Littletown 0 v Beeston St. Anthony 2 - West Yorkshire League Premier Division
Saturday 17.5.25 - West Yorkshire League Premier Division. Littletown (0) 0 v Beeston St. Anthony (2) 2 (Jake Topp 8, 10.). Game 133 of the 2024-25 season.
Littletown FC: Michael Williams, Frank Tutt, Tim Clarke, Alex Barnes, Macaulay Parkinson (C), Rob Mallender, Tom Ramsden, Jordan Ledgard, Matt Bolton, Robbie Thompson, Scott Lightowler. Substitutes: Nathan McDaid, Wayne Wright, Lewis Whiting, Matty Thompson
Beeston St. Anthony: Kamen Greaves, Stephen Crawford, Luis Da Silva, Thomas Greaves, Max Halmshaw, George Houlker, Michael Nelson, Daniel Pidgeon, Jamie Thorpe, Callum Woodhouse,Jake topp. Substitutes: Geovanni Biaia, Daniel Claridge, Adam Fowler, Omar Habeeb.
Gomersall & Cleckheaton beat Littletown 2-0 in the final of the West Yorkshire Association League Cup final on Wednesday night, at the County FA’s Fleet Lane ground. The defeat meant that Littletown’s impressive run of 24 consecutive wins finally came to end, during a season in which they have won a double trophy haul, as West Yorkshire League Premier Division champions and County Challenge Cup winners.
This afternoon's opponents at Beck Lane: Beeston St. Anthony, were runners up in both of those competitions. Their reserves won this season's West Yorkshire Association Trophy final, after beating Wyke Wanderers Reserves in the final at the end of last month. The pitch at Beck Lane has perimeter fencing on all four sides, dug-outs on opposite sides of the pitch (which is fairly common in the West Yorkshire League) and a substantial, decent sized stand on one side, that probably holds a few hundred people if needs be (unseated), but was only being used by a few people taking shade from the glorious sunshine this afternoon. The ground is fairly easy to get too, especially if you ignore the curious one-way road system restrictions around this quaint corner of Heckmondwike. Least said soonest mended 😉.
On Thursday, Beeston St. Anthony take on Horsforth St. Margarets in the final of the Leeds & District FA Senior Cup at Elland Road. It's a 7.30pm kick-off. If you are tempted to go, you can pay on the night or book in advance on the Leeds United website, where you’ll have to register first. I’ll see some of you there no doubt, due to the annual national fixtures shortage that breaks out at the tail end of each and every season.
It was great to catch up with so many familiar faces from around the non-league circuit this afternoon, including some good friends I haven't seen in absolutely ages and had lost touch with since the Covid pandemic disrupted most people's football watching habits. Hello Ian and Martin 👋👋. One long-standing pal, asked me to put him a free advertising plug on this well-read football blog, so that all three of my regular readers would be made away of his ‘very exciting’ news: “Wombwell Town are opening a new club shop in time for next season… and it’s going to be great!”. Even if he does say so himself.
I'm quite sure that the anticipation and suspense this earth-shattering announcement must have generated amongst you ranks somewhere quite high on the Richter scale. Joking aside; get yourselves through to Wombwell, the goodly chap who's taken on this project knows his non-league football inside out… and then some. I bumped into one guy of whom I first made the acquaintance, when we were both fledgling teenage groundhoppers, way back in the late 1970’s. He later became on of my regular ‘crew’ visiting as many different grounds as possible following the late, great Retford Town FC.
This win, the visitors final league fixture of the season, saw them move to within two-points of Littletown, courtesy of two Jake Topp goals within two minutes, the first forced home from close-range amidst a goalmouth scramble and a second that caught Littletown’s keeper Michael Williams unaware, as he stood rooted to the spot as the ball flew past him en-route to the back of the net. Littletown still have two league games in hand left to play but can't be caught. The title is theirs.
Just four games left to go now, until I pull up the drawbridge on yet another season. It’s been a memorable and ‘eventful’ one.