Broadfield Stadium

Wednesday 17 August 2011

Crawley Town 3-0 Southend United

Aerial shot of the Broadfield Stadium (Bing Maps)

Programme - £3.00

Ratings

Overall Ground Quality : 6/10

Ease of getting there : 6/10

Atmosphere : 8/10

Programme : 6/10

View of Action : 7/10

Quality of the game : 7/10

The "football" feeling : 5/10

Chances of coming here for a random game : 1/10

Legroom : N/A

Surrounding area : 2/10

Overall : 48/100

West Stand

South Terrace

North Terrace

Crawley Town - Blue Square Premier Champions 2011

East Terrace

South Terrace

North Terrace

West Stand

North Terrace

South Terrace

West Stand

North Terrace

South Terrace

West Stand

North Terrace

South Terrace

West Stand

North Terrace

East Terrace

Crawley Town 3-0
Southend United

Adrian and I set off at 8:30am travelling down the M1
southbound towards Luton Town and arriving there at 9:45. Kenilworth road hold
10,226 supporters and famously the ground once invested in an artificial pitch
between 1985 and 1991 and not forgetting the unusually positioned turnstiles
into the Oak road stand. Our next stop was St Albans City who play at Clarence
Park which holds 4,500. After a brief journey down the A1 we reached Borehamwood.Boreham Wood play at Meadow Park which has a capacity of 4,502 and is also home
of Arsenal Ladies and Watford Reserves. On the other side of the A1 is Barnet
who play at Underhill. Underhill is home also home of Arsenal Reserves and can
hold up to 5,568 fans. Following our
stop at Barnet we took an unexpected stop at Wingate and Finchley. Finchley F.C. were formed in 1874, which makes
them one of the oldest football clubs in London. It is at Finchley's home
ground, The Harry Abrahams Stadium that Wingate and Finchley play. The ground
was originally called Summers Lane in the Finchley F.C. days, until the ground
was named after Harry Abrahams, a long time Wingate F.C fan. Wingate F.C. was a
Jewish club, named after Orde Wingate. In 1975 they joined up with Leyton F.C.
under the name Leyton Wingate, but they parted in 1991. Wingate's original
ground had to be demolished to make way for the M1 to be built. At one time the
England team used to train on their pitch. After a fairly easy journey
on the north circular seeing the iconic Wembley Stadium, we arrived at Brentford’sGriffin Park. Griffin Park holds over 12,000 people and famously has a pub on
each corner of the ground. Griffin
Park is beneath the flight path of Heathrow Airport and the roofs of the stadium
are used as a large advertising space because of this. Next
was a visit to Kingston upon Thames where AFC Wimbledon and Kingstonian both
play at Kingsmeadow. Kingsmeadow holds 5,194 and has been home to AFC Wimbledon
since 2002 and Kingstonian since it opened back in 1989. We then took the short
journey to Hampton where Hampton and Richmond Borough play. Beveree Stadium
hold 3,500 supporters. After struggling to get to Twickenham earlier in the day
due to diverted traffic, we decided to attempt getting there again. We arrived
at the home of rugby union just before 2pm where we even managed to surprisingly
get in and take pictures inside! Next was a trip to where Woking and Hayes and
Yeading both play. The Kingfield Stadium holds just over 6,000 fans and at the
time of our visit couldn’t drive to the grounds car park due to construction
work on the road towards the ground. Our final ground stop before Crawley was
to the famous Leatherhead. Leatherhead famously almost beat Leicester City at
Filbert Street back in 1975. City eventually fought back to win 3-2 after being 2-0 down at Half Time.
Leatherhead play at Fetcham Grove which has a capacity of 3,400 and was where
the FA Cup fixture against Leicester City was to be played but the fixture was
reversed due to the ground not being up to safety standards at the time. We
reached our final destination, Crawley, just after 6pm and we parked a short
walk from the ground on Anglesey Close. At this point we wanted to get some
dinner before going into the ground and we decided to pay a visit to the Half
Moon pub which is the only and closest pub near the ground. On our approach we
noticed it quite clearly advertised “Great Pub food all day” until we realised
as we went in the food being served was a very poor match day menu. We decided
to walk back towards the ground and eat inside. Funnily Adrian decided to have
a Steak pie which comically fell apart in his hands! The Broadfield Stadium
holds just under 5,000 spectators and is owned by the Crawley Borough Council
and was built in 1997. The game saw Crawley Town beat Southend United by 3
goals to nil. Goals scored by man of the match Dean Howell and two goals by
Matt Tubbs. We managed to leave Crawley just before 10pm and eventually getting
back just after 12am even after the M1 being closed at Junction 19.