Done the 92 questionnaire – John ROGERS (jonjo1960)

John at Portsmouth

I bought my first Leeds United season ticket in 1975 and have had one continuously since 1991. Although I visited several away grounds in the Seventies, including some that no longer exist, I went 28 years without checking off a new ground, due to a combination of home, work and financial commitments. As a teenager, I used to get my dad (who had no interest in football) to drive through the UK’s towns and cities just so I could look at grounds – their architecture had always fascinated me.

The final ground became an obvious choice as my odyssey was nearing its end: my last few clubs were all situated a long way from home – Bristol Rovers, Plymouth Argyle, Exeter City and Portsmouth. Pompey are my son-in-law’s team and Fratton Park still has the hallmarks of what makes older football grounds special: quirkiness, atmosphere and some Archibald Leitch trademark design features. So, Portsmouth was a bit of a no brainer, especially as I couldn’t get a ticket for Leeds’s game at Coventry at the time.

Over the years I have had a number of travel partners. Initially, a neighbour provided transport to my first few away games and introduced me to the pleasures of watching games as a neutral, i.e. without the stress of watching Leeds. A long-standing friend has sometimes accompanied me if Leeds were playing and we were able to get away tickets (increasingly difficult). Latterly, and until I retired, work colleagues were often happy to tag along, also my daughter and, when bribed by a stay in a nice hotel, my wife. I flew solo for just over half the games.

Ground no. 66 (The Emirates, Arsenal) was my last ‘new’ away ground before the first Covid 19 lockdown called a halt to my groundhopping in early 2020. A combination of completing 40 years’ service at work, a generous pension transfer offer, and the birth of my grandson persuaded me that it was a good time to retire. This freed me up to knock off the remaining grounds, in towns and cities which I would not have visited through work.

This had to be Portsmouth, which fittingly marked the first time I completed ‘The 92’. Obtaining tickets for some clubs had proved so difficult that I had gone as far as to purchase a membership on occasion, but Fratton Park required an even greater outlay. Portsmouth were pushing for promotion to the Championship, so their game against Shrewsbury Town was a sell-out, meaning that there was no alternative but to buy a hospitality package for my wife and me.
Matchday started with a tour of Fratton Park, courtesy of the gentlemen who run the Pompey Historical Society, followed by a three-course meal with unlimited alcohol, prime seats in the main stand, a signed match ball and pitch side photographs. Generally, I would prefer to watch my football standing up, but this made what was a significant day for me pretty special.

I have managed to take in new grounds on consecutive days on several occasions. But I have only managed two new grounds on the same day once, and that was this year in Scotland, when I went to Pittodrie, Aberdeen, before driving across the city to visit the Balmoral Stadium, Cove Rangers. I saw the grand total of one goal – not a great return for a 650-mile round trip.

I assume Hayes Lane is referenced as Bromley were the most recent addition to the 92, until this season, when the Hill Dickinson Stadium, Everton, took that accolade. Obviously, stadium naming rights have become a lucrative source of income for the top clubs, but how much better would Bramley Moore Dock sound? Everton’s and Arsenal’s grounds are similar of course, but I reckon the latter will never have dock gates and a hydraulic accumulator within their estate.
Personally, I prefer more characterful grounds – think Kenilworth Road, Luton, with its away entrance between terraced houses…or even Arsenal’s old ground, Highbury, for similar reasons.

In 1978, Leeds had lost the first match of the two-legged League Cup semi-final at Elland Road to Nottingham Forest. I must have still felt confident about turning things around at the City Ground, but unfortunately, the only thing that turned around was the coach on which I was travelling.

The early departure had required me to bunk off school. Not having been to the City Ground before, I hadn’t realised just how close it was to the River Trent, but on subsequent visits I came to appreciate the setting – it really is very attractive. However, on this occasion freezing fog had rolled in on the river, leaving referee Clive Thomas with no option but to call the game off. Disconsolately, I returned home. It was the only occasion to date that I have been to a game that was postponed. 

I got hauled over the coals by the Geography teacher the next day, who asked me why I had missed his lesson. Ever honest, I told him I had gone to watch Leeds at Forest. He gave me some lecture about how playing truant to watch a football match was unacceptable, to which I retorted that it had been postponed, so I hadn’t actually watched anything. He wrote to my father regarding the matter, but Dad sent me with a letter stating that I had gone to the game with his blessing and that he was confident I would be successful in my A Level Geography (which I subsequently was). Dad always had my back.

Other than chocolate bars, it is personal policy to avoid football fodder on the basis that it is overpriced and poor quality. I came to this decision on 1 December 1990, after arriving at Elland Road early and buying a burger in a bun, which I am convinced had been cooked for the previous game and just warmed up. Let’s just say that the price I paid went beyond the actual cost on the day.

Both are interchangeable as far as I am concerned, although Division Three is more accurate, as it is the third tier of English football. Personally, I am more exercised by the constant reference to ‘Premier League records’ that almost disregard anything that happened pre- the 1992-93 season.

Plaudits for Portsmouth of course, but then I suppose that should be expected, having paid for a hospitality package. But the staff and fans at Brighton and Swansea proved to be very approachable and helpful.

At the other end of the scale, two clubs come to mind. Firstly AFC Bournemouth. Something that exasperates all football fans are overzealous stewards – you know the sort: closely related to overzealous refs. I had thought that the official charged with controlling what was an orderly queue for the turnstiles might be capable of exercising some common sense, given the fact that we were all soaked to the skin and were all, ostensibly, home supporters. But no, he insisted on unnecessarily frisking children and an elderly grandmother in front of us, before asking a bloke to remove his baseball cap to ensure he was not concealing anything. Just a slightly bald patch as it happened.

However, first prize goes to the stewards at Blackpool. Whilst leaving Bloomfield Road at the end of the game I paused briefly to take a photo of them from behind, framed by a tunnel and looking out onto the pitch. One particularly officious jobsworth took me to task for taking pictures with an SLR camera without the appropriate accreditation. I pointed out that just because I had decent equipment, it didn’t mean I was a professional, in the same way that his high-vis jacket didn’t vest in him any real authority. He apparently didn’t buy that and told me not to bring the camera again. Obviously, I responded that I had no intention of ever returning to Blackpool as it was a dump. To date, I haven’t.

The most bizarre incident was a litany of disasters that conspired on the day I went to Forest Green Rovers in December 2022. Firstly, my back ‘went’ as I rolled out of bed, and I was unable to straighten up fully. Obviously, it takes more than that to stop me watching live football, but I needed to catch the Plymouth train in Leeds, alighting at Cheltenham Spa. It was whilst checking my onward connection to Stroud that I realised my mobile was still on the train bound for the south coast. I had two choices: either I immediately returned home, or I continued onwards, completed my mission, and worried about any other mishaps if and when they occurred. Which of course, they did.

A bus from Stroud delivered me to Nailsworth, and a mile walk up the steepest of hills to FGR’s ground. As the game was low on entertainment, and thinking I needed to make sure of all my connections on the return journey, I left the ground with four minutes remaining. Just enough time, as it turned out, to miss two goals and a sending off.

Back at the bus terminus, I learned that buses to Stroud would collect supporters from the ground before picking up those of us waiting in the town. So, I spent the next thirty or so minutes nervously calculating how late the bus could be without missing my train to Cheltenham Spa.
Things really started to go downhill, metaphorically and literally, when the bus appeared at the bottom of the hill, but the driver decided he couldn’t be bothered with our stop, signalled left, and headed back to Stroud. When I finally made it there I had no choice but to part with £45 for a taxi to rush me to Cheltenham Spa…only to find my train was delayed.

Further delays ensued as a result of unscheduled stops in Worcester and Chesterfield, so I missed my train from Leeds home by just 20 seconds. Even worse, the next scheduled service was cancelled, so I had an hour to kill in the station before the final leg of my journey.

Of course all this, and the fact that it was Christmas party season, resulted in overfull carriages of inebriated passengers on the next train, where I spent 35 minutes enduring one particular female broadcasting, to the whole carriage, intimate details of her recent mastectomy and precisely how she and her husband had had to adapt their sex life. Her mates thought she was an absolute marvel, and perhaps she did deserve credit for being so positive. But I thought it was a pity she hadn’t had a laryngectomy.

Since originally completing The 92, I have renewed membership of my own personal club by visiting Hayes Lane, Bromley last season, and the Hill Dickinson, Everton this season. The grounds of other clubs that have made it into the EFL from the National League were visited years ago.

Such is my fascination with football architecture, I see The 92 as an ongoing process, and have made a start on Scotland, where I still have much to do.

I have the programme for every ‘first visit’ with, frustratingly, a couple of gaps where clubs no longer print them. My daughter persuaded me to buy a pin badge for each club I visited, but I had to ‘backfill’ for grounds I had been to years ago. Special mention here to Portsmouth (my badge was free) and Swansea, where it was £1.99. But Brentford should be ashamed - £6 for a cheap tin ‘button’. Obviously, I still have a large number of photographs and ticket stubs, but with digitization the latter are becoming less common.