Hallam 1-1 Chesterfield Adm £5 Prog £2 ‘The Oldest Ground In The World ™’ has been on my to-do-list for some time, and the first day of my long-awaited three-day holiday seemed a perfect opportunity to take a leisurely drive up through the peak district and over to the western edge of Sheffield. Long story short, if there’s a worse place than the start of Snake Pass for your alternator belt to snap and take the power steering with it then I’d love to hear about it. By the time I’d wrestled the car the next 20 miles to Sheffield I had arms like Mr T. Made it with half hour to spare, just time to pop to Crosspool Fish Bar, where with the best doner kebab meat I’ve ever tasted things began to look up, slightly. The ground was worth the effort, a mixture of old and new with the perimeter stone walling behind the top end and around the rear of the cricket pavilion on the far side. The pitch was roped off on the far side from the cricket pitch with only three sides open the spectators. There’s a narrow section of covered terrace wedged between the top goal and the small car park. This looks very recent, as does the clubhouse and seated stand on the left-hand side. There is a slope of Bostock’s Cup-Pontefract Athletic proportions, which Hallam attacked in the first-half with little success. I was somewhat preoccupied during the game, spending bits of it on the phone to the breakdown people, and having popped out to check on the car at half time, only just got back inside to see Chesterfield’s opener a couple of minutes into the second half. Hallam levelled through a Simon Murfin penalty fifteen minutes from time. Friendly people, worth the trouble to visit. Spent the next three hours drinking Doom Bar in the Plough Inn over the road, waiting for a very, very nice man to come and tow the car the 50-odd miles home. Well, I wasn’t going to be driving, and I can think of worse places to be stranded. Arrived back home just before 2am. At least when I go back to work and people ask if I went anywhere nice for my holiday I can say, “Yes. Sheffield. Had breakdown.” That should put pay to any follow up questions.
Posted on: Tue, 15 Jul 2014 13:10:04 +0000
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