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Boundary Park And The 10 Worst Away Ends
Standing in a glorified pig pen surrounded by bleak wire mesh as the rain lashes horizontally into your face and with the knowledge that you face a long trip home after losing 1-0; an away fixture can be a demoralising affair. Especially when they're at these grounds...
A trip to Swansea the other week evoked memories of a trip to the Vetch Field on the day football changed forever. I remember clambering on the fences of the away end celebrating a 2-1 away win on 15.04.89 with very little knowledge or understanding of the tragedy that was unfolding elsewhere.
The Vetch is gone now to be replaced with a surprisingly welcome and hospitable Liberty Stadium, complete with built in hairdressers and beauticians and whether teams have moved grounds or not, football is generally a much more welcoming and sanitized place these days.
I recall one of my first away days in 1987, travelling to Ewood Park on a foggy August night (yes – August – was Simon Garner concealing a cheeky fag up his sleeve?) watching Wigan Athletic play our more illustrious neighbours in the Lancashire Cup in a thrilling 2-2 draw only for us to lose on penalties. I recall a poky, smoky Darwen End where the bright red fence nearly touched the roof of the stand and offered a truly awful view, incomparable with now.
It is a feature of the game which has long since rendered metal workers redundant thankfully but now that the theme is set, I thought I’d take a quick run through the TEN WORST AWAY ENDS in my football time…..
At ten, we have Swindon Town. The County Ground was never been a happy hunting ground for my team, and had huge steel spiked fencing on all sides which were more of a requirement to keep the Swindon fans out of our end in our disappointing play off defeat of 1987 than to stop our own fans rampaging through.
And at nine, we go from one County Ground to another as Northampton Town’s former abode, which was also shared with NCCC, offered a pretty dismal view from the back of their tiny main stand. Sometimes we got a bit behind the goal as well, but even that was a poor vantage point set below the goals
My recollections may be tainted by getting some serious abuse off some young scallies ridiculing my footwear on the other side
At eight, we head west to Bristol Rovers’ Memorial Ground. I sympathise a great deal with the Pirates’ plight to find a home in some ways they are kindred spirits with my own Wigan Athletic as they’ve often had to be treated as second best compared to the red half of their city. Yet I’ve attempted to view the game down the side of the main stand twice now to no avail and in that marquee behind the goal. I find the best way to console yourself is to spend the entire game chomping on one of their unquestionably wonderfully Cornish pasties.
In seventh place, I find myself on the Wirral sopping wet on a cold open air end surrounded by fences in a windswept Prenton Park. My recollections may be tainted by getting some serious abuse off some young scallies ridiculing my footwear on the other side mind you.
At six, the Priestfield Stadium of Gillingham used to be a regular pilgrimage during my early Latics watching days but they were another advocate of finding the most restricted view in the ground, putting a whacking great big metal fence in front, behind and either side of you and bring on the torrential conditions. On my most recent visit, we were afforded some seating of the Gene Kelly variety but it felt just like being at the 18th hole at Wentworth rather than at a football match.
As we hit the illustrious top five, we head down to Edgar Street, Hereford, a strong entrant by virtue of the fact that I have sat or stood in three separate places and still never managed to get anything like a decent view of the game: Behind the goal is set back so far you could re-route the M6 through it, the lower tier of the main stand has massive concrete pillars so that you feel you are watching a game in a multi storey car park and the upper tier instills vertigo in all but the strongest hearts.
A real fencing enthusiasts’ delight and also one of the coldest places in Earth where polar bears still roam freely.
And at four, the sharp apex of Chesterfield’s Spire was once echoed in the surrounds of Saltergate, where they kind of gave you a little corner of a covered end or a wide open away end but every part of the ground was covered in sharply tipped, garish yellow fencing that invitingly curled towards the spectators in an attempt to impale any intruders.
Oldham’s Boundary Park just about makes the top three due to it’s complicated network of mesh steel split into three or four sections in it’s prime, a real fencing enthusiasts’ delight and also one of the coldest places in Earth where polar bears still roam freely.
Brighton & Hove Albion find themselves in second due to a double nomination. The generosity of the Goldstone Ground knew no bounds as the away spectators were given a tiny corner covered in fences topped with the most evil looking chicken wire known to man. And as Seagulls fans finally move into their new home, a more miserable day you would struggle to find than at Withdean Stadium craning your neck to all angles to desperately catch a glimpse of action.
Finally at number one, we have Doncaster’s Belle Vue. If you ever wondered what life was like in a top security prison, you have obviously never spent time in the pig pen that used to pass for the away end at Donny: No cover (obviously), ten feet high straight fencing on all sides, followed by another couple of feet going inwards, all accentuated by the fact that it only covered half the away end and needless to say it always threw it down.
There are so many more I could throw in: the supermarket adjoined Boothferry Park in Hull or Burnden Park at Bolton, the below sea level view at Luton Town and the previously open air Fratton Park and the aghast reaction of some of my younger fellow Wigan Athletic fans upon realization that they would have to stand in the open air – it used to be like that every week!
Nevertheless I look back upon it now and treasure the memory of watching the game through not just rose tinted glasses but steel mesh netting, a large concrete pillar, a fat copper and numerous badly drawn Union Jacks.
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COMMENTS
Great article - Would love to have your take on visiting so called bigger clubs? Just for the record i still get shivers down my spine when I recall walking up to the away end at Blundell Park in February, an icy wind blowing straight in off the North Sea, a smell of Kirkgate Market in the air and rain hitting you at all angles for 90 minutes. Bliss.
Tyncastle up until the early-Nieties was an open air end with a corrugated iron fence round the back and a bizarrely McDonalds stall at the top.
Wigan memories! Vale Park early 80s, February ... not the best place to lose 3-0 dressed in denim and corduroy as the freezing wind blasts chaps the skin and the Chamberlains sap the spirit!
Good read that Martin, you could have had a subsection just for the yellow fence away ends of the past, the two worst ones I remember were at Oxford's old ground and Plough Lane when Wimbledon were still in SW19.
Good read. Palace away when it was standing was a shocker due to it a) being in South London b) having a huge fuck off floodlight pylon slap bang in the middle of the terrace
I love how the inclusion of Priestfield Stadium makes it a triple nomination for Brighton!
So, that's actually a TRIPLE nomination for Brighton, as we also played our home games at Priestfield for 2 seasons!
Blundell Park. Freezing cold and being put in an actual cage in the corner. Edgar Street is awful. Boundary Park had/has an ace paddock bit for running around in when you score. Used to really like Manor Park, think they had 8 stands which lead to the chant "You've got more stands than points" a few years ago, when they did indeed, sat at the bottom of the table, have more stands than points. None of this tops a freezing cold winter's afternoon stood miles away from the pitch at the Don Valley stadium, and the walk round a confusing labyrinth of paths to get there.
Good piece. The away end, or more to the point, getting to the away end at the old den was always interesting. Springfield Park was pig awful and someone forgot to put a roof on the cubicle at the Hawthorns (when terraced) which proved quite refreshing while dropping a New Year's Day clearout there in 1992. Fulham won 3-2 as well. Oh, and QPR's remains a disgrace.
Cambridge Utd - The (S)abbey.
Stamford Bridge down the side, to the right of the dug outs, is/was the worst away view in football - the equivalent of watching football through a letterbox, if you were near the back you couldn't see the ball if it went more than 7ft in the air. Ok, it's not the away end anymore, but was till a few years back and is still used for home fans - shockingly bad, and as a BWFC fan I've done my time in the lower leagues as well. (Port Vale, always freezing)
Southport's away end is pretty bad. A tiny, open terrace in a place where it rains or snows practically every day of the year. We'd always have to go there to watch Morecambe on Boxing Day because it was the nearest rival team in the Conference.
FYI - The ground at the top is actually St Georges Lane, Worcester City...I know because that is my daughter in the picture
Of the old school grounds Layer Road and the Manor Ground were horrible, although Layer Road had a certain charm. Underhill would fall under that category too. The former temporary seating at Blackpool was awful-I happened to go there on a drizzly but not too cold May Bank Holiday. Can't imagine what it'd be like in mid December. Final shout is the disgrace that is Loftus Road. That stand looks like a fire hazard, and in the Champ they usually charge £30 for tickets which mean you can't see the goal at your own end.
Excellent, authoritative and funny piece.
Central Park, Cowdenbeath. The whole lot of it.
Give me a caged off collection of steps with the whiff of piss and bovril any day of the week.
Top quality as usual Martin. Re the bigger clubs, a trip to Maine Road in the 3rd Division play offs to sit in a makeshift stand with no back on in the pissing down rain in a gale force wind sticks in the memory. As does a visit to Goodison in the late 80's where being at the front of the away end meant craning your neck to see the pitch which was above your head. And we'll not even mention the "restricted" view at the back of the away end at Anfield.....
Just so as I don't sound like a complete hypocrite, I hold my hand up to Springfield Park being one of the worst of the lot, immortalised by mud diving Sunderland fans. Of the Premier League era, Liverpool (no leg room even for a shortarse like me) and Everton (lower tier is like watching a match through a letter box) aren't much cop but usually a good day on the ale so who cares. I've never found Chelsea that bad except the price but I've always been in the upper tier or in the home end on a freebie. St James Park offers a great panoramic view of the entire the North East but I'm buggered if I can see what the 22 ants several hundred feet below on the pitch are doing...
1. the old Selhurst Park - crumbling corner section behind a floodlight 2. the old Wembley - no view from first 15 rows of either end 3. the old Stamford Bridge - half a mile from the pitch; accessed via an open khazi 4. the old City Ground - another crap corner with a floodlight in the way 5. the old Old Trafford - pen below the K-stand was easy target for missile muppets above 6. The Dell - restricted view? No view more like 7. Loftus Road - the only club that sold 'diabolical view' tickets 8. The old Portman Road - had huge nets between sections 9. The old Park End at Goodison - shallow, sub pitch level terrace that was like watching from the bottom of a urinal 10. Upton Park - if you're at the back it's like watching through a letterbox
How can the old dell in soton be overlooked? A bizarre assembly of seemingly random segments of uncovered terracing. With each one framed by an excess of fencing and a really weird home end to ponder, it beats all the other nominees for me.
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