My Matchday - 281 Plainmoor

Torquay United 0v0 Wycombe Wanderers
League Two
Friday 22nd April 2011
This year’s Smudgers Easter break was to a land far far away, reet doon into the south-west of England to tick off the three furthest grounds left to complete the current 92.
The first leg of the treble was a 380 mile drive to Torquay in the Torbay area of Devon. The Torquay name originates from the quay of the ancient village of Torre, which takes its name from the tor rock, which can be seen by the town's Tor Hill Road.
The town's economy was initially based upon fishing and agriculture then in the early 19th century it developed into a fashionable seaside resort, originally frequented by members of the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars and later by Victorian society. The town's warm and healthful climate earned the town the nickname of the English Riviera.
Torquay was the home of “my bread knife’s” favourite writer Agatha Christie, who lived most of her life in the town and as a tribute there’s an "Agatha Christie Mile" tour with plaques, dedicated to her life and work.

Torquay United were formed by a group of school-leavers under the guidance of Sergeant-Major Edward Tomney in 1899. The club originally played friendly matches on Farm fields at the top of Penny's Hill on Teignmouth Road, before joining the East Devon League in 1900.
The club played the next four years at the Recreation Ground, while Plainmoor was being used by Torquay Athletic Rugby Football Club. In 1904 the rugby club secured the lease of the Recreation Ground and United's League rivals Ellacombe moved into the vacated site at Plainmoor, which left United homeless.
The club returned to the farmers field until being forced into another move after the site was sold for development, taking refuge with Torquay Cricket Club in nearby Cricketfield Road for the next four years,
In 1910 United merged with Ellacombe to become Torquay Town, the new club sharing the ground the with local rivals Babbacombe.
After the First World War Devon rivals Plymouth Argyle and Exeter City were both elected to the Football League as founder members of Football League Division Three South, which encouraged both Torquay Town and Babbacombe to merge, restoring the Torquay United name in 1921 and elected into the new league in 1927.

The first wooden grandstand costing £150 transferred from Buckfastleigh Racecourse was built on the east side of the ground in time for United’s debut season in the Football League. Cover was added to the south side terrace in 1933, but little changed at Plainmoor until the 1950’s. The Popular side was partly covered and floodlights were added. The decade also witnessed a record attendance of 21,908 for an FA Cup tie against Huddersfield Town.
The Main Stand was extended in the 1960’s which increased the capacity to 22,000 but just six days after the fire at Valley Parade in 1985 a fire destroyed a third of the stand which saw the capacity fall to under 5,000 due to health and safety matters.

From 1992 Plainmoor finally began to seen some major changes with the mini stand at the Ellacombe Road end replaced with an all-seated Family Stand. The stand is fully covered with a blue cantilever roof holding 1,275 yellow seats and six executive boxes. The stand also has club offices, club shop, as well as the Boots and Laces pub and the 200 Club bar. The directors seats are situated in the middle of the stand below the clock modelled around the club crest.
Away supporters are housed in the Warbro Road End. Cover was added to the terrace in 2000, the roof having a similar style to the opposite goal and has control room at one side.
The Main Stand has a single tier of seats and the extension is made up of yellow wooden seats with a con-iron peaked roof with wooden support beams. Access into both stands are via staircases the sides, where there’s a section of terracing at the front. The stands only run to one side so there’s more terracing towards the Warbro Road End.
The Popular Terrace was rebuilt in 1994, made narrower and fully covered to hold 2,300 fans, with a TV gantry perched on the roof.
The ground is completed by a set of traditional floodlights and the current capacity is 6,000.

The Gulls will look back at this match and wonder how on earth they failed to convert at least one of the numerous chances that would have earned them a well deserved victory and strengthen their position in the League Two play-offs.
Torquay twice hit the wood work, with a Guy Branston header hitting the post and a Ronan Murray effort coming back off the crossbar.
Branston had another header for the hosts and Chris Zebroski forced an excellent save from Wanderers keeper Nikki Bull, but The Gulls biggest culprit was substitute Billy Kee who wasted two glorious chances with just the goalkeeper to beat.
The draw means that Chesterfield are now officially promoted and if Wycombe are to join them in League One next season, then this “lucky draw” could turn out to be a very valuable point.

The Easter holidays started on the Thursday morning with our long haul drive to Devon which took exactly 7 hours including a 30 minute rest stop. Apart from slow moving traffic on the M42 and a busy section on the M5 around Bristol the journey went without a hitch, so we arrived safely at our hotel at 5.45pm
The long hours on the road was made much easier with a good selection of in car CD’s, for example the whole of The Beatles White Album took up a large chunk of time, taking up a good section of the A1 into South Yorkshire.

This was the first time we’ve visited Torquay and I must say we were very impressed with the town and thoroughly enjoyed our stay in the English Riviera , having a pleasant night out on Thursday and a good Good Friday.
Special thanks to Tim Herbert and the staff at Torquay United for making my visit to Plainmoor a pleasant one and I wish the club the best of luck in securing a place in the play-offs.
After the match I hotfooted it back to the car for the next leg of the “Far Far away trilogy” leaving Devon and driving through the hills of Dorset to our base camp in Poole for the next chapter of the Smudgers Easter weekend break.

Update

Torquay made the play-offs after a 7th place finish. The Gulls beat Shrewsury Town in the semi-finals before a narrow defeat to Stevenage in the League Two play-off final at Old Trafford.

Matchday stats

TUFC 0 WWFC 0

att.4,009

Admission:PP (£18)

Programme £2.50

Ground no.281 Plainmoor - Matchday Web album (23 pictures)

My Matchday - 273 Adams Park

Wycombe Wanderers 1v1 Port Vale
League Two
Saturday 5th February 2011

After taking a break from train travel for a few months, it was time to hit the tracks again with a trip to Whickham, but not the one situated 5 mile due west of the 100FgC HQ, the other which is spelt with a ‘Y’ and another 280 miles south in Buckinghamshire.
High Wycombe is a large market town set in the heart of the Chilterns, well known for furniture making and design. The name Wycombe comes from the River Wye and the old English word for a wooded valley - combe. The valley’s line of beech trees were felled and used to make furniture, the town once renowned as ‘the furniture capital of England’.

It is believed that Wycombe Wanderers were formed in 1887, although there’s been much debate about the club’s origins, with matches played in the town from 1884.
Wycombe joined the Southern League in 1896, but the majority of their non-league days were spent in the Isthmian League from 1921, winning the league title twice in the 1950’s and four times during the ‘70’s.
The club were again champions in 1982-83, then two years later won promotion to the Alliance. Although they were relegated in their first season, an eighth and final Isthmian League title the following season saw Conference status achieved.
In 1991 Wanderers enjoyed their first success at Wembley since winning the FA Amateur Cup in 1931, beating Kidderminster Harriers in the FA Trophy final.
The club narrowly missed out on promotion to the Football League to Colchester United on goal difference in 1991-92, but the following year they went one better, winning the title and a second FA Trophy success, with a 4-1 win over Runcorn.

Adams Park was built in 1990 at a cost of £3.5m following the sale of the club’s former ground at Loakes Park, their home since 1895.
The stadium was named in honour of benefactor and former captain Frank Adams, who purchased the freehold of the former ground and donated it to the club. Loakes Park was sold to the health authorities to facilitate the expansion of Wycombe General Hospital, the sale financing the move to the new stadium.
Situated west of the town centre on the edge of the Sands Industrial Estate, the stadium originally had a capacity of 6,000 with 1,267 seats in the Main Stand.
The Main Stand has a raised single tier with access to the seats from staircases via a gangway at the front, which is also used as a standing paddock accommodating 232 standing spaces for fans who have already purchased seat tickets.
The stand also accommodates the club offices, Vere Suite, press area, with the players tunnel situated left of the dugouts.

In the summer of 1996 the 4,990-seater Frank Adams Stand was built. The roof was removed from the old Woodlands Terrace, with the extra tier built on the hill behind.
The stand is quite impressive, the two tiers split by 20 executive boxes with the seats decked out in the two blues with WWFC and the swan crest on the top tier.
Access to the stand is from behind the west and east stands, then up a long flight of stairs which leads onto the back of the hill. The stand also houses the TV gantry, has disabled space for 50 wheelchair spaces and further hospitality in the Woodlands Suite.
Away supporters are giving the Dream Stand behind the east goal. Originally a standing terrace it was reduced in capacity from well over 2,000 standing spaces to 1,049 seats when built in 1996. In the summer of 2001 the end was extended by an extra 977 to take the capacity to 2,026, decked out in dark blue seats.
The only remaining terrace is behind the east goal. The Greene King Terrace has a capacity of just under 2,000 which is fully covered.
The ground has scoreboards and clocks in three of the corners, including a video screen in the north-east corner, so overall the ground has a nice appeal with its valley setting and surrounding woodlands.

In 2002, rugby union side London Wasps became joint tenants after a similar ground sharing agreement at Loftus Road came to an end. The following year the stadium was renamed The Causeway Stadium in a £100,000 sponsorship deal, which didn’t go down to well with the fans, however the sponsorship expired at the end of the 2005–06 season and the ground name has reverted back to Adams Park.
The capacity of the stadium was fixed at 10,000 to comply with council regulations, as the positioning of the stadium on a dead-end road was leading to problems when large crowds left the ground, particularly with parking cars in the streets of the nearby residents. The crowd reached fully capacity on the 13th July 2005, when Premier League champions Chelsea played Wycombe in a pre-season friendly.

Wycombe went into this League Two fixture with Port Vale looking to make it six straight home league wins in a row, but the Chairboys can count themselves lucky as Wanderers ‘keeper Nikki Bull saved Tom Pope's late penalty to deny Vale victory.
The game opened with enterprising play from both sides, created good openings with Vale closest to taking the lead in the early stages. However the match fell a bit flat as the half progressed as both teams failed to get a stranglehold on the game.
Two minutes after the restart the visitors took the lead, a good interchange of passing from Vale ended with a dangerous Kris Taylor cross which was sliced into his own net by Leon Johnson.
Scott Donnelly, on loan from Swansea, equalised with his first goal for Wycombe on 57 minutes, when he burst through the middle and fired low past Chris Martin from just inside the box.
Both sides pushed for a winner and it was Vale that had a golden chance to win the match when Johnson handled Doug Loft's cross on 82 minutes, but Pope's spot-kick was blasted down the middle as Bull pulled off a terrific save to earn his side a draw.
An email from East Coast trains just before Christmas meant I could book some £8 single fares to Kings Cross. From here it was a simple five stop tube ride, followed by a 35 minute train from London Marylebone to High Wycombe.
So after leaving Newcastle on the 0730, I was confident that I’d arrive in the other Wycombe just before noon, but yet again my strategic plans went tits up!
I arrived at Marylebone with the news that the train line to Harlow-on-the-Hill was suspended and told to go back to Baker Street and take the Metropolitan Line to Amersham. Those of you who are unaware where Amersham is, it’s in the top left hand corner of the tube map, so far north it’s hanging on for dear life and nearly falling off the edge of the page.
I finally arrived in this far flung corner of that there London to be then told those three little words that any train traveller fears as much as anything else; “Replacement bus service”
Not really knowing my exact location and how far away from High Wycombe I actually was, it was a relieve to discover I was only 6 miles away, the bus journey taking only a quarter of an hour so I finally arrived in the furniture town just before 1pm, however this meant the pub crawl I plotted and the record stores I wanted to browse was limited to just the two JDW pubs and one vinyl shop in the town.
The journey to the ground is a canny hike, a good 45 minute walk, so I set off in good time as I was on press duty and didn’t want to arrive too late, finally arriving at Adams Park at 2.30pm
The talk throughout the match in the press area and amongst the Wycombe players not on playing duty sitting near to us was what was happening at St James Park. When Arsenal went 3-0 up after only 10 minutes I told my colleague next to me to be quite and to stop telling me the score, he then profusely apologised, but felt confident enough to update me in the second half as the Toon fought back from four down at half time to snatch a 4-4 draw. This coupled with Gateshead reaching the quarter-finals of the FA Trophy after beating Dartford 3-0, meant it was a very happy Shaunee Boy who rapidly ran all the way back to the train station to catch the 1730 BRS to Amersham.
The reverse journey back to Kings Cross went ok, I even had time for a drink at the Lincoln Lounge before boarding the 2000 back to Newcastle, finally crossing the threshold of 100FgC HQ just after midnight.
So another long and exhausting day out, but in the end well worth it, Wycombe Wanderers’ Adams Park ticked off and another off the 92, where I’m now beginning to see a bit of light at the end of a long tunnel in my pursuit of finally completing the set.

WWFC 1(Donnelly 57)PVFC 1(JohnsonOG 57)
att.4,173
Admission:PP (from £15-£21)
Programme £3

Ground no.273 Adams Park - Matchday Web album (16 pictures)