JOE WALKS TO LIQUORICE CAKE

Pontefract may be well known for its liquorice cake but the town's "collieries" team is making a name for itself in the North Counties East Football league Division One. They are second in the division behind AFC Emley who are comfortably at the top. Today Pontefract Collieries established a wider gap between them and Penistone Church, who sit in 4th place, now 11 points adrift. Promotion looks like a dream at the moment for Church. For the "Colls" it might be a cake walk.
http://www.pontefractliquorice.co.uk/

It was an unattractive match which the liquorice boys won 2-0 after a lively second half when both goals were scored. Church having played on Thursday in a cup match struggled to keep up with the "collieries" team.

The "Colls" is a relatively young club (1958 originally) founded with players from the Prince of Wales Colliery. When they established their ground at Beechwood Lane they filled the stand with seats from the old Maine Road ground.

At the Church ground today was Joe Quest (may not be his real name) who is on  quest to raise money for cancer research after losing a close member of his family to the illness. Joe is 77 years old and walks and hitchhikes the breadth and length of the country to football grounds, premier, football league and national. Joe had come from Bamber Bridge and so far has covered over 44, 000 miles on his journey. He keeps a record of every match and has team sheets as proof of where he has been.

He once got to Ipswich so late that he only saw a short part of game, so he had to do the whole thing again, He has covered over a 1,000 grounds and watched matches on every visit, collecting money from the punters. All this supported by the FA.

His "walk" began on 23rd January 1999 and he is still going. I spoke to him today and we swappoed a few thoughts about non-league football. I did learn from him that his wife thinks he is "crackers".