Monday 10 March 2014

A trip to the West Country - Meadow Park chaos and Gloucester City v Stockport

The view from behind where one of the goals should be at Gloucester City's Meadow Park

If Twitter has seen me produce #WestCountryLIVE, this is like the extended highlights, with a bit of punditry thrown in.

The first day started well, with the promise of a roast dinner waiting for us, and even though we managed a trip to Greggs, and the fabled Burger King, there was still plenty of room for it when we arrived shortly after 9pm.

Despite tempers threatening to boil over as Grant saw that a train heading to Manchester might cause our connection at Reading to be delayed, the journey was largely uneventful.

There was of course standard shoddy use of escalators, and platform based chaos, but that’s par for the course on any train journey. (I apologise for Grant’s language – I have quoted him faithfully)

Once I found out there were televisions on the back of the seats in some First Great Western carriages I was sold that the West Country wasn’t as backward as the rumours suggest.

Day one was largely about the travelling, and the only sights I saw were Gloucester’s plethora of fast-food outlets, the gridlocked station car park and the church featured in Grant’s sister’s wedding album.

As day two began I found out that not only were food provisions ample and immaculately prepared, there was a suitable choice of mug available for my tea too.

The roast awaiting us on arrival was superb, and after an equally satisfying breakfast, the real task at hand began – A trip to Gloucester City’s Meadow Park ground.

Meadow Park has been a wasteland ever since the floods of 2007, causing Gloucester City to ground-share with rivals and make-do with temporary homes.

You can find out more about the chaos by reading Grant’s article here.

However much I’d read in the build-up would not have prepared me for what I saw when we arrived. I knew they hadn’t played there for more than six years, and I had seen the picture of water up to the crossbar, but it really was a horrible sight.

Windows smashed, chairs broken, no sign of a pitch, and with wheelie-bins strewn across what should have been a goalmouth, it really does take a picture to tell this story of 1000 words.



Grant’s video project won’t lack for emotive images, and Gloucester City manager Tim Harris also came along to give us an interview about the situation, then and now.

Many people with links to the area and the club used the phrase ‘when the rains came’ at one point or another this weekend. It sounds biblical or apocalyptic and I would usually jump on the chance to comment on that straight away, but looking at the state of the football ground, it was eerily appropriate.
Explaining to a football manager why he had to hold up a blank sheet of A4 to the camera, and Grant subsequently chasing him to get our microphone clip back, provided as much merriment as we could manage at the ghost town of a ground.

Grant warned me beforehand he wasn’t entirely sure we had permission to be there so I went half expecting to end the night in a police cell, but even though the owners were aware of our presence we still had to scale a small wall to get out. However I can confirm we weren’t arrested and escaped to live another day!

After capturing as much of the horror as we could, we then headed across to Cheltenham where Gloucester City currently ground-share with their biggest rivals, to watch the match and grab some more interviews.

I’m making my way through the non-leagues at the moment, apparently acting as a lucky charm. Having seen Emma’s beloved Billericay Town win last week I managed to conjure up another 2-0 win for Grant’s side.

Being the league above Billericay, the standard was always likely to be slightly higher, but it was no less frenetic, as Stockport struggled to show any sign of their recent Football League status.

Goals either side of halftime made the difference as Gloucester moved out of the relegation zone on goal difference – I’ve been told if it gets tight at the end of the season I may have to go back.
After the game Grant managed to grab a word with long-serving player Tom Webb, who echoed the sentiments of everyone else concerned, about how vital moving back to Gloucester is for the future of the club.

Our course-mate Dito is often heard saying the phrase: “I didn’t cross the Atlantic to be a tourist.” If you saw how much output he manages for the various sites he writes for, along with his presenting duties for NTN24 you’d see what he means. I on the other hand have always been a bit of a tourist…

So having made the trip to help Grant, I managed to grab some souvenirs, enjoy the surroundings, not upset too many of the locals (one exception being where my humour on Twitter wasn’t appreciated) and I left recommending the trip to anyone and everyone.


NB – You probably can’t all go and stay at the Yardley’s… Grant’s parents were very welcoming but I suspect I was only fed and housed because I was there with him.
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