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?
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| 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.
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| 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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