Bustleholme have moved to the former Oldbury United Ground situated on York Road, Rowley Regis, just off Oldbury Road, which runs between Birchley Island in Oldbury which is the M5 Junction 2 traffic island to Blackheath.

Last week Bustleholme travelled to relegated Wellington Amateurs and suffered a 5-1 reversal after going in at half time 1-0 down. In speaking to Manager Parkes earlier this week he said “I was really surprised with Bustleholme’s result, it was not what we expected, and that is no disrespect to Wellington Amateurs, we thought it would be a much closer game, and we expect a really hard game this Saturday (tomorrow) against what we consider to be one of the teams that will be pushing for promotion towards the end of the season”.

Bustleholme’s pre-season was very similar to our own, a mixed bag of results manger Mike Westwood has added to last season’s squad and looks to have a few more players available for tomorrow’s game that were unavailable last Saturday.

Manager Parkes tells me “We will be missing a couple of players this weekend, one is carrying and injury, and we have a couple away on holiday, the remainder of the squad are fully fit and really looking forward to this game. I thought last Saturday we dominated the game against Bromyard, but just couldn’t convert our chances, something we need to be doing. We know we are in for a really hard 90 minutes, and to get a result we need to work extremely hard and be at our best”.

Last season, when both teams had different squads, saw Darlaston visit Bustleholme in mid-September after playing five home games on the trot, running out 4-0 winners, two goals each from Tyrone Clarke O’Connell and the now departed Scott Broadway. The return game at The Paycare Ground, on a soaking wet dismal January afternoon, Darlaston ran out 6-1 winners after Bustleholme opened the scoring in the 23rd minute. Darlaston fought back with another double from Clarke-O’Connell, two from Sam Giles and one each from Lucas Hough and Leon Taylor.

Bustleholme’s history is very different to our own, formed in 1975 to provide your football in and around the Beacon View Estate in West Bromwich by a group of parents who were looking to form an U12 team to give their lads a game of football.

In fact, in my own youth days, playing in the only junior football organised outside of schools in the Birmingham Boys League, I remember playing against Bustleholme on Charlemont Community and Youth Centre playing fields.

From those days the club has grown from one team to a compliment of 25 teams including four girls’ teams. Three of the founder members are still involved within the club today, which is some achievement given its been more than 40 years.

The club has also provided its fair share of player who have gone on to play professional football, this include Dave Burrows (West Brom, Liverpool, West Ham, Everton, Coventry and England), Steve Bull (West Brom, Wolves and England), Stuart Bowen (West Brom) and Adam Oliver (West Brom) who had his career cut short with a knee injury.

1993 saw Bustleholme form their first adult men’s team in the South Staffs Sunday League under the stewardship of ex pro Geoff Fellows. In 1996 Bustleholme applied to join the West Midlands (Regional) League Division One South which saw them finish runners-up securing promotion to Premier Division where the club stayed for nearly fifteen years winning the Premier Division League Cup in 2009/10.

Since 2007 the Club struggled in the Premier Division despite finishing bottom 2007/8, but the club were not relegated. This was repeated in 2009/10, and they also avoided relegation again after finishing bottom of the Premier Division in 2012/13 but a second-from-bottom finish the following season saw the club relegated to Division One where they have remained since.

The youth section of the club has been very successful over the years, following the explosion in youth football and the choice of leagues available to play in, they have fielded teams at all ages, running up to twenty-five teams in a season, including four girl’s teams. In additional to all the youth teams in the 2009/10 season Bustleholme formed a reserves team (now folded) along with the youth team that play in the Midweek Floodlight League, which provides a link from youth football into the first team today.

So please come and support two local Black Country teams, kick off is 3 pm and just a reminder the match is being played at the former home of Oldbury United situated on York Road, Rowley Regis, B65 0RR