VENUE #66 NOTTINGHAM FOREST The City Ground

SKY BET CHAMPIONSHIP

19th September 2015

City Ground, Nottingham

Ground Capacity:- 30, 576 all Seated

Kick Off:- 12:30

Entry Fee:- £28

Programme:-  £3

Ground # 66

NOTTINGHAM FOREST ... 1    MIDDLESBROUGH ... 2

       

      Sloppy defending from today's hosts Forest resulted in the two goals that sealed their fate.  After only three minutes a short back pass from Kelvin Wilson was picked up by Albert Adomah but his shot was blocked by De Vries in the Forest goal.  Seconds later a low cross from the right by George Friend was poorly dealt with by the Forest rear guard and David Nugent made the most of the gift and poked the ball home from inside the six yard box.

      The home side were back level within four minutes when Nelson Oliveira's shot was deflected wide and Henri Lansbury took the resulting corner from the left picking out Matt Mills in the six yard box who side footed a volley into the roof of the Middlesbrough net.

      Big cries of joy came from the home stands as their side were back in the game but their relief was only to last another 25 minutes when Grant Leadbitter drove in a cross from the right which Kevin Wilson again made a grave error by trying to head the ball back to his own keeper with Daniel Ayala waiting to head the ball home from close range.  At half time the score remained 1 - 2 to Boro.

 

    After the interval Forest were kicking toward the Trent End and this seemed to inspire them and it wasn't long before they had their best chance so far when, this time, uncertainty in the Boro defence saw Ryan Mendes go clear and one on one with the keeper, if he had squared the ball across the box to Nelson Oliveira he would have had an open goal to tap into but the selfish Mendes tried to beat the keeper himself and the inspired keeper palmed the ball away to safety.

      In the 77th minute the home fans are roaring with delight once more as Ben Gibson Handles the ball in the penalty area and referee Lee Mason gives the penalty after consulting his linesman.  You could feel the tension around the ground as Henri Lansbury stepped up to take the kick, the home fans were willing the midfielder to

score and snatch a point out of the game but the number 10 hit a poor shot down the centre of the goal as Dimitrios Konstantopoulos dived to his left but still managed to block the attempt with his feet and winning the Boro keeper man of the match as well as the game for his team.

      This is the second week running that my host team has lost 2 -1 I hope this isn't the start of an unwelcome trend.  I would have to say that the better side won the game although they were a bit physical though I should imagine major contenders once more for out-right promotion were as Forest may have to settle for the lottery of the play-offs once more.

  

The view of the ground coming across the bridge over the river Trent is quite impressive the two
tiered Trent end stand that rests on the banks of the river being the main focal point.  This stand is the
newest part of the ground and has a good look about it, really sets off the whole feel of the place.  It has rows of seats in a glass container running across the centre and as the Brian Clough stand the top tier looks larger than the lower giving it a real towering appearance, mind sitting in the main single tiered stand the other three stands do look a lot bigger and spacious.

   Across the pitch at the other end is a quite odd looking stand, the Bridgeford starts off two tiered and then descends down to a single tier to the right side as you look at it, the only reason I can think of for this is that the people in the flats to the rear of this corner have an un-obstructed view of the game.  On the other side the lower tier corner to the near post of the goal is allocated to away supporters.

     Built in the 1980's the Brian Clough stand is another impressive two tiered Stand that runs the

touchline, which, on it's top tier has the word FOREST painted on it's seats in between two emblems of the club crest.  There are executive boxes between the two tiers which makes the top tier look larger than the lower or maybe it is anyway.

   On the other side of the pitch is the main stand, single tiered and so neatly adjoins the off set corner of the Bridgeford end.  This stand is the oldest part of the ground and seems a bit dated in comparison to the other stands.  There are a couple of supporting girders which can obstruct your view pending on where your sitting, I was OK for I was sat right on the centre line as the girders were just blocking the corner flags.  It does let down the stadium a bit for it needs updating, maybe if Forest get promotion then this could be on the agenda.  The toilets were adequate as were the other facilities, not the best by a long chalk but they did the job.  One thing I must mention if you intend on visiting the club shop please either go after the game or come

very early as I was queuing for three quarters of a hour to get served.  There are plenty of staff but they don't seem to be the quickest, they have a sign behind them on the tills that say's "Rome wasn't built in a day but I wasn't on that particular job", for if they were it might explain why they're so slow as it was built about 2000 years ago.   

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VENUE #65 NEWTOWN Latham Park

DAFABET WELSH PREMIER

12th September 2015

Latham Park, Newtown

Ground Built:-  1951  

Ground Capacity:- 3,000 (1,300 Seated)

Kick Off;- 17:15

Entry Fee:- £7

Programme:- £2

Ground:- # 65

NEWTOWN ... 1         RHYL ... 2

     Top of the table Newtown came unstuck this evening at Latham Park against a well drilled Rhyl

side who started the game second from bottom.  Newtown having won all three of their first games of the campaign without conceding a goal were expected to win this game quite comfortably but came across a dogged Rhyl side inspired by a brilliant man of the match performance by Terry McCormick in goal.
     In an evenly contested first half Newtown had the best chance to break the deadlock when Luke Boundford lobbed a ball over the Rhyl defence for Jason Oswell to find himself one on one with Terry McCormick the Rhyl goalkeeper, his first shot was blocked by the keeper and rebounded straight back to him but with the goal gaping the young striker fired the ball into the arms of the grateful goalkeeper.
   

With just four minutes left of the half the Robins got careless in defence and gave the ball away to Rhyl which resulted in Derek Taylor hitting the back of the Newtown net with a deflected shot.
     With the sun setting casting long shadows over the newly laid 3G pitch and the floodlights flickering on around the ground the second half got on the way with no bright lights showing in the Newtown side who were now striking toward their home end with their fans egging them on totally dissing the poor linesmen and referee trying to fire some response into their team but ten minutes into the half the Robins woes were doubled when a long ball found Aaron Bowen on his own to flash the ball past a motionless David Jones in the Newport goal.
     Five minutes later the deficit should have been halved when Matthew Hearsey was tripped in the

visitors six yard box and the ref awarded a penalty.  McCormick to the annoyance of the home support employed the old delaying tac tic trying to intimidate Matty Owen the Newtown penalty taker and his antics paid off as Owen placed a poor penalty to the keeper's right who went the same way and pushed the ball wide of the post.
     It seemed as though the Lilywhites keeper was keeping a charmed goal as effort after effort failed to cross the Rhyl goal line especially when McCormick fumbled the ball and Hearsey pounced but saw his chance ricochet of the post.
     The home faithful were now predicting their first defeat of the season acknowledging that there was no way this keeper was going to be beaten until the 72nd minute when Owen swung the ball into the visitor's penalty area a flicked header saw the ball drop for Luke Boundford who swept the ball with his left foot into the net via deflection
     This gave a little hope to the home support but Rhyl hung on till the final whistle and achieved their first win of the season and issued Newtown with their first defeat.

 

    What a lovely, quiet and beautiful part of the world Newtown is as soon as you step off the train you just know that you're in Wales, what a fabulous country.  It's only a ten minute walk from the station to the ground which is set out of the way although amidst a couple of housing estates and backing on to a police station.  The people are friendly especially the stewards who went out of their way to make sure that my visit was a special one.

     Latham Park lies in a most picturesque setting as most of the Welsh Premier league grounds do.  If

you enter by the Park Lane gate entrance to the left running along the touchline starting at the near side is a single tier of around 200 blue and red seats that leads on to a turnstile block and then another row of single tiered seats with a TV gantry in it's roof that straggles the half way line, the last third of this side consists of a flat standing area backed by a hedge.  This side is known as the police station side as there is a police HQ situated at the back of it.

   

 On the other side of the pitch is the main stand side which has two stands  an old and a new.  Both hold about 400 people although the new stand looks a lot bigger and is fully covered, it's situated leading on to the Park Lane end with the old stand straggling the half way line and is not so well covered for the people nearest the pitch will get wet in bad weather.  Players descend from the top of the new stand from the changing rooms.  Further on from the old stand is the clubhouse and the club offices, the toilets to the clubhouse are small but adequate as the average gate is around 200 to 300.

     At the Park lane end there is a flat standing area with a car park and a housing estate to the rear this end is for away support but segregation doesn't seem to matter much as fans just settle where they please.  At the other end of the ground there are two flat standing areas with an open seating area in between behind the goal.  This end is called the Llanidloes Road end and has a beautiful welsh hillside land drop to it's rear.

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VENUE #64 WYCOMBE WANDERERS Adams Park

SKY BET LEAGUE TWO

5th September 2015

Adams Park Stadium, High Wycombe

Ground Built:-  1990

Ground Capacity:-  10, 284

Kick Off:-  15:00

Entry Fee:-  £20

Programme:-  £3
                   
Ground # 64

WYCOMBE WANDERERS ... 2       HARTLEPOOL UTD ... 1

    Done the wrong thing today, while thinking of the hour and a half journey on the train I thought "I'll buy the Sun newspaper and do the sudoku's that will kill the time", but I got so engrossed with the Japanese puzzles that I lost track of where I was and what I was doing and so as I was finishing the third puzzle, (The Torture), just entering the last number I glanced up out of the window as the train was leaving the station and saw the sign High Wycombe and realised that I had missed my stop.  I ended up travelling to London Marylebone and catching the next train back to High Wycombe.  Arriving at the station at two minutes to three and with a 45 minute walk ahead of me as the ground is 2 and a half miles from the station I decided to jump into a taxi in the hope that I wouldn't miss too much of the first half.  Going through the industrial estate I saw the sign Adams Park at the very end of the road and so alighting the taxi minus a arm and a leg made my way to the ticket office to retrieve my pre-booked tickets and managed to get inside the ground for quarter past three, not too bad considering.

     These two sides have made a good start to the season with Wycombe in third place before kick off

and Hartlepool in sixth which is a sharp contrast to the season before when the Pools narrowly avoided dropping out of the football league and into the National league that was the conference.  Wycombe are continuing challenging for a top three place as they did last season when they were odds on favourites for automatic promotion but they only managed a play-off place finishing fourth and losing to Southend in the play-off final 7-6 on penalties.

     The game was already fifteen minutes gone when I took my seat in the main stand and looked

very lively, open with the ball rapidly travelling from end to end and I only had to wait eleven minutes for the first goal when a long ball played into the Hartlepool box for Michael Harriman to drill a first time shot inside the keepers nearside post.

     Just before half time and the scores were level when Carl Magnay played a one-two with Rakish

Wycombe celebrate second goal

Bingham and blasted the ball past Matt Ingham in the Wycombe goal from twelve yards.

     Eleven minutes inside the second half and it was two for Wycombe and Michael Harriman as a long ball was intercepted on the right and the QPR loanee looped a shot over Adam Bartlet in the Hartlepool goal into the far top corner of the net from eighteen yards.

     Hartlepool had obviously come to ruffle the Wycombe players feathers with some aggressive challenges and behaviour, the referee had a poor game and tended not to see a lot of what was going on on the pitch either intentionally or maybe he needs a trip to Specsavers but however he lost control of the game with his constant overlooking of incidents, the game was stopped at least a couple of times with players taking the law into their own

Fight breaks out after aggressive antics in goalmouth scramble 

hands and ending up in a brawl with half the players on the pitch getting involved.  In the 86th minute two Wycombe players were on the floor with the referee encouraging play to continue until the linesman brought it to his attention that Carl Magnay had decked Ryan Sellers, although initially he claims not to have seen the incident he red carded the Hartlepool goal scorer who abused Wycombe players verbally has he left the pitch.

     With the drum beating on the terraces encouraging the Wycombe fans to get behind their team the home players were quite happy with what they had got and tried to see out the game in the corners which brought more frustrated late challenges from the visitors and extended the injury time period but see it out they did and now Wycombe hold second place in the league two table.

        

     The Frank Adams stand is a two tiered fully covered affair which was built in the mid 90's.  It is a
much bigger stand than the other three with a capacity of 5,000 all seated fans and has a set of executive boxes situated between an upper and lower seating area.  The stand and ground are named after a former goalkeeper who donated to Wycombe their previous ground at Loakes Park.

   

 Opposite the Frank Adams stand is the main stand (Beachdean Stand) which has a raised seating area accessed by a small flight of stairs at the front.  It is single tiered and fully covered and has a large video screen in between it and the Dreams stand.  The stand is all seated with just under 1,300 seats and houses all main facilities such as food stalls, club shop and changing rooms.  Although the seated area is elevated the lower seats view is impeded by the dug outs for about a third of the near-side of the pitch.

     To the left of the Beachdean stand as you look toward the pitch is the Panache stand or Dreams stand as it was first named.  Originally a terrace when the ground opened in 1990 was converted into a stand six years later with just over a 2, 000 fully seated capacity.  Also fully covered the Panache is allocated to away supporters with a further 350 seats designated in the Beachdean stand if fan base requires.

   At the opposite end to the Panache stand is the Bucks New Uni Terrace AKA the Greene King IPA Terrace which is also fully covered and holds just under 2, 000 standing supporters.  The terrace exits at the same place as the main stand at the corner where the two meet and as you almost reach the gates there is a toilet which is very small but clean and modern, it was the only one I saw but I didn't get much chance to look around under the circumstances.


     Adams Park is a lovely looking, quite modern ground with very friendly and helpful staff.  The supporters are friendly and welcoming also and I must say that I've quite enjoyed my day out in Buckinghamshire apart from my blunder on the train coming that is.  My only real gripe is that I wish that the railway station was a lot closer to the ground.    

       

   
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