Match: v York City - Blue Square Premier

Date: Saturday, August 11th, 2007

Result: York 1 Cambridge United 2

The Journey

Departure Time: 8.45am

Arrival at Ground: Understandably, there's always likely to be the odd tractor slowing things up at this time of the year, but as they weren't joined on the roads by the expected scourge of the caravan there was little to interrupt serene progress before we stopped for a cuppa in the roadwork chaos that is Blyth Services. With extra roundabouts and more cones than a well-stocked ice cream parlour, the resulting slalom must have almost doubled the length of the journey.

A decent weekend weather forecast brought a swarm of traffic heading for the east coast and made the penultimate stage of the journey from the A1 to the outskirts of York a little tiresome. The flow of traffic was not helped by everyone slowing down to look at a group of Mods who had broken down on the A64. One scooter had so many mirrors, 700 years bad luck would surely have ensued if it had fallen off its stand.

Nevertheless, we still managed to park close to the ground at about 12.30pm.

At The Ground

The Ground: Presenting myself to collect a press pass and actually getting in to set up before 1pm can be a problem in at some grounds, but not at York. The helpfulness of the office staff and stewards could only have been improved if they had handed me a sack in reception with the three points inside.

Once inside, there was plenty of time to see that the ground had not lost any of its antique charms. The main stand was split into two distinct areas. The lower section contained plastic seats that were new enough to have retained much of their original red colour, while the upper section was notable for its ancient wooden flip up seats that had been bolted onto wooden benches.

The press area was in this upper section and consisted of a raised platform at the back for the local BBC station and hospital radio, but not the visiting BBC station. This was not altogether a bad thing though, as an obtrusive match control room that jutted out from the rear of the stand restricted the view from this area.

The remaining seats for the press ran two-by-two alongside a barrier cordoning off the directors box, giving the impression that reporters were lining up to board Noah's Ark. Well, I say 'seats', and while that was true of most of the double benches, those that Steve Line and I were allocated had a slight flaw... they didn't actually exist! Although the small bench from which to work was there, the seats to go with it had been removed to allow inner city shop style shutters to be rolled up and down over the front of the aforementioned control room. Although we managed just fine, once the broadcasting kit, Steve and I had squeezed onto the now slightly lower than ideal bench it was just a little too cosy at times!

A lower, covered area of plastic seats was opposite. The central blocks of these obviously contained newer seats, as they were still, by and large, obviously red. Those in the blocks to either side had faded somewhat and now varied in hue from grubby pink to bleached dirty white. A television camera gantry perched precariously on the roof of this stand.

To the right, the away end consisted of an open terrace with a large area taped off at one end. While United fans weren't allowed to stand in this cordoned-off section, they were permitted to drape flags over the crush barriers, making it looked as though it was wash day.

The remaining end contained covered terrace. A corrugated fence to one side was being slowly devoured by ivy.

United Fans: Travelled in good numbers and, after being incensed by the first penalty decision were extremely loud in the second half. They enjoyed some good banter with Danny Potter who asked them several times, towards the end of the match, to check their watches. It wasn't clear whether he wanted to know how long there was to go before the final whistle or whether he was trying to initiate a game of 'What's the time Mr Wolf'.

View from Away End: The steps of the terrace had a good rake and the lack of roof meant that there were no supporting pillars to obscure the view.

Home Fans: Greeted the teams' arrival on the pitch with enthusiastic continental-style flag waving. Support was loud during the first half, but it tailed off once we had taken the lead. There were one of two 'lively' characters in the seats close to the away fans, and an unsavoury incident involving alleged racist noises, but the stewards did take details and will hopefully take the appropriate action against the perpetrator.

Police/Stewards: Although they were very anxious to keep United fans away from the barriers they were generally pleasingly laid back.

Programme: £2.50 with a lot shoehorned into 44 pages, which detracted somewhat from a design that featured loads of adverts and a number of black and white sections.

Food/Drink: The position of the tea bar had mixed benefits for the constant stream of fans lining up to sample its wares. Although they were able to watch the match while they queued, they did need to pay attention to what was happening on the pitch and evasive action was needed on a couple of occasions. Once they reached the serving hatch they found unfriendly staff who looked at United fans as if they were from Mars when they had the temerity to ask for a fork with which to eat pies that had heated to the temperature of the sun.

State of Toilets: Almost as bad as Swansea's infamous 'black hole' the facilities would not have looked - or smelled - out of place as an exhibit at the nearby Jorvik Centre. The only concession to reasonably recent history was the 1970's style skinhead-based graffiti.

Afterwards

Post Match: While interviews with the visiting manager were carried out pitch side, those with the York boss took place in a room that had been surreally decorated to look like the inside of a tube of 'smarties' - you simply couldn't make this stuff up!

Mileage: 327.9 miles

Mark Johnson, with additional reporting by David Gray, Gordon McMillan and Doug Shulman

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