Ground 5 - Whaddon Road

Date: 21st October 2023

Match: Cheltenham Town vs Cambridge United

Competition: SkyBet League One 

Price: £26

I want to start with a little rant about ticket prices. I think for the 3rd tier of English football £26 is excessive - twenty is plenty. Too many clubs charge too much.

When I got up in the morning i had a horrible felling Cambridge would lose. Playing a side that has scored 1 goal in 12 league games, and haven't won all season. Plus we have a track record of giving struggling teams a boost.

The journey to Cheltenham was unremarkable. 

The outside of Whaddon Road - called the Completey Suzuki this season for sponsorship reasons.

The food on offer was disappointing - no pie to be found, absolutely shocking. I went for cheese chips. The closest thing to a fork was this sorry excuse, which was basically a tooth pick.  

The match was a very frustrating one. Cheltenham were by far the better side in the 1st half. They took the lead on 5 minutes with a great strike from Liam Sercombe. A chip from a 20 yards. They had enough chances to have been 2 or 3 up at half time. Cambridge were awful.

The 2nd half was frustrating one from a Cambridge point of view. Despite bringing on a number attacking changes they were unable to create a real clear cut opportunity. Cheltenham fully deserved the win and their 1st win of the season. 

Attendance: 3,900

Man Of The Match: Liam Sercombe.

Ground 4 - Westwood Road

Date: 7th October 2023

Match: St Ives Town vs Kettering Town

Competition: FA Trophy - 3rd Qualifying Round

Price: £11

With Cambridge not playing till Monday - thank you very much Sky Sports!!!. It means I had a free Saturday. After consulting my Futbology app (Must have app for any ground hoppers) I decided to go to St.Ives. 

Getting to St.Ives is rather simple. Just hope on the guided bus from Cambridge and away you go.

After arriving at St.Ives I had a look around. It looked like they had a farmers market on in the high street.

St Ives farmers market.

After a little nose around I decided to find somewhere to get some grub. The spoons was rammed, so I decided to go the White Hart instead. There I had steak burger and a pint of Inches cider. The food was very nice, the chips were nice and fluffy.

After being refreshed. I had a little look around the town center

I then made my way to the football ground, about  a 10-15 minute walk.  The ground is located next to a leisure center. 

                                                        The entrance to the ground 

The ground from the inside.

St.Ives was the much better side in the 1st half and was a real freat going forward. On loan Cambridge youngsters Dan Barton and Barndon Njoku looked good. Ives eventually went 1-0 up on 38th minutes. A swift break from a Kettering set piece saw a cross-come-shot from Jonny Edwards sail over the keeper hit the back post and into the goal. They got a 2nd goal right at the end of the 1st half when mix up between Kettering player Stohreer and keeper Billy Johnson resulted in an own goal. It was 2-0 at half time. As much as St Ives was good, Kettering looked like a side that had never played together before and was prehaps lucky they weren't further behind.

Celebrations after going 1-0 up. 

The second half started where the 1st left off. A fine counter attack saw Barton cross the ball for the captain Michael Richens slam home and put St Ives 3-0 and cruising - or so it seemed.

Celebrating going 3-0 up early in the 2nd half.

A few minutes after conceding the 3rd, Kettering pulled one goal back. Tyrone Lewthwaite with a smart run and finish. On 70 minutes Kettering managed to pull another back, Sam Bennett getting the goal. They couldn't find the equaliser which would have forced a penalty shoot out. Kettering went down to 10 men in injury time. Overall a very good entertaining game.

 

Man of the match : Dan Barton

Attendance: 351

Ground 3 - Pride Park

Date: 30th September 

Match: Derby County vs Cambridge United

Competition: SkyBet League One

Price: £20.

Derby County and Pride Park today. I was here last season when a battling Cambridge only went down 1-0 on a dark December evening in what was the last game of 2022.

2 coach loads (thanks to the train strikes) of Cambridge fans left the Abbey shortly after 10. We stopped at Leicester Forest East on the way - one of the nicer service stations in that area of the country. The rest of the journey was relatively straight forward. Outside the ground I bumped into my friend BeerMoose (check out his blog here) who was at his 500th Cambridge game.

Derby has one of those modern grounds located on a retail park just outside of town; where you can find several fast food chains, restaurants and pubs/bars near by. For some reason it has a Greggs outlet in one corner of the ground.

Once inside the ground. I got a pie and a pint at the slightly over priced cost of £9.50. Pie came in one of those pointless plastic wrappers. I've had better. After consuming I went up the stairs to find my seat.

The teams emerge 

There's not a lot to say about the match it self truth be told. Derby should have scored in the 2nd minute countering a Cambridge free kick; Mendez-Lang ran clear of everyone and passed it to Barkhuizen only for his effort to be saved by Cambridge keeper Will Mannion. Cambridge made a few good movements early on, but balls into the box where easily dealt with by the Derby defense.

On 30 minutes the game was paused for a minutes applause in memory of the wife of Derby keeper Josh Vickers, who had recently passed away from cancer - jusy months after they had got married. All players, staff and supporters from both clubs were impeccable during this. The rest of the half went by without too much incident.

Derby had a number chances in the 2nd half from the likes of James Collins and Martyn Waghorn. However nothing really troubled the Cambridge goal. Cambridge's best chance of game came on 73 minutes when a long range hit Paul Digby was well saved by Joseph Wildsmith. It finished 0-0. A result that will no doubt the Derby fans and delight the Cambridge ones. A special shout out goes to Cambridge defender Jubril Okendina, who came on at half time for Liam Bennett  and was excellent, despite playing very little football in recent times. 

Attendance: 26,122

Man of the match: Ryan Bennett