FOLLOWING THE SALTMEN

Hellenic League Premier Division, 5th September 2025

The Lawns, Station Road, Henbury, Bristol, BS10 7TB

Saturday sees the Saltmen back on the road. Last weekend saw us host the good folk of Hallen at Kingys. Next time out we visit their near neighbours, Cribbs FC.

As regular readers of this nonsense will realise, FTS puts an extensive amount of research into each of these previews. This one is no exception. We spent literally minutes on t’internet looking for some background about the village of Cribbs. Not a sausage. It seems Cribbs or, more accurately Cribbs Causeway, is the name of an old roadway leading north, away from Bristol and into deepest Gloucestershire. Legend had it that the road was named after Tom Cribb, an early exponent of the noble art of bare knuckle boxing, who became de-facto world champion in 1810 following a reportedly controversial win over American Tom Molineaux. History is silent as to whether the transatlantic pugilist gave his name to the soon(ish) to be formed Wolverhampton Wanderers or the even later manufacturer of household appliances. History also turned out unkind to Mr Cribb too. In the 1960’s some well meaning scholarly types discovered a map showing Cribbs Causeway in 1777; a full four years before the aforementioned Mr Cribb was born.

Today, the area is best known for the Cribbs Causeway Mall and retail park. Like its Irish cousin, Giants Causeway, Cribbs attracts thousands of visitors every week. But Cribbs is much, much better! As far as I can tell, the Giants Causeway is just a collection of coincidentally similar shaped rocks. Cribbs, on the other hand, has got everything! You name the shop and they have one. From Accessorize to Yo (no I don’t know either) 3 Mobile to Waterstones. There’s a Clarks selling shoes, Tag Heur selling expensive Sekondas. You can get oak furniture from Oak Furniture Land, fruit from Apple or trainers from JD Sports. Finally, there are some shops you might not have heard of. There’s an Oliver Bonas and a Dick Lovett but I have no idea whatsoever what they sell…..

Cribbs Causeway also has loads of interesting places to eat. There are two (count em) Nando’s and two Burger King’s. If you like pizza, you’re in for a treat. There is a Pizza Hut AND two Pizza Express’s, a Pret and a Gourmet Burger Kitchen. There’s even somewhere called FatFace which isn’t a restaurant but, in fact, a description of my selfie if I lived close enough to all those exotic eateries.

If shopping’s not your bag then why not go to the cinema, go ten pin bowling or even ice skating, the options are endless. There is even Teletubby Hill, the setting for the controversially hard-hitting children’s current affairs programme. Really. It’s at Cribbs!

Anyway, once you’ve done eating, skating and shopping, there’s the matter of a football match taking place. It’s probably fair to say that Cribbs FC have not had the start to the season they may have hoped. On Saturday, they lost 1-2 to Hereford Pegasus but were almost certainly distracted by their win earlier that week, in the only Bristol derby that really matters, racking up a 2-1 victory over a Hallen side who nearly gave Spa a shock last time out.

You can be sure the table topping Saltmen will not be taking league positions for granted and will need all the support they can get to get something from this one.

Why not make a day of it? Only an hour’s drive away. Or you could fill your boots and make a weekend of it by staying in one of the many hotels in the city.

See you there.

Cheers

FTS