed out on a place in the newly-formed Alliance Premier - now National - League, which was formed two years later. They've never been promoted that high since.

Melbourne Park is a mile and a half of post-war suburbia from the city centre. Chelmsford was long assumed to be a city because it had a cathedral, but in fact it didn't become one until 2012 and the queen's Golden Jubilee. At least the club's name is consistent now. But since the growth came in the post-war years, this feels very much like a modern place to live.

Their opponents on this slate-grey Saturday afternoon are Hornchurch, who were promoted at the end of last season as the Isthmian League champions, and who have an identical record to Chelmsford at kick-off. Played 24, won 8, drawn 8, and lost 8. To complete the synchronicity of this record, Hornchurch have scored 26 and conceded the same, as well. The two teams are 14th and 15th in the table respectively.

Despite this being something of a nothingburger of a game - the four relegation places in this division may already be decided, and we're not even out of January yet - there's still a crowd here. Last season, Hornchurch supporters travelled down to the south coast in good numbers for their league match against Bognor Regis Town as they closed in on the title.

But it's easy to make a long journey for an away day when your team is going well. Even a localish derby can look a bit more daunting when you're 15th in the table and going nowhere, it's going to be very cold out and getting dark at four, but a good couple of hundred of them - at least - have made the journey north-west for this match, tipping the crowd just over the 1,000 mark. It's Chelmsford's biggest league crowd so far of the season.

The athletics-y nature of Melbourne Park adds a level of randomness to everything. Behind one goal there's a huge hammer net, and while there are stewards standing around it I'm not certain they'd have the dedication to the cause to talk me out of watching from inside if I chose to do so. The long jump pit is sadly covered over, so my attempts to break that world record will have to wait, for now. In the corner by the entrance is the club bar, which is modern and has a ping-pong table in it, but also has a queuing system for the bar which is so slow that it may be operated by Greater Anglia Trains. The lord giveth, the lord taketh away.

Out on the pitch, Chelmsford are in claret and white, while Hornchurch are dressed as Bristol Rovers, in shirts of blue and white quarters. And surprise surprise, there's nothing really between the two teams. Chances are thin on the ground and the ball spends a fair amount of time in the air. The early stages of this match are very much all heat and no light.

But after 17 minutes we have a goal nevertheless, when the ball falls kindly at the feet of Finley Wilkinson, who's making his home Chelmsford debut after signing on loan from Barnet, who scores from close range. It's still 1-0 by half-time, with the midwinter darkness and a touch of fog starting to descend. Back in the bar it is at least warm, even if it does take me almost the whole of the break to get served.

The start of the second half feels like as good a time as any to go exploring. Melbourne Park is pretty much accessible from any vantage point, but you have to walk a long way around to get there. The main stand is big, and without many empty seats. Opposite, there is another seated stand built into the exterior of the adjacent leisure centre.

At one end of it is a small stretch of steel terracing, the exact point of which isn't entirely clear. But overall, the ground isn’t bad. Weird, but not bad. The action is a bit of distance away if you're watching from the side, but it's not a terrible view, and behind the goal the terracing is so close to the pitch that when Wilkinson's low shot hit the net the ball bounces straight back out off the advertisement hoarding behind it. It’s like a more developed version of The Dave Bryant Stadium in Enfield.

With seventeen minutes to play, Wilkinson briefly becomes the young Michael Owen and the match seems to be made safe for the home side. He carries the ball from the centre circle with two defenders in pursuit, tacks right towards the edge of the penalty area and then shoots across and into the top corner for 2-0. With four minutes to play there's a moment of hope for Hornchurch when Tommy Wood scores from close range to pull it back to 2-1.

It certainly isn't that Hornchurch didn't create anything. The Chelmsford captain Cameron James has to head the ball off the line twice for the home side. But the late goal and seven minutes of stoppage-time aren't quite enough to drag them back into the game, this time. You do get the feeling that with an extra ten minutes they'd have come away from it all with a point, but they don't have that time and they don't get that goal. They were a little unfortunate to come away from it all with nothing.

The three points and the local derbyish kudos go to Chelmsford, this time around. They rise a place in the league to 13th and are now level on points with Slough Town. Hornchurch stay where they are but are now level on places with Chippenham Town. They’re only separated from 20th-placed Welling United by four points, but the gap between them and 21st-placed St Albans City is 13 points. They should be okay. Chelmsford are 11 points short of the play-offs. The middle of the table looks like the most likely ultimate destination for both, come the end of this season.

By the time the full-whistle blows, there’s already a large crowd gathered in the corner of the ground. Times may change and we may be living in the future now, but some things never change. There are enough people drifting back towards town that I don’t need to check Maps again. Seven minutes stoppage-time and a late start meant that the game didn’t end until just after five, but the fog is cold and I have an appointment with some food, some loving arms, and the last series of Slow Horses on Apple TV.

Days like this aren’t really about longer-term aspirations of promotion or ambition. All that really mattered at Melbourne Park was that these two Essex clubs went at each other, both wanting to win the match. Everybody knows that with both promotion and relegation looking highly unlikely, perhaps those local ‘bragging rights’ is much of what there is to play for over the remainder of the season.

After 19 years at Melbourne Park, Chelmsford City are at home there, even with all its limitations. And that is better than the alternative. They were eight years playing miles away at Billericay and sometimes you just have to play with the hand with which you’re dealt. There may be a hammer net, a long jump pit, and the possibility that no-one will be able to see very much on a foggy day, but it’s home. And that’s certainly better than having no home at all, as many non-league football clubs—including a fair few in Essex—will readily attest.