The Football tourist

I took a trip to Huddersfield on Wednesday to visit the John Smith Stadium and for the quality of the football I really needn’t have bothered.

Huddersfield’s stadium is one that I’ve wanted to visit for ages and the stadium itself was incredible. It’s just the football that let it all down.
I started this game 2 weeks ago when I was in Huddersfield for other reasons. I found myself at the stadium and Jenna on the ticket office helped me get a ticket for a game I could make. It was either this game or waiting till November 30th. Jenna was a great help but I should’ve waited.

I got to town early on in the day to check into my hotel for the evening as the last train back for me was leaving 5 minutes after the final whistle. Whilst the station is essentially a straight walk from the station google maps put it at 15minutes and I wasn’t taking that risk. Heading to the station that timing felt accurate. To get there you walk straight out of the station down the road straight in front of you and just keep going, turn right at the junction just past farm foods and then through the car park and you’re at the stadium.
To be fair though, from the station you could do a lot worse than head straight ahead and follow the arches.

The Stadium itself is gorgeous, it’s set into a natural bowl in the landscape. It’s got four white arches and when set against the green hills behind it the scene really is quite stunning. On the other side to the green hills runs the River Colne, alongside which runs a path that takes you from the entrance to the car park right up to the stadium.

Having got to the town early and with no other commitments for the day I got to the ground almost 2 hours before kick-off. The turnstiles weren’t even open. I have never been at a ground that early before so I had to find things to do. I couldn’t find any programmes as I was reliably informed that they were only sold inside the ground. Instead I found far more important things to do.

Opposite the turnstiles just past the ticket offices there was a stand set up by the NHS to teach supporters CPR. With the events at Newcastle vs Tottenham last weekend it is great to see Huddersfield taking this action to ensure as many people know CPR as possible. The fan who had the cardiac arrest last weekend was treated at the ground and appears to be on the way to a full recovery. The paramedic teaching me CPR told me that this recovery is partly down to the fact that two fans near him in the crowd knew CPR. Learning this skill really can save lives so it was great to see Huddersfield doing their bit to ensure more people can learn it. I hope other football teams take this onboard and set up stands like this to teach their own fans this important skill.

Behind this life saving stand there was a games hut with both table football and Fifa 2020 ready to play. What I didn’t realise and which there was no sign of on the outside of the hut is that you’re supposed to have under 18’s with you to enter. I got most of the way through a game of Fifa before a steward in the room enlightened me to this rule, but at least they were good enough to let me finish my game before I had to leave. From this point I decided to head into the ground.

Just after I got inside I was able to pick up a free programme. I have yet to be at another game where programmes are free for a league match, but to be fair the programme wasn’t worth paying for. It was rather thin and had no league table inside nor much about either team. The back did however have the normal squad list, just without a column to record the starting 11. It did have circles to record goals and cards though, not that either was particularly needed. The club shop sold something better than the programme though, it sold poppy badges which were a great sight to see and I’m sure poppy badges will be on sale at many other club shops across the land in the next few weeks in the run up to Remembrance day.

On the far side of the pitch during the warm up there was a cluster of orange shirts at the far end of the ground which turned out to be the strips of two local junior teams that were to form a guard of honour for the teams as they entered the field for the match. This was a lovely idea from Huddersfield and a great way to connect the senior team to the community and provide the juniors with role models to inspire their own progress in the sport.

Unfortunately they probably wont have found role models from this match as both Huddersfield and their visitors Birmingham City started the game with the first thought simply to keep the ball and they achieved this by passing backwards at every opportunity. The first half was a real snooze-fest. There was only one chance of note in the entire half where a team actually looked like they may actually score a goal. This came in the 43rd minute when Huddersfield got a freekick halfway within their attacking half. The freekick was sent into the box and met by an excellent diving header that flew mere inches past the post.

There were other attacks in the first 45, but none where either team looked like scoring nor looked like they truly wanted to score either. There was one minute of added time at the end of the half and I’m really not sure where they got it from. The ball hardly ever went out and there were hardly any other breaks in play either. Suffice to say that EFL on Quest must have been struggling to find highlights for their midweek programme.

The screens on the stadium concourse at half time showed both the current league table and stats from the first half. I didn’t see any stats for shots or shots on target in the first half, perhaps this speaks volumes about the quality of the play. One stat that did stand out from the first half was the amount of long balls, it was 30 for Huddersfield and 40 for Birmingham City. A more depressing stat from a half of football I cannot think of.

The halftime break also allowed me to buy a hot chocolate to warm myself up on what was a freezing evening in Yorkshire. What it didn’t bring was any substitutions from either side, which was quite baffling given the dearth of skill or desire on show in the first half.

The first thing to note about the second half were the two clashes of heads that occurred in the half. Both times this occurred the medics were one quickly to attend to the players involved and after a quick assessment the players involved were able to re-join the match.

To be fair to Huddersfield they were the team that had the only clear and obvious chances of the match, the first of which was in the 43rd minute as mentioned. The next of which was in the 57th minute seconds after they had a penalty appeal turned down by the ref when Ward went down in the area. The ball broke to O’Brien on the edge of the penalty area who hit it first time with a splendid strike that flew inches wide of the post. It was the second piece of quality all match and given that fact it was now an hour into the match this made the complete lack of substitutions by either side particularly puzzling.

The first much needed substitution didn’t arrive till the 70th minute when Birmingham’s Lee Bowyer made the first move. He took off his captain Lukas Jutkiewicz and bought on long-time Watford striker Troy Deeney who joined his boyhood heroes in the summer. The important substitution of the game came six minutes late when Huddersfield took off Danny Ward and bought on Frazier Campbell, the first player all match to show the desire to win.

He almost scored within a minute of coming on with a glorious spinning volley from 12 yards out, but the Birmingham keeper got into just the right place to prevent it from going in though and denied the home fans that had come to the game having something to celebrate. Campbell had one last glorious chance of the match in added time at the end of the 90, this time he hit the post with a powerful shot from distance that flew just wide. Campbell was absolutely the man of such an otherwise boring match and he was only on the pitch for 18 minutes.

The lack of desire to win shown by the rest of the players in the home team can be summed up by 2 examples for the final 10 minutes of the game. The first of which was a freekick in the 83rd minute when they had players lining the edge of the box ready to make runs to latch onto the freekick but it was instead played square 35 yards from goal where the receiving player instantly turned away from goal and looked to play it back into his own half. The second was in the 89th minute when the keeper decided against clearing the ball to Harry Toffolo, who was in space on the right, in favour of wasting time. Toffolo was not pleased with this any more than the 15,608 fans in attendance, including the 1,600 away fans who had made the long journey up from Birmingham for the match.

The atmosphere of the match was lacking. This was partly due to the awful lack of quality of the play on the pitch but also partly due to the design of the stadium, which makes each stand a separate structure entirely with gaps at each end for any noise that was made in one stand to escape from the stadium. there is no fully joined up outer structure to keep the atmosphere inside.

Also, one last note for those driving to the match. The main walking route from the stadium heads straight out through the car park and as such no cars are allowed to leave this car park for 15 minutes after the final whistle. Park instead in the car park attached to the cinema 2 minutes away on the far side of the stadium from the station. There appeared to be no such restrictions on that car park.

The stadium was amazing to visit, just a shame the football wasn’t at all up to the same standard. I may return later in the season in hopes of catching a match that lives up to its beautiful surroundings.

This weekend I’m heading back to Prenton Park to see how a Men’s game there compares to the Women’s game I witnessed there 10 days ago.

I was back in London again this weekend and after the incredible game served up by Brentford the last time I visited, for Liverpool’s visit, I couldn’t resist heading back there to see how the Bees dealt with the visit of another title favourite. On a weekend of derbies across the football pyramid with Swansea vs Cardiff and West Brom vs Birmingham it was only fitting that my return to Brentford was for their London derby against Chelsea. As derbies tend to be cagier games with both teams setting out not to lose to their rivals I wasn’t expecting an attacking game at all. My expectations were subverted. Given the position of the teams heading into the weekend I should’ve known it would be a good attacking game. Brentford were 7th with Chelsea leading the way.

Having been to the stadium before and thus knowing what to expect I was a lot calmer than I have been pre-match for a long time. The atmosphere inside the stadium was electric once again though, bees fans are intent on enjoying seeing their team in the EPL for as long as they can. This party atmosphere amongst the bees fans may also have had something to do with the fact that this game signified Thomas Frank’s 3rd anniversary as bees manager.

The amount that Mr Frank has achieved at Brentford since taking over from Dean Smith is certainly impressive. He has got Brentford promoted back into the big time for the first time since 1947 and he has done this with a club that has a high squad turnover and a tradition of bringing in players from lower divisions and making them better. Ivan Toney being a prime example of this, bought from Peterborough United last summer his goals fired Brentford to promotion and he has continued this form in the EPL.

Mr Frank has also fostered a deep connection between the team and their supporters, his programme notes for this game ended by thanking the fans for their contribution to the incredible comeback against Liverpool. In those notes he also talked about the fan’s passion turning the Brentford Community Stadium into a fortress, I have no doubt that is possible but most fortresses have cooler names. The current name does show Brentford’s ambition to become a true focal point for the local community though and with many other clubs drifting further from there fans this ambition is a refreshing one from a club going places.

One last quick word on the programme . At the back is an editorial by ex-bee Ben Burgess called ‘The Last Word’ that is always worth a read. For this game it focused on the belief you need to achieve things and Brentford certainly aren’t lacking in that belief.

The game set off at the same mad pace as on Liverpool’s visit 3 weeks before, albeit with slightly less skill on show from the visitors. It only took 15 seconds for the first chance of the match when a weak backpass from Trevoh Chalobah almost let Ivan Toney in to put the hosts ahead, but Mendy got across just in time to clear and spoil things for the home supporters.

Chelsea then almost went ahead themselves in the 7th minute as a rare mistake from Raya almost resulted in a own goal and a very embarrassing moment for the in-form bees keeper. Luckily for him he was able to recover in time to clear the ball and save his blushes. He has been in inspired form so far this season and bees fans will hope this was just a one off moment for their beloved keeper.

The rest of the first half continued in similar end-to-end fashion, but unfortunately my enjoyment of this excellent spectacle of footballing talent was spoilt somewhat by the questionable decision being made by the ref throughout. The ref chosen for the game was not a man the Chelsea fans liked at all and they showed this by chanting “you’ll always be a c***” at him every time he gave any decisions against them. Perhaps understandably he didn’t give decisions against them often though, with the first freekick against them not being given till the 18th minute when Kovacic took out Jensen on the touchline to cut out a bees counter attack. He received a yellow card for this which sent the Chelsea fans berserk with rage. The ref’s perceived leniency towards the visitors up till this point had already made the bees fans ask “can we have a referee” 3 minutes earlier. The ref was in a terrible position whatever he did in this game, but his performance lost him any respect he had with either set of fans going into the match.

Both sides had chances to score throughout the half, with Brentford’s Mbuemo hitting the post in the 22nd minute from point blank range. Chelsea went straight up the other end and thought they’d opened the scoring only for it to be ruled out for offside. 5 minutes later the visitors had a freekick deflected onto the roof of the net.

With N’golo Kante almost scored twice in a single minute. First he came inches away from connecting with a brilliant through ball only for Raja to pinch it off his toes, then he skied a chance from just inside the box from the next Chelsea attack.

Chelsea ruined the hosts day when they took the lead they probably just about deserved right before half time. They had a chance cleared off the line by Rico Henry in the 44th minute, but they came right back at Brentford and Ben Chilwell was able to slide the ball in from close range. Thanks go to the stadium announcer for the scorer of the goal as I couldn’t actually see who had scored from the other end of the ground.

This was a body blow to the Bees right before half time and it showed at the start of the second half as they lagged far behind the pace in the early part of the second period.
It took till just before the hour mark for the Bees to begin to regain a foothold in the match.

The only things I made any notes about in this period though were a couple of incidents that the ref seemed to miss. First in the 58th minute when Brentford were on the break and Sergi Canos was cleared out on the wing by a hard tackle and then in the 60th minute when Ivan Toney was pulled back by the neck of his shirt in the penalty area. Nothing was given for either of these incidents. This seemed unbelievable to me at the time, particularly for the foul on Toney.

As the Bees refused to go away in the second half and the tension around the ground increased Mr. Frank made a gutsy decision that could have disastrously backfired, he went for it. He took off Frank Onyeka, a midfielder, for Marcus Forss, a striker, in the 67th minute.
A move like this from a manager is a show of strength and huge belief in his team, not to be happy with a narrow loss to a title favourite shows just how much belief there is at Brentford this season and why teams are having such a hard time so far against them.

Shortly after this is seemed as though the gamble had backfired as Chelsea got through the home defence and Lukaku was left with no defenders near him just 6 yards in the centre of the goal. The relief from the Brentford fans when his shot went sailing over the bar was palpable.

That scare behind them Brentford made another attacking substitution in the 73rd minute as Mr. Frank took off Sergi Canos, who had been playing at RB, and bought on Saman Ghoddos, another striker, in his place. This meant Brentford now had 3 out and out strikers on the pitch despite being 1-0 behind against Chelsea. I doubt many other teams will make the same call in similar situations this season.

Just 2 minutes after these substitutions it looked as though they had paid off with Mbeumo finding himself clean through in the penalty area with just the keeper and the post to beat. He beat the keeper, but not the post.

For the rest of the game Brentford laid siege to the Chelsea goal and it seemed like the equaliser would only be a matter of time. Brentford had shots cleared off the line in both the 84th and 86th minutes, but both times they didn’t let the disappointment of failing to score break them. They simply won the ball back and surged forward again searching for that elusive equaliser.

By this point Chelsea were really hanging on and resorted to the tries and tested game-management trick of time-wasting. Whenever they had the ball they decided not to attack and instead just keep possession in their own half or attempt to draw a foul from Brentford to win a freekick that they could then eat up more time taking. It’s a very effective tactic, but not at all satisfying to watch from a fan’s perspective.

Brentford had one last chance to equalise in the four minutes added on at the end of the 90. From their own cornet the ball broke in the air and Christian Norgaard met it with a delicious bicycle kick that look to be sailing into the top corner of the goal, right on the postage stamp. It was not to be. Edouard Mendy in the Chelsea goal leapt to his left to keep it out with a spectacular fingertip save. It was an incredible display of skill from both players, but ultimately the score remained at 0-1 and the whistle went for the end of the match a minute later.

Chelsea return to the top of the table and from what I saw at the game they have a real shot at the title this season. Their ability to perform under pressure and hold on for the result is something all title-winning teams need to have. Brentford fans can also take heart from the match though. The way their team fought till the end to try and take something from the match against the table toppers shows that they have the character they will need to get results throughout the season.

The next blog will be coming to you from West Yorkshire as I head to a midweek championship game between Huddersfield Town and Birmingham City. I look forward to what Yorkshire has in store for me.

Having had last weekend off for the international break I couldn’t wait till this weekend to go back to a game, so I looked online for a midweek game that would be easy to get too.
The game I found was Liverpool FC Women vs Aston Villa Women in the Women’s Continental League Cup just half an hour’s bus ride from me at Tranmere Rover’s Prenton Park ground on the Wirral. Even better for me was that as a Liverpool Member I found out that I can get free tickets to their Women’s games, I believe tickets are £6.50 for most fans. Add to that the fact that these two teams went opposite ways in the leagues 2 seasons ago, when Villa got promoted to the WSL as Liverpool were getting relegated out of it and this was a no brainer of a game for me to go too.

For those coming to Liverpool FC Women’s games from further afield the easiest way I could find to get there on public transport was a train to Liverpool Lime Street then take a 5 minute walk to St. Thomas Street and get the 464 straight through the Mersey tunnels. On that bus you can’t miss the ground, it stops right outside but you do have to cross the road to get into the stadium. Word of caution if you’re going to a midweek game at Prenton Park though, the last bus back to Liverpool is at 6:50pm so it’s worth working out another back beforehand or you’ll be left scratching your head on how to do so after the game like I was. The only way back to the city at that time in the evening is to turn left from the ground and take the 25 minute walk down a straight road to Birkenhead Central station, the train to Lime street station takes 10 minutes from there and they run until 11:30pm.

When you get to the ground it feels really weirdly positioned near a busy crossroads in a sleepy village on the Wirral. The ground also look deeply unimpressive from the outside with the main thing you can see from the outside being red brick walls. It is more impressive when you get inside though. To get inside for Liverpool Women’s games at the ground you have to cross the road from the bus top and take Prenton Road West. You carry on down that side of the stadium, past the painted wall of football boots till you get to the Johnny King statue by the Mersey Clipper pub. Then you head down the path in between them and through the car park to the Kop turnstiles where you can actually get inside.
Due to the demand for tickets to the game they had only opened up one stand, so both home and the small contingent of away fans were all behind the goal at the Kop end of the stadium. This made the way the game ended unfathomable to me, but I’m getting ahead of myself. I’m not even in the stadium yet.

Getting into the stadium as it turned out would not be easy. I had headed to the game expecting to be able to pick up a ticket at either the ticket office or on the turnstiles as I have been able to at many grounds in the past. That’s not how it works here though as all tickets for Liverpool Women’s matches must be bought online.

It seems crazy to me that they do things this way when they need to be doing all they can to encourage people to come to Women’s games. One of the ways to encourage people to try new things is to make it easy for people to just turn up and try them out. This policy of not having tickets on sale at the ground clearly flies in the face of that and anything that makes it harder for people to come to Women’s football games should be changed when the goal of everyone in football should be to bring Women’s football up to the level of fan interest and engagement that the Men’s game enjoys.

The stewards and ground staff were extremely helpful in getting things sorted out though and after a few conversations in which I explained the situation and gave them my membership number, they were able to verify my membership and they let me into the ground. Actually that’s one thing I noticed about all the staff at Prenton Park for the game they were all incredibly helpful, enthusiastic and polite. The staff at the ground were the biggest advert for Women’s football I could ever hope to see.

Once inside it was clear that there would not be the normal football atmosphere for the match as the majority of the fans were families with young children and this made the ground feel far more relaxed than a football stadium normally does just before a match is about to kick off. It also made me stick out like a sore thumb as a white bloke in my mid-20’s, anywhere other than a football match the whole thing could’ve looked rather disturbing.

The last thing I want to talk about before I get into the actual match is the Liverpool mascot ‘Mighty Red’ who I saw out of the corner of my eye talking to some of the youngsters in the stands. He then came over to me, took my programme then opened it up and signed it. I have never had a mascot do anything like that at a game before, but I think more should.

The game itself was not the highest quality that Women’s football has to offer as both teams left some of their better players on the bench to make sure they were rested for their league games.
The quality was still impressive from the Ladies on the pitch though as both teams took to the task in hand with the attacking attitude that most football purists like to see. Neither teams were parking the bus, they were both having a go and trying to win the match.

Villa made their recent WSL experience count early on though as they were ahead after 2 minutes with a great counter-attacking goal. Liverpool had a corner at the far end of the pitch, but the ball broke loose and with just 3 passes Villa had it up the other end with Shania Hayles in the Liverpool box with just one defender and the keeper to beat. She cut inside after wrong footing the defender and slid the ball under the keeper’s despairing dive and into the back of the net. 1-0 to the Villa.

An error 6 minutes later almost had Liverpool level as the Villa keeper mis-controlled the ball in her area with a Liverpool attacker lurking nearby, but the keeper recovered just in time to clear the ball and prevent an embarrassing moment from wiping out Villa’s lead.
From that clearance Villa went straight up the other end where only some excellent last ditch defending by Liverpool’s Meikayla Moore prevented Villa’s Alisha Lehmann form scoring a second for Villa. This was almost ruined by the Liverpool keeper’s clearance which missed Lehmann by mere centimetres.

Villa bossed the majority of the first half and almost got a second goal just 11 minutes in. This time it was Gemma Davinson who latched on to a brilliant cross from the Villa right and it took the attentions of four Liverpool defenders to stop her getting the second goal that Villa’s play to that point absolutely deserved.

Villa’s first setback of the match came 18 minutes in when their captain Marisa Ewers had to be substituted with an injury, her replacement Remi Allen took the armband for the rest of the match.

Liverpool took advantage of this Villa setback to finally go on the attack themselves 2 minutes later when good work on the left by Georgia Walters ended up with the ball getting to the feet of Liverpool’s star player and local lass Missy-bo Kearns to have a shot from just outside the box. It flew agonisingly just wide of the post.

Liverpool managed to stay on top for the rest of the half and carved out 2 more guilt edged chances before the break. The first being an ambitious drive from 30 yards that the Villa keeper got positioned just right to keep out. The second came from a corner just after the ref had waved away the hosts claims for a penalty. A header from 6 yards out from the corner was somehow kept out by the visitors, but I couldn’t see quite how.

The first half ended 1-0 to Villa and the hosts manager Matt Beard had seen enough to make a triple change at the break.

Ten minutes into the second half Liverpool had established a foothold in the game and got in on their right through the excellent Melissa Lawley, unfortunately her cross hit the back of the head of a Liverpool player in the centre and bounced harmlessly away from goal.
Four minutes later though Liverpool were back on the attack and they got a corner that Missy-bo Kearns attempted to score directly from, unfortunately for her though the Villa keeper was on the ball and managed to get her fingertips too it to dig it out from under the crossbar and put it over the top.

However this was enough to convince Villa manager Carla Ward that now was the time for her to make a triple change. She took off both their goalscorer Hayles and their main playmaker Lehmann. With Villa leading and Liverpool in the ascendency perhaps the idea was to tighten up the defence and protect their lead. It didn’t work out.

Missy-bo Kearns had another incredible effort from distance this time that once again had the Villa keeper scrambling to make another brilliant fingertip save to keep Villa’s lead intact. Beard then made the substitutions that made all the difference, but which looked as strange as the Villa ones at the time. He substituted Missy-bo Kearns and Walters and replaced them with Liverpool’s record appearance maker Ashley Hodgson and the Woman who would make all the difference to the match Leanna Kiernan.

Those substitutions took place in the 63rd minute and by the 66th Kiernan had equalised. Her goal was a thing of beauty, she picked up the ball on the edge of the area, danced past 3 defenders then shaped to shoot across the goal before sliding it in at the near post. The skill and precision that were on show in the scoring of this goal were a pleasure to witness and I would be extremely surprised if a WSL club does not make an offer for her services in January. Unfortunately her spectacular cameo in this game lasted on 14 minutes before she had to be substituted with an injury. Liverpool will hope that she is not out for long as she showed she has the ability to turn games around and her presence in the team will be crucial to Liverpool’s promotion ambitions in the league.

Her goal and injury were the last major actions of the game, but the 4th official still managed to find 7 minutes of stoppages to add on at the end of the 90. Quite how 7 minutes was decided on I wouldn’t like to guess, but 7 it was.

At the end of those 7 many fans thought the game was over and the draw was the result, but this was a cup game so group stage or not there had to be a winner and in this tournament that winner was to be decided on penalties. This would have been an exciting way to end the game if not for the fact that it was decided that the penalties would not be taken in front of the only stand with fans in it, but would instead be taken at the other end of the ground as far away from the fans as possible. Why they chose to do things this way is anybody’s guess, but it seemed like an own goal to me not to involve the fans in this crucial moment in the match.

I have no idea who took any of the penalties, but I do know that Villa missed their first one and this proved to be decisive. Liverpool won the shootout 5-4 and in this way they won the match. It was a very strange ending to the match, but the right result to get the locals to return in the future and hopefully enough for them to tell others about the joys of Women’s football and in that way grow the fanbase for the Women’s game.

This has to be the weirdest football match I’ve ever been too and I’m still scratching my head as to what I went through. The experience from start to finish was both sublime and ridiculous.

I have to admit to a lack of planning on my part as I only chose what weekend game to go to midweek when it became clear that I wouldn’t be having any luck in the draw for tickets for Man City’s visit to Liverpool. In my disappointment at that realisation I decided to go to Bolton instead as it seemed an easy place to get too and I’ve been fascinated by the club since I was young. Their badge looked like something a child could draw, so I liked it instantly. Also, I found a Youtube vlogger called StuntPegg a couple of seasons back and the majority of her vlogs were from Bolton Wanderers so I wanted to go and see if the atmosphere conveyed in those excellent vlogs was present in real life.

I booked my train to arrive at Bolton for 1pm, figuring that would leave me more than enough time to find the ground, buy a ticket and watch the warmups before relaxing into the game. Except for one thing, Bolton’s ground isn’t in Bolton. It’s 2 hours walk or 30 mins cycle away, but luckily there is a 10 minute train ride that you can take to the tiny little train station of Horwich Parkway. Off the train the first thing that caught my eye was the backdrop of rolling hills topped in mist. A lovely countryside view, but not the place you expect to find a massive stadium of a club on the up.

The journey even to Bolton was crazy even before I realised that the stadium isn’t in Bolton. My journey took me through Wigan and having missed my earlier connection by minutes I suddenly had 40 minutes of free time in Wigan. It’s a lovely town and near the stations there is an exquisite octagonal war memorial in the grounds of an equally lovely church. If you have a chance to visit do.

Another reason to visit Wigan is Wallgate Station. The waiting room windows are covered in poems and the whole place is gorgeous. It’s on a line from Southport to Alderley edge and the route is one of the most scenic I have ever been on. The only downside to that route is that the train seats were extremely uncomfortable.

The stadium itself is set on the edge of a huge retail park that seemed to have attracted half the population of Greater Manchester that afternoon. The retail park does have an upside for supporters coming in by car, there is serious levels of parking available. I would be amazed in anyone coming to the ground can’t find a parking spot, even when the ground is full.

Even with the confusion over the location of the ground I still made it there with an hour to go till kick off, so I went to buy a ticket certain of a good seat in such a great stadium. The amount of supporters at the ground was impressive though and when I did get a ticket it said ‘impaired view’ and that confused me later. The lady who sold me the ticket didn’t ask for any details of who I was, which means there is no way for the club to know who comes to games and no way for them to prompt them to return to games in future.

Bolton are the only club that I’ve been too which don’t take details of the fans coming into their games and thus no way of building a supporter base. However, this doesn’t seem to effect the number of supporters coming to the ground. Three of the four stands were teaming with supporters when I got in there. The ground itself is impressive inside and out.

A word of warning though if you’re looking to pick up a programme though. In this digital age, with many places becoming card only, the programme sellers at Bolton are one of the few things that are still cash only. The nearest ATM is at Asda in the retail park should you turn up to the stadium cash light.

If you have time before kick-off I highly recommend taking a lap of the ground and taking in the statue of Nat Lofthouse on the approach to the ground for the station. There are four plaques surrounding the statue, two of which show scenes of Lofthouse’s career highs and one of which celebrates the significant moments in the club’s history.

However, the final plaque is the most important of the four as it commemorates those supporters who lost their lives at the Burnden Park disaster on 9th March 1946 when 33 supporters died during a sixth round FA-Cup match between Stoke City and Bolton Wanderers at Bolton’s Burnden Park stadium. This is not the place for me to go into the disaster, so I highly recommend you looking it up yourself if you wish to know more. It was great to see Bolton remembering those who passed though, they will never be forgotten.

The stadium staff are lovely, the stewards are helpful and kind, which I’ve found is a rare quality for stewards these days, and the staff at the food kiosks are some of the nicest I’ve ever met. They were fast and extremely polite. The wait for food was only a couple of minutes, which is nothing compared to most grounds, but the young lady who served me still apologised for the wait. The staff deserve huge credit for making my overall experience at the University of Bolton Stadium extremely enjoyable, they are also the most diverse group I have met at a football stadium. The one lad serving a whole stand at Preston was White whilst all but one of the servers at Brentford were Black. Bolton on the other hand had the staff at almost exactly 50/50 between those groups, with staff from Indian, Hispanic and East Asian backgrounds in the mix too.

Bolton fans are some of the most passionate I have ever met and the numbers that they travelled in to see their team in League one is brilliant. The official attendance numbers were 14,524 but in the ground it both looked and felt like way more. Many people talk about the Newcastle fans as the most loyal fans in the country, but from what I experienced Bolton fans could run them really close.

The Bolton fans covered themselves in further glory pre-match. During the tribute led by the stadium announcer to the late Roger Hunt MBE, a legend of the game and one of England’s world cup winners in 1966, the Bolton fans broke out into a spontaneous round of applause in his memory. It was an incredible show of class from the Bolton fans and I will remember that round of applause fondly for the rest of my life. Thank you Bolton fans!

The match itself was high quality and both sets of fans did a great job of trying to contribute to the atmosphere. Bolton were the better side throughout and some of the skills on show were brilliant. The standout moment of the match though had to be in the 32nd minute when Declan John pulled off an incredible backheel to go past an opponent on the touchline. It was something I’d never seen anyone pull off before and I certainly didn’t expect to see it in league one. The quality of the match was unlike anything I’ve seen before at this level in the leagues.

Bolton were on top the whole of the first half and they took a 2-0 lead early on that they didn’t look like surrendering the whole game. Sarcevic scored the first for Bolton in the 18th minute, cutting in from the Bolton left to slot the ball into the far top corner of the net, postage stamp stuff.

The second Bolton goal followed 5 minutes later and was almost a carbon copy of the first except that Afolayan, number 17, had to ride a few Shrewsbury tackles on his was to cutting inside and scoring in the far bottom postage stamp of the net. Two incredible and almost identical goals a mere five minutes apart and Bolton dominated the rest of the half to go in two goals to the good. The only Shrews player who came close to Bolton’s level in the first half was Bennett, Shrews number 17, who spent most of the half keeping his team in the conversation of the match. He also had a match long battle of the 17’s with Afolayan which was great to watch.

I had a great view of all this sublime Bolton play in the first half as, despite my tickets saying ‘impaired view’ the sightlines from every seat in the stadium are excellent, there are clear unobstructed views of the pitch from all round the stadium. Why my tickets said ‘Impaired view’ I have no idea and I’ll never find out either. Just another thing to wonder about with Bolton.

Their second have performance was confusing too, they were like a completely different team as Shrewsbury took control of the match and they almost drew level in the 56th minute from the penalty spot. The penalty itself looked soft and from my viewpoint any contact looked like it was outside the box, but the ref gave it so that’s that. Luckily for the Bolton faithful justice was served as the penalty was dreadful. After a long wait to take the penalty it was weakly chipped down the centre of the goal, the goalkeeper barely had to move to keep it out. If the pen had more power on it or the keeper had dived then maybe it would’ve had a chance of going in, but as it was it has to be one of the worst penalties I’ve ever seen at a game.

The visitors kept pressing though and, despite a scary moment in the 77th minute where they almost scored an own goal, they looked like they had a chance of getting back into the match. There chances were few and far between though as Santos, one of the Bolton centre backs, was having the game of his life blocking every pass through that the Shrews tried.

Shrewsbury did pull a goal back towards the end though, but the circumstances around the goal were controversial. It’s the 89th minute of the game and Shrewsbury are on the attack once again, but a pass through the Bolton backline was flagged for offside just as ball reached it’s intended target. I looked away to make some notes about the overall game and when I look up again seconds later the ref has overruled the offside and Shrews have a freekick on the edge of the box. I have no idea why. Shrewsbury scored with an incredible strike from the freekick, but I have no idea how they got that freekick to begin with.

That was the last action of the game, despite the five minutes added on which contained no moments of note and Bolton ran out 2-1 winners. They totally deserved the 3 points.

The strange placement of their stadium came into full focus. I was in the first small group of people to reach the station, but even so we had to wait outside the station as the platform was too small to have us wait on. Your stadium is incredible Bolton, but the station is not good enough for it. Expand the station please to make it fitting for your great club.

Also, please add some more big screens inside the stadium. As with Deepdale there was only one screen visible from the stands which was perfect for fans in the west stand behind the dugouts, but which was in the blind spot from my seat in the Nat Lofthouse (east) stand. It was an improvement on Preston’s though as it was ad-free and actually provides fans with useful info about the game, such as the score and how far through the game they are in a cumulative fashion. Preston’s screen reset between halves.

Another strange thing about this game was the position of the away fans in the stadium. Normally the away fans will be situated in a corner of the ground close to the home fans so that both sides can feed off the other and create one hell of an atmosphere, like the one I experienced last week at Brentford vs Liverpool. However, at Bolton the away fans were in the only stand not filled with home fans and they were almost centrally positioned in that stand. This left them as far away from the home fans as possible, which meant that despite the incredible efforts from both sets of supporters the atmosphere in the ground was flat as a pancake. Neither set of supporters lacked for passion or inventive charts, but the distance between them left no chance for them to feed off each other and give the ground that true football stadium feeling. The players tried their best to lift things with the greatest exhibition of skill that I have ever seen in a lower league game, but to no avail.

The stadium is incredible and the fans are inspiring, but the atmosphere was one of the worst I have ever experienced at a football match and I’ve been to non league games with a few hundred fans before. This juxtaposition of incredible stadium, inspiring fans and inspired football against such an awful lack of atmosphere has me wondering whether to go to another game some time and I’m just not sure.


There will be no blog next week as I take a week off for the international break to focus on other commitments on the Saturday. I had planned to got to a Women’s match on the Sunday, but they’re all down south and with Sunday public transport that’s further than I’m able to go for a day.
I’ll be back in 2 weeks when I’m back in London for the whole weekend and using will the opportunity to take in a London Derby.

This game is one that I have been looking forward too for months, ever since the hosts got promoted. I built up this game in my head as the holy grail game of the season that I would do anything to get a ticket too. A game where I have a deep emotional connection to both sides.

The visitors have been my team from the age of 5 and watching them helped me through so many things. Istanbul in ’05 is the defining football memory of my childhood and the benchmark for best day of my life, but it may just have been beaten. The hosts are a team I’ve been going to the games of since 2015 and I was at the last game with fans at their old ground.

Both teams hold special places in my heart and this was my first chance to see them play each other head to head. They hadn’t played each other in the league since 1947, way before my birth. It’s fair to say that if the game wasn’t an incredible spectacle with beautiful football on both sides I was going to be extremely disappointed. As you may have guessed from the title of this blog I was not disappointed, the game was incredible and I’m still buzzing thinking about it almost 24 hours later.

The game in question is Brentford vs Liverpool at the new Brentford community stadium.
This meant travelling down to London and that meant 3 hours of travel from my flat to the stadium. That is travel that I wouldn’t normally bother with, but this was a special occasion.
I left myself enough time to travel this time and arrived at the ground an hour before the game and just in time for the away team coach to arrive. I have never experienced that at a ground before, but I may try and get to grounds in time for it in future. Seeing the Liverpool players walk from the coach to the tunnel was incredible. It’s the nearest I’ve ever been to my heroes who finally won Liverpool the premier league and very soon I was going to be cheering against them.

Brentford’s Community Stadium is an incredible stadium and it will serve Brentford well as they attempt to establish themselves in the Premier League for years to come. I do miss the pubs on each corner of Griffin Park a little though and I’ll never forget the games I went to at that brilliant old stadium. No denying the toilet upgrade at the new stadium though, the old ones were awful.

I picked up a program outside the ground before heading in to sample the atmosphere and watch the warm-ups. Finding food was difficult, though there were many food kiosks they only sold falafel, vegan sausage rolls and other trendy food. If you want burgers you’re out of luck, but hot dogs and pizza can be found from ‘The Griffin’ Kiosk at the far end of the North Stand near block N121. Brave of them to try new things but for me you can’t beat proper football food, hot dogs and burgers with whatever drink you want.

The roar that greeted the appearance of the teams for the warm-ups was earth-shattering. My seat in the home ground was right near the away fans and it felt fitting being caught between the two sides of supporters as my loyalties were split also.

Liverpool warmed up in front of me. Mane and Salah exchanging passes whilst Milner and Henderson stretched whilst chatting in the middle of the pitch. It was surreal and things only got better from there.

Before kick-off there was a rare moment of unity in the stadium as all supporters joined in on a chorus of Hey Jude, a traditional Brentford pre-match song. That was the last unity between supporters all match.

When the football kicked off so did the chants from both sets of supporters and they didn’t stop till after the final whistle. The atmosphere created by the chants was matched by the football from both sides. Brentford vs Liverpool at Brentford Community Stadium on Saturday 25th September 2021 is without a doubt the best game of football I have ever had the pleasure to watch. It could’ve been 2-1 in the first ten minutes.

Salah found himself free in the box with just the keeper to beat and with Raya duly beaten it looked like 1-0 to the visitors 7 minutes in. Not so fast! A brilliant goal line clearance from Ajer denied Salah his 100th Liverpool goal, for now. In my notes I had that clearance down as Jansson, but other events later in the game made me realise I’d better check all the identities after the game and every other place I looked had Ajer down for the clearance.

Brentford then had a goal line clearance of their own to rue just a minute later. They went straight up the other end and Mbuemo slotted the ball past Alisson only he hadn’t got enough power on the shot and Fabinho was able to get back to clear off the line. Bees then skied the follow up chance. Less than ten minutes in and it could’ve been 1-1 already.

The rest of the first half continued at this frantic pace and the quality was amazing throughout. Both teams played top quality football, but it was Brentford who drew first blood. The goal was scored from a cross on the right that got flicked on by Toney and turned in at the back post by Mbuemo, sorry no the goal was apparently scored by Pinnock. I was so caught up celebrating the goal in giddy euphoria and when I looked up I saw Mbuemo running towards the stands so I took him down as the scorer. He must’ve been running to join celebrations I didn’t see cause I was so caught up in the moment.

Liverpool’s equaliser 10 minutes before half time is another goal where I had no idea of the scorer. The only thing I saw at the time was the exact moment it was clear this was going to be the equaliser. Salah had the ball on the Liverpool right, then Henderson came past on the overlap and there was no Brentford player within 15 yards of him. I was screaming from the other end of the pitch for someone to close him down and whilst Mbuemo tried his best he couldn’t get there in time to stop the cross. The cross was pinpoint and it was met by a header at the back post to steer it home. At the time I thought it was possibly Mane or Trent Alexander-Arnold, but it truth I had no idea. Turns out it was Jota.

Liverpool should have taken the lead minutes later but a brilliant double save from Raya kept the scores at 1-1. Raya touched Jones’ long range effort onto the post before getting up to deny Jota from point blank range on the rebound. Minutes before half-time it was only an excellent tackle from Rico Henry nabbing the ball off Salah that stopped that 100th goal and meant the teams went into the break all square. A fair reflection of a half that could’ve easily ended 3-3 instead of the 1-1 that it did.

One small unfortunate moment for Brentford before the break was Ethan Pinnock having to be substituted with an injury. He scored the opening goal of the match and has been a stalwart at the back all season for the Bees so Thomas Frank will hope the injury isn’t serious.

The second started at the same bonkers pace as the first, in fact the whole game was played at a bonkers pace with equally an bonkers high level of football from both teams.
Salah finally got his 100th goal 10 minutes into the second half, but not without more drama. A defence splitting pass found him behind Brentford lines in the box and he belied the pressure of 2 near misses already in the game to slide it past Raya from 6 yards out. The linesman then flagged for offside and the goal was ruled out, much to the delight of the Bees fans. That delight was short lived as VAR intervened and the goal was given. Cue despair for Bees fans and delight for Liverpool fans. That was hard to swallow.

Liverpool’s lead lasted 10 minutes before Brentford were level. This one included tech too, but this time it was of the goal-line variety. Brentford attack and it’s pinball in the Liverpool area at the back post. Alexander-Arnold had been the one standout bad performance of the whole game and he was beaten to the ball here by Vitaly Janelt who was able to guide it over Alisson and it crossed the line just before Trent was able to get back and clear it off the line. I was unsure whether the ball had gone in, but the ref pointed to his watch and gave the goal. I have no words to describe the feeling.

The Liverpool fans had been celebrating so much after Salah’s goal and it felt like the game had gone, so to be back level again left my brain with nowhere to go. It’s something I have never felt before and I have no frame of reference to describe it.

Parity didn’t last long though as 3 minutes later Liverpool were back ahead. Crushed is not strong enough for the depression inducing sadness of thinking your team has secured a draw against a title challenger only to go behind again minutes later. The goal was a moment of standout quality from Curtis Jones in a game of incredible moments.

A superb strike from outside the box hit hard and true into the postage stamp. That is how it looked from the stand, but apparently it took a deflection of Ajer on the way through to beat Raya. It would’ve been a worthy winning goal for any game, except that it wasn’t the winning goal. There was still more drama to come.

Before we get to that though there were a couple of important substitutions that changed the course of the end of the game. Liverpool bought on Firmino and I thought Jota had gone off, it took me at least 5 minutes to realise that it was actually Jones who had been taken off. The more impactful substitution came from Brentford as Thomas Frank decided not to settle for anything less than a fight to the whistle. Frank gambled by taking off Defensive midfielder Christian Norgaard and bringing on Attacking midfielder Yoane Wissa. A risky call at 3-2 down against a team with a real shot at the title this season, but it worked a treat.

Minutes after Wissa came on he was the man who equalised for Brentford in the 82nd minute. I have no idea how he scored, all I remember was that the ball was in the net and the fans celebrations were wild. I have never seen scenes like it. I was so caught up in celebrating the unbelievable equaliser that I wasn’t even sure who had scored. I wrote it down as Wissa then changed my mind to Baptiste, who had also just come on, then changed it back to Wissa again when I saw his face on the big screen with the word GOAL around it.

This was not the end of the drama though as it looked like Brentford had actually won it all in the 86th minute through Ivan Toney. I can tell you even less about this goal and I didn’t see it go in. I just saw Toney wheeling away in celebration and then got lost in my own celebrations. I also didn’t see the linesman flag for offside, the first I knew about the goal being ruled out was when it came up on the big screen that the offside was being checked by VAR. Thinking you’ve won the game then seeing the goal has been ruled out is an even worse feeling than I got from Liverpool’s third goal. It stayed 3-3.

The final moment of drama came in the added 5 minutes at the end of the match. Toney went down in the penalty area and from where I was at the other end of the ground I was convinced it was a penalty, but nothing was given.

When the final whistle went I was disappointed with the draw for Brentford. Disappointed by a result I’d have bitten your hand off for if it had been offered before kick-off.
It was a crazy game, you’d never guess that one team was newly promoted playing in their first Premier League season and the other was one of the favourites for the title. Both teams looked like title contenders in this match.

Going ahead early then going behind twice and having to come from behind both times late in the second half. After that you think you’ve scored a winner only to have it chalked off for offside. Most teams would be disappointed with a draw after all that, but Brentford should be so proud of themselves instead. Brentford held their own and even dominated at times against a brilliant Liverpool team with a real chance of title glory. Not bad for a team who haven’t played at this level since the 1940’s. On this evidence Brentford will absolutely be staying up and they will give every team that visits the Brentford Community stadium one hell of a test. Do not expect an easy game in West London this season.

The next visitors are Chelsea and I’ll be at that one too. Not sure what game I’m off to next weekend, but for this weekend I had an incredible experience at, in the word of one of the stewards “one hell of a game”.

As a football mad Londoner now living in the north I am taking the opportunities presented by my new location to visit many of England’s Football stadiums that I have always wanted to visit but never had the opportunity too before.

Why do this?

• As an avid football fan for my entire life I have often wondered what the fan’s experience is like in other parts of the country and now I have moved up north I have the chance to find out what I’ve always wanted to know.
• The blog is about sharing my experiences at these new grounds with other football fans to give them an idea of what to expect when visiting the ground in question. Is the ground worth the travel and what are the pitfalls to watch out for whilst there?
• I’ll be visiting as many grounds this season as possible across both the Men’s and Women’s games.
• This blog will serve as the record of my experiences at the grounds I visit and I hope it will inspire other football fans to take the chance to visit some of these grounds as well, maybe to visit teams you’ve never thought about visiting before.