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First County Visit:	Saturday 17th September 1994
Competition:	Endsleigh League Division 2 – (Tier 3)
Result:	Huddersfield Town 2 – 1 Stockport County
Attendance:	9,526
Away Trip:	67
Away Day:	285
County Line-up	1 John Keeley; 2 Sean Connelly; 3 Lee Todd; 4 Jeff Eckhardt; 5 Mike Flynn; 6 Tony Dinning; 7 Jim Gannon; 8 Peter Ward; 9 Kevin Francis; 10 Alun Armstrong (12 Dean Emerson); 11 Martyn Chalk
Scorer:	Martyn Chalk
Manager:	Danny Bergara
County Visits:	10

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HARDLY THE HAPPIEST OF HUNTING GROUNDS

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As ever, and catalogued in the Leeds Road post, it was the same route with the very same period of contemplation as I crossed Saddleworth Moor.  On that last trip to Leeds Road, construction of what became the McAlpine Stadium had started 2 months previously.  By September 1994, only 4 months after the last league game had been played at Leeds Road, the site had been cleared and there was no evidence left of what I had always regarded as one of the great old fashioned stadiums.

Throughout the posts on this site readers will note that I am no real lover of the new generation of stadium design.  They are a monument to the production of breeze block, and my view is that one architect must have made a lot of money by selling on an identikit design.  That’s where the McAlpine stands out.  It is different.  Still a nice earner for the breeze block manufacturer but with a huge degree of individuality. 

The development of the idea; design and in particular the functionality was outlined back in 1990 as “A Stadium for the Nineties”, brought together by Rod Sheard; Geraint John and Stephen Morley.  The design wasn’t undertaken for Huddersfield, but issues surrounding the inadequacy of Leeds Road in terms of structural deterioration and its lack of facilities for revenue generation, (the place had no facilities for dining and quite incredibly not even an alcohol licence), meant that an alternative was needed.  Simon Inglis, in Football Grounds of Britain (Third Edition 1996), outlines in great detail the process which led to a new stadium, shared with Huddersfield Rugby League team.  It’s worth a read.

The new ground was literally not more than a stone’s throw from Leeds Road, and on my first visit, with Jeff Lawrenson we could look across to the now cleared site.  So, finding the place wasn’t too difficult, and unlike its predecessor there was a sufficiency of car parking.  Only problem with that, as I found that day, and also on later visits, was whilst ample car parking is great, the impact of funnelling that many vehicles out into a series of side streets, and then onto the single main thoroughfare, Leeds Road, doesn’t provide for ease of exit.  But approaching the stadium what was found?  Simon Inglis’ description is very evocative:

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“From almost any angle of approach, the first glimpses are of weirdly white, skeletal arches looming above the rooftops of Huddersfield’s weathered sandstone terraces or between its gasometers and chimneys.  Do these incongruous white structures form part of a bridge, or perhaps a fairground ride?  Closer to, the whiteness of the arches comes sharply into focus against the trees on Kilner Bank, which rises up behind the stadium like a hazy, green backcloth.  McAlpine the stadium may be by name, but from certain angles its setting is almost Alpine by nature.

But closer still and the stadium now cuts right into its surrounds.  The familiar soft colours of a West Yorkshire townscape are now but faded pastels next to the shiny, hard, metallic, almost clinical blues, yellows, reds and greys of the stands”.

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Unlike virtually any other new ground the stands weren’t the rectangular boxes beloved of those architects who want an easy design for easy money, and no doubt cheap and cheerful solutions. The stands are framed on what was termed a ‘banana truss’, providing for a curved roof, and interestingly the overall design actually addressed the needs of the turnstile fodder.  Various studies have shown that a majority of spectators wish to see the action close to the centre of each touchline.  Apparently, the same sort of research had determined that the optimal viewing distance is a 90m circle drawn from the centre spot.  So, the stand roofs weren’t the only thing curved, so were the touchline stands with fewer rows at the ends than in the middle.

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The stadium had opened for business 4 weeks prior to our visit, and that time was only three sided.  The Riverside Stand, (where the dressing rooms; admin and hospitality complexes were) held around 7,000, and on the far side the Kilner Bank Stand had a similar capacity.  The South Stand was substantially completed at that point but wasn’t to open for another 3 months.  At the other end, it was a plot of vacant land, which afforded the view from where Jeff and I were sat of the site where Leeds Road once stood.  The North Stand was built there and opened in 1998. 

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Coming into the ground and taking aside the emptiness of the north end it was impressive.  Just under 10,000 turned up so the (then) capacity of 14,000 wasn’t tested.  A lot of new grounds have teething problems, but this wasn’t one of them.  Clearly a huge amount of thought had gone not only into the design but also the facilities. 

That first game started with a degree of expectation.  We had got off to a decent start to the season after the Wembley heartache 3 month previously and had got 13 points from the 7 games prior to the trip over the hill.  It ended in a 2-1 defeat, (Martyn Chalk on the scoresheet), but the loss was a sign of things to come in our visits there. 

I’ve been 10 times, and seen us pick up the single win, (2-0 at the tail end of the 1999/00 season), and sadly 7 defeats.  Each time we have been there subsequent to September 1994 we have been stationed in the South Stand.  I’m full of praise for the McAlpine as a ground, but can say, without fear or favour, that the lack of any sun, at any time, on the seating in the South Stand, renders it cool at the best of times, and as autumn wends its way into winter it’s bloody freezing!!

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On the left is the Kilner Bank Stand and behind the goal the South Stand, (with its own micro-climate!!)

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One game I particularly recall was the one in March 2005.  It had been an awful season.  We had started the season with Sammy McIlroy in charge; then there was Mark Lillis for a caretaker period of a month or so, and then Chris Turner was appointed.  He came with a decent record in charge at Hartlepool which had seen him take over at Hillsborough.  But it didn’t work out there and he was fired three months before arriving at EP. 

He took over at the turn of the year.  It had been disaster.  Three wins and a paltry 12 points from 15 games meant that we arrived at the McAlpine rock bottom and 14 points from safety.  In the early part of the season the goals, (such as they were), had been coming from Luke Beckett and Warren Feeney, (below), with a contribution from Rickie Lambert.  Beckett had moved on to Sheffield United, (for £50,000), in November and Lambert went round the M60 to Rochdale In February.  Goals were as scarce as the proverbial rocking horse droppings and certainly never enough to challenge the number that were going in at the other end.  A young Adam Le Fondre, (so successful at a whole range of clubs in later years), was only on the verge of the team at that point. 

After Lambert’s departure Turner signed Chris Armstrong from Queen of the South.  He had lasted 6 games up there after spells with both Leeds and Rochdale which didn’t see him make an appearance.  It quickly became apparent why.  Over the years there’s been some poor players – that’s a natural fact when I’ve seen 737 wear the shirt.  But, in my view, Armstrong was up there with them.  (But still not anywhere near the league of ‘Marvellous’ Marvin Robinson a few years later!).  By the time we got to the McAlpine he had started in 9 games, notched but once, (his single goal in senior football), and had been relegated to the bench the previous week.

He didn’t feature at Huddersfield, but we did see a very first appearance in a County shirt of Ezekiel Tomlinson.  Signed by Turner in January after being released by WBA we wondered if he could offer anything.  With the best will in the world the answer was ‘no’.  A substitute appearance at the McAlpine; starts in the next two games and a substitute cameo in a thumping at Wrexham towards the end of the season were his sum total of contributions.  Two players there who came and went without a whimper, like so many before and after them.  It’s a tale of my 57 years.  The Players Page shows just how many transient players we have had, here today and gone tomorrow.  Over the years there have been 265 players who I have seen make 5 or fewer starts!!

Jeff and I settled down in the South Stand, (as chill as ever), that afternoon.  Our mantra over the years has been that ‘we travel more in hope than expectation’.  Not that day.  Hope didn’t even make a fleeting appearance.  It was an absolute certainty that another defeat was to be witnessed, to make it 25 in 38 games that season as we were to wend our way on an inexorable path to the bottom Division.  And all this a mere 5 years and 3 months since we had stood 6^th in the second tier of English football.

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We sat back and awaited the deluge.  But incredibly within 15 minutes we were 3-2 up.  Feeney had helped himself to a hat-trick, the first by a County player since Kevin Francis at Plymouth 12 years earlier.  Was the (virtually) impossible about to happen?

Things looked good until 8 minutes from time, when Huddersfield equalised.  A minute later the inevitable happened and the tin hat was put on it in injury time as a Joe Dolan own goal saw us end up on the wrong side of a 5-3 scoreline.  But there had been a bit of fight.  Avoiding relegation was a long shot but maybe we could end the season with a bit of pride.  The experience of following County for all these years should have told me what was to come.  In the remaining 8 games of the season brought just a single point!!  Two weeks later our fate was sealed, and it was to be League 2 football in 2005/06.  A time to rebuild possibly.  Hardly because 12 months later we were in a fight to the last day to avoid the drop into the Conference.

May 2020

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VISITS

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Day	Date	Competition	Tier / Round	Opponents	Res	F	A	Crowd	Away Day
Sat	17/09/94	Endsleigh League Division 2	Tier 3	Huddersfield Town	L	1	2	9,526	285
Sat	07/02/98	Nationwide Football League – Division 1	Tier 2	Huddersfield Town	L	0	1	11,121	378
Sat	06/03/99	Nationwide Football League – Division 1	Tier 2	Huddersfield Town	L	0	3	11,914	403
Sat	29/04/00	Nationwide Football League – Division 1	Tier 2	Huddersfield Town	W	2	0	14,046	426
Sat	13/01/01	Nationwide Football League – Division 1	Tier 2	Huddersfield Town	D	0	0	10,988	439
Sat	14/12/02	Nationwide Football League – Division 2	Tier 3	Huddersfield Town	L	1	2	7,978	474
Sat	19/03/05 (Highlights)	Coca-Cola Football League – League 1	Tier 3	Huddersfield Town	L	3	5	11,180	526
Sat	09/08/08	Coca-Cola Football League – League 1	Tier 3	Huddersfield Town	D	1	1	15,578	608
Tues	11/08/09 (Highlights)	Carling Cup	Round 1	Huddersfield Town	L	1	3	5,120	635
Sat	26/09/09	Coca-Cola Football League – League 1	Tier 3	Huddersfield Town	D	0	0	12,020	639

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ON MY JOURNEY WITH COUNTY AROUND 180 GROUNDS

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Previously – TWERTON PARK Next stop – MANOR GROUND