BRIGG FOOTBALL MEMORIES 1970-1990: WILL WE EVER SEE SO MANY TEAMS AGAIN?

Following Brigg Blog's recent post about far fewer adult players and teams playing local football at weekends, we received a link to an online article examining the reasons for this steady decline.
It delves into things at much greater depth than we did, so here's a link for Brigg Blog sports fans who are interested in learning what it has to say.
Strangely, when there was huge demands from adult teams wanting to play league matches at Brigg Recreation Ground, off Wrawby Road, the changing accommodation included wooden garden-type sheds and an outside tap round the corner to wash mud off legs and boots!
Things got a little better when Glanford Borough Council added a breeze-block structure in the 1980s, though the sheds remained for a time after that.
But now North Lincolnshire Council has built a superb changing room block, with en suite showers, there are few local sides using them.
That's a real shame and we can only hope that more are formed and this downward trend can be reversed. It is a national problem, not a local one.
Many Brigg and district teams in the 1970s and 1980s were allied to local pubs and places of employment.
Sunday sides included the White Hart, Black Bull, King William IV, Ancholme Wanderers, Jolly Miller, Arties Mill, Brigg Servicemen's Club, Bowness & Gray, Falcon Cycles and Brigg Sugar Factory (the latter having its own ground off Scawby Road).
Among those playing on Saturdays were the White Horse and Wrawby Athletic  - both playing home games at Brigg Rec for many years.
The Scunthorpe and District Saturday and Sunday Leagues had numerous divisions and were joined in the mid-1980s by a new Sunday competition, the Barton Regional Sunday League, in which Brigg had three sides.
There were further teams in Scawby, Broughton, Hibaldstow, Barnetby and nearby villages.
Spectators used to watch all the matches at Brigg Rec - even if the weather was bad.
After Saturday games in the 1980s, footballers made the short walk to Brigg Town's Hawthorns clubhouse, joining home and visiting hockey players (male and female) who had also been battling it out on the Rec's three grass pitches.
The Hawthorns was often packed, with footballers congregating at one end of the function room and hockey players at the other.
A few of us who enjoyed both sports would cross the central divide!
Our picture, from the Ken Fisher Collection, show Ancholme Wanderers in action at Brigg Rec in the early 1970s.
This successful team was based at the Ancholme Inn (since demolished), on Grammar School Road.
Young Pete Wainwright, not seen here, was the goalscoring star of the side back then. A pupil of Brigg Grammar School, he lived at Silversides, Scawby Brook, and went on to play for Grimsby Town.
Brigg Amateurs FC, playing on Saturdays, had three league teams in the mid-1980s, making it the largest local club in terms of player numbers.
The Scunthorpe & District Saturday League today (just two divisions) includes local sides Briggensians, Barnetby United and Barnetby United Reserves.
That comparison, perhaps more than any other, highlights the decline in numbers.
As for the quality of football played today, compared with 30 years ago, we don't feel qualified to comment, other than to say that we could get the odd game for Brigg Amateurs A Team - if they were short and we weren't able to get to a hockey club away game in Yorkshire. We worked alternate Saturday mornings on the sports desk at the Scunthorpe Telegraph in the mid to late 1980s.
Player/manager and organiser of the A-team back then was Mike Stevenson. When the all-action A-Team started to be screened on UK TV, Mike became known locally as Hannibal - that being the name of George Peppard's character who ran the A-Team. Brigg humour at its best?