Match: v Weymouth - Blue Square Premier

Date: Friday, August 31st 2007

Result: Weymouth 2 Cambridge United 2

The Journey

Departure Time: Having experienced the delights of endless nose to tail traffic on previous trips to Weymouth, I decided to give myself bags to time with a 1pm start. It proved to be a good plan.

Arrival at Ground: We encountered the first of the myriad queues of traffic as soon as we reached the M25 and once again frustratingly slow progress turned out to be the leitmotif of the day. There was time for a necessary brief stop at Winchester Services, where the Diet Coke machine was focussing so much on the diet element of its job that it was dispensing water rather than coke. Not sure if that was the reason we saw a platoon of Dutch Marines at these services, but whether they had been called in to solve the vending conundrum or if their presence was mere coincidence, the question remained... if they were in Winchester, who was guarding Rotterdam?

Back on the road the endless queues continued along the M27 and A31 until they reached a turgid crescendo on the final, interminable, mainly single carriageway section between Bournemouth and Weymouth. Here, the problems were exacerbated by traffic heading to the Great Dorset Steam Fair at Blandford; an event near the top of aficionados' 'must flock to' list.

Various wildlife boxes and corrugated shelters could be seen along one section of this single carriageway. These appeared to have been placed by contractors to carry out a nature survey, presumably ahead of a future dualling project - the road, I think, rather than pistols. I suspect the results for the survey were distorted as we were moving so slowly we might have been included in a count of the indigenous gastropod population.

We finally parked at the ground at about 5.50pm.

At The Ground

The Ground: Previous visits to Weymouth had not gone well, and I don't just mean on the pitch. On my previous two trips I had encountered a welcome that had been on the obstructive side of unfriendly so, to be honest, I had been dreading this match from the time the fixtures were announced.

This time, however, my welcome could not have been warmer. Quite by chance I met my colleague from BBC Radio Solent as I was about to report to reception and thanks to his good auspices I was able to bypass the red tape and head straight for the press box to which I had been denied access in the past. I even got a handshake from Weymouth's Chief Executive, which rather surprised my colleague.

I have to say though that the other members of the travelling Cambridge press corps were not treated with quite the same level of courtesy. They had to wait outside until the press turnstiles were grudgingly opened at 6.45pm and while the Cambridge News reporter's laptop bag was searched, Gordon, United's Club Photographer, was on the receiving end of an interminable diatribe about how Cambridge United had been told that Weymouth didn't allow videoing in the ground. A lot of time and trouble could have been saved with a simple question: are you a video cameraman or a photographer? Alternatively, they could have checked the press pass request that the U's had faxed to them.

While all this was going on, I was able to set up in a press box that had been improved from previous years simply by removing the windows, making it less intrusive to have more than one radio reporter in residence. Admittedly a TV gantry just above eye level wasn't ideal, but all in all the press facilities were a vast improvement from previous years... although it's hard to see how you could fail to improve on a couple of seats perched at the top of a flight of steps.

The press box is at the back of the one large stand of seats that towers over the rest of the ground. Looking out over the away terrace you can see the white cliffs of the Jurassic Coast glinting in the setting sun, while the view over the opposite terrace is of the more prosaic speedway stadium. This stand is the only area of seats in the ground, unless you count the disabled enclosure; a pitch-level shed protected from misplaced passes by an old goal net.

Curving from a small section on either side of the main stand, the remaining parts of the ground are all terracing. They form a perfect bowl broken only by the large stand. There's a section of roof behind either goal and a similar section covering the mid part of the remaining side over which you can see the local police headquarters.

United Fans: A good turnout for a long Friday evening journey, and all 168 made themselves heard. A number enjoyed reminding the Weymouth keeper of his last match against the U's.

View from Away End: A shallow terrace, but the area allocated the U's fans was large enough for a decent vantage point to be found.

Home Fans: Before the match, one local suggested that there would be a low turnout because 'Friday night is skittles night'. Disappointingly he didn't elaborate, so we may never know what affect other confectionary has on Weymouth's attendances. Those that did eschew the delights of skittles were, by and large, fairly quiet other than when their team scored or when the U's made a substitution - an event that invariably prompted a particularly unamusing chant.

Before the match, I'm sure I heard the regular tinkle of bells. I never did discover where they were coming from, but it sounded as though the ground was hosting a court jesters' convention.

Police/Stewards: Called into action to search reporters' bags and to eject one United fan after our first goal... so they had no trouble justifying their presence.

Programme: Surprising value at £2 for 62 pages. The quantity of pages was matched by the quality of articles and photos in an excellent publication.

Food/Drink: £2.40 for a cheeseburger, £1.20 for a small cone of chips and £1.50 for a bottle of drink, all served by staff who seemed to have problems adding up which actually made the food more reasonably priced than Weymouth had perhaps intended.

State of Toilets: I didn't venture into the facilities in the away end, but I can't believe that they were better than those for the main stand where they were as Jurassic as the coast. I know fossils don't smell, but even if they did they wouldn't smell as bad as Weymouth's toilets.

Afterwards

The Journey Home: Thankfully the journey back was much more straightforward than the one to the match had been and there was even a danger of having an uneventful drive home. The fact that we were two people in a dark coloured car with the cruise control set to the speed limit saved us from this fate. It was amazing how many vehicles roared up in the outside lane, jammed on the anchors as they drew level with us, before speeding off again once they satisfied themselves that we were not in an unmarked police car.

Mileage: 361 miles

Total Distance for Season: 854 miles

Mark Johnson, with additional reporting by Gordon McMillan

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