Match: v Ebbsfleet United - Blue Square Premier

Date: Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008

Result: Ebbsfleet 1 Cambridge United 1

The Journey

Departure Time: 4.20pm

Arrival at Ground: The M11 and M25 were surprisingly clear, so the journey to 'the Fleet' was plain sailing all the way to the QEII Bridge at Dartford. Everything changed here though, and there was nose-to-tail traffic for the remainder of the journey.

We had left in plenty of time, so the queuing traffic wasn't a tremendous inconvenience and we parked at the ground at about 5.40pm, having overtaken the team bus en route when they mistook the entrance of a derelict industrial estate for that of the ground. It was an easy mistake to make though. Sandwiched between a building site and a bus graveyard, the puddles in the car park were so deep and numerous that a fleet of small boats were needed to ferry people from their cars to the ground... well, they could have been!

The post-industrial wasteland effect in the car park was completed by a massive electricity pylon that overshadowed the scene and was the evening roost for a large flock of starlings that apparently took a cavalier approach to the 'danger of death' warning on the pylon.

At The Ground

The Ground: The other side of large bank of nettles and a larger ivy-clad fence, the ground verges somewhere between quaint and dilapidated. By and large the Main Stand, that runs virtually the length of one side of the pitch, falls into the latter category. Sitting on one of the large plastic seats in the wood-framed construction, you could do with wearing a hat as centuries of rust and paint are dislodged from the underside of the roof every time the ball hits it.

To the left of this stand, seats are bolted onto an old terrace beneath a roof that grudgingly covers the back row... but only just.

Continuing round, more terrace runs the length of the other side of the pitch, with a similarly disreputable-looking roof covering the centre section. Brave cameramen perch on a little gantry that looks so precariously attached that those starlings on the deadly pylon in the car park seem assiduous sticklers of health and safety in comparison.

You can see trains through the gap between this stand and the previous one, their lights shining brightly once night falls as they carry their cargo of passengers oblivious to the drama unfolding so close to them as they rumble by.

Uncovered terracing is at the remaining end of the ground. This turns out to be the other side of that ivy-clad fence, albeit with red-painted hardboard between the supporters and the flora and, as it is open to the elements, is of course the area allocated to away fans. Surprisingly, inclement weather was as absent as a roof. The heavy duty cables from the pylon in the car park lead across a corner of this terrace then high above the pitch towards a 'colleague' that continues the march across the countryside, carrying their electric cargo.

The 'Fleet Learning Centre' has been dropped in under the floodlight between the away terrace and the Main Stand. The only building in the ground that looks even remotely new, it has been partly sunk into the ground, making it look more 'Learning Bunker' than 'Learning Centre'.

United Fans: In usual good voice and good numbers. Not for the first time someone managed to smuggle a smoke bomb into the ground. The direction of the wind spoiled the effect rather, but it did give the stewards and police the chance to display their prowess at synchronised talking into radios.

View from Away End: No roof, so no pillars to get in the way of the view. The only obstruction is a ubiquitous television gantry, but that is relatively easily avoided on a large terrace.

Home Fans: Ebbsfleet's FA Trophy win seemed to have boosted the crowd a little from last season, but they were generally fairly quiet. A few denizens of the Main Stand were the only exception to this, but their grasp of the game seemed so limited that their shouts were on the obscure side of random.

Police/Stewards: Were very good at all talking into their radios at the same time as witnessed by the smoke bomb incident and, later in the game, when an Ebbsfleet fan was taken ill. But other than spells of lengthy muttering into their lapels, where those radios were attached, they were fairly unobtrusive. At least they were, apart from the Chief Steward who led the teams out onto the pitch before the match. His attempts to elicit applause from the fans in the main stand were met with a response that could, at best, be described as 'mixed'.

Programme: £2.50 for 64 pages. There was a reasonable amount to read behind a laminated, glossy cover. Loads of adverts though, many of which seemed to be on a right hand page, which undermined the layout a little.

Food/Drink: Bacon rolls (£3.50) were focussed on the bacon rather than the roll and made up for the chips that had such an odd taste that even the iron nerves and strong stomachs of the Travellers' Tales researchers couldn't cope with them and threw them away after only managing to eat a couple.

State of Toilets: Although they were basically an open gutter, you might think that the lack of roof would prevent them being too pungent. You'd be wrong. They did look as though they'd been painted recently... so that's all right then.

Afterwards

The Journey Home: At that time of night even the M25 wasn't too bad, despite the inevitable set of road works closing all but the hard shoulder. While the road works were okay, I did have some trepidation as I queued to enter them following a car with a double mattress strapped precariously to its roof. It was like being in a car insurance advert. Fortunately, the cones reduced traffic speed enough for disaster to be avoided and the mattress somehow stayed on the car to which it had been strapped, rather than mine.

Mileage: 116.9 miles

Total Distance for Season: 1,069.7 miles

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

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