Done the 92 questionnaire – CHRIS WHITMAN

Chris Whitman

I was probably “interested” by the time I got to the 50s, but I didn’t really think I could get the job done until I was in the 80s.  As an expat, I didn’t necessarily expect to be in the UK long enough to complete the task.  Between that, a pandemic-driven gap, several rail strikes and quite a few of the grounds being a long, long way from London and well-down the pyramid 92-wise, I didn’t really think I had a fighting chance on a full 92 until I ticked off four in April 2024 to get to 85 (sequentially Wrexham, Harrogate, Tranmere and Barrow).

Between 12-ish-hour round-trips, refraining from missing Fulham matches and having a range of things I like to fit in on a Saturday, nine of my last 11 grounds became Tuesday overnights (actually Monday night for Fleetwood Town).  God Bless mid-week EFL football!

I will note that Easter Mondays have been very fertile for me.  If every day were Easter Monday, I would have hit the 92 at least five years earlier.

As the gaffer likes to say, the best ability is availability.  The sequencing along the home stretch really came down to which clubs were at home on nights I could get there.

I did feel it somewhat apropos that my 92nd was Accrington Stanley.  Much of my traveling has been following Fulham; Stanley is the only of my final 26 first-time visits to a Club that has hosted Fulham in my 18 years in the UK.  However, that was in the FA Cup fourth-round back in 2010 before I had cemented my credentials as a traveling hooligan.  Also, peculiarly, the crowd size at Stanley was the smallest for my first visit to any of the current 92 (1,503 on 11 March 2025).

Of my 92, 42 first visits were following the Fulham, almost always with some combination of my kids, wife and a core of Fulham friends.  I’ve made an eventual visit following Fulham to 13 of the other 50 grounds.  All these fellow attendees have been to several dozen grounds, as many as 60-70, but none have tried to “build their count” spending a Tuesday night in Barrow or Grimsby.

I hit Fleetwood-Accrington for 86 on Monday night about a week before Christmas in ’24. Returning to the UK following several weeks of holiday-related travel, I then figured out I could hit Grimsby-Salford-Bradford-Morecambe on successive Tuesdays beginning late January.  I simply had to execute week-by-week.  By the second of those four, I was confident I would finish, having also selected Carlisle and Accrington dates for March.

Easy!  This is unquestionably Fulham’s Day of Destiny at Fratton Park on 11 May 2008.  When it had become apparent due to decisive leads for Reading and Birmingham City that only a win would suffice, diminutive Danny Murphy broke a goal-less stalemate, heading home a Jimmy Bullard free kick in the 76th-minute.  Our lads made it stand and stayed up on goal diff, having won four of the final five to get to 36 points.  Truly a Great Escape!

I’ve done at least eight doubleheaders, which aren’t too onerous given the concentration of clubs in or near London and staggered kick-offs.  The only that counts toward the 92 is Palace.  Easter Monday again – I saw Palace-Southampton in the afternoon followed by a Fulham-Chelsea MNF match in 2012.  I’ve also made my first visit to National League Maidenhead United and my first non-friendly visit to Wycombe as part of these doubleheaders.

First, whether Bromley or otherwise, the lower-league grounds within the 92 have a community vibe that the behemoths can’t realistically replicate.  Second, the entirety of Hayes Lane could probably qualify as safe-standing.  And third, it offers a complimentary hospitality room that easily beats anything available at the Emirates for the basic price of a ticket.  Notably, however, the “song catalogue” still has substantial overlap between Hayes Lane and the Emirates!

I’ve had a few own goals.  In May 2018, I boarded on the wrong side of the train platform at Euston station.  I had intended to go to Coventry-Morecambe but soon deduced I was bound for Stoke-on-Trent.  With a bit of re-strategizing on train routes and neither the Potters nor Port Vale home that afternoon, I made my way to Crewe for a second visit …. but at least some football that day, probably more than my mishap deserved.

Six months later, I was headed to Port Vale-Sunderland for a first-round FA Cup match, only to find out once arriving in Stoke that the match was on Sunday, the following day.  I returned home from this foray with my tail between my legs!

The previous month I had been in Wimbledon with family around lunchtime on a Saturday.  I was hoping to get dispensation to go Kingsmeadow for Wimbledon-Portsmouth, and, following lunch, I did.  It would be my first visit for a non-friendly, having seen the Wombles host a Fulham XI in 2010.  Upon arrival, the ticket office told me the match was sold-out.  Really?  I clearly should have checked.  What do I do?  I walked around the ground, found an open gate, slipped through and blended in on the terrace with the traveling support only a few feet away from the legendary John Anthony PFC Westwood.

Honestly, not too many low points, though some pies are much better than others with chicken balti being my steady.  At Carlisle, I tried scotch pie for the first time.  I would describe it as a hamburger patty surrounded by a very greasy, flaky crust.  Not really for me, but I did finish it!

It was already League One when I moved to the UK in April 2007.  I’m more likely to facetiously refer to it as League Three than Division Three.

Overall, the grounds have been remarkably welcoming, particularly down in Leagues One and Two, which, honestly, really “make” the 92.  The unique away-end hospitality area at Wigan made an early impression.  That was #15 for me back in January 2011.

As far as least welcoming, the only thing that immediately comes to mind is that I found the Villa Park stewards aggressively hostile on my first few visits, more likely to cultivate trouble than promote peace.  This observation was a notable departure from elsewhere, and I really struggle to recall “inhospitability” elsewhere.

Notably, the overall spirit of hospitality continues beyond the grounds.  I really couldn’t have seriously undertaken the 92 without the footballgroundguide.com and trainline.com websites.  The west coast Glasgow Express train line also deserves a shout-out – there are tons of clubs heading up that way in Lancashire and beyond.

I was asked at Port Vale whether I was a scout and at Walsall whether I was there to buy the club.  No and no!

My January 2020 trip to Forest Green Rovers was disrupted by a rail-line problem.  We must still have been at least 30 miles from the ground and had made an unscheduled stop at a station along the way.  There was no clarity that train service would resume even within an hour or two.  So, two Korean tourists also in my predicament – a father-teenage son tandem, the younger hard-core FGR – and I shared a taxi to The New Lawn to see the proverbial greenest club the world has ever seen.

In April 2024, my wife Faith and I celebrated her birthday in the away end at Wrexham, having secured tickets through Crawley Town.  Faith is a Fulham season-ticket holder, genuine football supporter and devotee of Welcome to Wrexham, so she fancied a trip to the Racecourse that was her first visit to Wales and coincided with her birthday.  She certainly quaffed a few birthday pints in The Turf, the pub adjacent to the ground!

Having progressed to this stage, I certainly want to stay current on “the maintenance” and am enthusiastically anticipating Everton’s new Bramley-Moore Docks when the new season rolls around.  I’ve also been trying to hedge my relegation risk, attending National League matches at about half the current fifth-division grounds.

Candidly, I’ve come to enjoy lower-league football and have been surprisingly impressed by many of the L1 and L2 grounds, so continuing to go to new entrants is appealing.  In my kids’ eyes, the real question is whether I’ll undertake the MLS, as I have done several of the other American pro sports leagues.

I have tons of programmes, physical tickets and customer-reference numbers that come in handy for promotion and EFL Trophy finals.  I also have a beloved backpack that I “retired” two seasons ago after 20 years of unrelenting use.  It’s probably been to at least 80% of the 92 outside London.
However, I don’t have a consistent souvenir across the 92.  If memory serves, I didn’t see match programmes at a couple of them.  Plus, I eventually got to a point where I just had far too many match programmes.  I couldn’t risk my marriage continuing to collect programmes I would never look at ever again, so I stopped buying them.  And then, of course, QR codes and digital ticketing took over, which I’ve turned out to appreciate despite initial resistance.

At this point, I think I also have a far-above-average sense of English and Welsh geography and must be in an extremely high percentile among expats.