The Fields of Dreams

I’ve written a lot about players and managers but enjoyment of football also owes a considerable debt to the non-sentient mainstays of the sport: the venues at which it is played.

Fans and building, bricks and steel, turnstiles and pie stalls, they all combine to create an organic whole: the matchday experience. Anyone who’s attended a game will appreciate the unique atmosphere created within the ground. Even if your side is playing like a pile of poo, when the crowd is in full voice there’s nothing like it. When a spectator says “the place is buzzing”, it’s no exaggeration. Walls, pitch and stands, they all seem to come alive. Whether the Saints are marching in, bubbles are forever being blown or they are never walking alone, it’s a similar story across the world.

Of course, many of the grounds we see today look very different from the days when I was young. Indeed, some didn’t even exist. The fan experience has undergone changes along the way, too. The first radical change arose in the wake of English clubs’ horrendous hooligan problem which culminated in the post-Heysel UEFA ban from 1986. Terraces began to resemble prisons and Chelsea owner Ken Bates went further, threatening to electrify the fences to cage the Stamford Bridge yobbos in.

The 1989 Hillsborough disaster killed off that Thatcherite experiment but standing-only terraces were on borrowed time. With government legislation, all-seaters in the top flights became the norm in the glossy Premier League era. The hooligans were priced out, capacity was reduced and diehard fans rued the ensuing lack of atmosphere. As long as Sky TV pictures show few empty seats, nobody else seems to give a toss.

I didn’t go to many matches in the days of terracing. I watched Billericay at the old Wembley sitting down but my Exeter games were observed from the stamina-sapping Shed, hoping to find one of those quaint metal bars on which to lean. I’m not sure that Loftus Road was ever particularly atmospheric, even with fans standing at either end. At least both Exeter’s (left) and QPR’s home grounds have survived to commemorate their centenaries.

Many other clubs have abandoned their inner-city locations, their new stanchion-free stadia joining the retail industry’s retreat from the Victorian streets to new out-of-town homes. With the physical moves have come the identity changes. Farewell, Maine Road, hello the Etihad. Goodbye, Burnden Park, welcome to the Reebok/ Macron/ University of Bolton Stadium. Hwyl, Vetch Field; creoso I Liberty Stadium! There’s something reassuring about watching matches played at plain old Molineux (Wolves), Deepdale (Preston) or Ewood Park (Blackburn), steel pillars of their respective communities since the 1880s.

Having attended games at the new Wembley, St Mary’s in Southampton and the Cardiff City Stadium, I have to admit they are so superior to their dilapidated Victorian ancestors. The plastic bucket seats may be uncomfortable but it’s great to have clean toilets, plentiful bars and food stalls (sorry, ‘retail outlets’) and – especially important - unimpeded views of the pitch.

To many around the world, Wembley represents English football. The nostalgic purist in me loudly lamented the demolition of the Wembley twin towers (left) a decade ago, but I have to confess a grudging admiration for the graceful Arch. I think my Dad in his dotage also quite enjoyed a few visits to St Mary’s despite feeling sadness about the demise of Southampton’s original home at The Dell. My football-mad stepdaughter Rosie insists that Ninian Park was far preferable to Cardiff’s new stadium, despite her being in pigtails and ribbons when the Bluebirds last played there in 2009.

Rosie is hardcore when it comes to CCFC and Wales. She is a long-time season ticketholder, travels to away fixtures across the UK - and beyond and - sits for no-one in a football ground, no matter what the rules say. To her, that’s what football is about, standing in a sea of replica shirts cheering, taunting or screaming. The field of dreams, be it a mud patch in Essex or an 80,000 seater in Barcelona, is integral to the footie fan experience. Chairmen and owners, take note: the club is the ground, the ground is the club. Mess with it at your peril.

Being a Fan - Billericay and Exeter City

While QPR have resolutely remained my number one club, others have infiltrated my affections from the touchline without quite taking over the midfield. In the mid-1970s, my local side Billericay Town languished in the Essex Senior League: too good for the division but unable to escape because of inadequate facilities. Only when we won a set of floodlights could we advance to what was then the Athenian League.

Meanwhile, Town were also competing strongly in the national FA Vase tournament for the lowest tiers of the English football pyramid. In ’76 they reached the final, to be played at Wembley. Suddenly everyone was a Billericay supporter. The boys – and even some girls - at school were buzzing with excitement at the prospect of winning a trophy at the greatest stadium of all.

Dad and I bought tickets and joined one of the many buses hired for the trip around the North Circular. The ground was nowhere near full, with most sections unused. However, unlike my Milk Cup Final experience a decade later, we came away having witnessed the Billericay captain Arthur Coughlin receiving the gleaming trophy from FIFA’s then boss Sir Stanley Rous after a 1-0 victory against Stamford. There was also the less edifying sight of my first episode of football hooliganism in the coach park, but my first Wembley visit had been one to remember for positive reasons. A week afterwards, I joined the throng as the town turned out in their thousands for an open-top bus parade and Billericay bathed in the glowing rays of glory (above). 

They repeated the feat the following year (programme left), although Town required a replay at Forest’s County Ground (pupils were allowed the afternoon off school to travel if they had a ticket) after a 1-1 scoreline at Wembley. We missed out in ’78 but Dad and I completed the hat-trick a year hence, enjoying a comprehensive 4-1 drubbing of Almondsbury Greenway, including a rare Wembley hat-trick of his own for Town’s Doug Young.

I can’t pretend to have been stimulated by all this success into regular attendance at the little New Lodge. University intervened, then the world of work, and the momentum had been lost. I still stay alert for Billericay’s results and give a cheer on the occasions (four so far) they reached the heady heights of the FA Cup first round proper. Under the ownership of showy businessman Glenn Tamplin, Town upgraded the ground, won promotion to the Bananarama – sorry – Vanarama National League South. Could we (we!?) do a Salford or AFC Wimbledon and scale the non-League ladder in double-quick time? Tamplin's sudden decision to sell suggests not.

Between 1979 and 1982, while an undergraduate, I took the opportunity to follow

local Division Three outfit Exeter City. My charmed sense of timing was again to the fore as my university years coincided with a great FA Cup run and a home tie against the European champions.

Early in 1981, the Grecians earned home replays in both the fourth and fifth rounds, facing higher-ranked opposition. The best performance I witnessed in my three seasons down in Devon came in Exeter’s match against First Division Leicester City. Our prolific striker Tony Kellow scored a hat-trick in that game, which also featured a fellow Maths undergraduate (a year ahead of me) Ian Main in goal. Three weeks later, on another cold Wednesday evening, I again took my place on the cramped terraces within the venerable 1930s ‘Cow Shed’ stand, this time for the visit of Newcastle. More than 18,000 fans were shoehorned into the decrepit ground and the atmosphere was superb. The night air rang out with the Devon version of the Pompey chimes: “I-oh, City. City, I-Oh”. And what a result, too: 4-0 to City! There was a massed pitch invasion after the whistle and nobody batted an eyelid. I then hurried back through the residential streets to the Birks Halls TV room to enjoy the highlights on BBC1’s Sportsnight, this time with John Motson’s commentary.

The following October, Exeter were drawn against the mighty Liverpool in the two-legged second round of the League Cup. Unsurprisingly we were smashed 5-0 at Anfield but maybe we could nick a goal or two at home. I went early after tea, bought my ticket (probably about £1.50 with a student card) and programme (below) and ambled along to find an anticipated spot on the Big Bank terraces. Before reaching the turnstiles I could hear renditions of ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’. Clearly many Reds fans had made the trip down the M5 – or had they? No, St James’ was rammed with local glory-hunters waving Liverpool scarves, kids screaming in West Country accents for “Kenny, Kenny!” The official gate was 11,740 but it felt like many more.

I had no choice but to squeeze into the Shed, from which I watched as all those household names, from Grobbelaar, Hansen and Thompson to Dalglish, Rush and McDermott, humbled City 6-0. For all the disappointment at the scoreline, I could at least return to my room having seen the best team in Europe in their pomp. It wasn’t all glamour fixtures; the last ones I attended were against Walsall, Doncaster and Southend, each one as boring as one of Dr Coppell’s topology lectures. No matter: I have fond memories of those afternoons and evenings at St James’.

Sadly, Exeter never hauled themselves out of the third tier. On the contrary, unaffordable ground improvements and devastating debts led to the club into administration and out of the League altogether. Celebrity fans like Uri Geller and, allegedly, Michael Jackson, made no difference to our plight. Fortunately, Paul Tisdale’s twelve years as manager oversaw great improvements on the pitch, broadcasting receipts from Cup ties with Liverpool and Man United boosted the coffers and St James’ Park looks almost unrecognisable from the 1980s version, all-seater structures gleaming yet incongruous amidst the city’s backstreet terraces. That's got to be a Good Thing.