Match: v Aldershot Town - Nationwide Football Conference

Date: Saturday, April 21st, 2007

Result: Aldershot 0 Cambridge United 1

THE JOURNEY

Departure Time: 10.30am.

Arrival at Ground: A perfect late spring day for the final away match of the season, with even the traffic sensing the mood by being at its most cooperative. Naturally, there was the odd surreal moment, such as spotting a couple of Japanese tourists taking photos of each other by a bridge on the Royston bypass, but an otherwise uneventful journey brought us to the ground by about 12.15pm.

AT THE GROUND

The Ground: The Recreation Ground is one of those fine old venues with plenty of character and a unique personality. Penned between the High Street, a railway line and some tennis courts the regular rattle of trains appearing over one corner of the ground was a recurring theme throughout the afternoon.

The High Street end of the ground is the least developed. With a flat piece of tarmac, a simple barrier and horse chestnut tree in either corner, one of which is tall enough to almost obscure a floodlight pylon, this end of the ground would have looked quite at home hosting an Eastern Counties League game.

To the right of this end of the ground an uncovered terraced area leads to an old fashioned wooden stand. With four distinct blocks of seats and a portakabin-style executive box at the back, this stand is about half the length of the pitch in size and leads in turn to a curve of uncovered terrace, with another couple of horse chestnut trees growing out of the steps, and the start of the away section.

Continuing around the curve, the large bank of terrace behind the goal is covered by a vaulted roof and divided between visiting and home supporters by a caged corridor that's almost as wide as the goal. Extra meshing had been applied to the terrace on the visitors' side of this redoubt to further enhance its properties of segregation.

The front two or three rows of crush barriers on the other side of the division had been festooned with myriad flags that seemed to almost outnumber the home fans. As the start of the match drew closer, additional oversized flags were waved enthusiastically giving that section of the ground the look of a flag fetishists' convention.

The remaining side of the ground is one stand divided into several parts. The one unifying factor is seats that run along the entire length of the front of this stand, and the seats in the centre pick up this theme. However, small areas of terracing are behind the seats at either end. This slightly confused feel is continued by the ramshackle assemblage of buildings, such as tea bars, toilets and a social club behind.

United Fans: Loud, very loud, or extremely loud, depending on the action on the pitch U's fans turned up in numbers that would not look out of place for a team chasing promotion a division or two higher. The singing started at about 2pm and continued, outside the ground, long after the game had finished.

View from Away End: In an away end that's getting rustier with every visit, U's fans had a choice of terrace in the shade of a spreading chestnut tree, or covered by a roof that was supported by more pillars than could possibly be necessary. The view was ok if you could avoid them.

Home Fans: There was plenty of drumming, but little else was heard from the Aldershot fans. Happily, there was none of the unpleasantness after the game that had marked previous visits to the Recreation Ground.

Police/Stewards: Although there was a heavy police presence, and more dogs than you get on Friday night at Walthamstow Greyhound Stadium, they seemed to leave the U's fans alone - even those that had enjoyed a pre-match drink or seven (the fans, not the police or dogs!).

Programme: At £2.50 for 52 pages, 'Kick Off!' was A5, rather than the more common B5 in size, with very few colour pages and what looked like a standard cover that strangely included no photos of players. Although there were plenty of articles shoehorned into a rather bitty design, there was virtually nothing of interest to visiting fans.

Food/Drink: There was a tea bar under the stand as well as one at the far end of the ground to the away fans and surprisingly lax segregation allowed United fans to use either. When they did they found reasonable quality food, although the bacon in the bacon burgers was undercooked to the point of saying 'oink'.

State of Toilets: The facilities under the stand were no better than the portaloos that had been provided last season, with no toilet paper, locks on the cubicles or facilities with which to dry your hands.

Half-Time Entertainment: With an eclectic range of prizes and announcements accompanied by pantomime 'oohs' and 'aahs', the half time draw was surreal enough to have come straight from Peter Kay's cannon, which was appropriate given that the social club bar behind the stand is called 'The Phoenix'. Amusingly, the first prize was a basket of fruit while second prize was a season ticket - a prize that prompted a call of 'can I have it for Farnborough' from a wag in the crowd.

NUMB3RS

Mileage: 173.3 miles

Distance for Season: 6,067.7 miles

Mark Johnson, with additional reporting by David Gray, Paul Johnson, Ryan Johnson and Gordon McMillan

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