Match: v Weymouth - Blue Square Premier

Date: Saturday, August 30th, 2008

Result: Weymouth 2 Cambridge United 2

The Journey

Departure Time: 8am

Arrival at Ground: The dire warnings of traffic helpfully posted on the Club website proved to be well founded, particularly after a coffee stop at the ill-named Winchester Services. The word 'service' wasn't applicable here as shuttered outlets and covered trolleys meant long queues.

These queues were a taste of things to come as the roads quickly became bogged down under the weight of traffic heading for the Great Dorset Steam Fair and Blandford and the Bournemouth Air Show. Why so many people should want to undertake a frustratingly slow journey just to go and look at some air is beyond me, but I guess there's no accounting for taste. Road works, a limited amount of dual carriageway and an unhealthy rash of roundabouts didn't help either.

After a much-needed quick stop at Dorchester, where rarely can anyone have been so pleased to visit a supermarket, we finally got to the ground a little after 1pm having taken a good half hour to travel the final eight miles or so into Weymouth.

At The Ground

The Ground: Although the press gates were resolutely shut, Weymouth's Chief Executive kindly let me into the ground early to get my broadcast kit set up. This also gave me the chance for a quick look round before the hectic part of the day began.

The ground is nestled in the hills on the edge of town - though not the edge with easy road links to the outside world - if all goes to plan we will not be visiting the Wessex Stadium too many more times. According to the programme, the club is in the throes of developing a community stadium as part of the 2012 Olympic legacy (This part of the Dorset coast will be hosting the sailing events). In the meantime, although described by the programme article as 'dilapidated', the current set up looks as though it will be perfectly serviceable for a while yet... mind you, the article was written as though it were already 2012 and used words like 'future-proof', so there might be some degree of pie in the sky-ness about it.

Anyway 'back to the present', to misquote Dr. Emmett Brown in Robert Zemeckis' trilogy of films. The current set-up has low terracing on three sides, each of which has an area of roof covering its centre section and all three linked by the continuous breezeblock wall at their back. Wide, sky-blue gates are spaced regularly along this wall. The reason for the number of easy exits quickly became apparent once the game started, as the ball regularly cleared the low walls. During some of United's leaner years, I'm sure I saw players cover less ground during a match than the relays of stewards that were regularly despatched to retrieve a ball.

The remaining side of the ground is part-filled by a large stand of seats, the bottom row of which starts eight or ten feet above ground level. The view from press area at the back of this stand isn't bad, despite having to peer through the lower portions of the television gantry that is unhelpfully placed right in front of it. You can see the sea through a gap between the hills if you look to the right from this stand - at least you can when the air is a little less misty - while behind the stand to the left there was a great view of the speedway track gearing up for a meeting later that evening.

The terrace facing the main stand is called the 'Compton Stand', but there is no sign of an Edrich Stand. This is probably just as well... although I would have loved to be scheduled to be commentating from Lords' Cricket Ground I was meant to be at Weymouth. Other than the name, there doesn't seem to be any similarity between the stands at the Wessex Stadium and the home of English cricket, and I'm pretty sure you can't see a divisional Police Headquarters, a dilapidated bus and an old trawler over the back of the Compton Stand when Kevin Petersen strides out to bat for England. Test Match Special commentator Henry Blofeld would be thrilled through... and he would also have been delighted by the ornithological range on the pitch before the match, which included assorted gulls, a pied wagtail and a low-flying sand martin that skimmed the blades of grass. Given the local bird life, it was just as well that a man with a cloth wiped all the crush barriers before the match.

United Fans: Plenty of singing and drumming throughout the game, their numbers were swelled ten minutes into the match when the away travel coach arrived. Weymouth helpfully kept all the away turnstiles open later than they would normally do to allow the late arrivals into the ground as quickly as possible.

View from Away End: Unlike last season, United fans were given the whole of one end and part of the main stand side, so the view wasn't bad.

Home Fans: Many changed ends at half time, bringing them closer to the United fans. But they had little to cheer for three quarters of the match - so they didn't. They enjoyed the final portion of the game though, rather too much in the case of a ball boy who was told to move after celebrating the equaliser in front of the U's fans.

Police/Stewards: There were a couple of police and several stewards on duty, but they had little to do except have a word or two with a home fan who overstepped the mark.

Programme: £2.50 for 48 pages. Plenty of adverts, but not a great number of articles. It would appear that Terras' manager John Hollins is justly proud of his MBE; it's mentioned every time his name appears.

Food/Drink: A couple of outlets were available to away fans, the one behind the goal protected by what looked like a goal net and a larger one along the side. The burgers (£2.40) they served were, apparently, more tasty than they smelled. Meanwhile in the press box, the reporter from the local paper managed to rustle up a cup of tea before the match, served in a proper cup with a saucer!

State of Toilets: Small, but adequate.

Afterwards

The Journey Home: There were long queues in the car park after the match, despite the crowd being only 1,300. Fortunately, those queues had dissipated by the time I was ready to go. The lines of stodgy traffic through which we had battled on the way had also vanished, so the journey home was far more straightforward. It was, however, a long day - so long that we wondered whether the fireworks we saw as we drove along the M25 might have been for Guy Fawkes Night!

Mileage: 363.3 miles

Total Distance for Season: 952.8 miles

Mark Johnson, with additional reporting by David Gray, Paul Johnson, Ryan Johnson and Gordon McMillan

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