Route 66 took me to Great Wakering Rovers and there can be few more pleasant places to watch football on a warm, sunny afternoon than this village in the Southend hinterlands.

Rovers used to be famous for having a path round the pitch made of seashells; very nice, unless you were barefoot I guess. Sadly, that was not 'hard standing' within the terms of the ground grading rules and they had to replace them with boring concrete.

They remain an endearingly modest club despite their steady progress from local Southend football to Ryman One. Survival is their stated aim for this season and you have to press quite hard before they'll admit to hopes of finishing in the top half of the table.

They are, however, very proud that when a young Michael Kightly, then playing for Basildon in the Essex Senior League, was advised to find a bigger club in order to advance his career, Great Wakering was the club he chose. It worked very quickly. The future Wolves and England Under-21 star played only one match for them (some say it was none at all) before moving onwards and upwards via Grays Athletic.

Opponents for the day were Tilbury, who rather unexpectedly won the League Cup last season but have struggled to make an impact this time.

A beautifully-taken volleyed own goal by Rickie Hayles gave Rovers the lead but Dockers soon equalised with a Joe Keith penalty and 1-1 it stayed.

Own goals . . . now there's a topic that could take up a blog or two. My favourite remains the stunning 18-yard header by Liverpool's Tony Hateley at Highbury in 1967. It was only just after Liverpool had signed him what what was then a massive fee and for many years I kept a press photo of the event which showed the Reds defenders, including Emlyn Hughes, in a state of shock. "WHAT have we bought here?"

Dockers probably should have won it but Wakering came closest when Neil Richmond's shot was cleared off the line by his Aveley colleague of last season, Glen Golby.

That match was bookended by a couple of speedway meetings. Play-off bound Lakeside Hammers enjoyed a routine victory over Ipswich on Friday night but there was more entertainment at Rye House the following evening.

Rye's Tommy Allen was the star of the show. Allen, not the luckiest man in the sport, literally flew over the safety fence and a ten-yard grass strip before crashing back first into the inner rail of the old dog track which, fortunately, is made of plastic. You have to be scared by a back impact of such force and Allen was receiving attention for a long time. The old speedway rule that the worst-looking crashes are (usually) the ones that do the least damage came into play, however, and the sight of Allen walking away allowed us to 'enjoy' the spectacular mishap. He withdrew from the meeting with concussion, which was odd as his head seemed the one part of his body that hadn't hit anything during its journey.

Two men down (they were already without Robert Mear), Rockets did well to hang on for a 45-44 victory against a Newport side without an away win all season. After all, Rye had been in action at distant Edinburgh the night before and lost two riders during that match (Allen being one of them), though both were declared fittish for Saturday.

Alas, the 63-27 defeat in Scotland was the first leg of the cup semi-final and although Rockets are famously strong at home on their day, it might be too much to ask in the return this Saturday.

The weekend finished with Romford Raiders' first home ice hockey match of the season, a bad-tempered 'friendly' against Milton Keynes which they lost 6-2 to follow up a 7-2 defeat in MK the previous night. Romford's new import forwards struggled to make their mark but it's early days. My word, it was cold in that rink.