
Among his “50 delights of modern football”, Daniel Gray describes “seeing a ground from the train” as the first one. He describes what people do on a train “some jab at their laptop keyboard or a tablet screen. But not…
The evening’s match at Prenton Park between Tranmere Rovers and Stockport County was already called off last night; and soon all the league matches for the weekend, including the match at Barnsley for which we had tickets, are called off…
It has been three years since my last football trip. So much has happened since then. Brexit, Covid, war in Europe. On top of that, my osteoarthritis now makes it hard for me to get around. So, I am a…
“The cultural and material history of the English football league ground 1888-2020”. That is the working title of my new project. As you may know from my blogposts, I am fascinated by the way football grounds encapsulate the history of…
It is almost surreal. It is February, the sun is beaming down, it is hot – and I am sweating on my way up the sloping Park Road in Aberdeen. A green bus stop marks the summit. Standing out against…
When I made my list of the top 24 English football grounds back in December, I was asked about the criteria. Well, they are not clear-cut. If I should nail it down to just one word, I would say “character”,…
Day 24 – Ground no. 1: Goodison Park, Everton. It is almost like an open-air museum. The Archibald Leitch stands at Bullen’s Road and Gwlady’s Street are top-drawer. The stairs, the concourse in the lower section, the wooden floor and…
Day 23 – Ground no. 2: Hillsborough, Sheffield Wednesday So much football ground history packed into this. The impressive Kop Stand, one of the very few stands that have kept the original embankment underneath. The first full-pitch-length cantilever stand looking very 1960’ish. The…