92 Clubs – Week 1 – 18 Clubs – 33 Trains, 1 Coach
Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Week 5 Week 6 Week 7
Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5 Day 6 Day 7
I should add several Underground and Overground trains and quite a few buses.
But of those 33 trains, only one was late and that didn’t stop me doing what I wanted. One, incidentally, a train from Leeds to London on Day 1 was actually a few minutes early. I won’t complain about that!
The coach from Birmingham to Blackburn on Day 3 was an hour late because of traffic and the seemingly endless time, it took to get across Manchester. But it didn’t mean I had to make any serious changes to the schedule.
I shall give out a few awards each week.
Heroes of the Week
This has to go to the staff of First Great Western, who got me back to London from Bristol on Day 5, despite the fact I fell asleep on the train to Bristol Parkway and ended up in Gloucester.
Another award should go to Jeff on the same day, who helped me navigate Bristol’s buses.
Most Surprising Stadium of the Week
Given the problems they have had over the years, AFC Bournemouth was a relevation. The location was good, the stadium was easy to find from the station. And the coffee was excellent too.
Best Stadium of the Week
I haven’t seen a match there but Brighton seems to tick every possible box. When Ipswich play in February, I’ll be going.
Best Signposted Stadium of the Week
It hurts me to say this, as someone who supported their bitter rivals, Enfield, as a boy, but it has Barnet.
Worst Signposted Stadium of the Week
It has to be Bradford City. You can see the stadium from the station and this draws you the wrong way, where there are no signposts at all. As I said in the Day 4 post, for a stadium with such a tragic past, it is almost disrespectful.
It should be compulsory for every football club director to go to a match by public transport, at least once a year. But I suspect, some believe that anybody who doesn’t come by car is a loser and they don’t want losers as supporters. Surely any bum on any seat is a profit.
Welcoming Stadia of the Week
Some stadia were visited in the dark or when no-one was about, but I was very welcomed at most places and especially Accrington, Bournemouth, Bristol City and Burnley.
Best Town/City of the Week
I was very surprised by Bournemouth. But then you’d expect it to have things going for it, as its problems are far less than most places. If you were going to make a day or even a weekend of the match, then it would be ideal. Obviously, you could make a longer visit with any of the London or big city clubs, Brighton, or even somewhere like Accrington or Burnley, where there are other attractions.
Dump of the Week
Is there anything right about the town of Blackpool? You can understand, why even the Labour Party has deserted it for its conferences since 2002. I must admit I have a particular dislike of the place, as I’ve never been able to find any decent gluten-free food there, but others I spoke to on my travels around the north, seemed to feel exactly as I do about the place. And they were Northerners! Most said it wasn’t their scene or something like that!
Here’s a few things that must be fixed.
- There are no maps at the stations.
- There is no details about the trams and how to find or use them at the station. The trams are unique and should be the backbone of transport within the town, as they go quickly from the very north to the very south of the town.
- The bus stops have no details about where the buses go, that a visitor would understand.
- Most pedestrian crossings are not light controlled and many of those that are, were broken or vandalised.
- Many of the public toilets appear to be almost derelict.
The football ground too, might be modern, but the club has the worst attitude to visiting fans I’ve ever found. The view is very much restricted too, because the seating has all the wrong angles. I bet none of the directors of Blackpool have ever sat and watched a game from the visiting supporters section.
Humour of the Week
Surely the sign at Burnley!
So I may be a few stadia behind, but it has been an interesting week. Thanks must go to all of the supporting people, I’ve met on my journey. One even tried to give me forty pounds on the Underground. I said no, as I want all donations to go through JustGiving, because the charity gets more.
92 Clubs – Day 5 – Brighton, Bristol City, Bristol Rovers
This was supposed to be an easy day with lots of float, but as you will see it wasn’t quite as simple as that.
The aim was to get up early and take the Overground to West Croydon, where I would get the tram to East Croydon.
Croydon Tram at East Croydon
At East Croydon, I had planned to get a train to Brighton and then on to Falmer, using a full price ticket, as I was too early to use my Senior Railcard. I remembered a bit too late so ended up with two tickets, one valid only after 9:30 and the other at anytime.
The train journey was a bit stressful, as it always is for North Londoners, south of the river, but after changing at Lewes, I arrived at the most impressive stadium so far.
The AMEX Community Stadium, Brighton
Some may say the Emirates is more impressive, as it’s bigger, but they have masses of money, whereas Brighton just have fanatical fans, who have not lived, but created the dream.
From Brighton, or should I say Falmer, as the stadium is right on the station and linked to it by a wide well-metaled pathway, I made my way to London and Paddington. To make matters even better, there are modern eight-coach electric trains every fifteen minutes along the coast.
I’d booked a few days ago and it had cost me just £13.20 for the trip out and back. I do have a railcard, but surely that is good value for a day out of the capital.
I have walked to Bristol City in the past, but in this case I took a 24 or 25 bus from the city centre. It was now raining, so we took the picture in the club shop.
Inside the Bristol City Superstore
From there, it was on to Bristol Rovers, with directions from the staff at City. Does that break some unbroken rule about not talking about your local rivals.
The Memorial Stadium, Bristol
Bristol Rovers and Bristol Rugby Club share the same stadium, as the picture shows. There was no-one to take the picture, as it was now a thoroughly bad day and it was making my hay fever worse. Or it seemed like it.
Thanks at this point must go to Jeff, who I met on the bus from City to Rovers, for guiding me across Bristol on the buses.
I returned to the city centre and then I had an excellent supper in Carluccio’s there. No wine though, as I didn’t want to celebrate just yet.
It was then that it all went slighytly pear shaped.
I had booked on the 20:01 train out of Bristol Parkway to get back to London at a reasonable hour. To get there I needed to catch the 19:41 from Tenple Meads. Wherther it was my tiredess or hay fever, the warmth in the train, but an hour or so later I found myself in Gloucester, having fallen asleep. Never in my 64 years, have I ever fallen asleep and missed a station.
But not too worry too much! First Great Western put me on the 21:15 to Parkway and then on the 22:01 to London. They could have charged me for a new ticket, but they didn’t. And I didn’t play the charity card until after they’d let me on the train.
So lots of thanks to First Great Western!
Texting For Your Bus
Linked to Countdown is London’s new system for locating buses by text.
Text For Your London Bus
This picture shows one of the signs that are starting to appear on stops. Each stop has a unique number.
Wot No Spidermap!
In common with many others, I like the bus spidermaps that London uses.
They effectively solve the problem of when you are out of your normal area and need to get someone you know. Often a point on a map will be well-known to you, so you just get the bus that goes there. In East London, there are also well-known points like the Angel, Aldwych, Bow Church, Clapton Pond and Walthamshow Central, where bus routes tend to cross. With the spder maps, which list every stop in a vague geographic way, it is easy to locate the place where your local route crosses one from the place you are.
But there is no spider map for Stratford City, despite it having an impressive bus station.
Stratford City Bus Station
I was told that it was coming and to look on the Internet. All that was there was this piece of designer tosh, that is very useful, if you know the bus you want, but useless if like me, you don’t know your way home. It doesn’t even have the detailed list of places where the buses go, which is common to all spider maps.
So in the end I came home by train.
The Solution’s Behind You
The BBC were interviewing Ed Balls today at the Labour Party conference in Liverpool. He was pontificating on the solutions, that he would do to could Britain out of the financial mess, that largely his party got us in.
Who is right or wrong on the solution is a matter for the future.
Butb I think, that the solution to our problems was behind Ed Balls in his BBC interview. But then politicians never look behind themselves, except to see where the knife is coming from.
Over the last twenty years or so, Liverpool has been transformed, from a basket case, to one of the most vibrant cities in the world, by developing the city in a professional and quality manner. Liverpudlians will point to the European City of Culture in 2008, as a catalyst for a lot of the change, but in some cases it just gave developers a reason and possibly an excuse to invest.
London too, is changing and has been greatly improved over the last few decades. The development of Docklands started it and now the Olympics is pushing the city to new heights.
You could also argue, that Manchester got a kick start from the 2002 Commonwealth Games, but just as with Liverpool and London, the process was going to happen anyway and perhaps these events were just advertising for the place on a wider scale. Wikipedia says a lot about how the Games got Manchester moving after the 1996 IRA bombing. One might even say now that Manchester’s driving force is football.
Liverpool is getting a lot of publicity over the next couple of days, and how many will think about going there for a weekend break? When I was there last, I met a plumber who had come to the city for the day to ride his bicycle along the Mersey. Liverpool is almost becoming a seaside resort!
These three cities have benefited from a process that could best be described as Infrastructure for All.
I could also add how Newcastle has benefited from the waterfront developments along the Tyne. Other cities, like Leeds and Birminghamhave also been improved to everybody’s benefit.
I should also ask, if Glasgow is seeing the benefit for the 2014 commonwealth Games yet.
We must do this more in our run-down cities and districts.
Even on a local basis, Dalston has improved a bit in the year I’ve been here, mainly because of the opening of two new railways, that got built early because of the Olympics. But even if the Olympics hadn’t happened, they would have still gone ahead.
So we should look at all the infrastructure projects on the stocks and do those that are most valuable as soon as finances allow.
Priorities should obviusly go to those that give the greatest benefit. I would start with.
Housing, which would provide homes for our ever increasing population. It should be energy efficient and hopefully built, so that people who live there, don’t need to own one car per person, as we must wean ourselves off our own personal travelling spaces, they cost everyone else dear.
Selective rail projects, to remove bottlenecks and level crossings, improve stations and add a few new ones. In Suffolk, they are adding a new loop at Beccles so that more trains can run from Ipswich to Lowestoft. How many more Beccles-like problems are there out there, that need urgent removal. Many of these projects would have positive knock-on effects in other areas. Some level crossings, like the one in the centre of Lincoln, would have enormous benefits to road traffic, if they were removed.
Rail freight projects, which remove trucks from the roads. This would mean a few more interchanges such as Radlett, but the benefit to roads like the A14 and M1 would be high.
Personally, I would add a better bus network, with much better ticketing and disabled-friendly, information rich two-door buses, like you have in London. I have a free pass for buses, so why do I have to be issued with a ticket when I use a bus in Cambridge. It should be just touch in on all buses.
And of course, it’s important that we create interesting places for people to go. Some sports clubs have been trying to build new grounds for years and this process should be speeded up. And we don’t want any more stadia, like Coventry, Scunthorpe and the Rose Bowl designed solely to be driven to. They should be built near the transport hubs., which in itself would probably make them more financially viable.
You will notice, I’ve missed out new roads.
In many ways they are not infrastructure for all.
Some may need to be built or widened, but our priority should be to get unnecessary traffic off the roads.
I believe that we are seeing a drop in the number of trucks from the roads, as more and more container traffic is diverted to the trains. But this process needs some selective action at rail junctions, and it also needs more rail-based distribution centres near large conurbations. But the Nimbys don’t like these. Some also object to freight trains passing through at night.
There has been talk for years about taxing foreign lorries in this country, just as the Swiss do. The last time I drove the southern part of the M25, it was full of trucks registered aboard. We have the Channel Tunnel and goods to and from Europe should go through it on container trains, just like most of the freight goes in and out of the ports at Southampton, Felixstowe and Liverpool.
Every truck removed, is an increase in road capacity.
We also need better interface between the roads and rail. How many cities build large car parks in the centre, when perhaps building them on the outskirts and providing a tram or rail link to the centre? Cambridge was very much derided by doing this with a guided busway, by many including myself, but they now seem to be making a success of it.
The New 73 Bus Introduction
It seems to have gone well. I can’t also find any reports of passengers getting annoyed at the demise of seventy-free bendy bus.
I incidentally use the route a lot more, as it appears to be faster from places like Oxford Street. I wonder if any anorak has measured that!
I Don’t Have To Wait For Buses in the Cold or Rain Anymore
London is introducing a system called Countdown. It allows you to look at your local bus stop and see how long you’ll have to wait for the next bus. Tonight, a friend came for supper and I was able to turn up at the stop just as her bus arrived. We also timed it right, so that we walked to the stop to get there, just as her bus arrived for London Bridge.
The system has a few bugs in that for instance 21 buses aren’t shown for some reason, but it works very well. You can also get it on a smart phone, if you have one. I think it’s only problem is that it might encourage people to travel by bus too much and London will need to buy more buses.
As an example, my friend had come in to Euston on a train from Manchester. She’d then waited for a 30 bus, so that she didn’t get too wet. But with wi-fi on the trains or a good mobile signal, she could have checked where the bus was as she approached Euston.
I often take one bus and then swap to another route, when they are running together, as the 141 and 341 do going to IKEA. You could use your mobile device to find out how long you have to wait.
It all goes to show how technology can improve something supposedly low-tech like a humble bus.
This system will see a lot of development in the next few years.
Imagine someone is coming to meet you on a bus. THey would text you the bus serial number and you would then display its position on your computer, so you could meet the actual bus at the right time and place. Or you could get an automatic text message a minute before the bus arrives.
The possibilities are endless.
92 Clubs By Public Transport Alphabetically in a Calendar Month – Day 9
Back to Home Page Day 8 Day 10
This day is a real odd one with Colchester, Coventry and if possible Crawley Town.
All three are fairly difficult to get from the train station to the football ground and to make matters worse it would appear that the trains to Colchester are subject to maintenance that weekend.
I think it should be possible, except for the fact, that I don’t know the buses at the train station and as it is Sunday can they be relied upon to be working.
92 Clubs By Public Transport Alphabetically in a Calendar Month – Day 7
This is three long journeys in one day, assuming that I end up coming back from Manchester on Day 6. But you expect that with Cardiff and Carlisle being two of the farthest clubs from London.
The Anonymous Widower 