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First County Visit:	Saturday 24th February 1990
Competition:	Barclays League Division 4 – (Tier 4)
Result:	Scunthorpe United 5 – 0 Stockport County
Attendance:	3,280
Away Trip:	48
Away Day:	186
County Line-up	1 David Redfern; 2 Malcolm Brown; 3 David Logan; 4 Steve Bullock; 5 Andy Thorpe; 6 Paul Jones; 7 Chris Beaumont; 8 Mark Payne; 9 Keith Edwards; 10 Ian McInerney; 11 Brett Angell
Manager:	Danny Bergara
County Visits:	3

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GIVE ME STRENGTH – AS MY MUM SAID

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Travelling the length and breadth of the country in pursuit of County, I’ve covered the whole area from from Blyth Spartans in the North East to Plymouth in the South West and from Brighton to Carlisle on the other diagonal.  And on those travels there has been some wondrous architecture. Structures that capture the eye and the imagination. But Glanford Park … I really do despair. 

The first purpose built ground in the country since Roots Hall over 30 years earlier it has essentially provided the benchmark for all the new stadia constructed since then.  Many of them far greater in terms of capacity, and superficially, at least easier on the eye, but at heart still the same.  A metal girder skeleton clothed in breeze-block.  No more and no less.  A search of Google failed to uncover which “architect” was responsible for Glanford Park, but failed to come up with the answer. Maybe the perpetrator has engaged one these companies that erase identities from the web, for fear of being identified and associated with a stadium which was described by Jon Savage of the Sunday Times as “the most hideous ground in the country”. 

Perhaps a little less starkly, but equally damning, Simon Inglis saw it as “..dull and despite a welcoming sign over the main gate, it is only the presence of four beanpole floodlight masts which distinguish it from any other anonymous off-the-shelf warehouse”.  It warms neither the soul or heart and certainly not the body if my experiences from being there on three wintry afternoons are anything to go by.

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A ground that County never played at. When we faced Maidstone they had decamped to Dartford. From this aerial view it looks the type of ground which I would have liked to visit. A little more characterful than the likes of Glanford Park

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This was only the second new ground for me in over 14 months. I’d been to Brunton Park just under seven weeks previously, but before the trip up through the Lake District there’d been 16 other Away Days in the intervening period since going to Millmoor, but all of them on paths previously trodden, and within relatively easy reach of home..  In the interim I’d missed picking up Torquay; Carlisle; Grimsby; Maidstone; Aldershot; Gillingham; and Colchester. 

I would get to each and every one of these later, (albeit of course that Maidstone had by then decamped to Watling Street).   They previously played at the Athletic Ground on London Road in Maidstone and looking at a picture I’d have liked to have witnessed something there.  But they moved to a ground share at Dartford, prior to the sorry demise of the (original) Stones.  We’ll return to Watling Street on Away Trip 51. 

There was a good reason for this hiatus in traipsing the highways and byways.  In March 1989, Julie and I became the very proud parents of our first-born, Robert so quite rightly my concerns were other than football.  Quite strangely, call it co-incidence or otherwise, as I write this In November 2018, Rob and his wife Katy are due to make us grand-parents in around 4 weeks time!  Things have come full-circle.

Since the trip to Brunton Park there had been a Leyland Daf Cup exit at the Shay; and that awful 5 goal debacle at Hartlepool, (more of which in Away Trip 22) which was followed by a m ore heartening 3 goal win at York, with a brace from Brett Angell and one from Ian McInerney. So Arthur Brotherton and I set off for Glanford Park looking for a Bootham Crescent rather than a Victoria Ground performance.

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So in February 1990, with Rob just under 12 months old it was time to use the M62 / M18 / M180 route to Scunthorpe once again. It had been 878 days since my last, and final visit to the Old Showground.  They had left the place in May 1988 and moved to Glanford Park the following season. I’d missed the trip there in January 1989 for obvious reasons.  I’ve got to say that my initial impressions were favourable. 

It’s hard to think of a ground more accessible.  I could pick the motorway up no more than half a mile from my house, and get off it within 300 yards of the ground.  That kind of access always commends itself, and compares more than favourably with the four places I deem to be the most difficult to get to – namely Ipswich; Colchester and Yeovil from the League days and Lowestoft from our time in the wilderness.  No doubt when we get to those Away Trips there’ll be more to tell…..

The initial view was soon diluted, and to some tune. Simon Inglis was spot on.  Apart from the badging and floodlights there was simply no way that this could or would be identified as a football ground.  Completely uniform, with no height it simply didn’t portend well.  It was neat enough inside … but soulless. Around about 15 rows of seating in the Main, (Family), Stand; much of the same opposite in the Clugston Stand, and at either end terracing.  The away fans were contained in what was colloquially know as the Railway End, tipping its hat to the Scunthorpe to Grimsby line which ran just behind it.  It was on that first visit that I was to see it as terracing. 

There’s not, as you may have gathered, much to commend Glanford Park to me, but the terracing was one of the few plusses.  Not many months after this first visit it fell victim to the trend for seating, and immediately lost much attraction.  And there was precious little attraction on that February 1990 afternoon.  We came into the game in 2^nd place, a point behind Carlisle with 15 games of the season left.  We left it still on the same number of points, but with a goal difference of 8 reduced to 3.  It was an absolutely abysmal performance against a team which lay merely in mid-table.  The mathematicians will have worked out that we went down by 5.

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A season of course lasts 46 games, (or it did in what was Division 4 at that time), and there will  be many thing which impact on the final standing.  Late winners, (and losers); questionable refereeing decisions; injuries to key players – they all play a part.  A couple of draws elsewhere that season, and a single goal loss at Glanford Park  would have taken us up automatically rather than being consigned to the heartache of that Saltergate play-off.  Often sides bounce back from a performance like that but we just made it hard.  For a side pushing for promotion we harvested a meagre 11 points from the next 10 games.  I’ve often wondered whether it. was that afternoon at Glanford Park that led us to spending another season in the fourth tier.  And before we escaped it, 15 months later there were another 15 Away Days, and the delights of Ninian Park and Watling Street to uncover.

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It’s been eleven years since I last went, and given the respective league standings it will be a while before I return, (subject to the vagaries of FA Cup progress of course).  If there is to be a return, and if press coverage is anything to go by it will be a different place.  After years about talk of a new ground, (which would have made it Scunny’s 3^rd in under 40 years), the news is that Glanford Park is to be rebuilt, stand by stand.  It can’t be any worse, but will it be any better?  My money’s on the breeze block manufacturers making a killing again….

April 2020

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VISITS

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Day	Date	Competition	Tier / Round	Opponents	Res	F	A	Crowd	Away Day
Sat	24/02/90	Barclays League Division 4	Tier 4	Scunthorpe United	L	0	5	3,280	186
Sat	03/11/90 (Highlights)	Barclays League Division 4	Tier 4	Scunthorpe United	L	0	3	2,826	197
Sat	07/03/09 (Highlights)	Coca-Cola Football League – League 1	Tier 3	Scunthorpe United	L	1	2	4,890	628

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ON MY JOURNEY WITH COUNTY AROUND 180 GROUNDS

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Previously – BRUNTON PARK Next stop – NINIAN PARK