Chesterfield - Oxford. 23 November 2010

A cold Tuesday night in November watching your team away on an open terrace - that's what football's all about isn't it?

Now that we are back in the Football League, the fixture list computer has only thrown up three of these. midweek aways, and this one is even under cover.  Compare this to the vagaries of Dennis Strudwick and the Conference in 2008/09 when we amazingly had 14 [*1] league away games which didn't kick-off at the traditional 3pm Saturday.

Anyway, this game was all set for a Tuesday night at Chesterfield in their first season in a new ground, so new that my SatNav didn't even know about it.  I left work at 2pm, collected the Londoners from Hammersmith at 3pm, before the 120 mile trek through North London and up the M1.  We arrived in the darkening gloom at 6pm, with a large (and bad) full-moon rising, and the crooked spire visible from the ring road around the town.  As the ground's parking was all pre-allocated, we found a free car park  down a backstreet a few hundred yards round the corner, with a convenient, but unlit, route through to the ground. There was a hefty wooden car-park post to avoid (or not) as we found out, as well as a very muddy patch of grass between car-park and the main road.

For a brand new stadium, the B2Net has moved away from the identikit box-set design [*2] .  This has four complete stands, all one tier each, but with an elegant arched roof over three of them. 

After buying programmes, badges and a pennant, we headed off for nourishment.  The first Chinese chip shop on the Sheffield Road looked most unappetising, so we continued on up past a pizza takeaway and an Indian, before finding the North Sea fish and chip shop. (Voted Chesterfield's No1 fish and chip shop 2007 by the local radio breakfast team.).  This was much more promising, with people eating outside, a queue inside, and a wait for fish to be fried to meet demand.  

Front room bar?

Once stuffed with fish and chips, we headed back down the run-down version of the Cowley Road, boasting 'The Beer Parlour' beer and cider shop.  This was the size of a front room, with bottles, cans and home brew kits on the shelves, but also a metre long bar, with two stools, a table and a couple of chairs for customers to sample the wares, and a few Chesterfield fans.  This could be worth investigating if we play there on a Saturday.

There wasn't any obvious overpolicing or zealous stewarding, and inside the ground the concourses were bright and clean with the concrete and breezeblocks all painted, two flat screen tvs showing sky-sports news, and even a couple of beer pumps on the catering stall.  They even sold bottles of soft drinks with the top so you could take these into the ground.

345 of us we were in the North stand behind the goal, together with ex-skipper and current Mansfield town player Adam Murray and two friends along to see their local rivals and his ex-teammates.  The 5,700 Chesterfield fans were fairly evenly spread from the middle of each of their stands, although yet again they resorted to a drummer to get things going.   The stands were just a few yards from the pitch, with a small astro-turf run off area from the playing area so there was a good view even from the back of the stand.  

As for the match, we went back to the 3rd kit variant of blue shorts, white shirts and white socks last seen at Macclesfield.  We started with 4-5-1 and MacLean up front.  The first half hour Craddock was again marooned on the left and seemed out of place, but the big midfield was necessary to try and stop Chesterfield.  They scored before half time, so at the interval we switched the formation, with Craddock partnering MacLean in a 4-4-2.  We got one back, then scored another to go ahead, then hung on for dear life with a shot from inside the box yards pinging off our bar to give us, the players and manager a much relieved first win in six. 

Back in the car for the long drive back, we cheered the sports new every half hour as they announced that top-placed Chesterfield had been beaten by Oxford, getting back to London gone midnight, Cookham around 1am, and for me eventually around 1:30 - exhausted, but happy!

[*1]  Barrow on a Friday night, Wrexham on a Thursday, Northwich Tuesday, Torquay Thursday, Altrincham Sunday afternoon, Mansfield Thursday night, Weymouth Tuesday, Cambridge Thursday, Eastbourne Tuesday, Kettering Thursday, Rushden Tuesday, York Tuesday, plus two bank holiday games. 

[*2] Millwall got the A kit, with 4 big double tiered stands,  the Kassam got the B kit with 3 sides and 1 double tiered stand with executive boxes and facilities, and Mansfield the C kit with a smaller 3 sided stadium and space for exec boxes. 

Oxford - Gillingham. 20 November 2010

Highlight of the day 

Adebayo Akinfenwa trotting into the box at the Oxford Mail end of the ground, the fans all shouting "You Fat Bastard" at him, which made him turn and grin and completely miss seeing the ball coming to him when clear and in space.
 

He's no slimmer since leaving Northampton

We lost the game 1-0, our 5th consecutive defeat in league and cup.  The Gills won their first away game in the league in over a year.

For more info on Akinfenwa, his twitter is @daRealAkinfenwa

"They say I'm too big to play football ha!ha! CEO of The Ha! Ha! Brand"

www.thehahabrand.co.uk

Rotherham-Oxford 13 Nov 2010

East Coast trains again this time. £34.30 Guildford to Sheffield via Doncaster and back, but oddly I had only booked from Doncaster for the return - possibly because the website wanted me to return on the slower and more expensive Sheffield-Birmingham-Reading route. On my table were two female Leeds fans from Brighton in ginger wigs to welcome a newcomer with ginger hair to their supporters group, and Bristol City fans on their way up too. The Doncaster-Sheffield train is the one that stops at the Meadowhall shopping centre, so why they only sent one carriage I don't know as it was jam packed.  I wasn't sure whether to get off at Rotherham, or Meadowhall where the few Rotherham fans departed, so continued all the way to Sheffield to meet my group who had got an earlier train. Arriving in Sheffield, I exited the station past a magnificent stainless steel fountain in front of the station to meet up at the Howard pub which was a bit empty and dismal, a poor choice of ale too with Stones or Hobgoblin. One fellow in there was proudly showing off an alsation bite wound on his leg and was on a 10 year football ban, which I guess was not for an end of season run on the pitch so we left before he had the chance to flip. Several Rochdale fans around too for their game. Caught the Supertram (£3.50 return), which went up and down hills like a rollercoaster to the stop before Don Valley, wandered down the hill to the high street, full of boarded up pubs, a bright pink Hanky Panky private shop with directions to a sauna round the back, but passed that by and went in the first pub we could find. Full of a mixture of Rotherham and neutrals watching the Manchester United Villa game. Another boarded up shop had the sloping brickwork optical illusion - was this deliberate?  The Yorkshire brickies were drunk again The stadium itself was 'Home to Sheffield Eagles', even though they don't play there anymore, with a smaller sign for Rotherham. Both set of fans were seated under cover alongside the pitch, with the Oxford faithful in a separate stand at the far right. Across was a large bowl of uncovered seats, and a strange few sections of terracing with crash barriers going up the slope instead of across. Rotherham had cheerleaders to liven up proceedings. With the running track and the long jump pit in front, we were so far from the action it was difficult to tell who was even playing unless they came right to the corner, so apart from Alfie Potter and Ryan Clarke the team was unknown to me. Where's the pitch? First half Rotherham got into our half twice and ALF scored twice, this time with Chelsea Dagger as the unwelcome goal music and a small group of children jumping and pumping their arms in the air in delight. The giant scoreboard screen went unused, so it was just a big analogue clock to the left of it. At least the ball boys were even handed in throwing back a new ball to either team as soon as one went out of play. We got one back, but that was it as far as football went. Yet again it seemed like a game that for much of it we had more possession, but we cannot control and forge ahead. I counted 10 uniformed officers inside the ground, there were lots of hi-viz stewards too, including three who were looking after a section of empty seats for no good reason. Match day food was disappointing with standard factory pies so I gave that a miss. Afterwards, we had to exit the ground on the opposite side, before marching all the way back round to the tram stops. Being a bit confused by my trains, I caught the tram back to Sheffield, before getting a train back to Doncaster (£3.90), when I could have gone 2 stops further on to Meadowhall and picked the train up there. An hour to kill in Doncaster was a mistake, the shopping centre was shutting up, and the pub nearest the station was dead too. The 19:14 train back to London had the same ginger-wigged Leeds fans (happy), and a table of John Smiths drinking middle aged Bristol City fans (sad) almost breaking into a fight over whether signing David James was a good move.

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Burton - Oxford. FA Cup. 6 November 2010

Well yet another trip to Burton, this time by car up the M1. Now I know why I get the train whenever possible. Miles of 50mph roadworks, watching the West Coast Virgin train racing past us.

This time I got to the ground in time for faggots and luke warm mushy peas. After asking for a spoon, was directed round the corner to the condiments counter, only to find tiny plastic chip-forks. This was about as good as the day got.

The starting line-up was bizarre; Constable nowhere to be seen even with his nemesis from the league game Darren Moore out; and Wilder was suited and booted.

I thought Burton looked to have replicated our first half formation against Torquay with players out wide creating lots of chances, and we were struggling with a very strange defenders in midfield and Green and Craddock up front. Within half an hour Kinni had been subbed, the players were changing formation and I lost track of what was going on.

Burton got the ball in the back of the net, the stadium PA started blaring out Tom Hark, before realising the linesman had flagged for offside and the music was switched off again.

Second half I thought Green did his best up front, ran down every ball, and will wait to see how he missed the open goal from a yard out. Green got a harsh booking for hustling the Burton goalkeeper Legzdins. The keeper then deservedly got stick for his play-acting, but disappointingly also got abuse from sections of the crowd who mistakenly took the Staffordshire born player with two Latvian grandparents for an economic migrant only here on a visa.

We had several chances but failed to capitalise, and yet again concede from a header. This time the PA system seemed to crackle in silence with no music, and the home crowd were bewildered at having to celebrate without the comfort of the Piranhas. We haven't scored for three games now. At least we actually fired a few tame shots in the vague direction of goal this time (Payne, Craddock).

An even slower journey home down the M1, listening to the usual premiership biased 606 phone in on radio 5, then delays on the M4 after dropping off the Londoners.