A SPORTING CHARM BESIDE THE SEASIDE

SCARBOROUGH is meant for summer and ices, beach shorts and sandcastles, but I found the place has its charms even in winter as I headed off to see Scarborough Athletic play Peterborough Sports.

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Walking my way to the ground via the North to the South Bay, shining in early morning sun, I passed the statue of Freddie Gilroy in later life, made by sculpture Ray Lonsdale. Gilroy was a soldier who helped liberate prisoners of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

These sculptures become part of the town's identity, but so too does football. Indeed, I passed a club supporter, with a red and white bobble hat, as I walked from bay to bay. He was stopped along the way by a bystander. "Going to the game"? the man asked, "Indeed I am" he replied, with some understated pride.

As a writer and poet, as well as a NonLeague supporter, I love finding these grounds and was aware that the ground was just the other side of the South Bay, so still had a distance to go.

Getting to the ground in daylight, I noticed banks over on the hillside, over the valley, soon to fade from view as the dark descended and car lights resembled lanterns, in motion.