Name: Nick Matlock
Age:
39
Team Supported:
Nottingham
Forest till Psycho left & Bassett took over; then variously Brighton,
Brentford, Northampton or Fulham depending on location/inclination.
First League Ground Visited & When:
City
Ground, Nottingham. Forest 1, Southampton 2 FA Cup 3rd round 7th
January 1984. It was pouring with rain, blowing a gale and freezing and we were
in the uncovered Bridgford Kop. Not a great introduction to the beautiful game.
Last Ground Visited to complete
the 92:
Anfield to see Liverpool win a fantastic 4-3 thriller against Blackburn Rovers, from 2 rows back at the front of the Kop on a beautiful warm spring evening. This is what it was all meant to be about!
Date Completed:
8th
May 2002 completed the current 92 grounds for competitive matches, three weeks
earlier I completed seeing all 92 current league teams play competitively away
from home (Macclesfield Town at Luton).
How Long Has It Taken You
To Visit All 92?
I haven’t been back to Carrow Road Norwich since January 1991, so a little over 11 years, though in truth I’ve been to 104 grounds in the past two seasons, including non league & foreign. All but 10 of the 92 have been visited or revisited in the last 4 seasons.
Best Ground visited (& why).
Some
towns like Lincoln or Peterborough are dominated by their cathedrals. Newcastle
is dominated by the ‘cathedral’ of football that is St James Park. It
dominates the landscape for miles, you can see it from the A1 as you pass the
Angel of the North. No other ground makes such a massive statement about the
place and importance of football in local culture. Awesome!
Poorest Ground Visited:
For the same reasons as above in reverse, most of the plastic soulless new identi-kit stadiums seem to be almost hidden away from view. Middlesbrough & Southampton are marginally less anonymous than Derby’s Pride Park, tucked away shame-facedly behind a B&Q and a Toys-R-Us. Still, at least those two venues give the locals some better entertainment on a Saturday afternoon than watching a bunch of lazy foreign mercenaries and journeymen sheep botherers....
Best experience on your travels:
Anywhere where you can combine watching football, getting a suntan and drinking beer is fine by me, so best experiences tend to be either abroad or Pre Season Friendlies. Brugges for the Euro 2000 quarter final between France & Spain was simply the best & funniest weekend away I’ve ever had; giving a lift to Adrian Bell the author of “Fever Hitch” and getting name checked in it; the infamous ‘Udders from Hudders’ trip will remain for ever etched in the memory.
Worst experience on your travels:
Other than occasional racism still encountered (won’t go back to Griffin Park or Upton Park again), probably car failure…After a very dull 0-0 between Forest & Newcastle on a Monday night that was on TV anyway, driving back to London at midnight down the M1 the head gasket in my MG Midget blew, costing me over £1,000. Later that year drove to Twerton Park on the opening day of the 96 – 97 season to see Bristol Rovers in the Midget. Didn’t realise till I got to Bath dead on 3 o’clock that Rovers had moved during the summer to the Memorial Ground. On the way back the MG broke down. A month later drove to Oxford for Oxford v Forest. On the way there the MG broke down again. Continued to Oxford by train. Got to the ground but the game was a sell out. Got back to the car and while waiting for the AA listened on the radio to England (a Phil Tufnell one man demolition job) beat Australia at the Oval, a cricket match for which I had tickets and had sold earlier in the week !
Funniest experience on your travels:
I have the ticket to prove that I went to Bern, saw Young Boys and Wankdorf, which still amuses those with a puerile sense of humour! In April of this year four of us decided to stay over for a Saturday night in Hull (it was supposed to be my 92nd but other fixtures got postponed, etc). Having booked into the Holiday Inn some weeks in advance we arrived to find they’d completely mucked up the booking and they only had one single room available between the four of us. Enter ‘Dave’ the manager – he arranged that Holiday Inn would pay for us to stay in a 5 star hotel in the centre of town; we got executive double suites each; a free evening meal, which after free champagne & wine came to over £300; we then blagged our way into a club VIP lounge for free, and continued drinking champagne toasting the very generous largess of Dave at the Holiday Inn!
Most Goals Seen In One Match:
Eight - Norwich City 2 Nottingham Forest 6. 2nd January 1991. Forest 1-0 down after 10 minutes, and on a poor run of form, things weren’t looking too bright for my first time supporting Forest away from home.
Best Match Seen:
Possibly the above, or perhaps the Liverpool v Blackpool. But for sheer unadulterated happy-to-be-there pleasure, watching Tiverton Town spank Swansea City in a Pre-Season Friendly one balmy evening last summer.
Best Goal Seen:
Stuart
Pearce, a typical ‘Psycho-blaster’ in the 90th minute at White
Hart Lane, 26th December 1991. Over the wall to give Forest a 2-1
victory. Free kick given, as I remember it, because some Spurs 'hard man' called
Paul Stewart had been kicking lumps out of this frail little Irish boy called
Keane all afternoon. Whatever happened to him?
Best Player Seen:
No one commands greater respect or affection than Stuart Pearce. Future Manager of Forest, then England, then Knight of the Realm.
Stupidest Chant
Heard:
Anyone
who’s been away with Wimbledon (I realise this is a very select number) will
know the “We are Wombles from the Lane…We drink champagne, we snort
c******e, we’ve got ladies over here; You’ve got **** jobs, you **** your
dogs, and your wife is ** *** ****”. That raised a chuckle the first time I
heard it. Also Wolves fans singing “Hi-Ho Wolve-er-hamptun” to the tune of
Jeff Beck in broadest black country accents amuses me greatly!
Any tips for those attending to visit the 92?
When you print out the maps and
directions from this web site to get you to the game, remember to take
them with you, not leave them on the office printer!
If you want anything for free in Hull, tell them ‘Dave from the Holiday Inn
said it was Okay.
Never,
ever, attempt to do the 92 in an MG Midget!
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