The Stadium Anorak
Credit: Extratime Team (ETPhotos)
I’ve always been a bit of a sucker for football grounds. I’m not sure why but every time I
see one I get a little tingle up the back of my neck. And I’m not just talking about the
spectacular monoliths that are dotted around the major cities of the world, the classical
stadiums whose very name sends football fans into a trance, I’m talking about any football
ground, of any size, anywhere.
Whenever I fly into London I am the bloke pinned to the window like a dog in a pick-up truck, scouring the landscape below for little rectangles of green and the idiosyncratic arrangement of oblong roofs that surround them. Over the years I’ve gotten quite good at picking out the individual qualities of the different grounds as we pass overhead. “Look! It’s Watford!”, I cried out to a workmate as we began our approach into Luton a few years ago. I pointed out the oddly tubed roofing of the main stand and almost giggled as I spotted the distinctive double stand on the far side. “Definitely Watford”, I said triumphantly. But as I turned around he had frozen in mid draw on a carton of orange juice and was looking at me as if he had just realised that he was about to start work with a serial killer.
I think what draws me to football grounds is the deep sense of mystery that surrounded them as a football obsessed child who rarely got to go to any. My early years as a football fanatic were fueled by newspapers and Match of the Day. Then “Shoot” and “Scoop” were discovered and the grainy black and white images from the dailies were enhanced with colour pics of the stars of the day, posed in their playing kits. And behind them, always, the empty banks of the famous old ground in which they played on a Saturday afternoon.
Neither of my parents had any interest in the game and there was never even a suggestion that I might be taken to a game. But all that changed when me and my brother went to stay with our Aunt Joan and Uncle Barry in Brighton. It must have been the early eighties and, I guess, our parents must have told them that we were football nuts because one night Barry loaded us into the car and took us to the Goldstone Ground, the home of Brighton and Hove Albion, surely one of the greatest ever names for a football team. We stood on the concrete terrace under the main stand, ate boiled sweets, and watched Gerry Ryan, Peter Ward and Mark Lawrenson beat Wolverhampton Wanderers 3-0 in what was then the old First Division.
The Goldstone Ground... it’s gone now, stolen from the club by their own chairman and sold for development. Apparently it is now home to a Toys R Us store and a Burger King. What a tragedy.
My introduction to Irish grounds came about almost by accident. One Sunday morning when I was about ten a few pals suggested that we go to see ‘Rovers’. I didn’t even know who Rovers were, I didn’t even know they existed. But I was up for it and that afternoon we walked several miles to Milltown to see Shamrock Rovers. It was a revelation.
Milltown has achieved a semi-mythic place in the memories of Rovers fans since it closed in 1987 and it probably lives on more elegantly in the mind that it ever did in real life, but it was, as they say, a proper little ground. For a start it had turnstiles. Oh yeah, no messing about there. I don’t think turnstiles get enough credit among football fans for the part they play in fanning the romance and mystery of young supporter’s imaginations.
They reminded me then, and still do in the older, unsanitised grounds, of castle defences. Tiny slits in an imposing wall that has been designed specifically to keep you out. These medieval looking passageways told me that what lay beyond was so magnificent, so unimaginably exciting that they had to be built just to control the frenzy of the mobs that would demand to see it. Walking through a turnstile was a test, as if you were applying for entry to some clandestine cult.
“What do you want?”
“I want to see what's inside”
“Do you now?”
“Yes please”
“Hmm, who sent you?”
“No-one, I just saw the lights and the people and...”
“There’s nothing inside, you must be mistaken young sir”
“But I saw the floodlights. I saw them with my own eyes.“
“I SAID... there is nothing inside. Nothing! Do you hear?”
“I have a letter from the Cardinal, he said to ask for D’Artagnan”
“The Cardinal, eh? Do you have gold?”
“I have a tenner if that’s any good”
“Go forth young sir, you’ll find D’Artagnan over by the chip van, wearing the new away kit and selling fanzines.”
Milltown had stands too, and crumbling concrete terraces, and a corrugated tin roof. Furthermore it had fans, lots of them, shouting and swearing, singing and chanting. The terraces were filled with denim jackets and hard looking men (as it seemed to me then) with scarves tied around their wrists. There were surges that swept you off your feet when a goal was scored and a sense of belonging that was almost intoxicating.
Over the years I have been to every ground in the country and I still get a gentle buzz when I pull up to Finn Park, or the Brandywell, or St Colman’s Park. They all have their own personality, their own sense of appeal, and they all have one thing in common; that this is where it happens, this is where the football is played. I think the most common thought I have had whenever I have arrived at a new ground is ‘So, this is it, the place I’ve read about’. It doesn’t have to be elegant or impressive, I don’t look for that in a football ground, it just has to be there, in whatever form history and circumstance have decreed.
On Friday afternoon I am getting ready to set off for Wexford to see the Youths take on Mervue United in the First Division. I know what to expect at Ferrycarrig Park, a place that is newer and, perhaps, less dramatic than many of the older venues around the country. It is certainly less exciting in the sense that it lacks many of the paraphernalia that we associate with football grounds but I will still feel a slight turn in the pit of my stomach when I pull into the gravelled car park and see the lights glowing over the club house. It may not be the Maracana, hell, it isn’t even the Carlisle Grounds, but it is still the home of Wexford Youths FC, a place where the past, present and future events of our league will play out. I have my letter from the Cardinal and if I see D’Artagnan I’ll tell him you were asking for him.
Whenever I fly into London I am the bloke pinned to the window like a dog in a pick-up truck, scouring the landscape below for little rectangles of green and the idiosyncratic arrangement of oblong roofs that surround them. Over the years I’ve gotten quite good at picking out the individual qualities of the different grounds as we pass overhead. “Look! It’s Watford!”, I cried out to a workmate as we began our approach into Luton a few years ago. I pointed out the oddly tubed roofing of the main stand and almost giggled as I spotted the distinctive double stand on the far side. “Definitely Watford”, I said triumphantly. But as I turned around he had frozen in mid draw on a carton of orange juice and was looking at me as if he had just realised that he was about to start work with a serial killer.
I think what draws me to football grounds is the deep sense of mystery that surrounded them as a football obsessed child who rarely got to go to any. My early years as a football fanatic were fueled by newspapers and Match of the Day. Then “Shoot” and “Scoop” were discovered and the grainy black and white images from the dailies were enhanced with colour pics of the stars of the day, posed in their playing kits. And behind them, always, the empty banks of the famous old ground in which they played on a Saturday afternoon.
Neither of my parents had any interest in the game and there was never even a suggestion that I might be taken to a game. But all that changed when me and my brother went to stay with our Aunt Joan and Uncle Barry in Brighton. It must have been the early eighties and, I guess, our parents must have told them that we were football nuts because one night Barry loaded us into the car and took us to the Goldstone Ground, the home of Brighton and Hove Albion, surely one of the greatest ever names for a football team. We stood on the concrete terrace under the main stand, ate boiled sweets, and watched Gerry Ryan, Peter Ward and Mark Lawrenson beat Wolverhampton Wanderers 3-0 in what was then the old First Division.
The Goldstone Ground... it’s gone now, stolen from the club by their own chairman and sold for development. Apparently it is now home to a Toys R Us store and a Burger King. What a tragedy.
My introduction to Irish grounds came about almost by accident. One Sunday morning when I was about ten a few pals suggested that we go to see ‘Rovers’. I didn’t even know who Rovers were, I didn’t even know they existed. But I was up for it and that afternoon we walked several miles to Milltown to see Shamrock Rovers. It was a revelation.
Milltown has achieved a semi-mythic place in the memories of Rovers fans since it closed in 1987 and it probably lives on more elegantly in the mind that it ever did in real life, but it was, as they say, a proper little ground. For a start it had turnstiles. Oh yeah, no messing about there. I don’t think turnstiles get enough credit among football fans for the part they play in fanning the romance and mystery of young supporter’s imaginations.
They reminded me then, and still do in the older, unsanitised grounds, of castle defences. Tiny slits in an imposing wall that has been designed specifically to keep you out. These medieval looking passageways told me that what lay beyond was so magnificent, so unimaginably exciting that they had to be built just to control the frenzy of the mobs that would demand to see it. Walking through a turnstile was a test, as if you were applying for entry to some clandestine cult.
“What do you want?”
“I want to see what's inside”
“Do you now?”
“Yes please”
“Hmm, who sent you?”
“No-one, I just saw the lights and the people and...”
“There’s nothing inside, you must be mistaken young sir”
“But I saw the floodlights. I saw them with my own eyes.“
“I SAID... there is nothing inside. Nothing! Do you hear?”
“I have a letter from the Cardinal, he said to ask for D’Artagnan”
“The Cardinal, eh? Do you have gold?”
“I have a tenner if that’s any good”
“Go forth young sir, you’ll find D’Artagnan over by the chip van, wearing the new away kit and selling fanzines.”
Milltown had stands too, and crumbling concrete terraces, and a corrugated tin roof. Furthermore it had fans, lots of them, shouting and swearing, singing and chanting. The terraces were filled with denim jackets and hard looking men (as it seemed to me then) with scarves tied around their wrists. There were surges that swept you off your feet when a goal was scored and a sense of belonging that was almost intoxicating.
Over the years I have been to every ground in the country and I still get a gentle buzz when I pull up to Finn Park, or the Brandywell, or St Colman’s Park. They all have their own personality, their own sense of appeal, and they all have one thing in common; that this is where it happens, this is where the football is played. I think the most common thought I have had whenever I have arrived at a new ground is ‘So, this is it, the place I’ve read about’. It doesn’t have to be elegant or impressive, I don’t look for that in a football ground, it just has to be there, in whatever form history and circumstance have decreed.
On Friday afternoon I am getting ready to set off for Wexford to see the Youths take on Mervue United in the First Division. I know what to expect at Ferrycarrig Park, a place that is newer and, perhaps, less dramatic than many of the older venues around the country. It is certainly less exciting in the sense that it lacks many of the paraphernalia that we associate with football grounds but I will still feel a slight turn in the pit of my stomach when I pull into the gravelled car park and see the lights glowing over the club house. It may not be the Maracana, hell, it isn’t even the Carlisle Grounds, but it is still the home of Wexford Youths FC, a place where the past, present and future events of our league will play out. I have my letter from the Cardinal and if I see D’Artagnan I’ll tell him you were asking for him.
About Simon O'Gorman
Simon O'Gorman began reporting for Extratime in 2010. He remembers Milltown and Flower Lodge and, back in the mists of time, saw Diego Maradona play at Lansdowne Road. He now lives in Co Kildare and … View Full Profile