Extreme Groundhopping

On the move...

2010-04-01T18:54:00.005Z

A change is as good as rest so, after six years with blogger, we're on the move to wordpress. You can find us settling down in the new place here.

Please adjust your bookmarks. Thank you!

Football Statues

2010-04-01T16:40:00.002Z

No 18 (in a series of several): Valery Lobanovsky (1939-2002)

Valery Lobanovsky is quiet easily the most successful coach in the history of football in the Ukraine and the former Soviet Union. He led Dynamo Kiev to five league championships and two Cup Winners' Cups victories between 1974 and 1986 and the Soviet Union to runners-up spot in the 1988 European Championships. Returning to Dynamo Kiev for a third spell he took them to five consecutive league titles between 1997 and 2001 and also to the semi-finals of the Champions' League in 1999. Erected in his honour this distinctive monument sits outside Dynamo’s stadium which was also renamed the Lobanovsky Dynamo Stadium in his memory.

More on Lobanovsky and Dynamo Kiev can be found in Andy Dougan’s highly readable ‘Dynamo: Defending the Honour of Kiev’.

Picture from Wikipedia.

More Football Statues here.

Downham Town

2010-03-28T15:47:00.005Z

27-03-2010: Downham Town 0 Ipswich Wanderers 3
(Ridgeons League Division One)

About five miles shy of today’s destination is Oxbrough Hall. Originally built as a manor house it was converted to a brick quadrangular fortress - complete with moat - in the mid 15th century. Although extensively remodeled during the Victorian era the three storey gatehouse and towers on the north face of the hall were unaffected and, it must be said, are quite magnificent . There is pleasant circular walk through the grounds which was taken advantage of by yours truly although I didn’t venture inside having done so on a previous visit many moons ago with the ministering angel of domestic bliss and the two extreme groundhopping sproglets.

As one of the more attractive Fen towns Downham Market is worth a quick stroll too. Charles I, and a group of Dutch engineers, were responsible for getting the drainage of the fens underway in the 1600’s and the influence of the later can be seen in the construction of a number of buildings in the town . While the less than keen eye may miss the Dutch gables you would have to try really hard to overlook the quite distinctive clock tower that sits in the market square , the four faces of which were originally illuminated by gas light.

Half a mile out from the town centre along the old Kings Lynn road are the War Memorial Playing Fields a large green space in the middle of which sits Downham Town FC’s ground. In fitting with the name the area contains a Garden of Remembrance along with a cricket pitch, tennis and squash courts, kids play area and parking. There are plenty of mature trees – several large oak trees sit along one touchline – which, along with the sandstone wall that surrounds the greenery, all makes for a quite pleasant setting. The sunny (though slightly chilly) weather topped this off nicely.

With a wooden fence on just three sides of the ground, and sitting in the middle of a public park as it does, means that the club are unable to charge admission (certainly I wasn’t asked to cough up any cash) so an entire 90 minutes of football was watched for the price of a half-time cup of tea (50p including free scone). This was acquired from the clubhouse that the footballers share with the local cricket and running clubs. The fourth side has just a low retaining rail – which continues along the other three sides - and it was from here, and later from a wooden bench under a large oak tree back towards the road, that I watched the afternoon’s action. On the far side, beneath the aforementioned trees, are the dugouts (nicely painted red - the club colours) and three low stands. The centre one offers seating for around thirty (I would guess) and the two sides ones covered standing. All very civilized.

Founded in 1881, for many years the club competed in junior leagues in the Kings Lynn area before the move into senior league following election to the Peterborough & District League in the late 1940’s. Champions in 1962-63, 1973-74, 1978-79, 1986-87, 1987-88, they joined the Eastern Counties (now Ridgeons) League as founder members of the first division in 1988 and that’s were they’ve remained ever since, with a third place finish in 1999 their best placing so far.

More pictures here.

Well I’m not one for lists but after today’s trip to the Fens I need to visit just five more grounds to complete the set of 39 Ridgeons League venues, details of which can be found in this handy map...

View Ridgeons League Grounds in a larger map

The Manchester City Experience

2010-03-26T18:14:00.005Z

05-06-2008: The Manchester City Museum

Close to two years ago Mrs ExtremeGroundhopping and I holidayed in the Peak District and made a couple of trips into Manchester during our weeks stay there. I’ve previoulsy covered our visits to Old Trafford and the City of Manchester Stadium here, here and here. Part of our tour of the latter include a visit to Manchester City’s Museum – The Manchester City Experience – and while I make no claim to being a fan of City (or one of United for that matter) I must say I was mightily impressed with both the tour and the museum. Here are some of the highlights (of the museum)...

(1) A hand bell that belonged to the late Helen "the bell" Turner who was a regular at Maine Road for over thirty years. A legend among City fans she sat at the front of the North Stand ringing the bell in support of the team. She developed a close friendship with goalkeeper Joe Corrigan and other players to such an extent that she was invited on to the pitch at Wembley to join in the team’s lap of honour after their League Cup victory in 1976.

(2) The old honours board from Maine Road records the clubs trophy haul and promotions. It really must rankle with fan’s that Manchester City’s finest hour (League Champions in 1968) was overshadowed by Manchester United’s European Cup Final victory at Wembley just a week later. In a similar way that it wrankles with Norwich City fans that the one and only time they managed a higher league finish than Ipswich during the 1970’s was in 1978 - when Town won the FA Cup!

(3) A bust of Joe Mercer sits close to the entrance . Mercer is quite easily the Sky Blue’s most successful manager. Between his appointment in 1965 and ignominious departure in 1971 (following a dispute with deputy Malcolm Allison), the club won the 1966 Second Division title, as mentioned above the First Division championship in 1968, the FA Cup in 1969, and both the League Cup and European Cup Winners' Cup in 1970. A period of success that City have abjectly failed to come anywhere close to replicating since.

(4) The next item I’d briefly considered posting as an entry the ‘Football Statues’ series but then thought better of it … a life size figure of Colin ‘King of the Kippax’ Bell . The Kippax was the popular and vociferous terrace at Maine Road while Colin Bell (who has a stand named after him at the City of Manchester Stadium) is considered to be City’s greatest ever player. In 394 league appearances for City between 1966 and 1979 he hit 117 goals with a further 7 for England (in 48 games) during the same period. The midfielders playing days at Maine Road coincided with the clubs most successful era and Bell may well have gone onto collect a century of international caps had it not been for a serious knee injury.

(5) Sticking with injuries perhaps the most famous one of all time was that picked up by goalkeeper Bert Trautmann who also features in the museum as a life size figure . Diving to make a save at the feet of Birmingham’s Peter Murphy in the 1956 FA Cup Final, Trautmann injured his neck but continued for the remaining quarter of an hours play making several crucial saves as City recorded a 3-1 victory. Three days later an X-Ray revealed that the former German paratrooper, and prisoner of war, had actually broken his neck! In 2004 Trautmann was awarded an OBE for his work in promoting Anglo-German relationships.

(6) Finally, and OK a bit Anoraky I’ll admit, the brass plate from an Ellison’s Rush Preventive Turnstile rescued from Maine Road before the wrecking crew moved in . Two companies in the Manchester area (WT Ellison & Co and WH Bailey) produced the majority of turnstiles installed at British stadia from the mid-1890’s to the 1980’s and in the intervening years the designs produced by both companies changed very little. The Ellison turnstile originally sold for just over £7 and had two features to separate it from its rivals. A foot pedal allowed the operator to lock and unlock the turnstile as each spectator passed through, allowing just one paying customer through at a time. It also had a finely engineered, and tamper-proof, brass mechanism with ceramic counters, to allow officials to tally the gate against monies collected. WT Ellison client’s found that their receipts rose considerably once the devices were in pace!

Well there you have it a very nicely put together collection of exhibits that is worth an hour of any ones time, City fan or not.

More pictures here.

Wealdstone

2010-03-18T23:57:00.003Z

18-03-2010: Wealdstone 1 Croydon Athletic 0
(Championship Manager Ryman League Cup Semi-Final)

With the likes of Stuart Pearce (1978-83) and Vinnie Jones (1984-86) in their ranks Wealdstone were a force to be reckoned with in the 1980’s, winning the Southern League Championship in 1982 and both the Alliance Premier League (forerunner of the Conference) and the FA Trophy in 1985 (a third Wembley success for the club).

They may well have gone on to achieve greater success had their application to join the Football League been rubber stamped but instead in all went horribly wrong. A management change and several poor league campaigns saw them relegated to the Southern League in 1990 at which point their Lower Mead ground was sold out from underneath them ‘in dubious circumstances’ by then Chairman Alan Clifton.

While the old ground became the site for a supermarket the Stones ground shared with Watford for two years, then with Yeading, followed by ten years at Edgware Town and a stint at Northwood. In the meantime construction of a new stadium in Canons Park began (2003) but this came to a complete halt just a year later when the company responsible for paying the builders went into liquidation.

In 2008, the chairman and vice-chairman of the club acquired a majority shareholding in Ruislip Manor Sports and Social Club and, most importantly, the Grosvenor Vale ground that went with it and it is here they have been playing for the past two seasons. It’s a higgledy piggledy affair but at least it’s a permanent home for the club for first time in seventeen years.

Olympic Stadium HDTV Ready

2010-03-18T23:43:00.003Z

I don’t think the London Olympic Stadium is ever likely to be considered a classic but at least, now that the 28m-high lighting towers are being lifted into place, it is looking less and less like the chrome fruit basket that sits on top of our fridge. There will be forty-one of these floodlight towers hovering 180 feet above the playing area/running track - with more than enough candle power to beam HD TV footage around the world - positioned so that competitors and fans are not blinded by their output (see press release). The real measure of the place – at least visually – will be when the whole place is covered in a heavy duty wrap imprinted with sporting imagery. That will happen sometime early next year and then comparisons with the Bird’s Nest and other former Olympic Stadia will start in earnest.

AaB Aalborg

2010-03-07T20:36:00.006Z

16-07-2004: Other People's Pictures

Joe Royle is pictured (above) arriving at the Energi Nord Arena, Aalborg, Denmark, for a pre-season friendly between AaB and Ipswich in the summer of 2004. Joe who, certainly in this neck of Ipswich, is fondly remembered for the three and two-third seasons he was Ipswich Town manager, even if his last season in charge (2005-06) was a rather dismal affair. Ipswich were heading downhill - quickly - when he arrived in November 2002, but he turned things around and come May 2003 the Blues had missed out on a play-off spot by just a few points. Successive play-off semi-finals were competed, but sadly lost, in 2004 and 2005, the latter after we had just missed out on automatic promotion by a single victory!

We were treated to some swashbuckling football in those three-and-a-half years. A 3-2 come from behind win against Sheffield United - with Town down to ten men - a 6-4 victory against Crewe, a 6-0 thumping of Nottingham Forest and a 4-2 win at QPR - fantastic stuff! And if BFJ's judgement was perhaps just a tad clouded when he signed Mark Fish on loan early in 2005-06 he will long be remembered in the mind of this Town fan as the man who brought us ... Shefki Kuqi!.

Thanks to Smiffy for the pictures, more of which can be found here, as I was otherwise engaged on the day.

Norwich United

2010-03-07T16:03:00.009Z

06-03-2010: Norwich United 1 Cambridge Regional College 3
(Ridgeons League Premier Division)

A bit of a change of routine for this Ridgeons League fixture as I travelled by train and shanks pony rather by car, starting with a late morning train out of Ipswich to Norwich. I always find arriving at Norwich Station uplifting (a fine, airy, light filled Victorian building that is always a pleasure to use). A quick change of platform and I hopped on a Lowestoft bound train for the ten minute journey to Brundell. The train tracks follow the River Yare out of Norwich, a river that links the city with the Norfolk Broads, eventually flowing out into the North Sea between Great Yarmouth and Gorleston. And very picturesque is it too.

The village of Brundell looks quite promising when you arrive with its proper old fashioned station with vintage footbridge and traditional gate crossing . I wandered down through the adjacent boat yard hoping for a glimpse of the broads, but there are security cameras and warning signs at every turn. Tall fences separate holiday homes on the banks of the broads from passers-by roadside. Not at all welcoming, but perhaps that is the point.

Brundell proper looked somewhat more welcoming/promising as I strolled north out towards Norwich United’s ground in the adjacent village of Blofield (a mile and a bit from the railway station). Ah, the country side, loads of 4x4’s and electronically gated homes. As the only person using legs to get around I was starred at suspiciously by a number of passing drivers.

Now in Blofield, I stopped off at the church, beckoned in by a large sign outside proclaiming it OPEN. So many churches have to be locked up to cut down on theft and vandalism so this was a pleasant surprise. Your average Norman affair but with some nice stained glass windows . One pub en route (not sampled), two village stores and two chippies (both shut) is all the two villages have to offer food and drink wise.

Across the A47 dual carriageway and there is the first sign pointing you in the direction of the ground – there’s still a few hundred yards to go though. First up is a bowling green, then a large car park with five-a-side pitch off to the right. Also off to the right is a full blown practice pitch (where players from both sides were warming up). Spectator access to the main pitch is through a door in the main club house. Admission is handed over to a lady standing at a turnstile cum tea bar. A convenient arrangement, that left me £6.50 lighter in pocket, but with steamy Styrofoam cuppa in hand.

So, time to tour the ground. After a bit of history that is. The club started as Poringland & District FC back in 1903 (a village five miles south of Norwich) becoming Norwich United in 1987, and moving to their current ground, Plantation Park, Blofield (five miles west of Norwich), in 1991. Relative late comers to the Eastern Counties/Ridgeons League (joining in 1989) they’ve won promotion to the Premier Division on two occasions and have become a fixture in the top tier since 2002.

The clubhouse is behind one goal, and to the right, is Plantation Park’s one covered stand . But an interesting one though, with seating in the middle and terracing on either side. Pictures describe it better than I can with words . While not that deep the back of the stand is at least three feet off the ground giving those standing up a decent view of the action. All maintained to a high order as is the rest of the place which, like most Non-League Grounds has a number of outbuildings, whose purpose is not entirely clear. In each of the two corners furthest away from the club house are two sheds, one big and one small, both with mobile phone towers looming over them.

There is another communication tower on the touchline opposite the stand, it is also along this touchline that the home and away dugouts sit. Simple breeze block affairs with aluminum/plastic roofing. Considering their over all importance in the scheme of a football match goals and nets at some grounds do look a bit neglected. Black electricians tape holds nets to posts that are often not set properly upright. But not so at Norwich United. Splendid green and blue nets attached to shiny white bars and uprights with additional net supports at the back . The pitch looked in good nick too. A credit to the groundsman.

More pictures here.

Football Statues

2010-03-03T20:23:00.004Z

No 17 (in a series of several): Oscar Bossaert (1887-1956)

If my knowledge of French extended beyond being able to recite the complete lyrics of Frère Jacques (learnt by heart under threat of the cane from the nun’s at the convent school I attended) then I would be able to gleen a bit more from this Wikipedia article about today’s subject Oscar Bossaert. As it stands all I can tell you is that Bossaert was a politician, chocolate manufacturer and former Racing White Daring Moolenbeek (RWD) player and chairman. RWD’s stadium was named in his honour - until it was rechristened the Edmond Machtens Stadium at some point – and this bust of him erected in the leafy eastern entrance to the ground.

Through a series or mergers and reformations RWD became FC Brussels, and a few more words on that and on my visit to their home in the summer of 2006 can be found here, while fellow hopper Rabbler was there just last year.

More Football Statues here.

Luton Town

2010-03-03T18:06:00.003Z

14-09-1974: Luton Town 1 Ipswich Town 4 (Division 1)
22-09-1998: Luton Town 4 Ipswich Town 2 (League Cup 2nd Round, 2nd Leg – after extra time)

The Oak Road Stand at Kenilworth Road (visited in '74 and '98 by yours truly) has a unusual roof which, built in three sections, rises from the right hand corner of the ground (as viewed from the pitch) and behind the goal to join up with the Main Stand on the left. Originally a home terrace it had 2,000 seats bolted to it in the mid-1980’s and become the away section shortly thereafter. But the roof is by no means the feature that makes the stand unique amongst (former) Football League grounds. To enter the stand you must pass through turnstiles underneath the upper floors of two terraced homes on Oak Road proceeding up a set of stairs which give you an elevated view of a number of well appointed back gardens. Quite what the residents think of footballing folk peering in through their bathroom and bedrooms windows every fortnight I can’t imagine...

Many thanks to former work colleague Chris Day for the pictures which were taken during ITFC’s visit to the Hatters in 2007.

Football Statues

2010-03-01T20:49:00.008Z

No 16 (in a series of several): Memorial to the Golden Age of Hungarian Football

This rather striking statue/memorial was brought to my attention by fellow Ipswich Town fan Alasdair Ross over at From Portman Road to the San Siro. The statue is a memorial to Hungary’s “Gold Team” of the 1950’s, who, captained by the legendary Ferenc Puskás, became the first non-UK side to defeat England at Wembley Stadium. The inscription reads "A dicsőséges aranycsapat emlékére" which means "For the memory of our glorious golden team". It was erected in 2003 (the 50th anniversary of their 6-3 win in London). National Football Day in Hungary is 25th November, again related to that match. The names on the statue, which is located in Szeged, Hungary’s fourth largest city, are of the players and coaches of that era. Sadly it would appear that the statue has been vandalized.

Many thanks to Nemeth Miklos, who runs the www.magyarfutball.hu website, for the background info.

Photo from here.

More Football Statues here.

Pato Margetic

2010-03-01T20:40:00.002Z

Amazing what you stumble across while wandering aimlessly around the internet. Not sure what I was looking for but discovered this gem on YouTube by a young singer/guitarist Pato Margetic from Michigan, USA. It transpires that Pato is the son of a hero of mine the former Chicago Sting striker Pato Margetic Senior. I’ve been threatening a post or two about the (sadly now defunct) Sting for some time now. Maybe I’ll do that soon. In the meantime I hope you’ll enjoy this (love the t-shirt)...

Crete

2010-03-01T17:32:00.007Z

October 1999: Cretan Stadiums and Bull-Leaping at Knossos

I can’t remember which TV programme it was featured on but the Palace of Knossos, on the Greek Island of Crete, has a central court which, apparently, was or is the world’s first sports arena. This was not a fact shared with us by the official guide book as myself and Family ExtremeGroundhopping made our way around the Minoan ruin in October, 1999 as I would possibly have paid it far more attention.

The court area measures approximately 27 x 57 yards (which is 24 x 52 meters or about one-fifth the area of an average football pitch) and can be likened to the plazas that the Romans built for gladiatorial combat. It is in this and similar court yards at the Palaces of Malia and Phaistos that ‘bull-leaping’ is thought to have taken place.

On display at the nearby Archaeological Museum of Heraklion is this famous fresco – originally on one of the walls at Knossos – that depicts an acrobat flinging himself at and over a charging bull. So bonkers is the concept that many learned historians believe that not only is it the stuff of myth but physically impossible too.

But not so as anyone who watched the entirely unrelated Episode 6 of Paul Merton in Europe (Monday night February 15th) will tell you. Paul Merton completed his slightly bizarre tour of the continent visiting various people and points of interest on the Iberian peninsular. The ‘Have I Got News For You’ panelist was taken to a bull rink but not to see a traditional Spanish Bullfight but a blood, gore – and largely – cruelty free Recortes. In Recortes the bullfighter dodges around and, importantly, leeps over the bull without the use of a cape or sword as can be seen in the clip from YouTube (above). That’s the Minoan myth theory kicked in to touch.

Heraklion is Crete’s major population center and has the island’s principal airport so it is here that we and most visitors land (two million last year) before dispersing to the many hotels, apartments and campsites that are spread across the island. The Palace of Knossos is a twenty bus ride from the city centre and a visit is an absolute must.

Brit Sir Arthur Evans spent much of his life, and his inherited fortune restoring the sprawling Minoan Palace in the early 20th century. In the city itself is the Archaeological Museum. Housed in a converted power station it contains a massive and fascinating collection of Minoan, Hellenic and Roman artifacts. The Venetian Fortress by the harbour is worth a wander around as is the city centre, but watch out for the crazed moped riders.

Since the relegation of their main island rivals OFI Crete from the Greek Superleague in 2009 the islands only top flight side are PAE Diethnis Enosis Ergotelis or Ergotelis for short. Both sides are based in Heraklion. Ergotelis (rather worryingly nicknamed the Canaries) play at the Pancretan Stadium 3 km’s west of the city centre, while OFI play at the Theodoros Vardinogiannis Stadium in the district of Kaminia on the main road out of the city, which by happy coincidence, takes you past the aforementioned Archaeological Museum.

Although the Pancretan Stadium was built since our visit eleven years ago its design is based on one originally put forward in the 1980’s but only became reality when Greece successfully bid to host the 2004 Olympics games and the Organising Committee in Athens named it as one of the venues of the football tournament. Built at a cost of €50 million the 26,240 all-seater ground hosted it’s first game in March 2004 (a friendly between Greece and Switzerland) followed by a number of group games plus the Iraq v Australia quarter-final in that summers men’s football tournament.

The Theodoros Vardinogiannis Stadium, more commonly known by its nickname Yedi Kule, was originally built in 1951, although numerous changes and modernizations have taken place since, including its conversion to a 9,000 all-seater in the summer of 2000.

The land on which the ground is built was, until the end of WWII, an abandoned Christian, Jewish and Armenian cemetery. One night fan’s and officials of OFI (who up until that point had presumably been playing elsewhere) cordoned off the area with fencing and returned later with a bulldozer to flatten out the land and turn it into a football pitch. Part of the old cemetery remains behind one of the stands.

Less than an hour bus ride to the west of Heraklion is Rethymno where we were based during our weeks stay. There’s not much NOT to like about this picturesque town. A great sandy beech and waterfront with a huge array of restaurants, bars and shops set against a back drop of a well maintained old Venetian town, a Venetian fortress and landmark lighthouse.

About two km’s south-west of the town centre is the Pavlos I. Vardinoyannis Stadium, with a capacity of 1,300. Consisting of a single stand this is a far more modest affair than its two Heraklion’s counterparts. Built in 1992 it no longer hosts professionals football following the demise of former tenant EAR (Enosi Atromitrou Rethimniakou) in 1999 but still sees regular use as an athletics arena.

And last but not least and a short bus ride even further west is the city of Hania. Built in 1936 the Hania Stadium is just a ten minute stroll from the city centre just out side the walls of the old Venetian town. Head south east and look out for its four floodlight pylons which are visible from most of the city.

At one time the ground had a capacity of 5,000 but of the original stands only the one on the western touchline remains. The original construction costs were covered by the wife of five times Greek Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos who was born in Hafnia, while plans for an € 11 million facelift are in the offing.

There are other smaller stadia dotted around the island (there’s one in the shadow of the Ventian fort in Rethymno) that I will not attempt to cover here. But I hope, nonetheless, that my post has given you something of a taste for the island and its grounds. Facts and figures on Greek football are incredibly hard to verify as most info on the net is mostly, and unsurprisingly, in Greek, so if I’ve made any obvious mistakes please let me know - Efharisto.

Sepia pictures by Mrs ExtremeGroundhopping. Pictures of the Pancretan Stadium, Hania Stadium and Theodoros Vardinogiannis Stadium from Flickr. Picture of the Pavlos I. Vardinoyannis Stadium from EAP Athletics.

Football Statues

2010-02-25T19:42:00.004Z

No 15 (in a series of several): Lord Ninian Crichton-Stuart (1883-1915)

Lieutenant-Colonel Lord Ninian Edward Crichton-Stuart was elected MP for the Boroughs of Cardiff, Cowbrigde and Llantrisant in the general election of 1910. Ninian Park, the former home of Cardiff City was named after him following his help in raising the funds required to build the new stadium although the statue which sits in gardens adjacent to the National Museum of Wales was not erected for that reason. Five years after his election he was killed in action - he had rejoined the army following the start of the Great War - whilst leading a battalion of the Welsh Regiment in a night attack on German forces in Northern France.

There are plans afoot to have a statue of Cardiff City’s FA Cup winning skipper Fred Keenor erected outside the Bluebird’s new stadium. Three designs are in the running and Cardiff fans are being asked to vote on their favourite by the Cardiff City Supporters Trust here. With the Bluebirds due back in High Court on 10 March were they face a winding-up order over money owed to Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs they probably have more pressing matters to attend to. Good luck with that.

More Football Statues here.

Scunthorpe United

2010-02-23T23:18:00.003Z

23-02-2010: Scunthorpe United 1 Ipswich Town 1 (Coca-Cola Championship)

With all the news of financial madness and meltdown that surrounds our national game at the moment it’s reassuring to hear that at least one club Chairman, Scunthorpe United’s Steve Wharton, seems to have his head screwed on. He recognises that the Iron are a small-town club, and are unlikely to be anything other than a small-town club, and acts accordingly.

Refusing to follow the path of many of his contemporaries he insists that the club lives within its means. It has to be sustainable and not dependent on him pouring in his own cash. The club operates on a set budget. Their top earner is on just £3,000 a week and overall their annual salary spend is around the £2.25 million, making it one of the lowest in the whole of the Football League. This pragmatic approach means they have no debt, proving that you can operate in the black and be successful (League One Champions 2007 and League One Play-Off Winners 2009) at the same time.

Details of my one previous visit to Scunthorpe, and pictures of North Lincolnshire in sunlight, here.

Football Statues

2010-02-18T12:13:00.005Z

No 14 (in a series of several): Florin Piturca 1952(?)-1978

Just inside the gates of the Dorobantia Cemetery in Craiova, Romania stands the statue of Florin Piturca a forward with a number of clubs including FCM Drobeta Tumu Severin who then, as now, play in the second tier of the Romanian league. In December 1978, aged twenty-seven, Florin scored one of the goals in Drobeta’s 2-1 victory over Metalul Bucharest but after returning home he fell ill and died shortly afterwards.

It is believed that the Nicolae Ceaucescu regime, so desperate for sporting success, had used lesser known athletes to try out performance enhancing drugs before passing them on for use by the nations sporting elite. Team-mates reported that at halftime during the Drobeta/Metalul match club doctors gave the players some tea to drink and that the tea, it is thought, contained the drugs that claimed Florin’s life.

His father, Maximilian, invested his life savings erecting the statue to his son and the tomb that sits adjacent to it. The night Florin was buried his father stayed with him in the tomb and indeed spent every night there until his own death, sixteen years later, in 1994. However, the construction of the statue and tomb did not pass off without incident. In March 1989 Ceaucescu’s daughter Zoia ordered the mausoleum to be bulldozed, but a year later, three months after the execution of Zoia’s parents during the Romanian uprising, Maximilian had rebuilt it.

Photos and info from Behind the Curtain: Football in Eastern Europe - by Jonathan Wilson.

More Football Statues here.

Brrrrr...

2010-02-10T19:51:00.004Z

10-02-2010: Norwich City Reserves 0 Ipswich Town Reserves 1
(Pontins Football Combination)

Late for kick-off I’d been seated for just five minutes when 30 to 40 public school boys – from close-by Norwich School - filed into the section of the stand I was sat in. Very well behaved they were throughout too. They even attempted a Mexican Wave at one stage which, sadly, was wasted on the old codgers, like me, who made up the balance of the crowd.

In the cold and snow only one of the party were wearing a hat or coat of any consequence. How does that work? You can afford the outrageous fees for a public school but not suitable winter attire for your little precious? Mind you if their winter attire was anything like mine when I was their age - gloves connected together by an elastic strip and threaded through coat sleeves and a home knitted balaclava - I would have braved the elements without them too.

As the officials made their way on to the pitch there was the ref carrying an orange ball – the first time since an FA Cup tie in 1978 (against Bristol Rovers at Eastville since you ask) that I seen one in action! There has been a bit of debate recently about the use of orange balls (Google the words ‘football’, ‘orange’, ‘balls’ for a sample) on snow covered pitches or rather why we’ve not seen as many of them in action as we did in years gone by.

Fans have been asking why so many league games had succumbed to the weather when in seasons past everyone one (players, fans and officials) would have just got on with it. After all most stadiums in the top two tiers of English football have under-soil heating now so all it needs is a bit of effort to clean away the snow in and around the stadium to ensure the safety of the paying public, and of course an orange ball to play with.

Carrow Road like so many others across the Football League is virtually unrecognisable from the one I first visited in 1972. You may possibly be interested to know that, after today, I’ve now sat in all four of the new/newish stands and sat/stood in all four of the old ones. Some ground history...

The River End

Take its name from the River Wensum which runs through the city and out to the North Sea passing about 50-yards away from the back of the stand as it does so. Part of the original Carrow Road ground that opened in 1935, the stand was rebuilt in 1979 for £1.7M and is now known as the Norwich & Peterborough.

1972, as mentioned, saw my first visit to Carrow Road and my first City v Town derby. Watched from the River End – at the time an uncovered bank of terracing with a capacity of 10,000 – the un-segregated Canary and Blue’s fans swayed back and forth in a tightly knit mesh of bodies. I swear that we were packed in so tight that I couldn’t get my hand in my jean pocket for a ciggy (a pack of 10 No.6’s was in there somewhere) until the end of what transpired to be an exciting but none the less nil-nil draw.

From the upper level of the remodeled two-tier River End stand in April 1981, I watched aghast as Justin Fashanu hit a 62nd minute winner at the far end which started a slide in form for Town that saw them lose their grip on top spot and, eventually, their first real chance at a league title since 1962. They ended up finishing second to Ron Saunders’ Aston Villa. The fact that Saunders managed Norwich between 1969 and 1973 was not lost on those Ipswich fan’s with a nose for irony. As punishment Norwich were relegated a month later shortly before Town took a great deal of solace from victory in the UEFA Cup Final.

The Barclay

The original stand was built in 1937 taking its name from Captain Barclay, a former vice-president of the club, who paid for the cost of the roof. As hooliganism became a regular on UK terraces in the 70’s so did crowd segregation. Away fans were housed in a corner of The Barclay (the popular home ‘end’) and so it was from here that I watched at least half-a-dozen games between Bobby Robson’s men and those of John Bond.

A dark cavernous place with a six foot or so high steel fence separating the sparring fans. One of the grounds four floodlight pylons was conveniently sat to one side of the away section and your luck was well and truly out (view wise) if you got stuck behind the thing. I’ve since sat in the lower tier of new Barclay Stand and what a totally different experience that is.

Demolished and rebuilt in 1992 with a similar although not identical look to the River End. One nice thing about the two stands is the way the floodlights have been mounted on the steelwork that supports the roof rather than being mounted in a strip on the front of the roof as is the case at many new grounds. No easier way of navigating your way to a ground than to search the skyline for floodlight pylons. Ipswich adopted a similar approach with their floodlight systems when the Churchmans and North Stand, at Portman Road, were rebuilt in 2001 and 2002.

The Jarrold Stand

The Jarrold Stand replaced the old South Stand, which was named in honour of Sir Arthur South as well as, coincidentally, running along the southern touchline. With an all-seater capacity of 8,000 this is the newest of all four stands and is unique, Wikipedia tells us, in that not one, but three separate television gantries are suspended beneath its roof. My last appearance in the old stand was for Town’s emphatic 2-0 win in 2003 which, as this match report points out, was made all sweeter by virtue of its being our first derby for some years. The stand was well and truly past its sell by date at this point and a uncomfortable dark, damp and rusting old hulk. IMPAIRED VIEW, as printed on my ticket, summed it up.

Between it and The Barclay sits a Holiday Inn and it is at this end of the Jarrold Stand that away fans are now housed. My brother-in-law has season tickets in the same stand between the half-way line and the edge of the penalty area at the River End (where I’ve joined him on several ‘non-derby day’ occasions) and I’ve also sat in a number of different spots for reserve games too. Great viewing lines no matter were you sit and the facilities below the stand are excellent. Delia’s influence on the contents of the match day pie can’t be understated!

The City Stand

And finally, back to today’s viewing location The City Stand. Opened in 1986 (cost £1.7 million), after its predecessor had been destroyed by fire after an employee, reportedly, left a three-bar electric fire on overnight. Now known as the Geoffrey Watling City Stand, in honour of one of the club’s late presidents, the stand has a single tier of seats and is the smallest of the grounds fours stands. The directors box and press areas are located here as, I believe, is the trophy room, believed to be the smallest in the Football League;-)

So there you have it. It may be enemy territory but I’ll concede that it’s not a bad stadium at all.

Olympic Park, London

2010-01-31T21:48:00.005Z

31-01-2010: A walking tour

Having travelled past the Olympic Park on numerous occasions when travelling into and out of London by train, and getting tantalising views of the new Stadium and other stuff rising from the ground, today Mrs Extreme Groundhopping and I decided to take a much closer look. We could have made or own way to the site (see later) but opted for a Blue Badge Tour (and well worth the money it was too) which went something like this...

Starting off outside Bromley-by-bow tube station, adjacent to the less than scenic approach to the Blackwall Tunnel, we headed north for a hundred yards or so then veered off right past a Tesco and then onto Three Mill Lane. Here you enter a different world - that of the Lower Lea Valley. And very nice it is too, almost picturesque in an urban way.

The lane takes you past Mill House (a grade one listed tidal mill), Three Mills Studios (London's Largest Film and Television Production Studios) and onto Three Mills Island. In the distance is the Abbey Mills Pumping Station (known as The Cathedral of Sewage) and this as well as many other points of interest were enthusiastically and informatively pointed out by our tour guide.

Continuing along the tow path of the Regent Canal we headed toward and over the A11 across a bridge under which, legend has it, the body of Jack "The Hat" McVitie (a one time associate of the Kray Twins) is buried.

Picking up the canal tow path again for several hundred yards, past an old lock house, you reach Pudding Mill Lane. Here there is the formidable looking builder’s entrance to Olympic Park, a four lane affair a bit like the approach to the passenger ferry’s at the Port of Dover. You continue past the Pudding Mill Lane DLR station and make a dog leg under the mainline railway on to the Greenway footpath and cycleway and there it is - the Olympic Park.

From the Greenway there are very good views of the park but if you want to see the place from a slightly higher elevation the View Tube is off to the right. Built rather ingeniously using recycled shipping containers the View Tube offers a panoramic view of the park including two of its principal venues the Aquatics Centre and, of course, the Olympic Stadium, and entry is free.

We did the walk at £8.00 a head but you can of course see the whole thing for free by heading directly to Puddling Mill Lane DLR station from which the Greenway and View Tube are just a short walk away.

We plan to go back to check on progress in about a year by which time, if everything goes according to plan, the majority of the building work will be completed. In the meantime mixed in amongst the text are some pics from earlier today plus these two panoramic images...

Ipswich Wanderers

2010-01-30T21:44:00.003Z

30-01-2010: Ipswich Wanderers 0 Team Bury 3 (Ridgeons League Division One)

Nothing spoils an afternoon at Portman Road more than the musak that is pumped out from the speakers around the ground as kick-off approaches. A few seasons back the decibel level was such that we would avoid taking up our seats until a few minutes before kick-off as there was no way you could carry on a conversation otherwise. Thankfully the volume has now been turned down but sanitised and atmosphere free elevator muzak is still the choice of those in the stadium control room.

So what a pleasant surprise it was to arrive at Humber Douchy Lane this afternoon where Ian Dury & The Blockheads were top of the bill music wise. Perhaps they’re on all the time now but this was my first visit for almost eighteen-months. Anyway, I had just settled on a suitable spot to watch the game from when the strains of 'Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll' sprung forth from the speakers and this was followed by, 'Wake Up and Make Love With Me', 'My Old Man' and, as the match officials and players took to the field, 'Blockheads'! Great stuff.

But the pièce de résistance was waiting for halftime when the Wanderers, three goals down, headed back to their dressing room to the opening line from the infamous 'Plaistow Patricia' which blarred out across Humber Douchy Lane before someone hastily pressed the mute button. This is of course the one line that assured the late Ian Dury a place in the accolades of punk rock history when the album New Boots & Panties, on which 'Plaistow Patricia' is the 9th track, was released in 1977 (if you’ve no idea what I’m talking about click here for the lyrics). Pure Class.

Zerão, Macapa

2010-01-21T19:37:00.002Z

I have a list of football stadia, a sort of fantasy list, that I plan to visit should I become independently wealthy by virtue of a Euromillions win or some other highly unlikely stroke of good fortune. Firmly at the top of that list is Big Zero, or Zerão (full name Estadio Estadual Milton de Souza Correa) as it is known locally, which I first read about in Alex Bellos’s book Futebol: The Brazilian Way of Life and while it may sit in, as he puts it, ‘Nowhere Central’, the idea of visiting a stadium where one half of the playing area sits in the southern hemisphere, the other in the northern one and the equator marks the halfway line is an intriguing one.

With just 615,000 inhabitants, but a land area roughly the same size as England, Amapa is the 2nd lowest populated state in Brazil. Despite the low population Amapa boast twelve professional football clubs, that’s one for every 51,250 residents. If England were to have a similar ratio the Football League would need to reorganize itself into 42 divisions of 24 clubs.

Over half of the states population lives in its capital, Macapa, which sits on the Amazon River and is enveloped by rainforest. As the countries fastest-growing state a population boom in the city means it is spreading inexorably outwards consuming the forest as it goes. When Big Zero was first opened in 1990 it sat on the city limits but it is now surrounded by suburban roads and homes. Before Big Zero the area was just a clearing in the rainforest with a 50 meter strip of concrete marking the Equator. This is now Big Zero’s task.

Financed by the state government the plan was that Big Zero would become a tourist site and possibly stage important national games but twenty years on and the stadium is falling apart. Only one of the four stands was ever completed and the roof of the one stand that was blew off in a strong wind. The single stand suffers from another design flaw. The floodlights along that side of the pitch sit between the touchline and the stand so no matter were you sit your view will be partially obstructed.

Pictures from here and here.

Estádio Vila Belmiro, Santos

2010-01-20T15:06:00.004Z

October 1996

Back in 1996 Sao Paulo and the port town of Santos 70 kilometres away on the Paulista coast were linked by a single highway - there are now two - the Rodovia Achieta (state route 150) a road which dates back to the 1920’s. As the main truck route between Brazil’s largest metropolitan area, Sao Paulo, and its largest port, Santos, it carries a huge amount of traffic, even at weekends, and it was on one of these that a work colleague, Jaime, kindly took me on a trip to enjoy Brazil’s Atlantic coastline.

This is one challenging road particularly on the approach to Santos as the highway winds and weaves its way steeply down from the Sao Paulo plateaux through a series of switchbacks, tunnels and viaducts. It’s a bit scary to say the least but what a view you get of the coastline as you descend through lush forest.

As the highway merges with smaller local roads there’s an interesting twist awaiting unsuspecting drivers. Unsuspecting drivers exceeding the speed limit that is in the shape of a succession of unmarked sleeping policeman! Jaime had two steel plates welded to the underside of his car to protect the transmission, exhaust system, etc., from an unexpected strike.

This proved to be ideal place to slow down, sleeping policeman or not, as you pass a plinth on top of which is mounted a distinctive yellow formula one motor racing helmet, a replica of that worn by the late Ayrton Senna. Another example of the way his country just oozes sport. There are reminders of its heroes – past and current - everywhere.

Santos is one of the oldest cities in South America and, as I’ve mentioned, Brazil’s biggest and busiest port. Half of the country’s exports, including much of the world’s coffee, pass through Santos. Jaime has a summer apartment a hundred metres or so from the beach between Mongagua and Praia Grande, directly to the west of Santos proper.

Between the two is a very impressive stretch of beach front – some twenty kilometres long - with what seemed like thousands upon thousands of variously shaped and sized apartment blocks and a similar number of variously shaped and scantily clad bronzed women. The area is said to rival the beaches of Rio and by all accounts is much much safer.

We were able to swing by the Estádio Vila Belmiro (aka Estadio Urbano Caldeira) home of Santos, perhaps one of the most famous club sides in the world, due in most part to one Edson Arantes Do Nascimento, aka Pele. It has the look and feel of a traditional English football ground, very compact, with stands close-to-the-action on the inside and hemmed in on the outside by residential streets. First opened in 1916 Vila Belmiro has a capacity of 20,120 although the record attendance stands at 32,989. Interestingly it had a floodlighting system installed in 1931 a good twenty-five years before the majority of Football League clubs even began thinking about such things.

It reminded me – oddly perhaps - of Derby County’s old Baseball Ground. The main stand is a bit of an oddity, wedged shaped to fit between touchline and street, while most of the exterior is covered in white stucco and bathed in sun year round which is were the comparison with it’s Derbyshire counterpart ends. For more pictures of the ground click here and for a more complete description (I would imagine as it’s in Portuguese) click here.

Pele was literally kicked out of the first World Cup I watched on TV, the 1966 one. I have little recollection of any of the games, apart from one, but not the Final itself (“some people are on the pitch” and all that) but the quarter final game between the North Koreans and Portugal at Everton’s Goodison Park. Rank outsiders, the North Koreans remarkably went 3-0 up in the first half hour before a Eusebio inspired comeback gave the Portuguese a 5-3 win.

Pele and Brazil had lost two of their three group games and failed to make it to the knock-out stage – a rare failure by them. Pele was kicked, tripped and generally maltreated throughout and in their third and final game – against Portugal – was carried from the field, and didn’t return, after a particularly vicious tackle by defender Morais (a match entitled the ‘Most Violent Game Ever’ on YouTube). Pele of course came back with a vengeance four years later in Mexico where, along with the likes of Rivelino, Tostao & Jairzinho, Brazil won their third World Cup Finals and the Jules Rimet trophy outright.

Pele had begun his career at Santos in 1956, at the age of fifteen, and remained with them for seventeen years, scoring well in excess of 1,000 goals during that time, before a move to the USA and the New York Cosmos in 1975.

Pictures from here, here and here.

Estadio Cicero Pompeu de Toledo, Sao Paulo

2010-01-19T20:08:00.004Z

October 1996

São Paulo, Brazil's centre of commerce, is a huge sprawling metropolis (3,000 square miles – population 11 Million) and quite easily the largest city in South America. It’s a big and some times a quite scary place (although safer than the more popular tourist destination of Rio I’m led to believe). Purse-snatchers on motorcycles are common and during my first visit I heard gun shots on two separate occasions. A week before my arrival there had been an armed hold-up in the office building my company shared with some sort of financial institution. This dampened my enthusiasm to earn some extra Reas with a few hours overtime. That aside I had a fantastic time there.

Coincidentally my brother-in-law was working in Brazil at the same time. He was billeted in a rusting survey ship moored off the Port of Santos while I stayed in the luxurious Crown Plaza in Sao Paulo, a block away from the Avenida Paulista a 3km long highway that slices through the financial district and is home to Sao Paulo’s major shops. Apparently the most expensive real estate in South America.

The São Paulo Jockey Club, the city’s thoroughbred race track, sat across the Pinheiros River from the office block I was working in and could be seen from my office window. The nearest football stadium, about two miles or so away, was the Estadio Cicero Pompeu de Toledo, known as Morumbi, the home of Sao Paulo FC. That’s not counting the five-a-side pitch, with a sand surface, at the back of a bar near the office where the guy’s from accounts took me one Friday evening for a game and a few beers. A better way of spending a Friday evening than the British concept of heading out to the nearest pub and getting rat-arsed.

Three out of four of the state of Sao Paulo’s football clubs, Sao Paulo, Corinthians and Palmeiras are located in the city itself. The fourth is Santos for whom Pele played between 1956 and 1974. More on him and them in a later post. Sadly I wasn’t able to watch any of these sides during my stay, although I had seen Sao Paulo play a decade earlier, 1982 to be precise, in a friendly against Ipswich at the Tampa Bay Stadium, Tampa, Florida (and I’ll perhaps cover that in a later post too). The four Sao Paulo sides have traditionally drawn their support along social lines. Sao Paulo is the team of the elite, Corinthians that of the masses, while Palmeiras (The Palm Trees) is the club of the cities large Italian community.

Sao Paulo’s Morumbi took some eighteen years to complete. Construction first started in 1952 but it wasn’t until 1960, with an initial capacity of 70,000, that the inaugural match took place. When finished ten years after that, in 1970, the official capacity had increased to a quite impressive 140,000, while the record attendance is a further 6,082 above that figure, set at a state championship game between Corinthians and Ponte Preta in 1977. The official stadium capacity has since been dramatically reduced to 80,000 all-seated.

Morumbi, one of the countries twelve 2014 World Cup venues, sits on the Avenue Jules Rimet (you don’t need me to tell you the origins and significance of that name to Brazillians) and is encircled by individual family homes rather than apartment blocks (many with their own swimming pools). The club is indeed that of the elite if the surrounding area is anything to go by. Oval in shape, with three tiers of seating, not only does it boast a unique floodlighting system (see the panoramic view here) but the clubs colour have been picked out in the seats in part of the upper tier in a distinctive wave pattern than is repeated around the edge of the playing area (see the panorama again).

Pictures from here and here and here.

Maracanã Stadium, Rio de Janeiro

2010-01-18T19:18:00.004Z

October 1996

In the mid 90’s, on my way to work assignments in Sao Paolo, I changed flights in Rio de Janeiro. Two different trips meant I made this change four times and thus either landed at or took off from Galeão International, Rio’s principal airport, on eight occasions. The airport is located just a few miles north of the city and you seemed to get some pretty decent aerial views of Rio regardless of the flight path. The big and inexcusable sin hidden in amongst this tale is that I didn’t take a camera with me on either of the two trips. What a numpty. If I’d had one to hand I would have been able to take a picture not that dissimilar to this one, as we soared over Rio’s famous beaches and its iconic landmarks...

...the statue of Christ the Redeemer standing atop Corcovado Hill, Sugar Loaf Mountain, Copacabana beach, Ipanema beach and the Rodrigo de Freitas Lagoon were all NOT captured on my camera. Also NOT captured on camera was the Maracanã Stadium which we flew over on the last of my two return trips.

One of the world’s best known stadiums the Maracana - which officially became the Estádio Jornalista Mário Filho following the death of the Brazilian journalist and writer Mário Filho who was a leading campaigner behind its original construction - will host the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2016 Olympics as well as the 2014 World Cup final, although at a significantly lower capacity than when it hosted its first major finals, those of 1950 World Cup.

Then an official attendance of 199,854 watched the final group match between the host nation and Uruguay, the actual attendance though is reported to have been around the 210,000 mark, the largest ever gathering for a game of football anywhere in the world. Brazil required a draw to finish top of the group, and to lift the Jules Rimet trophy, but Uruguay won the game 2-1. A result that remains deeply burnt into the psyche of many Brazilians despite the fact that five World Cup triumphs have since followed.

When first opened the Maracanã was the largest stadium in the world but despite its reduced all-seated capacity of 88,992 it is still the largest stadium in South America and fifty years on the place is to get a £175 million face-lift. As a classified historic monument (equivalent to being a listed building in the UK) the original facade will be maintained but a brand new roof will be added atop the five-storey oval stadium.

Having a camera to hand as we banked over the Maracanã may well have yielded a pic like this...

Pictures from here and here.

Crap Football Songs

2010-01-17T16:30:00.006Z

No 4: É Uma Partida de Futebol – Skank (1996)

To kick off the coming week’s theme (which is, by the way, footie in Brazil) and picking up were the highly successful series “Crap Football Songs” left off twenty months ago I present for your aural pleasure É Uma Partida de Futebol by Skank, one of the most popular bands in Brazil in the 1990’s.

The track is from one of three CD’s – by top Brazilian pop/rock artists - given to me by a budding Sao Paulo DJ and son of a former work colleague. Both kindly showed me around Sao Paolo and surrounds, and generally took excellent care of me, during two visits I made to the South America city in 1996.

With a sound that combined reggae, ska, rock & roll, funk, soul music, surf music, drum 'n' bass, bossa nova, and Latin pop, Skank released a total of nine albums between 1992 and 2006. The third of these was O Samba Poconé (on which É Uma Partida de Futebol appears) which sold over 1.8 million copies.

As I don’t speak a word of Portuguese I’ll make no attempt at an explanation of the song lyrics here but would wager that they’re a step up from those of Vindaloo.

The Official Skank É Uma Partida de Futebol Video can be found on You Tube, while more crap football songs can be found here.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

2010-01-10T19:40:00.002Z

A few snaps of a wintery Portman Road...

Merry Christmas

2009-12-25T11:09:00.000Z

Queens Park Rangers (Part 3)

2009-12-20T14:14:00.002Z

11/12/2004: Queens Park Rangers 2 Ipswich Town 4 (Coca-Cola Championship)

If any side should have the name Wanderers, it is Queens Park Rangers, who at twelve have had more home grounds than any other League club. Many of these have since been covered over by housing, or in the case of two grounds at Park Royal, by industrial units, making it almost impossible to find any trace of them today. But with the help of two books, Football Grounds of London by Alex White & Bob Lilliman and The Football Grounds of Great Britain by Simon Inglis, I’ve managed to put together this handy map that shows, with varying degrees of accuracy, the location of most of them...

View The various homes of QPR in a larger map

Of all the grounds they have played at it is the two in Park Royal, the Royal Agricultural Society's ground and Park Royal Stadium that intrigue me the most.

Rangers moved to the RAS ground in 1904 after their landlord at the Kensal Rise Athletic Ground attempted to double their rent. The RAS site, two miles south of what is now Wembley Stadium, was spread out across a hundred acres of land between the Grand Union Canal and the Great Western Railway. Within the site was an oval shaped arena, reputed to have a capacity of 40,000, and it was here that QPR played their home games for the next three years, albeit some distance from their fan base. In 1907 the heavily indebt RAS were forced into selling the site and Rangers were on the move again, but this time just a few hundred yards south to the newly opened Park Royal Stadium.

An almost exact copy of Archibald Leitch's Ayresome Park in Middlesborough, Park Royal Stadium was built my the Great Western Railway Company. The stadium held 60,000, with cover for 9,000 and 4,000 seats on one side where there was a barrel-roofed stand with a trademark Leitch arched gable. The remaining three sides were uncovered terracing. Why did the Great Western Railway Company decided to build a stadium. It certainly wasn’t purpose built for QPR? Had the Great War not intervened it may well have become one of the leading sports venues in the capital - it was certainly the largest at the time – and Rangers may well have continued to play at ground where they’d enjoyed a period of relative success winning the Southern League in 1908 and 1912.

However, Rangers were evicted from Park Royal in early 1915 when the ground was requisitioned by the Army forcing the R’s to complete their fixtures at Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge and back at their old stomping ground in Kensal Rise. The newly formed Park Royal FC used Park Royal Stadium between the two wars - minus most of the barrel-roofed stand that QPR took with them to Loftus Road - but the place has since disappeared under industrial development.

Fast forward 89 years and the pictures here of Loftus Road, where QPR finally settled, were taken in December 2004 when Ipswich came from behind to record a memorable 4-2 victory. Darren Currie, nephew of former Rangers midfielder Tony Currie, was making his debut for Town that day and marked the occasion with a goal, a fierce drive from outside the box. Currie, at the time, was reportedly the most tattooed footballer in the game, and in this interview with FourFourTwo magazine he talks about his not so secret vice.

A few more pictures here.

Olympic fever grips Ipswich!

2009-12-18T15:21:00.004Z

Many towns within sensible travelling distance of the 2012 Olympic Stadium and other venues are, I’m sure, readying themselves for an influx of athletes and fans to the XXX Olympiad. Ipswich is no different although the investment being made within the confines of the town is perhaps just a bit more that elsewhere. Within a few hundred yards of where I sit (above) a project costing around the £47m mark will kick-off next year.

This will see the construction of a railway viaduct to link freight traffic from the Port of Felixstowe with the line out of Ipswich to the East Midlands thus allowing belching diesels, that would otherwise chug there way through Stratford, East London, to avoid the area completely. The scheme has been on the back burner for close to a decade but has taken on a new urgency with the games just 900 odd days away. Can’t have noisy locomotives spoiling things for all the VIPS and dignitaries in the Olympic Stadium can we.

The Brazilian gymnastics team look set to be based in Ipswich and their U-23 footballing counterparts may well join them ahead of the London Games. The former plan to use various facilities around the town (they did so recently during the World Championships which were held at the O2 Arena) while the latter may well use the ITFC training centre and possibly hold warm up games at Portman Road.

Sprint Center, Kansas City, Missouri

2009-12-14T15:36:00.003Z

Swinging the lead: Day 4

You’ll be pleased to hear that I am over the worst of my cold and that I should be returning to work tomorrow. With that in mind here is the last offering from my daughter’s Architectural book and journal collection - my companion during my period of confinement - and it’s another indoor stadium (and yet another HOK Sports project), the Sprint Centre in downtown Kansas City, Missouri.

If you’ve watched the movie ‘Field of Dreams’, starring Kevin Costner, you’ll be familiar with the concept of "build it and they will come", which I mention here as it was this very concept that saw the civic leaders of Kansas City bankroll the construction of the Sprint Centre, in the hope of attracting a National Basketball Association (NBA) or National Hockey League (NHL) franchise to the state of Missouri’s largest city.

Confusingly, at least to me when changing planes there on a number of occasions en-route to Arkansas where I lived for four or five months back in the early 80’s, there are two Kansas City’s, one on each side of the Missouri River. The smallest of the two is in the State of Kansas, and the larger one in the State of Missouri, or as Dorothy would say “This isn’t Kansas anymore Toto”. The population of the two is well in excess of two million. But I digress.

With seating for 19,000 and at a cost of $276 million the arena opened in October 2007 and while it is yet to attract a major sports franchise the fledgling Kansas City Brigade of the Arena Football League, an indoor version of American football, did take up residence last year. Assorted college basketball games have also been played under it’s roof and a multitude of musicians and bands have also perfomed there, including Elton John, Ozzy Osbourne, The Police and Coldplay.

One thing that I’ve marvelled at while reading through my daughter’s library is the language used by architects, and their ilk, to describe new buildings, and the blurb that describes the Sprint Centre is no different:

“The elliptical arena is clad in a crystalline glass curtain wall. Interior features include clerestory windows that crown the seating bowl with natural light, alleviating the claustrophobic feel that is typical of large arenas. The primary entrance to the complex is through a low-slung masonry volume that contrasts starkly with the sleek curve of the arena itself. At night, the illuminated interior concourse will reveal the arena's users to the adjacent street in an ever-changing act of street theatre”.

Marvellous. I wish I could write stuff like that.

Basically, the exterior of the elliptical arena is clad in 139,932 square feet of insulated glass the upper sections of which allow sunlight into the seating area and arena floor below and also give those on the inside a 360 degree view of the entire downtown Kansas City area. The main entrance to the arena is through a three-storey aluminium clad entry hall which houses, amongst other things, the College Basketball Hall of Fame. The interior concourse is huge, the seating area impressively decked out in brooding black, and the main scoreboard, which hangs above the playing area, and comprises 16 LED screens, deserves a mention too. No excuse for not keeping up with the score.

Pictures from here, here and here.

Land Shark Stadium, Miami Gardens, Florida

2009-12-11T14:28:00.001Z

Swinging the lead: Day 3

In it’s twenty-two year history the Land Shark Stadium has been known variously as the Joe Robbie Stadium, Pro Player Park, Pro Player Stadium, Dolphins Stadium and, dropping the ‘s’, the Dolphin Stadium. This is another Populous (formerly HOK Sport) build but in two distinct phases. Home of the Miami Dolphins (American Football) and the Florida Marlins (Baseball) the stadium was first opened in 1987 and its two tiers have a capacity of around 80,000.

A simple rectangular design it was ideal for watching gridiron but its exterior was bland and utilitarian. Interestingly the stadium was the first American football stadium to be built entirely through private funding and Joe Robbie, after whom the stadium was originally named and who led the campaign to raise the capital, insisted on a wider field than was usual for a American football stadium so it could accommodate soccer matches and serve as home for a possible expansion baseball franchise. The latter came to pass in 1993 when the Marlins came into being but no professional soccer side has as yet played there.

By 2007 a half billion dollars had been spent on refurbishments. Two spiral pedestrian ramps were added in each corner of the stadium, and behind the stands on the north and south touchlines curved glass extension (designed by Populous) containing concessions, restaurants, and meeting areas were bolted on. According to the architectural blurb I’ve been reading, “the bulging midsections mimic the hulls of the cruise ships critical to South Florida's tourist-driven economy”. On the roof top area canopies protect fans from the elements (as they tuck into nosh ranging from Dolphin Hot Dogs to Cuban Sandwichesto fresh salad wraps) although the seating areas remain exposed.

It remains one of the last stadiums in the US to be built for a joint American football and baseball use. The Florida rainfall which occurs mainly during summer and early autumn, i.e. most of the baseball season, is a major factor in limiting the average attendance for Marlin games, and there are plans afoot for the team to move to a purpose built stadium within Miami’s City Limits. The Dolphins will therefore return to a status of sole tenants of the Land Shark Stadium in 2011.

[The photos were found here, here and here]

Nationals Park, Washington DC

2009-12-10T17:20:00.001Z

Swinging the lead: Day 2 Part 2

A change of continent, and a change of sport, as we head across to Nationals Park a baseball stadium in Washington DC. Architects Populous (formerly HOK Sport) boast a portfolio bursting at the seems with completed stadiums and sports related building projects including the Sir Bobby Robson Stand at Ipswich Town’s Portman Road were I watch most of my footie from these days. It’s fair to say that Populous dominate the market in the US, and the completion of Nationals Park in 2008 meant that they had built 10 of Major League Baseballs last 14 stadiums. Since then the number has changed to 16 out of 19.

A number of their previous baseball stadium designs (Baltimore's Camden Yards and Denver's Coors Field) were built with a retro feel to them clad as they are in red brick, but with Nationals Park they went for a steel structure covered with a combination of white pre-cast concrete and glass. The idea being to ‘evoke’ the famous civic monuments in the US capital, indeed the White House is visible from the upper of the stadiums two decks.

Built for a staggering $611 million (all from the public purse) the ballpark seats just a few spectators shy of 42,000 and saw its first official game on March 30th last year when the Washington Nationals took on the Atlanta Braves with President George W. Bush throwing out the first ball. Pope Benedict XVI was there just over a fortnight later to hold a mass for a congregation of 46,000.

There are amenities and luxuries aplenty, as you would expect in a US Stadium, including 1,800 padded luxury seats directly behind home plate, 2,500 club seats, 1,112 suite seats and a 500-seat founder's club. The array of food on offer at concessions around the stadium is mind boggling (check here for the full list). I’d probably go for the Chesapeake Burger topped w/Crabmeat Platter and a side order of fries, followed by a Soft Serve Helmet Sundae topped with Hot Fudge, Strawberries and Chopped Peanuts Sprinkles washed down with a soda of some description (extra large obviously).

[The photos were found here, here and here]

San Nicola Stadium, Bari

2009-12-10T16:06:00.005Z

Swinging the lead: Day 2 Part 1

No sign of a quick recovery from my heavy cold so expect more stadium titbits from my daughter’s Architectural book and journal collection as my reading continues apace. Today’s first offering is from a hefty tome entitled the The 1996 Jerusalem Seminar in Architecture, in which the design of the San Nicola Stadium, Bari home of Italian Seria A side AS Bari is discussed.

Mimicking the nearby 13th-Century Castel del Monte a huge man made hill was built and the stadium placed on top of it. Castel del Monte or, translated from the Italian, the Castle on the Mount, is a strange looking affair octagonal in shape with octagonal bastions in each of its corners. Each floor has eight rooms and an eight-sided courtyard occupies its centre. The number eight was clearly of some significance to Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II who built it. The modern day architects were asked to build the stadium in like fashion, similarly raised up on an earthwork.

Built for the 1990 World Cup the most prominent feature of the stadium are it twenty-six ‘petals’ - representing a flower carefully laid down on the surrounding plains - that form the upper tier. Each of the petals has seating for two-thousand spectators, and combined with the seating in the lower tier, gives a total capacity of 58,000. The eight metre gaps between each of the petals serve two purposes. The first is to allow natural ventilation through out the stadium and the second is for security, the architects assuming that groups of two-thousand people are easy to control. This overlooks the possibility of trouble on the main tier were separation is by means of fence only! Anyway, it looks pretty cool. The petals, together with the lower bowl, are built almost entirely from concrete, mostly prefabricated, and are topped off with a light steel frame that supports the stadiums Teflon sunshade.

The San Nicola Stadium hosted three Italia ’90 World Cup group games and the third-place play-off between the host nation and Bobby Robson’s England. The great mans last game in charge of the Three Lions.

[The photos were found here, here and here]

Stadio Artemio Franchi, Florence

2009-12-09T20:39:00.006Z

Swinging the lead: Day 1 Part 2

Italian Pier Luigi Nervi specialized in reinforced concrete and became architect, engineer and, finding no one willing to build for him, building contractor. He developed building techniques previously undreamt of and demanded a standard of workmanship in the finest Italian traditions. In an illustrious career spanning sixty years he would design and construct some quite remarkable buildings but it was in Florence in 1931 that he first found architectural acclaim, with the completion of the (now) 47,000 capacity communal Stadio Artemio Franchi.

“With a reinforced shell roof supported by dramatically cantilevered beams that fork at their base,” says Richard Weston in Key Buildings of the Twentieth Century (a gift to daughter a year or two ago), the stadium “had a startling grace and clarity, while the statically indeterminate helicoidal spiral stairs were like abstract sculptures”. Indeed. One of those spiral stairways can be seen in the last of the three pictures shown here. Just behind the old geezer on roller-skates. The entire stadium is built of Nervi’s favoured concrete including the 230-foot “Tower of Marathon” that sits to the rear of the stand on the eastern touchline.

The stadium immediately became the home of Italian Sere A side Fiorentina or the Viola as they known after their distinctive purple kit. Only four clubs have played in more Serie A seasons than Fiorentina who have enjoyed comparative success since taking up residence at the Stadio Artemio Franchi. Two league titles, six Italian Cup wins, one UEFA Cup and a European Cup final appearance is a pretty decent haul for the side from Florence. One of twelve venues for the Italia ’90 World Cup it hosted three group games, and one of the worst ever matches that I’ve had the misfortune to sit through, the quarter final between Yugoslavia and Argentine that the later won on penalties after a goalless 120 minutes.

[The photos were found here, here and here]

Palazzettoo dello Sport, Rome

2009-12-09T19:23:00.005Z

Swinging the lead: Day 1 Part 1

When my daughter finished Uni she dumped all of her study materials in her old bedroom at Chez Extreme Groundhopping. These are mostly books on or about Architecture (her chosen career which I may have gone on about before). Having contracted a rather nasty cold that looks like keeping me off work for a few days I’ve decided to have a good look through them and the accompanying pile of architectural journals. I don’t have to move far to get to them as Mrs Extreme Groundhopping has banished me to my daughters old room until such time that I stop wheezing, coughing, sneezing and filling the bin with used Kleenex every hour or so. Anyway, cutting to the chase, I’ve already uncovered a few articles on the design and construction of a number of sporting venues around the world details of which I will be sharing with you over the course of the coming week. Exciting hey? So here we go with number one the Palazettozo dello Sport in Rome, designed by architect Pier Luigi Nervi for the 1960 Summer Olympics...

Nervi had first attracted international attention following the completion of the Stadio Artemio Franchi, Florence in 1932 (more on that in a later post), and a quarter of a century on was charged with the design of three arenas for the Games of the XVII Olympiad. A modest arena with just 3,500 seats it was his design for the dome of the Palazzettoo dello Sport that attracted most interest. Constructed of prefabricated reinforced concrete supported by loading bearing flying buttresses the whole building was erected in just forty days. On the inside the dome has a white finished ribbed ceiling which, if the photos are anything to go by, gives the place a rather elegant look. Between the dome and the main seating area is a continuous stretch of glass that runs around the whole stadium. All rather nice.

The Palazettozo del Sport, which hosted boxing matches during the Rome games, was the home of the Pallacanestro Virtus Roma basketball team from 1960 until the early 1980’s. The basketball team then moved to another of Nervi’s Olympic arena’s, the similarly sounding but much larger Palazzo dello Sport, returning to their old home during renovations to the Palazzo dello Sport at the beginning of the new millennium. Following on from his Olympic success Pier Luigi Nervi busied himself with a multitude of other distinctive looking and varied use buildings including the Paul VI Audience Hall in Vatican City, the Australian Embassy in Paris and the George Washington Bridge Bus Terminal, New York City. He passed away in 1979.

[The photos were found here, here and here]

Queens Park Rangers (Part 2)

2009-12-04T18:09:00.002Z

13-07-2002: Queens Park Rangers 3 Glasgow Celtic 7
(Friendly)

I worked a mile or so away from Loftus Road for around eight years and as a consequence watched quite a number of games at the compact stadium including a pre-season friendly between the R’s and Celtic in 2002. At or near capacity, three quarters of the ground (South Africa Road, School End and Ellerslie Road Stands) were taken over by the visiting support, with a thousand or so home fans huddled together in the Loft watching their team get a good spanking.

I guess this is what is must be like for fans of Scottish club’s most weekends when one of the Old Firm teams invade their little corner of the SPL.

Pubs in an around Shepherds Bush were doing a roaring trade and it seemed like every other person was decked out in green and white hoops. These pictures were taken by a Celtic supporting former work mate of mine with her mini match boxed sized digital camera.

(sorry about the picture quality which is reminiscent of the early days of Channel Five)

Goalball

2009-12-03T17:38:00.002Z

I can’t say that I’m a big fan of the Olympics – in fact I doubt that I watched anymore than 30 minutes of coverage from Beijing last year – but I have signed up to receive news updates from the London Olympic committee via email, and next year, when they start taking applications for volunteers to work at the games in 2012, I’ll be putting my name forward. The idea of lurking around a major sporting event for a couple of weeks too big an opportunity to miss.

The latest news update (December 3rd) informed recipients that there are just 1,000 days to go until the Paralympics kick-off and contained a run down of some of the sports unique to athletes with physical and visual disabilities. The one that caught my eye was Goalball a sport for those with sight impairments that first made its debut at the games way back in 1976 at the XXI Olympiad in Toronto.

Unlike other sports, spectators must remain silent while that ball is in play so that the players (each team has three) can hear the bells that are imbedded with in it. Played on an area the size of a volleyball court the object of the game is to score goals by rolling the ball into your opponents net while they attempt to keep it out by blocking it with any part of their bodies. Games last 20 minutes with golden goals and penalty shoot outs used to settle drawn games.

Hopefully I can nab some tickets to watch any of the matches in this tournament when the unseemly scramble for tickets begins in 2011. It’s the lesser known sports such as this that I think offer the average punter the best chance of watching the Olympics/Paralympics in the flesh – while corporateville nabs the best seats for the better known sports.

Here’s sixty seconds of highlights from the Womens 3rd place game between Sweden and Denmark in Beijing...

Queens Park Rangers (Part 1)

2009-12-02T17:25:00.003Z

11-05-1979: Queens Park Rangers 0 Ipswich Town 4
(Division One)

In one of my earliest visits to QPR’s Loftus Road we stood at the School End, which, at the time, was an uncovered terrace. Ipswich won on that occasion by 4 goals to 0 thereby relegating the R’s to Division Two (the Championship in new money) or maybe they were already relegated. Either way the home fan’s were not in the best of spirits and we, and the handful of Town fan’s we were standing with, decided it was prudent to make a quick get away before the final whistle blew. And so to avoid a good kicking from the locals we legged it back to White City Stadium were I had left my trusty Mk II Ford Cortina.

Other than a place to park I don’t think I really gave White City much thought, and only later, and by then it had been demolished, did I regret not investigating the place a bit further and snapping a few pictures with my Kodak Instamatic (or whatever camera I had at the time). Built for the Franco-British Exhibition of 1908, and the London Olympics that were run in tandem, this was quite easily the largest stadium in England at the time boasting as it did 68,000 seats and large swathes of terracing that took it’s overall capacity to a not unimpressive 130,000.

QPR had two spells there, the first in 1931 and the second from 1962 to 1963, and one of the 1966 World Cup group games was played within it’s confines, but it was the sports of greyhound racing and speedway that were it’s primary breadwinners after the Olympics had left town. Now nothing at all remains of the stadium, ripped down to make way for BBC White City in 1985, except the finishing line of the 1908 marathon that has been marked out in front of the BBC Media Centre. The marathon, which started in Windsor, was extended from 26 miles to 26 miles and 385 yards so that it would finish in front of the Royal Box. Quirky though that increase was all marathons have been run over that distance since.

White City Stadium was by no means the only large stadium built in the capital during the first half of the 20th Century that didn’t make it beyond the second half (QPR playing at one – a 40,000 plus ground in Park Royal). But more on that in a later post.

Some more pictures of the outside of Loftus Road (taken in February, 2004) can be found here.

2018 WC bid in good hands?

2009-11-26T20:09:00.004Z

The government last night rejected Everton's plans to build a 50,000-seater stadium in Kirkby, plans that were not helped I’m sure by comments such as those from Liverpool City Councillor Warren Bradley who described it as "a glorified cow shed built in a small town outside Liverpool.” His very own council will today submit their application to be considered as a host city for the 2018 World Cup, with the Kirkby stadium included in the proposal!!!

This all assumes that England will actually win the bid of course, and this cause was not helped when Sir Dave Richards resigned from England WC 2018 committee sending the whole thing into (even more) disarray.

An announcement from the very same committee earlier in the week listed the Olympic Stadium as one of four London World Cup Venues. However, by 2018 the stadium should, according to government approved plans, have been downsized from 80,000-seats to a permanent 28,000-seat athletics venue.

Along with that of Liverpool City Council, applications from other hopeful host cities are due in later today. Sadly Portsmouth have withdrawn from the selection process following Pompey’s much publicized financial problems and the council’s refusal to back the redevelopment of Fratton Park with rate payers money. Meanwhile Milton Keynes, a conurbation with nil footballing heritage believes it is in with an outside chance of hosting some matches.

Colchester United (Part 2)

2009-11-15T15:08:00.005Z

14-11-2009: Colchester United 2 Exeter City 2 (Coca-Cola League One)

In Part 1 earlier this week I didn’t say much or indeed anything about what the stadium is like to watch football in. Well visually it’s just ordinary. Four stands, all of which are covered, single tiered and all seated. The main stand, on the west touchline, is taller than the others with a row of executive boxes running along the back. The other three are just plain seating areas although the south stand has, as viewed from the pitch, a police control room on the right hand side.

Entry into the stands is via electronic turnstiles that take you onto a concourse with the usual catering facilities, betting booth, toilets, etc. All seats are reached via entrances at the bottom of the stand. There’s a reasonable amount of legroom and, as you would expect in a new stadium, decent views to be had of the action as it unfolds. A largish scoreboard/TV screen sits in the corner between the south and east stand, the former allocated to away supporters.

There is a shuttle bus service running to and from Colchester railway station and the ground. The stop is about 150 yards away from the station entrance in front of “Big Yellow Storage”. A return will cost you just £1.00. The journey takes less than 10 minutes although we did have to wait around 15 minutes for a bus after the game (although this was before there was any sign of cars being allowed to leave the official car park).

Where to eat and drink? Well, as I mentioned in Part 1 there doesn’t look to be much in the immediate area so, you can either entertain yourself in the town before catching a shuttle bus from the station out to the stadium or, if you’re feeling a bit more intrepid, head out, as we did, to Mersea Island a 30 minute taxi ride directly south.

If you like seafood then this is the place to be. Not only is the island home to the renowned Oyster Bar (not visited today) but also the excellent Company Shed. Adjacent to a yard full of yachts and other boats is a large weathered clapper-board shed that was originally an oyster cleaning shed but is now a restaurant and fishmongers. There’s around ten tables covered with wipe clean tablecloths, you can’t make a reservation and you must bring your own drinks and bread. All a bit spit and saw dust but there aren’t many places where you can get a half dozen oysters and a heaping seafood platter comprising shrimp, prawn, cockles, mackerel, crab and lobster for a mere £15.00. Well worth the effort but don’t take my word for it.

Back to the football and it was good to see Marcus Stewart in action again. This time for current club Exeter. Stewart was just a couple of goals shy of finishing as top scorer in the Premiership in Ipswich’s 5th place finish in 2000-01, as well as scoring some key goals in the previous campaign as Town won a place at the top table of English football via the play-offs. As a former Blue Stewart was subject to booing by some sections of the home crowd today. It must really rankle with the Col U fans that their hatred for Ipswich is met with total indifference by Suffolk folk.

Panoramas to be found here, here and here.

Suffolk Premier Cup

2009-11-13T23:12:00.000Z

10-11-2009: Ipswich Town Reserves 4 Haverhill Rovers 0 (Suffolk Premier Cup Quarter-Final)

Words to follow.

Colchester United (Part 1)

2009-11-12T18:02:00.004Z

10-11-2009: Colchester United Reserves 1 Peterborough United Reserves 2 (Pontins Football Combination)

Well I set out expecting to be disappointed – as I have been with most new grounds and certainly was at the similarly sized Prostar Stadium in Shrewsbury earlier in the season – but it must be said that Colchester United’s one-year old Weston Community Stadium didn’t (disappoint) overall.

You reach the stadium via a business park but it’s set some distance away from it’s nearest neighbour and the surrounding open space will benefit from the 10,000 trees that are due to be planted in the area (one for each of the stadiums seats).

There’s a 700-space car park adjacent to the stadium and that, apart from a few bike sheds dotted about, is it as far as the exterior is concerned. If there are pubs or eateries of any consequence nearby they are not immediately obvious.

Inside it’s a bit like an open plan office with a John Constable landscape painting propped up in each corner, although one of those corners peers over traffic speeding by on the A12 faster than a haywain ever would (most of the time). Featureless on the outside the facilities inside the main stand set it apart from other new builds.

The 100 plus cars in the car park – far more than would be necessary to convey today’s crowd to the game – is a clue that many non-footballing activities take place at the stadium during the course of the week. There is a study support centre, a wedding venue, community facilities, a 400-seat corporate meeting room, and, across the otherside of the car park, five-a-side football pitches for local use.

This is all in line with the planning consent (and the part funding agreements reached with the local council) that ensured that the facilities at the new stadium should provide for activities other than a football match every other weekend, and for which the whole scheme received an RICS Award earlier in the year.

Footballing wise the highlight of the afternoon (my first Bovril for several years excepted) was the five-minute hold-up while a member of the ground staff went hunting for a new corner flag. A Colchester’s player had kicked out at said flag - after fluffing a cross - breaking the pole a foot above the ground.

Common sense would perhaps suggest that play continue but the referee was having none of it (quite rightly I discovered later when I checked the laws of the game) and a farcical delay ensued while a replacement was found.

A proper report is here and a few more pictures are here.

Kirkley & Pakefield

2009-11-07T22:16:00.005Z

07-11-2009: Kirkley & Pakefield 3 Debenham LC 0
(Ridgeons League Premier Division)

Today’s outing begins in Aldeburgh, twenty odd miles to the south of the afternoon’s game in Lowestoft, at The Scallop by Maggi Hambling. Made from stainless steel, the controversial sculpture sits on the beach just a short walk from Aldeburgh town centre and was commissioned to celebrate the life of the internationally famed composer Benjamin Britten who lived, and died, in the Suffolk town.

Incidentally, Ipswich Town manager Roy Keane lives in Aldeburgh and no doubt takes advantage of the excellent walks available in the area, particularly along the beach, to give Triggs a bit of exercise.

As well as being perhaps the greatest English composer of operatic music ever Benjamin Britten was also a pianist of not inconsiderable note and I had the privilege of watching him in concert with violinist Yehudi Menuhin at the Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds when I was still in short trousers.

As an up and coming (and ultimately pretty awful) cellist I was given the ticket at school in recognition of my musical talents! Can’t remember who I went with but do remember riding to and from the Theatre in the back seat of a great big smeg off Mercedes. But I digress.

Britten was born in Kirkley, at 21, Kirkley Cliff Road to be precise, and while there is a blue plaque on the side of what is now a guest house, Kirkley has decided to keep pretty schtum about it’s greatest son, although I believe there is a Benjamin Britten High School and, bizzarely, a Benjamin Britten Shopping Centre in Lowestoft proper.

The beaches either side of the town’s Claremont Pier both won Blue Flag awards this year. Long stretches of golden sand with a wide promenade running parallel. Considerably nicer that the more popular resort of Great Yarmouth 10 miles further up the road (in Norfolk).

Kirkley and neighbouring Pakefield were formerly villages but are now districts of Lowestoft and Kirkley & Pakefield FC’s ground sits just back off the A12 as you enter the town from the south.

The club can trace it’s routes back to the 1880’s but have gone through a number of mergers, disbandments and name changes to become the Kirkley & Pakefield of today. On several occasions they have joined forces with near neighbours and local rivals Lowestoft Town, and have been known variously as Kirkley, Kirkley United, Kirkley & Waveney and, from 2007, Kirkley & Pakefield.

They joined the Ridgeons League from the Anglian Combination in 2003 and within two years had won promotion to the Premier Division aided by an eighteen match unbeaten run, including a run of nine clean sheets, to clinch third place in Division One in 2004-05.

Their most notable former player is Sir Stanley Rous, who as a young lad played for the club before the start of the Great War, later becoming a Football League referee, secretary of the FA and then president of FIFA. His most notable contribution to the game, perhaps, being the simplification of the rules of the game which he rewrote in 1938.

The record attendance at the club’s Walmer Road ground of 1,124 was set when Lowestoft Town were the visitors on Boxing Day 2005.

More club history here, a proper match report is taking shape here, while more pics can be found here.

A Potted (and probably inaccurate) History of Gillingham’s Gordon Road Stand

2009-11-05T21:47:00.002Z

Gillingham’s Gordon Road Stand? Excuse this bit of self-indulgent rambling but there is a point. Of sorts.

1893: New Brompton Football Club, the forerunner of Gillingham Football Club, purchase the Priestfield site, lay the pitch, build a pavilion and stage their first match on September 2nd. A crowd of around 500 is on hand.

1899: A second stand is built opposite the Pavilion on the Gordon Road side. The Gordon Road Stand is born! Built by off-duty dock workers in exchange, Wikipedia suggests, for beer and cigarettes, it can seat 300 spectators. Narrow and just 30-yards long it occupies less than a third of the touchline. Nine wooden uprights support its roof with six rows of wooden bench seats below.

1920: The stand and the Gills join the Football League.

1930: The stand and the Gills are voted out of the Football League in favour of Ipswich Town (oops), but are back in 12 years and one WWII later, when the league expands from 88 to 92 clubs.

1955: The stand watches on as the ground undergoes a £28,500 facelift. The pitch is levelled (it previously had quite a noticeable slope), the terracing to its right which extended to the corner flag is re-laid and covered over. Taller than its older neighbour it maintains a reverential gap of a few feet. It’s around this time that my Grandfather becomes a Gills season ticket holder in the, yep, Gordon Road Stand.

1968 (January): Yours truly (told you there was a point to this) watches his first ever Football League game, a 1-1 draw between Gillingham and Torquay in the old Third Division, from the front row of the, you’ve guessed it, the Gordon Road Stand. Don’t recall the match at all but most certainly remember sitting in the stand, leaning on the wooden panel at front.

1968-1985: The stand continues to be lovingly preserved by the club as it watches over promotion from Division Four (1974) and a fairly pedestrian period of Third Division Football.

1985: Following the Bradford City fire the Safety of Sports Grounds Act is extended and the stand is considered too much of a fire hazard to continue in use. The void underneath the wooden stand cited as the main reason. By now the oldest stand in the League it has seated it’s very last spectators.

1995: Paul Scally takes over the Gills and soon after begins a programme of redevelopment.

1997: The grand old stand is pulled down and a new £2 Million Gordon Road Stand takes it place. A tidy modern stand which, in deference to it’s glorious predecessor comes complete with supporting pillars to impede the view of those in the rear half dozen rows. That’s progress.

Some pictures of the Priestfield Stadium taken in April 2004 can be found here.

Thank you for your attention.

Thank **** that's over

2009-10-31T19:45:00.000Z

31-10-2009: Ipswich Town 1 Derby County 0
(Coca-Cola Championship)

These Derby County fans pictured in 2008 appear relieved that their wretched season in the Premier League is over – the Ram’s officially the worst team to ever appear in the Premiership. As the final whistle went at Portman Road this afternoon, with Ipswich recording their first league win in fifteen attempts, this image suddenly sprung to mind. One unwanted record firmly behind us too.

A proper report here.

Bury Town

2009-10-27T22:41:00.003Z

27-10-2009: Bury Town 1 Cambridge City 2
(Red Insure Cup 1st Round)

In recent years both Bury Town and Cambridge City have been forced to switch leagues, although for entirely different reasons.

Town’s switch from the Isthmian League (Division One North), in the summer of 2008, to the Southern League (Division One Midlands), came about as the result of the reorganisation of the National League system, the seven levels of English football below the Football League. A number of clubs were shunted from one league to another, in an attempt to align clubs and leagues geographically and so cut down on travel costs, although for Bury Town this resulted in a large increase in mileage covered, from 1,408 miles in 2007-08 to around 2,024 in the 2008-09 campaign.

A few years back the outlook was looking bright for the Cambridge City. Having joined the newly formed Conference South for the 2004-05 season, they not only enjoyed a decent FA Cup run (reaching the second round proper where they succumbed to the MK Dons) but reached the play-offs too, losing to Eastbourne Borough over two legs (first leg coverage here). But after their best season for over thirty years it all started to go pear shaped.

Financial problems forced the club to sell their Milton Road ground and in 2006 the board announced that an agreement had been reached to amalgamate with cross-town rivals Cambridge United who had just been relegated out of the Football League. In stepped the Cambridge City Supporters' Trust, and after extensive campaigning they were able to force the existing directors to resign and replace them with their own members.

Next followed a legal dispute, eventually settled in the High Court, over the sale of Milton Road that the previous board had off-loaded or a price well below its market value. City can now stay at the ground until 2010 (at the very least) and will receive 50% of all profits arising from its future development. Good news though was to be followed by bad.

At the end of the 2007-08 season the Lilywhites were demoted from the Conference South to the Southern League Premier after Milton Road failed to meet the FA's Ground Grading requirements (Category B at this level), namely no terracing behind either goal and inadequate turnstile facilities. They appealed but the FA were having none of it and so in the summer of 2008 twenty-two consecutive seasons in non-league football’s second tier came to an end.

So now both clubs are in the Southern League (albeit a division apart), which found a new sponsor in the summer in the form of drinks company Zamaretto. Actually it found two sponsors, the League Cup being sponsored separately by Red Insure, and it is for the latter that the two sides were in competition tonight.

Bury have a good pedigree of late in cup competitions and as recently as Saturday almost made it to the first round proper of the FA Cup for the second year in succession. Despite going ahead at Oxford City they suffered the agony of conceding two late goals and went out (but not without a fight) 2-1. A recent surfeit of cup games (they’ve also competed in the FA Trophy and Suffolk Premier Cup in recent weeks) has meant that they have not played a league game for over five weeks.

A proper report on tonight’s proceedings can be found here.

Mildenhall Town

2009-10-25T13:46:00.005Z

24-10-2009: Mildenhall Town 4 Harwich & Parkeston 3
(Ridgeons League Premier Division)

Two years ago I made the journey from East Suffolk to Mildenhall through torrential rain arriving at Mildenhall Town’s Recreation Way Ground only to find that the game I was planning to watch had been postponed over two hours earlier due to a waterlogged pitch.

Today it rained intermittently - in between bursts of brilliant sunshine as the clouds moved elsewhere to shed their loads - but not enough to threaten the game or indeed (as it turned out) the entertainment level in a gripping, OK moderately engaging, seven-goal tussle that the home side, the ‘Hall, clinched by the odd goal. A win sealed by a second half penalty, one of two shared by the two sides.

The home side enjoyed a purple patch between 2004-05 and 2007-08 finishing in the top six four seasons in succession, a run that included a runners-up spot in the Ridgeons Premier Division in 2007. Last year they settled for mid-table but have struggled during the opening months of the current campaign with today’s three points lifting them just clear of the drop zone. Harwich (a bit more on them here), on the other hand, are now without a win in thirteen outings, and remain firmly rooted to the bottom of the table.

Tucked away behind the local swimming pool and town centre car park the first thing you notice about the ground (apart from an interesting mural-ly looking thing on the side of the clubhouse) is the pronounced slope of the pitch. Second are the mature trees at the bottom end of the ground and their colourful autumnal display. These occupied camera and I for a number of minutes before kick-off, and during breaks in the action, although I’ve spared you all but one tree picture in today’s offering of snaps (link at bottom of this post).

Mildenhall, a not unattractive market town sitting on the edge of the Fens, is probably best known for the two large US Air Force bases close by. During the Second World War East Anglia was covered with airfields of a multitude of shapes and sizes, and two survivors from that era, RAF Mildenhall and, three miles to the north-east, its sister base RAF Lakenheath are the largest US Air Force bases in the UK. They both continue to feature regularly in post WWII action. Two examples…

After the Rome and Vienna airport massacres of January 1986 allied intelligence services revealed conspiratorial Libyan involvement, and three months later, on April 14, fighter-bombers from Lakenheath and three other support bases in England launched a retaliatory strike on Tripoli.

Fifteen years later the record for the longest long distance bombing raid in history was set during Desert Storm by an American B-52, when it flew from the US to Iraq, and then returned to RAF Mildenhall afterwards. Many other missions during the conflict flew in and out of the two bases too.

Today RAF Mildenhall provides air refuelling to US and NATO aircraft over Europe, while Lakenheath is home to the USAF’s 48th Fighter Wing.

From Battle fields to ploughed fields and Mildenhall grabbed the headlines back in the 1940’s when a Suffolk Ploughman discovered a hoard of 4th century Roman Silverware which has since become known as the Mildenhall Treasure. Now housed at the British Museum, the haul included a two-foot diameter silver platter (which weighed in at 18lbs) plus other mostly tableware items.

Back to football (although I’m done with Mildenhall Town I think), and in the latest post on the entertaining 300 Grounds and counting the author says that one of his criteria for adding a new ground to his list is that it must have hosted a meaningful contest, basically no friendlies. Which is fair enough. Others won’t count a ground unless they’ve seen a goal scored there. Which seems a bit odd. A friend of mine has “done” Doncaster Rovers (two visits to their old Belle Vue ground) although he’s not been to their new Keepmoat Stadium and doesn’t plan to either. Just a bit obstreperous.

A simple soul I have no criteria whatsoever. If a ball is being kicked around on a pitch in anything remotely resembling a ground it goes on the list. My rule used to be that an entrance fee had to have paid but then that would have ruled out my visit to the Nou Camp in 1979 when I was given a complimentary ticket. Rules are there to be broken. Or dropped.

To do a ground properly a visit during day light hours is best so that I can photograph it without the aid of a flash gun although I do prefer the atmosphere at night games the best, even when there are just a few fans on hand to watch.

Likewise, the criteria for selecting a game to watch is also quite simple: proximity to where I’m staying/working at the time in a village/town/city that has something else remotely of interest in it or close by. Which could be anything from a jam factory to a cathedral to a decent Chinese Restaurant. I’m easy to please.

More pictures here.

Arsenal (Highbury)

2009-10-23T17:06:00.003Z

13-02-2004: A lap around Arsenal Stadium

As Arsenal’s new stadium, the Emirates, was beginning to take shape half-a-mile away to the west I took the opportunity presented by a slack day at work to bunk off and head over to it’s forerunner Highbury (a.k.a. Arsenal Stadium) and take some shots of the exterior (and it’s surrounds) of what had been the Gunner’s home for previous 91 years.

Archibald Leitch was the architect of the original stadium hurriedly constructed during the summer of 1913 as Arsenal (then with a Woolwich prefix) moved north of the Thames from Plumstead. Rectangular in shape, three sides of the new ground had banked concrete terracing while the fourth a covered grandstand with 9,000 seats.

In a principally residential area the stand, on Avenell (?) Road, was the only one not backed onto by the gardens of the neighbouring terraced homes (a not inconsiderable fact that would prevent the club from extending the capacity of the ground in the later part of the 20th century and ultimately lead to the move to Ashburton Grove).

In keeping with the clubs domination of English football during the 1930’s (five League Championships and two FA Cup wins) Highbury underwent a major and rather grand facelift, with most traces of the original Leitch design disappearing in the process. First, a new stand on the west touchline was constructed (opening in 1932) followed by demolition of the original grandstand and building of a new one in 1936.

It was during this period that the Art Deco style came to the fore and architect Claude Waterlow Ferrier used this as the principal theme for the new West Stand and then, joined by Major William Binnie, for the East Stand too. While the former cost £45,000 costs for the later were well over budget at £130,000, most of this additional expense being lavished on the stand’s famous façade and the oppulent interior (many years ago I watched a game from a padded (and heated?) seat in the directors box and can atest to this).

Seven steps up from the pavement the entrance door has metal lamps on either wall and above a frieze containing the clubs initials AFC. Over the frieze there is a window that provides light to the first floor landing on the inside, and this in turn is topped by a further frieze with the Gunner’s logo.

Inside the front door and you begin to understand why Highbury was once referred to as the Marble Palace by the Illustrated London News. The floor and stair is paved with terrazzo (actually a fake marble), an imposing bust of legendary manager Herbert Chapman looks out at you from a niche in the wall while the Gunner’s logo is set in black stone within the paving. Doors off the entrance hall and an impressive Art Deco staircase with polished hardwood rails in the original building led to…

… a general office, typist rooms, accountant’s and cashier’s rooms, spacious players changing rooms and bathrooms (with underfloor heating), match officials changing room, managers office, a Ladies' Tea Room, a general Refreshment Room, a press area and board room. In addition telephone booths, a control room and a radio broadcasting box for the BBC were provided, and in a very forward looking piece of thinking a room was set aside for television equipment and cabling.

Described as “the grandest pieces of football architecture ever built in Britain with the single possible exception of the East Stand at Ibrox Park", the East Stand is Grade II listed. Both it and the West stand have since been converted to apartments as the site is redeveloped for residential use (the North Stand and Clock End demolished to make way for purpose-designed apartment buildings), Arsenal’s having played their final game there in May 2006.

More pictures here

How Steeple Sinderby Wanderers won the FA Cup

2009-10-23T16:54:00.002Z

Just before the 2002 World Cup in Japan I attended a course at Birkbeck College in London entitled Football, Culture and Society, a series of 6/8 lectures on covering footballs role in community and culture. Not only was it an excellent course but it also gave participants a chance to meet the likes of Professor John Williams (from the Centre for Football Research, Leicester University) and Mark Perryman (football activist and writer and convener of the London England Fans supporters' group).

The series of handouts from the lecturers included several pages of recommended reading (which I have reproduced here, here, here, here, here and here for anyone that’s interested) and I’ve been working my way through the list every since.

Up until that time I’d given up on finding any half decent writing on the game (Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch excepted) after starting and stopping after a few pages on at least a dozen of footballers autobiographies. Nobby Stiles’ autobiography for instance. How can the story of a man who played for one of England top clubs – winning World Cup and European Cup medals in the process – be converted in to two-hundred or so utterly tedious pages.

Anyway, this links very untidily with a book that is not on the list, which I picked up on my recent holiday in Lincolnshire, the truly wonderful How Steeple Sinderby Wanderers won the FA Cup by JL Carr (1975). Set in a fenland village it tells the story of how the local amateur side – guided by an ex-patriot Hungarian academic and two retired football league players – not only reach the FA Cup Final, but win it in style with victory over Glasgow Rangers. Is it believable? “Depends on whether you want to believe”, says the author in the introduction. The title is a bit of a spoiler but if fantasy, David v Goliath or whimsy are you’re thing then you should try and get hold of a copy.

Unbelievable!

2009-10-20T11:24:00.002Z

20-10-2009: Ipswich Town 1 Watford 1
(Coca-Cola Championship)

Well that was by far and away the best home performance by an Ipswich side this season, perhaps the best in the last twelve months.

We dominated the game for large spells, we passed the ball around like Town teams of yore, and we defended so well that we restricted Watford to just one shot on target.

Unfortunately they scored from that one shot and unbelievably we’re denied yet another win by a goal deep into injury time.

And so after thirteen attempts we remain the only side in the top four divisions in England without a win – but that win can’t possibly be far away if tonight’s performance is anything to go by.

The reaction of supporters after the game was quite something. Rooted to the bottom of the table but still applauded off the pitch.

Proper report here.

Reading

2009-10-19T17:18:00.004Z

22-01-2005: Reading 1 Ipswich Town 1
(Coca-Cola Championship)

Quite a while back there was a documentary (on Sky) about football supporters who go too extraordinary lengths to support their respective teams. It featured the likes of the famous bell-ringing and heavily tattooed Portsmouth supporter and an acquaintance of mine who travels from Clacton-On-Sea up to Scotland every weekend to follow the exploits of Greenock Morton.

Another series (ITV or Channel Four) focused on the more bizarre aspects of football fan-ship. It featured a Leeds fans who had developed such a hatred for Manchester United that he had been prosecuted for vandalism by the local council after he had repainted a red bus shelter at the bottom of his road white.

Also interviewed was a Reading supporter who was convinced that the newly constructed Madejski Stadium (the programme was made in the late 90’s) had been built on the meeting point of a number of Planet Earth’s magnetic fields and as a result was ready for use by aliens as a time-portal (along the lines of the one that featured in the movie Stargate).

One thing that is certain is that stadium was built on an old household waste site and there are outlet points at strategic locations to allow for the release of the methane gas that continues to be generated underground (notice how I’ve avoided adding any gratuitous jokes here). Club owner, Sir John Madejski, after whom the stadium takes its name, is said to have paid the local council just one pound for the land, although a further £50 million was required for the construction of the 24,161 capacity all-seater bowl.

Opened in August 1998, Reading share Madejski Stadium with Rugby Union side London Irish.

More pictures here.

Skegness Town

2009-10-09T19:35:00.001Z

The final day of our week break in Lincolnshire takes us for a quick look around the seaside resort of Skegness. Not really our thing but the town is far nicer that a number of it’s peers (Great Yarmouth for example) (no pun intended). Anyway, on the way out of town and back to our cottage the ministering angel of domestic bliss spotted Skegness Town FC’s Burgh Road ground and I was allowed to stop and take a few pictures.

Not content with exterior shots alone I poked by head inside and noticed someone cutting the grass. Turns out that this was Allan Gray who as groundsman, secretary, treasurer and reserve team coach is known locally as ‘Mr Skegness Town’ and won a Lincolnshire Sports Partnership award a few years ago for his twenty-years of service to the club. We had a quick chat about the pitch (which looked in pretty decent shape to me despite playing host to Car Boot Sales every Sunday) and the local football scene, and he was more than happy for me to wonder around and take the pictures you see here.

Now in the Central Midlands League, Skegness won back-to-back Lincolnshire League Champions in seasons 2006-07 and 2007-08 also winning the Supplementary Cup in that second title-winning season. Less than a month after the double win manager Paul Walden resigned, following a fall out with the club’s committee, shortly to be followed by the entire first team. Later that summer Walden (and players) resurfaced at nearby Louth Town, leading them to the Central Midlands League Premiership title that very same season.

More pictures here.

Louth Town

2009-10-07T23:30:00.001Z

Louth Town 1 Westella & Willerby 0 (Abacus Central Midlands Football League – Supreme Division)

We have a copy of the AA Illustrated Guide to Britain (purchased around 1984) which gets carried around with us on holidays in the UK. In its margins the ministering angel of domestic bliss has noted - next to the books descriptions of each regions principal towns and villages - what we thought of each place that we’ve visited or driven through. “Nice” she noted next to Louth after we drove through the town in 1988, but twenty-one years on we are not quite sure why.

“One of the most perfectly preserved Georgian towns in England, and a good centre from which to tour the Wolds”, reads the guide. The narrow pavements and constant flow of traffic right through its centre make navigating it on foot an unpleasant experience. Yes, there a great variety of Georgian and early-Victorian architecture but it struck us as all being a bit grubby. A succession of souped-up Vauxhall Astra’s and bulky four-by-four whipping past the impressive St James’s Church fail to add much to the 1515 building and its soaring spire either.

That aside we found the Lincolnshire folk to be particularly friendly during our holiday and that continued in the town and at the game tonight – starting with the friendly welcome from the young lady operating Park Avenue’s single turnstile.

Local side Louth Town were formed in May 2007, when forerunners and former tenants of Park Avenue Louth United withdrew from the Central Midlands Football League. Town completed their debut season (2007-08) with a creditable mid-table finish and the following campaign collected the league’s “Team of the Season” award when they clinched the championship and promotion to the Supreme Division, winning all but three of their twenty-eight league matches.

A bit frayed around the edges, their Park Avenue ground had already been sold prior to the club’s formation (it occupies a sizeable spot in a residential area to the east of the town centre making it ripe for redevelopment) but they’ve been able to secure a short term lease while a new home is found.

All of the grounds facilities are housed in a single two-storey building along one touchline. At pitch level are the changing rooms (and a function room large enough to house the Louth Pavilion and Bingo Social Club) and above this the club’s bar which in addition to providing the usual lubricants has a glass frontage offering views of the action as it unfolds on the pitch.

There are half a dozen flags of St George decorating the walls and further flags are draped at the back of the small area of covered terracing below the windows on the outside. The Louth Town “Crew” also have flags positioned at various points around the perimeter of the pitch.

On the touchline opposite the main stand is what appears to be a TV gantry – although neither Town or Louth United have had any recent cup run’s that would help explain its presence (let me know if you know why it’s there).

Tonight’s opposition Westella & Willerby (who this campaign will field an impressive 21 teams at a range of age levels) hail from East Riding (just to the north of the Humber Bridge) and are thought to have been playing competitive football since 1910. Counting Dean Windass amongst a number of famous “names” to have begun their senior careers with the club they have a reputation for the development of young players a reputation which earned them FA Community Club status in 2003.

The only goal of the evening - in an evenly contested match - came after just 13 minutes and put the home side top of the table with the only unbeaten record in the Supreme Division. Westella & Willerby, Town’s rivals for the Premier Division title last season, had previously been unbeaten until tonight.

More pictures here.

Horncastle Town

2009-10-03T19:25:00.001Z

03-10-2009: Horncastle Town 1 Lincoln Moorland Railway Reserves 3 (Sills & Betteridge Solicitors Lincolnshire Football League Challenge Cup 1st Round)

A hastily arranged holiday finds us (myself and the ministering angel of domestic bliss that is) renting a nice little cottage just to the north of Horncastle on the edge of the Lincolnshire Wolds.

Driving across the Fens for the second time in a month (see the Wisbech Town post) the flat unattractive fenland slowly gives way to gentle hills as you pass through Boston and by the time Horncastle is reached – around 40 minutes later – I’m sold on the area already.

We’ll be doing quite a bit of hiking malarkey over the next seven days and will exploring the “rolling hills and deep valleys, quiet streams and hanging beechwoods” (as described in our guide book) during that time, but first things first and some footie.

Despite complete ignorance of local football in the region I’ve managed to come up with a couple of games for the coming week, starting today at the “Wong”, the home of Lincolnshire Football League side Horncastle Town.

There’s no programme on offer so all I can offer in this humble post is a hastily mashed together history of the club c/o Google: They joined the Lincolnshire League in 1996, making this their fourteenth season in the competition, and have managed a top six finish in each of the last six campaigns.

Last year seems to have been a somewhat traumatic time for them with the resignation of their manager and the loss of a number of key players that had been brought in from out of town. The later it seems had been a bone of contention with supporters and players alike with many feeling that the progress of local players was being stymied by the use of so many players from other areas.

All seems to be well again though with Charter Standard Club Status being conferred on the club by the FA, and a thriving junior section with sides for Under-10’s through Under-16’s all being fielded (the Under-15’s winning their league earlier this year).

Despite a strong wind that whipped across the pitch Horncastle and their visitors from Lincoln, served up an enjoyable 90 minutes by keeping the ball on the deck rather than opting for hoof-ball. The home side had more than their fair share of goal scoring chances in the first period and could have led at that point by two or three (as this proper report points out) but, as they say, missed chances come back to haunt you - the visitors taking the chances that they engineered for themselves and deservedly running out winners.

Incidentally, Horncastle (the place) is a small leafy market town originally settled by the Romans - there are still traces of a five-mile stretch of Roman Road to the north of the town – and in the 19th-Century was famed for it’s huge 10-day long annual horse fairs. Today’s markets are on a much smaller scale of course although no less exotic – one stall offering Ostrich Burgers!

The town boasts a number of really good books shops one of which, Good For Books, the missus and I spent a good hour rummaging around in (dropping a more than healthy amount at the till on the way out). For those preferring to while away their time in drinking establishments the King’s Head comes recommended (a thatched pub wedged rather incongruously between two Georgian buildings on the main north-south road through town).

More pictures here.

Kettering Town, Huntingdon Town and St Ives Town

2009-09-27T19:07:00.006Z

27-09-2009: A Sunday Drive

A leisurely drive from Kettering and across the Cambridgeshire Fens nets three new grounds. The ministering angel of domestic bliss was well chuffed…

Kettering Town

Rockingham Road, Kettering, Northamptonshire

At one time footwear was Kettering’s main earner but now Weetabix is one of the biggest names in town, alongside JLB Credit, the head office of Peep Show character Mark Corrigan employers (fictitious of course). The town’s football club play at the 6,170 capacity Rockingham Road and have enjoyed a reasonable share of media attention down the years. Off the field Paul Gascoigne was club manager for thirty-nine days at the beginning of the 2005-06 and on the field they’ve enjoyed some decent runs in the FA Cup, reaching the fourth round proper last season where they succumbed 2-4 to Premier League Fulham.

More pictures here.

Huntingdon Town

Jubilee Park, Kings Ripton Road, Cambridgeshire

Formed as recently as 1996, United Counties League side Huntingdon Town play at the 1,000 capacity Jubilee Park, on the Kings Ripton Road a couple of miles or so north east of the town centre. Jubilee Park has been their home since 2003 and has seen continued improvements since with £37,000 invested in a floodlighting system in 2004 and the opening of a new £1.1 million Clubhouse at the start of the current campaign. Oliver Cromwell (whose silhouette features on the club’s crest) was born in the town and was the local MP from 1628–29. Cromwell commanded the Roundheads in the Civil War and later becoming Lord Protector.

St Ives Town

Westwood Road, St Ives, Cambridgeshire

The town of St Ives sits on the meandering River Great Ouse, one of England’s longest navigable rivers. Sitting on the edge of the Fen’s, St Ives is quite picturesque, as is the seeting at Westwood Road the home of the local football club. Not to be confused with St Ives Town of the Cornwall Combination, the Saints have enjoyed a great deal of success in the past few years. In 2007-08 they achieved their highest ever finish in the football pyramid (6th in the United Counties League Premier) and also reached the fifth round of the FA Vase, a feat they repeated last season too.

More pictures here.

Opening of the Sir Bobby Robson Stand

2009-09-26T21:18:00.004Z

26-09-2009: Ipswich Town 0 Newcastle United 4
(Coca-Cola Championship)

Sir Bobby Robson, of course, managed both Ipswich Town and today’s opponents Newcastle United and before the game today and at half-time his many footballing achievements – especially those in Suffolk – were celebrated.

Just before kick-off forty former Town players where introduced to the crowd as they made their way onto to the pitch and when they had been joined by the starting line-ups for today’s match first “My Way” (a favourite of Sir Bobby’s) and “Abide With Me” where sung by the excellent Laura Wright. A minutes applause followed.

At half-time the former Town players re-emerged carrying a large banner bearing a single word – Legend - and Sir Bobby’s face. The FA Cup and UEFA Cup (trophies won by the Blue’s, under Robson, in 1978 and 1981 respectively) were also paraded.

Then Lady (Dame) Elsie Robson, accompanied by two of her and Sir Bobby’s sons, made her way to the centre circle for a ceremony to officially rename the North Stand as the Sir Bobby Robson Stand. Once the ceremonial ribbon had been cut 709 balloons were released – one for every senior game managed by Sir Bobby during 13-year reign at Portman Road.

A tasteful - and touching - celebration of the life of one very special person.

More pictures here.

Panorama Mania 5!

2009-09-26T11:36:00.003Z

Five more panoramas - of varying degrees of quality – for you, all taken in 2004. First up, Walsall’s Bescot Stadium, home of the Saddlers since its official opening in 1990 by Sir Stanley Matthews, is currently known as the Banks’s Stadium after the Banks Brewery penned a sponsorship deal with the club in 2007.

Next it’s Rotherham United’s Millmoor Stadium taken from the Railway End. The Millers have been playing their home games at the Don Valley Stadium, a few miles away in Sheffield, since 2008, and will continue to do so until differences with the current owner of the ground Ken Booth are resolved. The Football League, who dished out a 17-point penalty to the club in the summer of 2008, for irregularities over the manner in which they had exited administration, have given Rotherham four years to return to Millmoor.

Nottingham Forest’s City Ground is an impressive sight. To the right is the Brian Clough Stand, built in 1980 from the proceeds of the tricky trees two European Cup wins (1979 and 1980). To the left is the Main Stand which was rebuilt in the late 1960’s after the original stand was burnt to the ground when a fire broke out during a home game against Leeds United. Forest hosted a number of games in Euro 96 and the Bridgford End (from where this panorama was shot) and Trent End (directly ahead) were both redeveloped in time for three qualifying group games involving Turkey, Croatia and Portugal.

Upton Park’s East Stand (out of picture to the left) is the only part of West Ham United’s home awaiting redevelopment, with plans in existence to replace it and up the capacity of the ground from 35,000 to 40,500. In 1993 the 9,000 seater Bobby Moore Stand (far goal) replaced the old South Bank, two years later the old North Bank was replaced by the 6,000 seat Centenary Stand (this panorama is taken from it’s lower tier), and in 2001 the 15,000 Dr Martens Stand (right touchline) was opened.

Its 32,500 capacity makes the Walkers Stadium the 19th largest stadium in England (according to Wikipedia) and the “centrepiece” of Leicester application to be part of England’s World Cup 2018 bid. The stadium cost Leicester City £37 million and was one of a number of reasons why the club went into administration (the first club relegated from the Premiership to do so) shortly after its opening. Sitting close to the Leicester branch of the Grand Union Canal, the stadium is a huge improvement in terms of spectator comfort over the cramped and arcane conditions that greeted away fans in the old barn at Filbert Street, but is deficient in both charm and character. For that take a walk along its 1920’s neighbour.

"Stamford Bridge will stagger humanity"

2009-09-25T17:09:00.006Z

04-02-2004: The Shed, Stamford Bridge, London SW6

Lurking behind the hotel, residential flats, penthouses, restaurants, bars and fitness centre that form part of Chelsea Village is a stretch of roughly rendered 16’ high wall that was once the retaining wall of the Stamford Bridge South Bank terrace. Better known as The Shed, for many years it housed the more vociferous supporters of Chelsea FC.

Stamford Bridge was designed by the legendary football stadium architect Archie Leitch and opened its turnstiles for the first time for a friendly against Liverpool in September 1905. Bowl-like in shape its terraces were formed using clay excavated from nearby works on the capitals expanding underground system. With a capacity of 80,000 (a small grandstand with just 2,500 seats sat on the eastern touchline and offered the stadiums only cover) it drew rave reviews, “Stamford Bridge will stagger humanity”, reported one newspaper.

For thirty-years the stadium remained largely unaltered until the partial roofing of the South Bank terrace. Greyhound racing was the craze of the time (arriving at Stamford Bridge in the early 1930’s) and this covered area was built primarily to shelter bookmakers at race meetings, although it offered refuge for football fan’s who stood more than half-way up the terrace. The Shed acquired it’s nickname after WWII, and apart from the addition of a few crash barriers and security fences and the odd coat of paint that’s the way the terrace remained until its demolition in 1994.

In between it gained a certain notoriety as the home for some of the countries most infamous football hooligans. Chairman Ken Bates alienated many of them by calling for the installation of an electric fence to keep them off the pitch (following some particularly nasty scenes in 1988 when Chelsea lost in the Division 1/2 play-off's to Middlesboro) after the success of a similar system to control cattle on his dairy farm. The GLC rejected his proposal on health and safety grounds.

A few pictures of Chelsea Village can be found here.

Off Kilter

2009-09-24T12:38:00.001Z

Inspired by the names that he saw on pools coupons as a youngster, the third part of Jonathan Meades's journey around Scotland (Off Kilter on BBC 4) sees him take in, amongst others, the stadiums of Falkirk, Cowdenbeath, Dunfermline and Berwick (which of course is in England). Meades has produced some memorable TV programmes over the years and this is no exception...

Watch on IPlayer

Whitton United

2009-09-22T22:30:00.002Z

22-09-2009: Whitton United 3 Long Melford 1
(FA Vase 2nd Round Qualifying - replay)

Ruel Fox, who made close to four hundred league appearances for Norwich City, Newcastle United, Tottenham Hotspur, and West Bromwich Albion between 1986 and 2002 was appointed chairman of Whitton United this summer. He had previously been player-manager with the club a few years back and although now 41 was still in tonight’s starting line-up, showing a few touches that were a class above everything else on display (no disrespect intended to the other players who served up ninety minutes of decent football).

Promoted to the Ridgeons Premier Division in 2008 financial problems forced the club to withdraw from the competition just after the campaign had got underway, although they were allowed to rejoin the league, albeit one division lower, for the 2009-10 season. The money problems were to some extent due to the cost of ground improvements required by the league, although the club seem to be confident that these improvements can be completed well within a new FA deadline of summer 2010.

Ipswich born Fox hails from Whitton Estate, from which the clubs draws many of it’s players and the majority of it’s support.

Details of previous visits here and here.

Walsall

2009-09-18T20:29:00.007Z

10-08-2002: Walsall 0 Ipswich Town 2
(Nationwide League Division One)

Here are a few exterior pictures of the Bescot Stadium taken when Town took on Walsall on the opening day of the 2002-03 season. The middle one shows the redevelopment of the Gilbert Alsop Stand (now the Floors 2 Go Stand) which towers over the other three sides of the ground and can be seen for several miles in each direction along the adjacent M6 motorway.

Alsop played, and scored, in Town's first ever Football League game on August 27th, 1938 at Portman Road, but it was at Walsall that he really made his mark netting 151 times in 195 appearances in two spells with the Saddlers.

He was a part of one of the greatest and most popular FA Cup upsets of all time, when Walsall beat Herbert Chapman’s all conquering Arsenal 2-0 in January 1933. The Gunners were not a popular side, made up of costly imports living a privileged London life style. The Midlands and the North of England were experiencing severe unemployment and this was seen very much as a victory for the common man.

A report from the time reads: “Arsenal enjoy champagne, gold and electrical massage in an atmosphere of prima donna preciousness. Walsall men eat fish and chips and drink beer.” Hmm, how times have changed.

After retiring, Alsop stayed on in the Walsall area, and became groundsman and trainer at their former ground, Fellows Park.

Wisbech Town

2009-09-12T17:08:00.002Z

12-09-2009: Wisbech Town 2 Norwich United 2
(Ridgeons League Premier Division)

Today a trip to Wisbech Town - in the Cambridgeshire Fens - on the very extremities of the Ridgeons League. I think that only Godmanchester Rovers are further away from the HQ of the Eastern Counties Football League in Ipswich and, of course, the home of ExtremeGroundhopping.

OK, strictly speaking this was not a trip to Wisbech itself but the temporary home of the football club in the village of Outwell three miles to the south of Wisbech proper. The club moved to Outwell twelve months ago while a new stadium is built for them, although various planning hold ups have meant that the actual construction of the Fenmen’s new home didn’t begin until last week. All that appears to be outstanding now is approval of a grant by the Football Foundation, and so Wisbech Town will continue at Outwell (ground sharing with Cambridgeshire County League side the Outwell Swifts') until work is completed.

This temporary home (known as “The Nest” for reasons I’ve not been able to fathom) is essentially the village playing field (entrance for spectators is via the village hall) with various add-ons to bring it up to the required standard. A 118-seater stand of metal construction has been installed along one touchline, on the opposite touchline is small and low wooden stand (the dugouts sit either side of this) while three tent-like structures have also been added at various points around the pitch to provide shelter to those that prefer to watch their football in a fully upright position.

Floodlights have also been installed which, from what I gather, will remain in Outwell when the club move to their new home. The metal stand will however move with them. Record attendance at “The Nest” is 160, with just over 100 turning out to watch today’s game.

David Bauckham’s excellent Pyramid Passion has a number of pictures of the Fenmen’s old home here, which looked like a real gem of a place. It was sold for £1.4 million to a property developer to, ostensibly, clear the clubs debts. So another classic non-league ground lost forever. Their new home will be less than a mile away but I suspect it will struggle to come close to matching the character of it’s forerunner.

Away from football for a minute. Ipswich and Wisbech have one historical link in anti-slavery campaigner Thomas Clarkson. Clarkson (a bit of hero of mine which is why is getting a mention here) started his life in Wisbech and spent the later years of it in the small village of Playford a few miles to north-east of Ipswich. In between time he played a major role in the passage through parliament of the Slave Trade Act of 1807, which ended the British slave trade. There is a large memorial (with statue) in Wisbech and a smaller scale memorial close to his final resting place in Playford Church yard. Streets in Wisbech and Ipswich also bear his name.

Despite this Wisbech is quite an interesting place and here are some interesting (really) facts:

Two of the main participants in the Gunpowder Plot, Robert Catesby and Francis Tresham, were both held at Wisbech castle, a notorious prison in Tudor times.
Rev. W. Awdrey, the creator of Thomas the Tank Engine, was Vicar of nearby Emneth from 1953 to 1965.
The farm of Tony Martin, who gained notoriety for shooting and killing one of two men caught burgaling his home, is just outside the town.
Peckover House in the center of town (built in 1722 and acquired by the Peckover family in the late 18th century) is now owned by the National Trust, and as luck would have it was offering free admission today keeping Mrs Extreme Groundhopping entertained while I was at the football.
The local inhabitants became known as the "Fen Tigers" during their resistance to the draining of the fens in the 17th century.

Ironically it was the draining of the Fens that brought prosperity to Wisbech. The draining left behind a rich landscape perfect for agriculture. Landowners and merchants grew wealthy and built rows of elegant homes along the banks of the River Nene in the centre of the town. Facing each other across the river they are considered to be, my guide book tells me, some of the finest examples of Georgian streets in the country, regularly featuring in costume dramas on TV and film.

Back to the football and Wisbech Town have enjoyed some success in the FA Cup, counting Ipswich Town, Colchester United, Reading, Newport County, Wycombe Wanderers, Brentford, Brighton & Hove Albion and Bristol Rovers amongst their opponents in that competition, although their 1-10 loss to the Brighton in 1965 remains the clubs record reverse. They’ve enjoyed some decent runs in the FA Vase too, reaching the semi’s two years in a row, the first in 1985 and again in 1986.

Two times winners of the United Counties League, and three times winners of the Eastern Counties League (most recently in 1991), they also spent twelve years in the Southern League finishing as Champions in 1962.

More pictures here.

Addendum:

Click on the thumbnail below for a panorama of "The Nest".

Fleeting Glimpses

2009-09-08T18:58:00.006Z

No 4: Travis E. Parker Field/Horace McCool Stadium, Cleveland, Mississippi

The 4th and last in the fleeting glimpses series is just an excuse to mention what must be one of the most bizarre sports on Planet Earth. The worrying thing is that the locals (anyone that lives within tobacco spitting distance of the Mississippi Delta – and in this case Cleveland, MS) think of it as quite a normal activity, but if you’ve ever lived, worked or holidayed in the southern US then you’ll perhaps understand. It was explained to me by the manager of the IT department I was temporarily seconded to, who was also ran a crop dusting business and did nice line in Delta State University Christmas Decorations (twenty-eight years later I still have the festive bauble he sold me).

Anyway, to take part you need a fishing licence, a pair of waders, a torch and a four-tined spear (that’s one more tine than King Neptune’s weapon boasts). As you wade out into the river (or other water setting were frogs are likely to be present) you use the torch to locate the frogs. Not only do their eyes reflect the light of the torch, making them easier to find, but the glare also dazzles them making it is easier to spear or “gig” them. The more frogs you can spear with one thrust the better. The frog or frogs are then placed in a net and the process is repeated until the net is either full or there are no more frogs – whichever comes first. Frogs leg’s (preferably battered in bread crumbs and tasting very much like chicken) are hugely popular across the Southern States of the US.

By the way, the Travis E. Parker Stadium is the home of the Delta State University athletics department. Opened in 1970 it has a capacity of 8,000.

Fleeting Glimpses

2009-09-08T18:38:00.005Z

No 3: Louisiana Superdome, New Orleans, Louisiana

Slightly more that a fleeting glimpse was had on my trip to New Orleans of the Louisiana Superdome as I actually got to go inside. As luck would have it a boat show (desperate measures indeed for a groundhopper) was in progress and the $5.00 entrance fee allowed be to wander around at will.

This imposing concrete and steel building, not far from New Orleans’ French Quarter, is the largest domed structure in the world covering 53,000 square meters (or 13 acres in old money) and reaching 83 m (273 feet) at its peak. Not that dissimilar in shape to the Texas Stadium (covered in an older post) but boasting a much larger capacity – 72,968 for NFL games when it tenants the New Orleans Saints are in action.

It has hosted more NFL “Super Bowl’s” than any other North American stadium, including Super Bowl XX in 1986 that saw the Chicago Bear’s (Chicago my adopted home city at the time) thump the New England Patriots 46-10. Oddly, having watched every regular season and play-off Bears game on US TV (don’t even think about getting a ticket to watch a Bears game in the flesh) I watched the final in the UK, staying up until 3am in the morning to do so.

American Football enjoyed quiet a large following amongst TV viewers in the UK at the time aided by the success of the Bears and unlikely hero’s such as William “The Refigerator” Perry (pictured here on the left). Their “Super Bowl Shuffle” rap video was pretty neat too.

In more recent years the Superdome famoulsy became the refuge for 30,000 of the city’s population as they escaped the wrath of Hurricane Katrina in August 2005. Stories in the media led to speculation that the dome, which had suffered extensive damage during the storm, would have to be demolished, but a year and a month and $193 million in repairs and refurbishments later, it reopened.

Fleeting Glimpses

2009-09-08T18:20:00.003Z

No 2: Olympic Stadium, Seoul, South Korea

The Lotte World Hotel (from which this picture of the Olympic Stadium was taken in 1996) was within a few hundred meters of a subway station and I found getting around the capital to be quite painless using a combination of the subway system and, to a lesser extent, taxis. All route maps and signs are written in both Korean and English, and the pre-recorded announcements in the trains themselves are in Korean and English too. However, you’d be well advised to ask an English speaking local to write out in Korean any destination that you plan to reach by taxi, and hand this to the driver.

In a city as crowded as Seoul room is at a premium and looking up at roof tops gives you an idea of how ingeniously space can be used. Roof top miniature golf ranges for one. Quite bizarre. Worth checking out are the Karaoke Bars (hugely popular in the country) and the local cuisine* such as grilled beef served with Kimchi, a spicy vegetable dish.

Eating and Karaoke aside, as you would expect in the world’s second largest metropolitan area (population 24.5 million) there is quite a bit to see and do. Perhaps the most striking feature is the Han River which (roughly) splits the city in half and is more than a kilometer in width - that’s more than double the width of the Thames as it passes through central London. Also quite striking are the bridges than span the Han – some twenty-seven in all.

Not far from one of these crossings and a short distance away from the hotel, is the Seoul Olympic Stadium, built, ostensibly, for the 1988 Summer Olympics, but first used for the 10th Asian Games two years earlier. According to Wikipedia “the lines of the stadium's profile imitate the elegant curves of a Korean Joseon Dynasty porcelain vase” although you’d be hard pressed to tell that from my photo.

When first opened the stadium boasted a capacity of 100,000 although today this has been reduced to just under 70,000. Seating is on two-tiers with cover provided by a retractable roof. Overlooked as a venue for the 2002 Japan/Korea World Cup (the purpose built Seoul World Cup Stadium hosted the three games played in the capital) it is currently the home stadium of Seoul United in the K3 League, the third tier of organised football in Korea. Time limitations prevented me from getting a look inside the stadium which was a great shame.

The selection of host nation for the 2002 World Cup was a hot topic during my visit. Of course Korea and Japan went on to host the event as I looked enviously on at those able to make it there for all or part of the four week footie fest.

* a work colleague was quick to point out that the use of dog in Korean cooking was not quite as common as we in the west may have been lead to believe.

Fulham

2009-09-07T16:27:00.006Z

04-02-2004: Shaking off the dust covers

Fulham’s return to England’s top flight in 2001 left the club with just one year to upgrade their Craven Cottage ground to standards set out in the Taylor report. In other words the conversion of the two stands behind each goal from terracing to seating. No plans to make these changes were either made or submitted to the relevant authorities, and so, on April 27th, 2002, the Fulham faithful witnessed what they thought would be the last ever league game at the ground.

Two years of groundsharing with rivals QPR followed as various plans from assorted parties were bandied around, including: the construction of a brand new stadium elsewhere in London; levelling the existing Craven Cottage ground (the grade II listed Stevenage Round stand excepted) and building anew; and a more modest redevelopment of the ground that would see plastic seating bolted to the existing terraces and roofing added/extended.

The later plan was adopted and the pictures you see here show the Cottage as it was at the beginning of that refurbishment project in February 2004. Along with the conversion of the terraced areas three-storey hospitality areas were added at either side of the Hammersmith End Stand and one at the river elevation of the Putney End Stand. The old floodlights pylons (decommissioned prior to the Shepherd’s Bush move) were also taken down and replaced by more modern single pole affairs. Fulham returned “home” that summer and look set to remain there for the foreseeable future.

My thoughts on what it’s like watching a game there now (or rather several years ago) can be found here.

More pictures here.

Football Statues

2009-08-31T20:11:00.007Z

No 13 (in a series of several): Prince Alexander Obolensky 1916-1940

A slight diversion from previous entries in the Football Statues series in that this one is of Russian-born Prince Alexander Obolensky a proponent of Rugby Football rather than the Association game. Partly funded by Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich, the £50,000 statue of Obolensky was unveiled in Ipswich earlier this year.

The Prince entered the history books in 1936 when he scored two tries for England in their first ever victory over the All Blacks. One of the two tries is considered by many to have been amongst the best ever in the Union game.

His selection for England caused something of a stir because of his Russian heritage but he would be granted British citizenship later that year. At the outbreak of WWII he joined the RAF and was killed in a plane crash at Martlesham Heath airfield – on the edge of Ipswich - in 1940 and is buried in the town.

More football statues here.

Fleeting Glimpses

2009-08-27T19:30:00.008Z

No 1: Texas Stadium, Irving, Texas

Texas Stadium was the home of the Dallas Cowboys from 1971 to 2008. Adjacent to Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport it had a capacity of 65,675. Originally designed to be a domed stadium, it was discovered after construction began that the stadium would not be able to support the weight of the entire roof. The cash ran out before this rather fundamental design issue could be resolved and although the spectator areas were covered the playing area itself remained open to the elements.

A former Cowboys player once joked that this “hole” in the stadium’s roof was there “so that God can watch His team.” They were conference champions 10 times and did win five Super Bowl’s while they were in residence so perhaps there’s some truth in that!

The snap of the stadium at the top of this post was taken during a visit to the area in late 1982 - from one of freeways that pass close by - and is, sadly, the closest that I got to the place.

Although big the stadium was not a particular inspiring site, just a grey concrete monolith sat in acres and acres of concrete car park (15,500 spaces) with little of interest around it. Up close it sounds as though it was a bit more inspiring with large murals of former stars painted on the sides. Inside the seating was split over two levels, each with its own concourse, with escalators towers to shift the majority of fans around (thirty years before our national stadium could boast such a luxury), while private elevators whisked VIP’s to stadium’s two club levels and their 379 suites.

Each corner of the stadium had it’s own scoreboard, a restaurant behind one goal (end zone) offered tables with views of the entire pitch, beer gardens were dotted at various points around the concourse, while flags celebrating the Cowboys various playing achievements hung from the roof. Perhaps the neatest feature though was that each of the 65,675 blue and silver colored seats came with a built in cushion and storage pouch.

After thirty-seven years the Cowboys played their final NFL game their in December 2008 before moving to the $1 billion plus Cowboys Stadium in Arlington. The future plans for the old stadium remain unclear, while the Cowboys continue to be one of the most popular and most-televised teams in the U S of A.

Some (gratuitous) snaps from the area...

Texas School Book Depository, Dallas, Texas

(My mate Bob outside) Southfork Ranch, Plano, Texas

Stade Josy Barthel

2009-08-24T10:40:00.005Z

15-08-2002: Avenir Beggen 0 Ipswich Town 1
(UEFA Cup Qualifying Round, 1st Leg)

Ipswich had won a place in the UEFA Cup via the UEFA Fair Play ranking system, a system that grants three places in the qualifying rounds to the most sporting clubs across the continent. The criteria including behaviour of a club’s players on the field, and their fans off it.

Town, who had just been relegated from the Premier League, only finished fourth in the English Fair Play table, but with top three finishers Manchester United, Liverpool and Newcastle all earning places in Europe via league position, Ipswich - drawn out of a hat containing the names of sides from each of the UEFA affiliated nations - were handed a spot.

The Blue’s had played in the previous seasons competition, KO’ing Torpedo Moscow and Helsingborg IF, before defeat at the hands of Inter Milan, and after the huge disappointment of relegation the idea of a bit more European action was most welcome.

The draw proper matched us up with Avenir Beggen so off we went to the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg to take on the Wichtelcher or, translated to English, the Pixies.

Luxembourg, is wedged between Belgium, France and Germany, and occupies just 999 square miles. Small maybe, but it enjoys some wonderful countryside. Rolling hills, rivers and many old fortifications make this a great place to explore. And this I did many years ago with an old flame (but don’t tell Mrs Extreme Groundhopping).

It was this countryside that the Germans and (primarily) US Forces fought over during the Battle of the Bulge. General Patton (one of Allied Commanders) and over 5,000 of his compatriots are buried at an American Cemetery in Luxembourg City. Patton, who died from injuries sustained in a car accident in Germany, was laid to rest alongside the army that had liberated the area only a year before.

Also in the city is the European Court of Justice Building, the Notre-Dame Cathedral, a large financial district and the home of Radio Luxembourg.

Older readers may remember Radio Luxembourg the commercial radio station whose English language broadcast from the Duchy could be picked up in the UK. As the BBC had a radio monopoly during large swathes of my youth Radio Luxembourg was a most welcome alternative, but back to the footie.

Avenir Beggen play the majority of their home games at the 4,830 capacity Stade de Beggen which is to the north of Luxembourg City. More important games, however, are staged at the national stadium the 8,054 capacity Stade Josy Barthel about a mile and a half west from Luxembourg City centre.

The English and Luxembourg national sides have met there on a number of occasions (most infamously in November 1983) and this is where I, and around 1,000 other Town fan’s, found ourselves on a sunny summer night in August 2002.

Covered seating is available along just one touchline while all spectators are separated from the pitch by a high fence and a running track. The later not surprising as the stadium is home to the Duchy’s largest athletics club and takes it’s name from Josy Barthel – Luxembourg’s one and only Gold medal winner - who won the 1500m event at the 1952 Olympics. Mostly constructed of concrete the only feature of any note is the odd pillbox like turnstile blocks dotted around the outside.

Prior to the tie with Town, the Pixies record in European competition read an unimpressive played 34, won 3, drawn 3, lost 28, goal difference minus 122. That record wasn’t to be improved with Ipswich recording a (very fortunate) 1-0 win in the first leg in Luxembourg (Marcus Stewart netting in the 90th minute).

Ipswich went onto to enjoy an 8-1 romp in the return leg at Portman Road two weeks later. One small consolation for Avenir Beggen was that their goal in Suffolk was their first away from home in eighteen European ties.

More pictures here.

VPS Vassa

2009-08-23T11:44:00.003Z

20-07-2001: VPS Vassa 2 Ipswich Town 3 (Friendly)

Travelling through hundreds of miles of dull pine forest from Town’s previous game in Tampere it was quite a relief to reach Vaasa in the west of Finland. Make no mistake this is a quite beautiful area. To emphasise this, just a few km’s away is the Kvarken Archipelago, a World Heritage Site. Sitting in an extension of the Baltic Sea the Archipelago is made up of 5,600 islands - formed between 10,000 and 24,000 ago by the melting of the continental ice sheet.

Not content with having a World Heritage Site on their doorstep the citizens of Vaasa obviously like their public spaces and urban parks too as the city boasts an array of parks and gardens as well as a seafront promenade just to the west of the city centre. Public monuments and statues rate highly as well as there are - if my math is correct - forty-six of them in Vaasa. Some are tucked away almost apologetically down side streets while some dominate the cityscape – such as the Vaasa’s own Statue of Liberty in the market square.

Hietalahti Stadium, home of VPS (Vaasan Palloseura), sits a short-ish walk south from the centre. A pleasant little stadium (capacity 4,600) for an unremarkable provincial club. Twice winners of the national league (most recently in 1948) and two time winners of the league cup (most recently in 2000), VPS have enjoyed two excursions in European competition, tasting defeat against Grazer AK of Austria in 98-99 and again against St Johnstone the following season (99-00). Both in the UEFA Cup.

The Finns are often accused of being curt and abrupt (having worked with many, in two Finnish owned companies, I tend to agree) but when well oiled (most of the crowd spent the game either in or very close to the large beer tent) there just fun loving Europeans like the rest of us, which led to a lively discussion about the merits of Pesäpallo, the national sport of Finland.

Invented around the 1920’s the game is based for the most part on baseball - but with some very odd variations. For example, rather than running around the four bases, batters must run in a zig-zag pattern to advance around the field. Also, if the batter hits the ball and is subsequently caught, any runners on base are "wounded". On previous trips to Finland I’d watched a couple of televised game and admit to being completely lost as what was going on. It would have been useful to have had this explanation (of sorts) to hand. The sport has spread to other countries, including Japan and Australia, and enjoys it’s own World Cup.

More pictures here.

Huskie Stadium, Dekalb, Illinois

2009-08-22T08:22:00.004Z

20-09-1980: Northern Illinois vs Western Michigan (NCAA Football)

My third North American sporting experience in 10 days (see also posts on the Blue Jays and White Sox) at the Huskie Stadium in Dekalb, Illinois, 65 miles to the west of Chicago. This time to see some grid iron as Northern Illinois University (NIU - the alma mater of two friends of mine) took on [Western] Michigan. The Huskies Vs the Broncos.

Walking around NIU campus before the game I was intrigued by radiation symbols on a number of buildings with the legend “Fallout Shelter in Basement” underneath. In 60’s and 70’s USA the Cold War was never far from public consciousness, and in the wake of the Cuban Missile crisis the threat of a nuclear strike by the Soviets was taken so seriously that many fallout shelter construction programmes were instigated. This I was told resulted in the building of a number of communal shelters at NIU. In the 60’s and 70’s DIY personal shelters were also very common as people rushed to build the things in their own back gardens.

On a less serious note I also noticed the prevalence of baseball caps and other clothing bearing a flying ear of corn motif, the symbol of the DeKalb Agricultural Association. Huge swathes of Illinois, and the surrounding states for that matter, are given over to the production of corn, and you can drive for hours and hours along the states highways and byways without seeing anything else.

Harvesting all of it must have been fun before the whole process was automated. In the mid-1900’s a skilled picker could manually pick and husk about 100 bushels a day. By the end of the millennium, a combine harvester with the appropriate attachments could do the same thing in less than five minutes (my favourite lesson at secondary school was Horticulture so you’ll have bear with me when I go off on these agricultural tangents).

Huskie Stadium, built in 1965, had a capacity of just over 20,000 when I visited in 1980. The majority of spectators were housed in a large single tiered 15,000-seat concrete stand on the western side of the field with further seating in a much smaller and temporary looking structure on the opposite touchline.

As seems to be the case at many college and pro-sports venues providing cover from the elements doesn’t seem to be much of a priority but then, in my experience, the weather is generally considerably better (Illinois’ climate being considerably colder than the UK in the winter, much much hotter in the summer, and with far less chance of being rained on year round).

A fairly unremarkable venue (which in the intervening 29 years has seen some major rebuilding work) other than it was one of the first times I had seen any sport played on Astroturf (it was around this time that QPR, Oldham and a few other clubs back in the UK were experimenting with the stuff, I believe, but I never did see a league game played on a synthetic surface).

I don’t recall that much about my first ever game of American Football but can remember a real passion amongst the spectators. It’s difficult to appreciate until you’ve experience it first hand. College sports teams are as much a part of the community as any Football League side in the UK with locals and students turning out in big numbers. Some games draw crowds of 100,000 with huge SKY-like coverage on TV, blanket coverage in the press and of course on the net.

Comiskey Park I, Chicago

2009-08-21T17:14:00.003Z

14-09-1980: Chicago White Sox 2 Minnesota Twins 3 (American League East)

US Sports franchises come up with all sorts of oddball ideas to promote a particular game (especially those where an otherwise low attendance would be expected) but none stranger than "Disco Demolition" night at Comiskey Park the year before my debut at the venerable old stadium. Here's the story...

On July 12th, 1979 the Sox were down to the play the Detroit Tigers in an evening doubleheader with admission set at just 98 cents plus any disco record. The records were for a rally that was to be held between the two games and that would conclude with a massive explosion in the middle of the playing field, destroying all the records that had been collected earlier.

The rally was held - and heavily publicized before the game - by local DJ Steve Dahl. Dahl had been running a "disco sucks" campaign during his morning drive-in show on the WLUP radio station since the beginning of the year – a counter culture reaction to music produced by the likes of Donna Summer and the Bee Gee's.

The publicity worked as 50,000 gained legitimate entry to the ground (it's capacity), an estimated 10,000 were locked outside while a further 10,000 were thought to be stuck in a massive traffic jam on the Dan Ryan, the expressway/motorway that runs within 100-yards of Comiskey Park.

Many of those locked outside forced their way in before and during the half-time festivities and when Dahl took centre stage dressed in military fatigues, to lead chants of "disco sucks, disco sucks" the place went ballistic. An infamous night in the annals of Major League Baseball was ensured when the records were exploded and a full-scale riot ensued.

Comiskey Park opened in 1910 and in it's later years (before being demolished in the early 1990's) became the league's oldest operating ball park. It's architects employed a modern steel and concrete design that was standard for it's time (Chicagoan's where major innovators in such things in the early 20th century and lead the way in the building of skyscrapers, department stores and the like) and the finished item boasted an impressive façade with arched windows and curved walls and a pleasing overall symmetry.

A cantilevered design was proposed for the upper deck seating area but Charles Comiskey, who was bankrolling the whole thing and after who the park was named, rejected the idea and so the deck ended up being supported by obtrusive steel posts instead. One feature of the ground not lost on fan's who's view of the action has been impeded by one of the things.

For my first visit to Comiskey Park the crowd was nothing on the scale of the demolition night (a mere 11,288 showing up). Like the millions of spectators that must have passed through its turnstiles down the years I did took an instant liking to the place and when I moved to Chicago just under a year later would become very familiar with it's unique interior. More on that at the White Sox fan site, flyingsock.com, which has an excellent section entitled "Memories of Old Comiskey Park", and in future posts.

Burnley

2009-08-20T21:37:00.004Z

06-11-2004: Burnley 0 Ipswich Town 2
(Coca-Cola Championship)

The Coca-Cola Championship boasted some decent attendances last year (crowds across the league topped the sixteen million mark for the fifth consecutive season apparently) but that shouldn’t hide the underlining fact that the standard of football on offer is pretty second-rate. A few of the sides that visited Portman Road last campaign stood head-and-shoulders above the rest, Wolves (automatic promotion), Swansea (not sure how they weren’t in the mix at the end of the season) and Burnley (promoted via the play-offs).

I can remember seeing Burnley play Ipswich in the old First Division before the Claret-and-Blue went on a downward spiral that almost cost them their place in the Football League. And well before I came on the scene the two sides fought out a battle for the league title (1961-62), a battle that saw Alf Ramsey’s Ipswich become Champions of England.

Following their well deserved promotion Burnley couldn’t have wished for a meatier start to their first season in top flight football since 1976 than a visit of Manchester United, and I doubt that many would have predicted a 1-0 win when the fixtures were first published. According to MOTD last night, Turf Moor, Burnley’s home since 1883, is the 46th ground to have hosted Premiership football. Here are a few pictures of the place taken from the away end (the 4,100-seater David Fishwick Stand built in 1969, and the oldest of the four stands) a few years ago.

To the right is the Bob Lord Stand (3,900 seats built in 1974), to the left is the James Hargreaves Stand (8,100 seats built in 1996) and directly ahead, and behind the far goal, is the Jimmy McIlroy Stand (6,200 seats also built in 1996). Incidentally, from the back of the away stand you get some pretty decent views of the surrounding Moorland should the fayre on offer on the pitch fail to hold your attention.

The town received a fair amount of negative press in 2001 following race related violence, add to that the fact that it has lost most of it’s industry and has a higher rate of unemployment than the UK average and you’d expect something pretty grim. But not (completely) so.

It has several large parks; it’s mile-long elevated section of the Leeds and Liverpool canal is considered to be one of the seven wonders of British Waterways; several stately homes sit within it’s boundaries; back in the 60’s and 70’s it was an important Northern Soul venue and today it plays host to one of the countries biggest Blue’s festivals; it has a selection of museums and galleries and boasts an award winning bus station!

The shops in the town are the same as on offer pretty much anywhere in the UK, except for the butchers. My mate Springer is a bit of a black pudding aficionado, so prior to both of my visits to Turf Moor, we’ve headed into the town centre to pick up some of this gastronomic wonder from the prize winning Donald Smith’s. And very nicely it goes with the Sunday morning fry-up too. So popular is the stuff it is this neck of the woods that it’s even available as an ice cream flavouring.

Exhibition Stadium, Toronto

2009-08-18T17:07:00.005Z

10-09-1980: Toronto Blue Jays 6 New York Yankees 7 (American League East)

Way back in 1980 – and on my way to Chicago to visit a work colleague - I flew to Toronto planning to take a Greyhound Bus from there onto the mid-west a few days later. The journey from Toronto's Pearson International Airport to downtown Toronto took me past the Canadian National Exhibition Stadium outside of which a billboard advertised a three game series between the Toronto Blue Jays and the New York Yankees. Baseball!, that’ll keep me amused for an evening I thought and so the following day I walked back out to the stadium to get myself a ticket. Little did I realise at the time that this would be the first of some thirty plus games that I would watch over the next five years.

So armed with my ticket I headed back out to the stadium again (this time using the city's excellent tram system) and had just parked myself in my seat when it was time to stand up again as the American National Anthem, closely followed by that of Canada, rang out around the stadium. The first of many customs and idiosyncrasies of watching sport in North America that I would be getting used to over the coming years.

Exhibition Stadium

What followed - over the coming nine innings - was all a bit mystifying at the time, no more or less so than introducing someone from the USA to cricket I would guess. Can’t remember the result from the night but as American sports fans love their stats that’s not a problem and www.baseball-reference.com tells me it was 7-6 win for the visitors watched by 23,031 fans.

I thoroughly enjoyed the evening and would be watching another game very soon (four days to be precise) at a stadium that would soon become a regular haunt for baseball and soccer matches - the old Comiskey Ball Park. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The NY Yankees are, behind Manchester United, probably one of the best known sports franchises in the world, the Blue Jay’s though, considerably less so. 1980 was their fourth year of operation, and also their fourth at the Exhibition Stadium which continued to be their home for a further eight years.

BMO Field

Wikipedia tells me that the Exhibition Stadium was actually the fourth stadium to be built on the same site since 1879. Opened in 1959, Exhibition Stadium played host to football as well as baseball, conversion for the later including an Astroturf* pitch. The Blue Jay's moved to the purpose built Skydome - in the shadow of the cities iconic CN Tower - in 1989, while the Exhibition Stadium was later demolished to make way for the BMO Field, home of Toronto FC of the MLS. The fifth stadium on exactly the same spot - surely some kind of a record.

*The official astroturf site makes for a interesting read although their claim that Manchester United play on Astroturf I think is a bit wide of the mark

Shrewsbury Town

2009-08-13T19:37:00.004Z

11-08-2009: Shrewsbury Town 3 Ipswich Town 3
(Ipswich 4-2 on pens) (Carling Cup 1st Round)

Heading west along the B4380 the Prostar Stadium is just a few hundred yards from the Percy Thrower Garden Center and for photo opportunities I should probably have stopped off at Percy’s place first.

As a Fulham supporting friend of mine remarked recently: “We went to the new Shrewsbury ground last season. It's a bit odd, isn't it? Like a typical modern stadium, with the countryside peering in at the corner flags. A bit like an open plan office with four Constable paintings in the corners.”

Shrewsbury old place, Gay Meadow, had oodles of character and couldn’t be beaten for location, sitting as it did by a bend in the River Severn, surrounded by parkland, and with the town centre towering above it in the background.

OK, so the architects had to work to a remit and budget set by the club, but nonethless they’ve gone to extraordimary lengths to design a stadium that is bland and unexceptional.

Coventry City (Part 2)

2009-08-12T16:12:00.004Z

09-08-2009: Coventry City 2 Ipswich Town 1
(Coca-Cola Championship)

Just a single photo for you from this visit to the Ricoh Arena (see last weeks post for a few more), this one a panoramic view from our seats in the Jewson Stand, the area of the arena reserved for away supporters.

As you can see, apart from the sky blue covered seats the stadium is fairly conventional in design with three sides made up of a single tier of seats. Crests and seat colours aside you could be at anyone of a number of grounds built in England in the last ten years (rivals Leicester City for example).

Between the tier of seats and the roof on these three sides are sheets of Perspex that allow natural light into the stadium, primarily to aid in pitch maintenance. However, with no ventilation or breeze the seats immediately in front of this sheeting were quite uncomfortably hot (fortunately the arena was no where near full so we were able to move to a cooler spot at half-time) although I doubt this is much of a problem to spectators as the football season moves into it’s colder months.

The fourth side of the stadium (left in the panorama), which backs on to a casino and exhibition centre, helps make up for the otherwise bland but functional design. Along the back of the stand are the corporate hospitality boxes with a row of seats in front that overhang the main seating area below. White panelling runs along the back of all of this with large CCFC badges at either end and the arena’s sponsors name picked out in red in the centre.

The more vocal home support (with obligatory drummer) occupy the seats directly in front of the stadiums scoreboard which is housed at the corner of the Jewson Stand and the Tesco East Stand (out of picture to the right). And that’s about it for features of note, although the pitch did look quite splendid.

We didn’t sample any of the food or drink on sale inside the Ricoh, although there looked to be ample facilities available, but did find the stewards to be quite friendly and helpful. The automated ticket entry system was one of the easiest to use that we’ve encountered too.

Football wise a 2-1 loss was not quite the start to the new season I had hoped for but at least we go into the second league game of the season with a better goal difference than the Norfolk boys (and of course a division higher).

Stowmarket Town

2009-08-10T18:08:00.005Z

08-08-2009: Stowmarket Town 0 Downham Town 2
(Ridgeons League First Division)

It is with great sadness that I must report that the blue Super Dexta tractor featured in Simple Pieman’s report of his trip to Stowmarket Town in 2007 may well be in that great tractor heaven in the sky. At least there was no sign of it anywhere Saturday afternoon. This is, agriculturally speaking, more than made up for the by fine array of vegetables that are grown with the confines of the Suffolk club’s Green Meadow ground. I’ve spotted flowers, plants and the occasional shrubbery at non-league venues before but I do believe this is the first time I’ve seen runner beans growing within a few feet of a corner flag.

The A14 passes within a few hundred yards of the ground, an elevated section of the East Anglia - East Midlands link road as it crosses the River Gipping and the main railway line between London and N*rwich. Speaking of N*rwich I thought Five Live were having a laugh when they said that Colchester had put seven past the C*naries on opening day, and nearly lost control of the car when the score was confirmed by James Alexander Gordon at 5 O’Clock. I must say that it’s nice that the Norfolk boys have retained their sense of humour if not their place in the Championship. But I digress.

Travelling back and forth along the A14 I must have passed the ground a thousand times. You get a really good - almost aerial – view as you motor by, but this is only the second time that I have ventured in for a game (coincidentally Downham Town the same opposition as Simple Pieman saw two years ago).

Three sides of the ground are open to the elements but, for an average Ridgeons League attendance at least, there is more than ample cover along the west touchline both for seated spectators (the main stand has a capacity of around two hundred) and those who prefer to stand (a structure that sits between the main stand and the large club house and doubles as a storage area). In front of the clubhouse and over by the northwest corner flag is a beer garden - the busiest area of the ground as fan’s took advantage of the excellent weather - which is well equipped with picnic tables and the like, although a bit bleak come January I suspect.

Founded in 1883 the club only took up occupancy at Green Meadows as recently as the summer of 1984 when the ground and it’s floodlights were officially opened by Sir Alf Ramsey. Originally formed as Stowmarket Association, and then variously known as plain Stowmarket, Stowmarket Corinthians, Stowmarket (again) and Stowmarket Town, their old Cricket Meadow ground was sold off to developers. Although (reading the clubs history) the lead up to the sale was a period of great uncertainty for the club it has actual proven a good decision in the long run. The popular social club raises the funds required to run a team in the Ridgeons League, and while the team has not enjoyed a great deal of success league wise (two top seven placings (’02 and ’03) in the Ridgeons Premier was followed by relegation in ‘05) they’ve had a couple of decent-ish runs in the FA Cup since the turn of the century

More pictures here.

Coventry City

2009-08-07T17:25:00.003Z

19-11-2005: Coventry City 1 Ipswich Town 1 (Coca-Cola Championship)

I think it’s fairly to safe to say that Sunday’s game between Coventry City and Ipswich is the most eagerly awaited opening day fixture for Town in a good number of years. Expectations are running high in Suffolk as manager Roy Keane hopes to emulate his success at Sunderland and return Ipswich to the top flight. He has plenty of money at his disposal and has used it to bring in seven new faces so far and has every intention of adding a couple more between now and the end of the transfer window. Yours truly and Junior will be heading over to the Ricoh Arena for the game and no doubt a few words about that trip will appear on site early next week. In the meantime here are a few pictures of Coventry’s new home just a few months after it had opened in 2005.

More pictures here.

Finnair Stadium, Helsinki

2009-08-05T16:58:00.002Z

21-07-2001: Yugoslavia 0 Czech Republic 1 (European Under-18 Championships)

A fairly unremarkable stadium and a fairly unremarkable game, at least the last five minutes were anyway as this was all Extreme Grounhopping Jnr and I managed to watch due to total confusion over the kick-off time (but at least we got in for free). However, the location of the Finnair Stadium (just a year old when we visited) is not, sitting as it does in the shadow of Helsinki’s Olympic Stadium.

Between the Finnair and Olympic Stadiums is a statue of Paavo Nurmi who won nine gold and three silver medals at the 1920, 1924 and 1928 Olympics games (pictured here with Jnr). He was subsequently banned from further involvement in the Olympics after he was judged to have turned professional following claims by Swedish officials that he had been the recipient of excessive travel expenses at an athletics meeting in Germany.

As a result he was denied a place in the Finnish team at the 1932 Los Angeles games and the chance to end his career with a gold in the Marathon. Interestingly, other entrants in the race pleaded with the IOC to allow him to compete.

Another statue of Nurmi was erected in Turku, Finland’s one-time capital city, and across the pond in the US of A. there are a number of college and sports buildings named in his honour, Nurmi having become immenselly popular while on tour there in 1925, breaking 39 world records at 55 track and fields meets over a five-month period.

Visible from our seats in the Finnair Stadium, and for many many miles around, is the white tower of the Olympic Stadium. Standing 72 metres tall (236 feet) it has twenty-two rounded balaconies and when the stadium was inaugurated in 1938 (due to WWII it would’nt host the games for a further 14 years) it was considered to be quite futuristic. Since then some 4 million visitors have climbed it’s steps for it’s panoramic views of Helsinki.

As for the stadium as a whole Simon Inglis, in his book The Football Grounds of Europe, describes it as “uncluttered, crisp and white, like a majestic ocean liner, it is proof of how the most basic bowl-shaped arena can be enriched by confident simplicity”. Absolutely.

Sir Bobby Robson RIP

2009-08-01T17:28:00.001Z

Just a few of the tributes left by the statue of Sir Bobby Robson in Portman Road, Ipswich, following the announcement of his death yesterday morning...

Shelbourne, Home Farm and Drumcondra

2009-07-30T17:16:00.007Z

07-08-2001: Dublin City 0 Ipswich Town 5 (Friendly)

In August 2001 Ipswich travelled to Dublin for a pre-season friendly against the short-lived (1999-2006) and now defunct Dublin City. Formerly Home Farm Fingal, Dublin City played at various grounds including Tolka Park, Dalymount Park, Morton Stadium, Richmond Park and Whitehall Stadium. The game against Town eight years ago took place at Tolka Park, then and now the home of Shelbourne FC, which is located in Drumcondra, a suburb on the northern side of Ireland’s capital city.

Of the grounds in the area, and there are several, by far the most famous is Croke Park, the headquarters of the Gaelic Athletic Association and principal venue of Ireland’s own unique sports of Gaelic football and hurling. On our walk out of the centre of Dublin to Tolka Park we passed the “Croke” (at the time very much under-construction) and a few words on the rather impressive stadium can be found here.

Drumcondra FC

The aforementioned Tolka Park was originally the home of Drumcondra FC. The Drums became the first ever League of Ireland side to record an aggregate win in European Competition when they knocked Danish side B1909 out of the old Fairs Cup (later the UEFA Cup and now the Europa League) in 1962. They also tasted victory against Bayern Munich on home soil (a one-nil win) as well as enjoying what must have been some special European nights against, amongst others, Athletico Madrid and Eintract Frankfurt.

The club lost it’s league status in 1972 following a merger with Home Farm (you’d best read the Wikipedia article on Drumcondra for the full story on that) and pretty much went out of business, although the name does live on in the form of a Sunday team who play in the Leinster Senior League on park land adjacent to Tolka Park (see pics)

Shelbourne FC

The 9,500 capacity Tolka Park became the permanent home of Shelbourne in 1989 and the club then set about redeveloping the ground into the Republic’s first all-seater stadium. The ground is made up of four distinct stands. The main stand (with club house, changing rooms, etc underneath) is a barrel-roofed affair and it was from here that we watched the Dublin City-Town game. Opposite is a partly covered stand, originally a terraced bank (I would guess) with the teams name picked out in its coloured seats, whilst the stand behind the southern goal is completely open to the elements. The newest of all the stands sits behind the northern goal - running just half the length of it’s touchline - which, built in the 1990’s is, like the main stand, fully covered. The club would like to relocate to a new ground – as yet various plans to do so have come to nothing – following extensive damage to Tolka Park and surrounds when the River Tolka (from which the ground takes it’s name) burst it’s banks, a year before our visit, in November 2000.

Home Farm FC

Formerly Home Farm Drumcondra (see above), Home Farm Fingal and Home Farm Everton, the one time League of Ireland side is now best known as a producer of fine quality young footballers (Liam Brady, Johnny Giles and Ipswich Town’s Owen Garvan amongst them). At the time of our visit the club were heavily sponsored by Leeds United who benefitted from this arrangement by having first dibs at any new talent that rolled off the Home Farm production line. With the Leeds deal long since expired Portsmouth have recently stepped into the breach. Home Farm’s neat Whitehill Ground is just a few minutes walk up the road from Tolka Park.

Lord's

2009-07-28T18:16:00.005Z

A first for extreme groundhopping as cricket makes it's bow on these humble pages. Thanks to the Archivist's Assistant for this panorama taken during the second day's play of the second test between England and Australia earlier this month. The game ended in an historic win for England, as the home side, powered by some heroic bowling from Andrew Flintoff ended their 75-year-old Ashes jinx at Lord’s.

While yours truly has been to the home of the MCC many times in the past the last time was for a Championship match between Middlesex and Kent way back in 1983, and I can't recall having been to a game since. Weather permitting this will be recitied in a fortnights time when I head over to Northampton to watch the first days play between Northants and Kent.

Bromley

2009-07-27T20:14:00.007Z

25-07-2009: Bromley 1 Ebbsfleet United 0 (Friendly)

Hayes Lane (currently named the Courage Stadium) has been the home of Bromley FC since the late 1930’s. While the town of Bromley is well within the bounds of Greater London, the football ground has a distinctly rural feel to it surrounded as it is on all sides by paddocks, fields and, along one touchline the cricket pitch of Bromley Town CC. To emphasise this a horse was gambolling in the paddock next to the main turnstile block as my host for the weekend Bromley native SE20Blue (a Bromley & Ipswich Town fan of long standing) was parking the car.

There is a VIP car park directly behind the main stand, and behind one goal a more than ample public car park. When larger crowds are expected a second set of turnstiles are brought into use. These are accessible directly from the main car park, but so far they have seen action just once, that for the visit of AFC Wimbledon the year before last. Ground grading regulations insist on a certain number of turnstiles and this second block was built to meet the requirements of level 6 of the national pyramid (or Blue Square South as it is more commonly referred) when Bromley were promoted out of the Isthmian League two seasons ago.

Entering through the main turnstiles the main stand is on your right. At one time the ground boasted a 2,000 seater wooden stand but this was lost during a fire in 1992 and replaced by a brick and metal clad job that seats a rather more modest 320. In the last couple of years this has been extended to include a new bar and executive area (with a small viewing platform, under which is the club shop) and been renamed the John Fiorini stand. A portakabin style building sits between the stand and the turnstiles and houses the match day public bar.

Back to the entrance and on your left is the obligatory burger van, while directly in front is the match day programme vendors hut. Crystal Palace fan’s will almost certainly recognise the hut’s occupant. The “Walrus”, as he is affectionately known, has been performing a similar task outside Palace’s Selhurst Park for many many years.

The ground originally had earth banking on three sides but this has since been converted to concrete terracing. Most of it is open to the elements but there is a small amount of cover behind each goal. Behind the far goal seating has been installed in the form of wooden planks. This may all sound a bit archaic but it is all very pleasing to the eye and all in a state of excellent repair.

They say a picture paints a thousand word, so I'll leave my snaps to do exactly that.

More pictures here.

FC Clacton

2009-07-27T17:13:00.004Z

23-07-2009: FC Clacton 2 Ipswich Town Reserves 7
(Paul Hillier Testimonial)

My second visit to FC Clacton's Rush Green Bowl (details of the first, two years ago, here), this time for the the visit of an Ipswich Town Reserve side for the Paul Hillier Testimonial.

More pictures here.

Panorama Mania 4!

2009-07-26T18:48:00.008Z

Here’s another batch of stadium/ground panoramas for your amusement, three from the last couple of weeks (visits to Gorleston, FC Clacton and Bromley), three from Ipswich Town’s pre-season tour of Finland in 2001 (Tampere United, VPS Vaasa, and the Finnair Stadium, Helsinki) and one from a Town game in 2004 (FC Randers, Denmark).

The latter one’s have been created using Microsoft's Image Composite Editor (free to download) which has done a pretty decent job of stitching together my old snaps.

Many thanks to Mike at el Loco & el Lobo for the pointer.

Tampere United

VPS Vassa

Finnair Stadium, Helsinki

Randers FC

Gorleston

FC Clacton

Bromley

Tampere United

2009-07-15T16:39:00.002Z

18-07-2001 Tampere United 2 Ipswich Town 4 (Friendly)

Summer in Finland is virtually three months of daylight so it was still relatively light by the time we’d returned to our hotel after the Tampere United-Town evening game. Half an hour later and the sky went pitch black, the heavens opened, and we witnessed the most incredible thunderstorm. The wind whipped up to into something called thunderstorm whirls (sort of tornado wanna-bees), causing a small crane on a nearby building site to thrash around like a spinning top. You could feel the increase in air pressure from the almost incessant thunderclaps while the lightning illuminated the area like a scene from a Hammer movie. Scary stuff.

Tampere, in southern Finland, is dubbed the "Manchester of Finland" as it was once the center of Finnish industry. That’s where any likeness ends. Surrounded by acres and acres of elk inhabited forest, and with two large lakes to the east and west, this is not Lancashire. It was once the home of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin who moved here in 1905 and at a Bolshevik conference held in the city met Joseph Stalin for the very first time. Consequently Tampere, amongst other attractions, boasts a Lenin Museum. An entirely separate concern is the nearby Moomin Museum. Those with kids may well be familiar with exploits of these furry troll-like characters.

The city hosted Finland’s very first ice hockey match and is home to the national Ice Hockey Museum, but football is by far and away the most popular sport. It’s main club is premier league side Tampere United, who despite having only been in existence since 1998 have still managed to rack-up three league titles (their first coming in 2001, the year of our visit).

United play at the 17,000-seater Ratina Stadium. Primarily a football stadium, although it does have an athletics track, it has covered stands behind each goal, a main stand along one flank and a lower covered stand on the opposite touchline. To the south of the city centre it is located in a primarily residential area with large apartment blocks on either side. Arriving quite early for the game we entertained ourselves at a nearby restaurant, until the gates opened and we were the able to avail ourselves of the numerous beer and food tents (we thought coke + pussi at 20 marks was a bit of bargain) set-up in one corner of the stadium. All quite civilised.

The pictures continue here.

Gorleston

2009-07-13T12:45:00.003Z

11-07-2009 Gorleston 0 Ipswich Town Reserves 8 (Friendly)

A mile or so away from Great Yarmouth on the East Anglian coast, Gorleston-on-Sea is historically in the county of Suffolk, although for electoral and administrative convenience it became part of Norfolk in the late 19th century. In Edwardian times it was a major seaside resort, was at one time the centre of the herring fishing industry in the UK, and could boast three railway stations (although the last of these was closed in 1970), which is really quite some boast for a population of well under 6,000.

Hannah Spearritt of S Club 7 was born there, a fact I mention only because her uncle, Eddie Spearritt, played for Ipswich during the 1960’s, and the town’s beach is regularly awarded Blue Flag status for it’s a cleanliness. This I can certainly vouch for, arriving early and enjoying a walk along the beach before heading out to Emerald Park for the match.

Gorleston FC was founded in 1887 and were inaugural members of the Eastern Counties League (currently the Ridgeons League) in 1935. They have been champs on four occasions, most recently in the 1980-81 season, winners of the Norfolk Senior Cup fourteen times, and have reached the first round proper of the FA Cup twice. They were relegated from the Ridgeons Premier in 2005 and have remained in Division One since.

Emerald Park is a couple of miles to the south-west of the town centre and there is not a solitary road sign pointing you in it’s direction (follow signs for the crematorium if heading there youself). Nor is there anything at the entrance to the car park indicating the purpose of the bland looking metal clad structure that is actually the stand behind the eastern goal. Don’t be put off though. A friendly greeting awaits at the single turnstile in the back of this stand and a quite photogenic ground awaits once you’ve passed through it.

The ground has covered seating on three and a bit sides while the fourth side (on the southern touchline) contains a mixed bag of structures that are all very nicely maintain and painted in the clubs colours of green and white. These include the changing rooms, bar, tea bar, toilets and a handsome 10 seater stand with cushioned seating for, I guess, VIP’s and club officials. None of these facilities would have been stretched for today’s game which was attended by just 180 fan’s (including a smattering of Norwich City supporters who turned up, presumably, so that the Town supporters present could poke fun at them following their demotion to the nether regions of the Football League back in May) .

The game was, even more than expected, a hopelessly one sided affair with the visitors threatening to run up a cricket score in the first half hour. Six ahead at the break they could easily have hit double figures but for some wayward finishing in the closing stages of the second period. Not a classic match but as a day out a good one and a nice way to ease into the 2009-10 campaign.

The pictures continue here.

Sheffield United

2009-07-10T20:32:00.006Z

30-04-2004 Sheffield United 1 Ipswich Town 1
(Nationwide League Division One)
and 05-02-2005 Sheffield United 0 Ipswich Town 2
(Coca-Cola Championship)

Cardiff’s Sophia Gardens (home of Glamorgan CCC) this week became the first venue to host an Ashes Test as its first match since 1902 when England and Australia played at Bramall Lane, now the home of Sheffield United. England lost on that occasion by a hefty margin and never played there again although the ground continued to be used for county cricket up until the early seventies.

Sheffield United Football Club had been formed three years earlier (by tenants Sheffield Cricket Club) specifically to make better use of Bramall Lane during the winter months (a distinction they share with Chelsea and Plymouth Argyle who were also formed to make use of an existing sports ground).

However, they were by no means the first side to play football at the Lane. In 1862 Sheffield FC (the worlds oldest football club) played a game there, Sheffield Wednesday played a few home games there around 1867, and in 1878 the Lane played host to the world’s first ever floodlit football match.

United joined the newly formed Division Two of the Football League in 1892, were promoted to Division One a year later, and won their one and only League Championship crown in 1898. A year later, and now FA Cup Winners too, their success enabled them to buy the ground from its previous owner the Duke of Norfolk. Around this time a possible ground share with Wednesday failed to materialise (Wednesday moving in to Hillsborough in 1899).

As the stadium began to take shape, famed Scots architect Archibald Leitch was commissioned to build the main John Street Stand on the west touchline - a separate development to the cricket pavilion behind the south goal - and a large banked Kop terrace was constructed at the north end of the ground. By the Thirties three sides of the ground were covered but the area beyond the eastern touchline remained grassed for use by the cricketing arm of the club.

Floodlights returned in 1955, this time permanently, a week before rivals Wednesday installed theirs, and by now it was quite clear that footballing arm wanted rid of the cricketers in order to develop the fourth side of the pitch and make viewing from the eastern touchline more practical for spectators.

From a cricket fan’s view point, apparently, Bramall Lane had little going for it: “There is not a tree to be seen, and, both sight and sound reflect encircling industry. The clatter of tramcars and the scream of a saw-mill and factory hooters make a back¬ground of noise to the cricket, and a brewery chimney periodically pours smoke and soot into the air”, wrote the joints authors of 'Homes of Sport' Norman Yardley and J. M. Kilburn in 1952.

With the Blades now enjoying a period of relative success in the Football League’s top-flight a new £750,000 cantilever stand was constructed along the open touchline (and over the wicket of the cricket pitch). It’s opening heralded a period of decline for United who, over the next six years, suffered three relegations and started the 1982-83 season in Division Four. Apt punishment perhaps for a football club that had put the knife into the cricket club that had first brought it into existence.

The Taylor report, a spell in the Premiership, and a number of other factors have all led to significant changes at Bramall Lane over the last thirty-years. The Leitch Stand is long gone, the Kop bank is now all-seater, corners have been in-filled, business centres opened and a hotel built. All of which can be read about in more detail at Wikipedia and the Internet Football Ground Guide.

The pictures continue here.

Brentford

2009-07-07T18:45:00.003Z

04-03-2004 Pub Tour

Brentford’s Griffin Park ground, named after one time owners of the surrounding land the Griffin Brewery, is unique in English football (perhaps even in British football) with it’s boast of a pub at each of it’s four corners.

Approaching from the direction of Brentford railway station the first of the four is The Royal Oak (above).

Walk along the back of the Brook Road Stand (away fans) to the corner of Brook Road South and Braemar Road and you’ll find number two The Griffin (above).

The main entrance to Griffin Park is fifty yards or so to along Braemar Road. Follow this to the junction with Ealing Road and you’ll hit pub number three The Princess Royal (above)

Head north along Ealing Road, along the back of the home terrace and there’s the fourth and final hostelry The New Inn.

Here are pictures of all four interspersed with a few exterior shots of the football ground itself. Can’t claim to have been to all four but can vouch for The Griffin, a real London Boozer, which, if memory serves me correctly, serves a fine pint of Fuller’s London Pride.

Looking for Eric

2009-07-07T16:31:00.002Z

I’m sure I’ve seen others but the last Ken Loach film I can remember watching before Looking for Eric was Kes way back when it was first on release in UK cinemas. It was on as part of a double bill that included the Magnificent Seven which shows you how long ago that was. There is a memorable scene in Kes in which his gym teacher imagines he is Manchester United’s legendary Bobby Charlton.

In Looking for Eric, a Manchester United theme runs pretty much through the entire length of the film. The main character, a postman named Eric, holds imaginary conversations with Stretford End idol Eric Cantona. While this may atract some and put off others this is certainly not a a film about football. However, we are treated to footage of some pretty memorable goals by the Frecnhman, a debate between United supporters and those of FC United of Manchester and a highly amusing scene at the end of the film in which several coach loads of United supporters, all bedecked in Cantona masks, exact revenge on a local gangster who has been giving Eric (the postie) and his stepsons a bit of grief.

Cantona sends himself up very nicely through out with some amusing lines – although at times it’s difficult to know whether he’s speaking in English or French – including one scene where he puffs up his chest and announces “I am not a man, I am Cantona!” and then winks at the camera. All good stuff.

Arundel FC

2009-07-06T17:01:00.003Z

18-08-2004

Arundel Castle is clearly visible from the A27 as you approach the market town from the east. The town itself was built around the foot of the castle spreading west towards the River Arun from which it takes it’s name. Very close to the river, and with the castle looming large in background, is Mill Road home of Sussex County League Arundel FC.

Needless to say this is a very picturesque setting for a football ground and indeed that is exactly how it and the town are described in pretty much every write-up available on the net (Pyramid Passion for one).

Nicknamed the “Mullets” (after the fish of the same name for which the River Arun is famed and not a fascination with Teutonic hairstyles) the club, odd season apart, have spent most of last sixty years in Sussex County League’s top flight, taking the title in consecutive campaigns back in the late fifties, and once again in 1986-87 season.

Their most recent trophy, however, was the John O’Hara League in 2004, the year that I quite by chance discovered the ground and took the handful of pictures you see here. Perversely, an evening fixture was planned the day after my visit by which time I would be miles away.

Odeum, Villa Park, Illinois, USA

2009-07-03T20:25:00.003Z

11-11-1984 Chicago Vultures 7 Milwaukee Waves 4 (American Indoor Soccer Association)

The Chicago Sting were the real deal in the windy city during the indoor games halcyon days in the early 1980’s drawing crowds of up to 18,000 to the old Chicago Stadium. But much much more on them in a later blog. The Sting folded in 1988, to be replaced by the Chicago Power (who ran from 1988 to 1996) while at the moment the Chicago Storm are city’s indoor side. In the mid 80’s there were also the Chicago Vultures, perhaps the most unremarkable of all the sides.

The Vultures existed for four seasons and played their American Indoor Soccer Association (AISL) home games at the Odeum in Villa Park, a suburb just a few miles to the west of Chicago’s O’Hare Airport. In their first season (84-85) they finished 5th in a 6 team league, and with the worst scoring and defensive record in the league, rather ironically started the following season as the Chicago Shoccers. A fourth place finish was a slight improvement, but they saved their best till last losing in the play-off semi-finals in two consecutive seasons (86-87 and 87-88) before going belly-up.

I witnessed their very first home game and for one reason or another never made it back to another game in the flesh, although I did watch at least one more of their games on one of the local Spanish Language TV stations. As that would perhaps suggest it was side aimed at appealing to Chicago’s large Hispanic community.

The league later became the National Professional Soccer League (NPSL), adding the aforementioned Chicago Power to their number in 1988. The Power faired considerably better in the league than the Vultures/Shoccers winning the championship in 1990.

An excellent article on the indoor game in the US can be found here.

Millennium Stadium, Cardiff

2009-06-20T17:03:00.003Z

26-04-09 Stadium Tour

It’s a shame in some ways that the FA Cup, League Cup and play-off finals have all returned to London as it’s unlikely now that I will get a chance to see a game of club football played at the Millennium Stadium. Ipswich having missed out on playing there on three occasions, defeated by Birmingham City in the semis of the Worthington Cup in 2001, and the Championship Play-Offs in 2004 and 2005 - losing twice to West Ham.

But the stadium offers regular tours on most days at £5/£6 admission which, while not being the next best thing, was certainly well worth the effort. Our very enthusiastic and highly informative guide was full of all sorts of interesting facts and anecdotes about games, concerts and other events that have been hosted since it was first opened in 1999 and of course the story of 74,500 capacity stadiums construction.

Arriving by train in the Welsh capital it’s impossible to miss the stadium, which sits slap bang in the city centre just a few minutes walk from Cardiff Central Station.

With the exception of the East Stand approach (this side of the stadium looks a bit tired in my opinion) all other views are quite something, particularly from the other side of the River Taff. From this viewpoint the stadium looks as though it is hanging out over the water, indeed entry into the west stand is from a pedestrian walkway that does just that.

Although the stadium is not quite on the scale of the new Wembley most of the seats on its three tiers are a lot closer to the action than it’s English counterpart. I can imagine that the atmosphere on match day is pretty special (especially with the roof closed).

The tour took us to all three levels and there seemed to be excellent views and plenty of legroom on each although, oddly, those in the royal box have slightly less than elsewhere due to the extra padding provided for the Queen et al.

Behind the goal at the north stand end there are just two tiers where it backs on to one of the stands of neighbouring Cardiff Rugby Club. Efforts to persuade the Club to move failed and the stadium had to be redesigned accordingly, indeed the steel work of the old ground can be seen poking through the wall of the stadium where the two meet.

Notable features of the place include: the aforementioned retractable roof (which can be closed in 20 minutes); two giant TV screens behind each goal; a modular turf system that means the entire pitch can be wheeled in and out by forklift; and the four distinctive 296 ft masts that provide support for the stadium roof.

Being right in the centre there is no shortage of bars and restaurants to keep everyone happy before a game. I read a stat somewhere that said there was sufficient capacity to feed and water over 60,000 fans before they headed into the stadium.

There is of course plenty of other good stuff to look at in Cardiff too. The National Museum is well worth a visit, as is Cardiff Castle and Bute Park all of which are just minutes away.

The pictures continue here.

Panorama Mania 3!

2009-06-19T20:34:00.008Z

Wembley Stadium

Ninian Park, Cardiff

Cardiff International Sports Stadium (Cardiff City's future home)

Millennium Stadium, Cardiff

Last ever game at Shea Stadium, New York

Zentralstadion, Leipzig

Wembley Again!

2009-06-19T19:23:00.006Z

28-03-2009 England 4 Slovakia 0 (Friendly)

Another trip to the New Wembley for me but a debut appearance for ExtremeGroundhopping Jnr at our remodelled national stadium.

Having been to the new Wembley four times now, and having sat in the upper tier on three of those occasions, it’s time for a bit of rethink on my take of the place...

Sitting behind the goal in the upper tier towards the back puts you a long long way from the action – particularly anything going on at the other end. What was also quite noticeable was that the terrific atmosphere created in the lower tier (In the highlights that I watched later ITV’s commentators remarked on how much racket there was) failed to carry into the upper tier were, certainly around our seats, all was pretty sedate for the 90 minutes.

Maybe having a central tier of VIP seats (aka Club Wembley) is at fault here on both counts. If the upper tier overlapped the central tier in its entirety then the upper tier seats would be closer to the action and would remove the dampening effect that the centre tier has on the sound moving up from the tier below it. Just a thought.

Details of previous visits here, here and here.

Ninian Park’s Last Hoorah

2009-06-19T18:43:00.001Z

25-04-2009 Cardiff City 0 Ipswich Town 3 (Championship)

New Town manager Roy Keane (who’d arrived amidst a maelstrom of media activity in Ipswich just a few days before this game) could not have asked for a more positive start to his reign from the Blue’s. The 3-0 win – which pretty much ended Cardiff’s hopes of play-off football – came courtesy of some unusually clinical finishing from the Ipswich frontline.

A penalty save by Richard Wright (after a quite daft foul by one-time Champions League winner Ivan Campo) ended a period of purposeful play by the home side but after that there was only ever going to be one winner. On the half-hour sub Jon Stead (who played under Keane at Sunderland) set up Pablo Counago, repeated the feat after the break for David Norris, before helping himself to the third.

As it transpired the Bluebirds play-off ambitions did end at Sheffield Wednesday a week later and so the game against Town had proved to be Ninian Park’s swansong. For Cardiff City fan’s this must have been a hugely disappointing way to celebrate the end of the line for their 99 year old home. Where was the side that had occupied a top six berth up until a few ago, or the side that had reached Wembley for last May’s FA Cup Final. They were woeful.

Most of the crowd (visiting fans excepted) stayed behind for a firework display and other festivities to mark the grounds passing which, after what had passed in the preceding 90 minutes must have had quite a surreal feel to it.

So goodbye to a ground (first visited by yours truly in 1978) that must hold some great memories for it’s regulars: Wins against Real Madrid and Sporting Lisbon in European competition; promotions and relegations; and the Welsh national sides victory against Israel that clinched a place at the 1958 World Cup finals.

More recently the FA victory against then Premiership Leeds in 2002, and away from football, and assortment of boxing and rugby matches, the visit of Pope John Paul II in 1982 and by Bob Marley (and the Rastaman Vibration Tour) in 1976.

Next season Cardiff will play at the new Cardiff International Sports Stadium which is just a few hundred yards away from Ninian Park. The original site for the old stadium is actually where the new stadium has been built. So, a century on, its back to Plan A for the Bluebirds.

Colossuem, Rome

2009-06-17T17:18:00.002Z

31-03-2008

The principal activities in Rome’s Colossuem - gladiatorial combat that pitched human against human, and human against animal - may not qualify as sports in the eyes of sum but the iconic landmark in the centre of the Italian capital more than qualifies, stadiumwise, for an appearance on the humble pages of Extreme Groundhopping.

Some estimates put the number of humans to have lost their lives within it’s confines at a staggering 500,000 while 1Million animals were also thought to have slaughtered in the name of entertainment. Barbarity aside the structure has many parallels with modern football stadia. Indeed present day stadia have basically the same form as this monument constructed by the Emperors Vespasian and Titus.

The amphitheatre was the largest ever built by the Roman Empire - it could seat 50,000 - and first opened for business in 80AD. The fact that the majority of the structure still stands today speaks volumes of the architects and engineers that were responsible for its construction.

Stands 165’ high it is elliptical in form measuring 600’ by 510’. The arena itself measured 260’ by 150’ with four levels or tiers towering above it. The best view was to be had from the lowest tier and this would have been occupied by members of the Imperial court and high officials. The second tier housed the aristocratic families of Rome, with the general populace – the plebeians - occupying the upper two levels. Special boxes were provided at the north end for the Emperor and at the south end for the Vestal Virgins.

In the upper levels specific areas would have been reserved for different social groups, for example: boys and their tutors, soldiers on furlough, visiting dignitaries, scribes, priests and so on and so forth. Gravediggers and, interestingly, actors were banned from the Colossuem altogether.

On the top storey there is thought to have been two hundred or more wooden masts that would have supported an awning that provided shade for the gathered throng.

Below the arena floor - which was constructed from wood and covered in sand - were changing rooms for the combatants, cages for the wild animals and storerooms, the walls of which are now clearly visible since the floors collapse. Hard to imagine what would have been going through the minds of those below ground with all that thumping and bumping going on above them.

Back on the terraces, and except for the front rows on the podium, spectators would have been packed in like sardines. Evidence from other Roman amphitheatres suggests an average of just 27” legroom, making the seating on a Ryan Air flight seem rather generous.

Aside from four large and arched entrances for the VIPS there were 76 entrances for the general public who would have had numbered tickets fashioned from pieces of pottery. Access to seats was via vomitorium or passageways that opened into a tier of seats from below or behind. This arrangement would have allowed spectators to quickly find there seat while also allowing for the speedy dispersal of the crowd at the end of the days entertainment, or in the event of an emergency.

There is some doubt that the wholesale martyring of Christians ever took place and the image of Christians being eaten by Lions is in all likelihood a myth. Another is that the “thumbs down” was the signal for a Gladiator to kill their foe whereas in fact it meant exactly the opposite. Thumbs up was used to signal "kill him" while thumbs down meant "spare him." What is not in doubt is the level of carnage that took place here.

But the Colosseum wasn't just used for executions and gladiator fights. Mock sea battles were held on it’s flooded arena floor, live sex shows were staged as were recreations of natural scenes. For the latter architects and craftsmen would construct a simulated forest with real trees and bushes, and animals would be introduced to populate the scene for the delight of the crowd.

The interior would have been lavishly decorated, particularly on the lower tiers, but there is little or no evidence of this today. The CGI in Ridley Scott's 2000 film Gladiator is considered, for the most part, to be an historically accurate reconstruction of the Colosseum as it would have looked almost 2,000 years ago.

Pictures: Ms ExtremeGroundhopping

Playing Catch Up

2009-06-16T21:13:00.002Z

Sorry for being such a slackard blogwise over the past few months. My time – when not attending footie games – has been diverted to some fairly major DIY projects so internet time has been kept at a minimum. I will however be catching up over the new week or so with details of my recent travels – and older travels too – so watch this space.

In the meantime here is a picture of the new Sir Bobby Robson Bridge in Ipswich, which straddles the River Gipping just a few hundred yards to the south of Portman Road. Not as majestic as the bridges that cross the Tyne in Sir Bobby’s home city of Newcastle admittedly.

The Damned United

2009-03-30T16:28:00.002Z

As football was a major part of my life in the 70’s, and Cloughie one of the decades standout characters, it didn’t take much to persuade me to head for our local cinema to watch The Damned United – a film of the book that covers the short and disastrous reign of Brian Clough at Leeds United.

Not only is the film a great trip down memory lane for the nostalgist it is also a hugely enjoyable look at the relationship between Cloughie (Michael Sheen) and Peter Taylor (Tim Spall) who for many years was his right hand man at Derby County. Sheen I thought captured the dry humour and also the arrogance of Clough quite brilliantly, while Spall (although no Taylor Lookie-Likie) was superb as his long suffering colleague and friend. The supporting cast were pretty decent too, Colm Meaney great as Don Revie, although Stephen Graham wearing an awful ginger wig looked nothing like United captain Billy Bremner.

Action and crowd scenes were filmed at Chesterfield’s Saltergate ground. Football films in the past have always failed miserably at making these shots look believable (Escape to Victory excepted :-)) but in The Damned United I think they’ve got it spot on. Particularly the shots of Derby playing at the Baseball Ground – it was just how I remembered it in the mid to late 70’s.

There are quite a few external shots of Elland Road too (featuring those bits of the ground that have not been altered in someway in the intervening years) including Clougies first meeting with his new side on what would have been the training pitch at the time (now a car park I believe).

Overall a thoroughly enjoyable 90 odd minutes and one of the best British films in a good number of years.

Football Statues

2009-01-13T13:14:00.001Z

No 12 (in a series of several): Sir Bobby Robson (1933-)

Bobby Robson was by no means the Blue's first choice to succeed Bill McGarry as manager at Portman Road. Once it had been decided that caretaker Cyril Lea lacked the experience Ipswich went first to Frank O'Farrell, who would later become Manchester United's manager, and then Northern Ireland national coach Billy Bingham. Both men rejected the advances of the Ipswich board.

Robson - at the time employed by Chelsea manager Dave Sexton as a scout - was something of an afterthought but clinched the job because he so impressed Chairman John Cobbold and the directors when interviewed at a London hotel. And so, forty years ago today, Robert William Robson became Town manager on Monday January 13th, 1969. And the rest, as they say, is history.

More football statues here.