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.