Doing the 92........in a season

[MJA]

Now that I have free weekends again, I've been considering whether to return to following Vale or maybe take an interest in a local non-league side to get my weekly football fix. Then, having read a couple of threads about how many grounds people had been to, I started to think about doing something a bit different and trying to complete the full 92 Premier League and Football League grounds during the 2016/17 season.

I wasn't too sure if this was even possible in this timescale so did a quick check using this seasons fixtures and based on those, it was certainly possible with around a month to spare. That said it would be a fair old slog, with some instances of doing 4/5 matches in a week although my check against this seasons fixtures was done fairly quickly so hopefully with more time spent planning, this number could be reduced and made more manageable.

So then, why am I feeling it necessary to post this in here? Well, the more I've thought about it, the more I have considered different elements that could be added to this process to make it more worthwhile than just me spending a lot of money to say 'I've done the 92'. So could I.....

• Make this a charitable thing and try to raise money along the way - initial thinking would be to look to do it for football related charities, maybe Hillsborough disaster / Bradford fire based charities?
• Make it a 1FF event? I'm still reasonably new on the forum, although got to know a few of the 'regulars' via the shoutbox, but there are a few things I have in mind regarding this -
  • a) arrange a bit of a meetup with forum members when I visit their teams ground
  • b) to make the whole thing more interesting, complete the 92 with an(other) member(s) of this forum if there would be anyone else interested in doing it?
  • c) not actually got a 'c' for this but if admin, mods or anyone else have any other suggestions then feel free to share them

Not really sure what I am looking for by posting this thread (and not sure if it is posted in the right place), maybe advice and ideas to start with and certainly to know if there would be any other footy fans on here who would be interested in doing this with me. Obviously if you are, you'll need to be happy to miss out watching your own team and have a lot of time and money to burn. That said, one thing I have considered is to contact each club to try and blag freebies from them to help keep the cost of doing this down.

Anyway, I think I've rattled enough so I will wait and see what people think before deciding if to take this any further

 

[JJH]

If you've got enough money and are genuinely up for doing this it would be one hell of an experience.

How would you travel to the games, and would you be able to do mid-week matches?

I wish you the best of luck if you decide to do it, I'll certainly donate an amount if you try and raise money for a charity in the process of doing this. Getting in contact with the club's is definitely a good idea as well.

 

[epic73]

Seems like it would become a bit boring after a while. You could try to stagger the "better" grounds so that you'd visit a big one like Stamford Bridge or Old Trafford every month or two, that might make it a bit more fun.

 

[MJA]

If you've got enough money and are genuinely up for doing this it would be one hell of an experience.

How would you travel to the games, and would you be able to do mid-week matches?

I wish you the best of luck if you decide to do it, I'll certainly donate an amount if you try and raise money for a charity in the process of doing this. Getting in contact with the club's is definitely a good idea as well.

Well as much as I'm a Vale fan I've always been a football fan in general so it is certainly something I would enjoy doing especially if I get to meet new people along the way. Doing it might take up most of my free money I have each month but as it's not something I would do every season and would just be a one off so I think I would be quite happy to 'sacrifice' this free money to complete it. In fairness, if I could create a group off here who wanted to do it, then obviously that would bring down the cost of travel as we could meet somewhere and complete journey's in one car.

The 2 modes of transport I had in mind would be car and train (dependent on which is likely to work out cheaper) although probably car for all midweek matches. For me personally, I am pretty sure my boss at work would allow me to leave the office early providing I make up hours elsewhere which shouldn't be too difficult to midweek matches won't be a problem - obviously good planning would play a part in this as places like Carlisle, Portsmouth etc wouldn't make ideal midweek matches.

 

[MJA]

Seems like it would become a bit boring after a while. You could try to stagger the "better" grounds so that you'd visit a big one like Stamford Bridge or Old Trafford every month or two, that might make it a bit more fun.

Having been a supporter of lower league football for many years, I actually prefer the atmosphere around lower league, old fashioned grounds so I won't get bored of visiting smaller grounds. However, when working through this seasons fixtures to see if it is viable, I did use a process where I tried to ensure there was a constant mix of teams from each division to avoid visiting all grounds from one division in a row and then move onto the next division as I think it would be more interesting to visit a League 2 ground on a Saturday and then follow that up with a visit to a PL ground on the Sunday. Also, if fans of each team were up for meeting at their ground then I think that would ensure that my visits to each ground would be different on the basis that I would get to meet different people at each stop as well which would also stop the process from becoming 'boring'

 

[Destruction]

92 matches at an average of £25 a ticket is £2,300. By the time you've added in travel costs and time lost from work I reckon you'll be somewhere between £5,000 to £6,000.

Good luck.

 

[Smudge]

It took me 10 years to do it, as well as doing pretty much every Everton game. I think it's doable, just like you said, needs some good planning.

One thing I made good use of was double headers. Southend sometimes play on a Friday night for example, so I stayed over and also did Ipswich on the Saturday.

Also worth checking if any clubs 'pair up.' That's also useful for double headers. Someone like for example Newport, who often play at home the same weekend as Swansea, so you can do those together if Swansea are on tv on the Sunday or something.

But yeah I'd love to have done this, I did consider it once. Couple of tips on top of the double header stuff, take advantage of lower league clubs playing a lot of midweek games and trying to save them for your local grounds. Likewise take advantage of clubs in Europe, especially anyone in the Europa League, as nobody else plays on a Thursday. And finally, wait for each round of tv Premier League fixtures to come out as you can then start planning around them, as the Premier League games are obviously so often not played on Saturdays.

 

[JJH]

Seems like it would become a bit boring after a while. You could try to stagger the "better" grounds so that you'd visit a big one like Stamford Bridge or Old Trafford every month or two, that might make it a bit more fun.

The Premier League matchday experience as a whole is terrible. You pay extortionate entry fees to watch games surrounded by tourists and corporate wankers in stadiums that lack atmosphere. I'd much rather watch 92 games of L1 football a season than I would 92 PL games.

 

[epic73]

The Premier League matchday experience as a whole is terrible. You pay extortionate entry fees to watch games surrounded by tourists and corporate wankers in stadiums that lack atmosphere. I'd much rather watch 92 games of L1 football a season than I would 92 PL games.

By "better" grounds, I didn't mean PL necessarily.

 

[JJH]

By "better" grounds, I didn't mean PL necessarily.

Define a "better ground". Is it one of the new, modern arenas in the Championship/PL, or is it one of the proper old school stadiums that are still with us, such as Hillsborough, The City Ground etc.

 

[epic73]

Define a "better ground". Is it one of the new, modern arenas in the Championship/PL, or is it one of the proper old school stadiums that are still with us, such as Hillsborough, The City Ground etc.

One that MJA likes.

 

[JaseTheVillain]

Define a "better ground". Is it one of the new, modern arenas in the Championship/PL, or is it one of the proper old school stadiums that are still with us, such as Hillsborough, The City Ground etc.

 

[JJH]

Despite the fact we'll get hammered, it's going to be fantastic visiting Villa Park next season.

 

[JaseTheVillain]

Despite the fact we'll get hammered, it's going to be fantastic visiting Villa Park next season.

Yeah, right... We're awful at Villa Park at the best of times, even when we were good, we were shit at home.

 

[Abertawe]

The Premier League matchday experience as a whole is terrible. You pay extortionate entry fees to watch games surrounded by tourists and corporate wankers in stadiums that lack atmosphere. I'd much rather watch 92 games of L1 football a season than I would 92 PL games.

How would you know?

 

[MJA]

It took me 10 years to do it, as well as doing pretty much every Everton game. I think it's doable, just like you said, needs some good planning.

One thing I made good use of was double headers. Southend sometimes play on a Friday night for example, so I stayed over and also did Ipswich on the Saturday.

Also worth checking if any clubs 'pair up.' That's also useful for double headers. Someone like for example Newport, who often play at home the same weekend as Swansea, so you can do those together if Swansea are on tv on the Sunday or something.

But yeah I'd love to have done this, I did consider it once. Couple of tips on top of the double header stuff, take advantage of lower league clubs playing a lot of midweek games and trying to save them for your local grounds. Likewise take advantage of clubs in Europe, especially anyone in the Europa League, as nobody else plays on a Thursday. And finally, wait for each round of tv Premier League fixtures to come out as you can then start planning around them, as the Premier League games are obviously so often not played on Saturdays.

Thanks Smudge, you make some good points here

When checking through this seasons fixtures just to see if it was possible to get 92 matches done in a season, I grouped teams by division but if/when I plan for it properly I think the only way to do it would be to group teams by geographical location and then plan some overnight stays for the distance games. Fortunately, being in the Midlands a large majority of grounds are within a 2 hour drive (as well as having mainline trains on my doorstep) which would probably make this easier for me to do than someone from Carlisle or Devon for example.

Regarding the days for fixtures, in my mock up I think all PL visits were on either a Sunday or a Monday so I would certainly look down the same route when planning properly. Agree about the lower league midweek fixtures as well, there were plenty of L1 and L2 fixtures on Tuesdays and Wednesdays this season so assume that will be the same again next season. May also need to take advantage of lower league postponements in winter which would be re-arranged for midweek. And talking of this, may also have to consider targeting those grounds where postponements are unlikely during the winter months to avoid wasted journeys. There are also Friday night Championship matches which seem to have become the norm these days.

I suppose that Sky have made this a more doable task by giving us live football from Friday through to Monday over a weekend. I suppose it would have been completely impossible to do this when every match kicked off at 3pm on a Saturday afternoon. I will continue to consider the pros and cons of it before deciding if it is a viable option as I wouldn't like to start it and then find out it just isn't working for whatever reason, nothing worse than failing particularly if involving charities.

 

[MJA]

But yeah I'd love to have done this, I did consider it once.

Oh and it's never too late to do something

 

[MJA]

92 matches at an average of £25 a ticket is £2,300. By the time you've added in travel costs and time lost from work I reckon you'll be somewhere between £5,000 to £6,000.

Good luck.

Not denying it could prove a costly adventure and is certainly something I would have to consider quite strongly, but as Smudge has mentioned below it is all in the planning to ensure that I am not visiting Portsmouth on a Saturday followed by Newcastle on the Sunday. Grouping the distance journeys by location and then planning overnight stays would vastly reduce travel costs. I get paid a yearly salary at work so providing my boss authorises me to finish early for midweek games and I work my hours back elsewhere this shouldn't be an issue

 

[JJH]

How would you know?

Take a wild guess.

 

[silkyman]

It'd be a hell of a logistical achievement! (There's probably be a book in it if you were that way inclined.)

Would it have to be a League game, or could you use European matches, or friendlies, even? There's only 36 or so Saturday's in the season.

UEFA Cup would open up a handful of Thursday night games to tick a few off?

No Saturday Premier League games because they are all on a Sunday at some point in the season, so that leaves 72 - so you could get halfway there just with the Saturday games.

Try and avoid Championship ones, too at first and tick off as many of those as you can on TV over the season.

You might need a bit of luck with postponed and rescheduled games later in the sesaon to pick up grounds you might otherwise miss.

I think you can do it.

 

[MJA]

It'd be a hell of a logistical achievement! (There's probably be a book in it if you were that way inclined.)

Would it have to be a League game, or could you use European matches, or friendlies, even? There's only 36 or so Saturday's in the season.

UEFA Cup would open up a handful of Thursday night games to tick a few off?

No Saturday Premier League games because they are all on a Sunday at some point in the season, so that leaves 72 - so you could get halfway there just with the Saturday games.

Try and avoid Championship ones, too at first and tick off as many of those as you can on TV over the season.

You might need a bit of luck with postponed and rescheduled games later in the sesaon to pick up grounds you might otherwise miss.

I think you can do it.

Believe it or not, there is a 'Doing The 92' website which lists guidelines on what allows and doesn't allow you to tick off a ground. One of these stipulations is:

'Tickets must have been on sale for the game (even if you got yours free). This means that pre-season kick-abouts don't count. Proper First-Team pre-season friendlies are fine.'

That could be quite a contentious issue as, for example, I have never known Vale to sell tickets for any pre-season friendlies no matter how 'big' the opponents but it is generally a strong 1st team that plays against these sorts of teams. That said, I am not considering friendlies but do have cup competitions in the back of mind as a chance to tick a few off so as some friendlies count, I guess cup competitions will definitely count.

PL would definitely be a Sunday/Monday event and yes I agree about the Championship particularly with the Friday night matches (again with some clever planning, a Friday night match could leave me well placed for a short hop to the Saturday match). L1 and L2 will primarily be Saturday's although again, during the course of this season there have been quite a few full football league programmes on a Tuesday/Wednesday night.

Thanks for the advice, and going back to your first point - I had considered running a blog/vlog on it to document the whole process. Not sure whether it would be interesting enough to become a book though, but I guess that would depend on what happens on my journeys

 

[Abertawe]

Take a wild guess.

No, come on, I'm interested in how you would know?

Brizzle never been in the prem

 

[Murphy]

Not just the Championship playing on Friday nights next season either, remember - think Sky have a deal to show 12/13 Prem games on a Friday which kicks in soon.

 

[Veggie Legs]

Yeah, that starts next season. There have been a few Championship games on Thursdays this year as well.

 

[Abertawe]

I've been to all of the big grounds, White Hart Lane, Stamford Bridge, Anfield, Old Trafford etc simply for the fact that we never, ever get a good cup draw.

More often than not when I go the tickets I get given are free or in the corporate lounges, but I've paid a few times.

So by your own admission you're a tourist/corporate wanker?

 

[JJH]

So by your own admission you're a tourist/corporate wanker?

You could say that, yes.

 

[MJA]

Not just the Championship playing on Friday nights next season either, remember - think Sky have a deal to show 12/13 Prem games on a Friday which kicks in soon.

Is that so? Not heard of that but that would certainly help as well

 

[Richard Cranium]

I'm trying this but not all in one season. Doing it around Mansfield games though as I go to all of those. I'm close to 50 now which I don't think is too bad considering we spent 5 years slumming it in the Conference.

Doing Everton on the last day of this season and so far got 3 new ones coming into L2. 5 if Blackpool come down and Dover come up.

 

[Smudge]

Thanks Smudge, you make some good points here

When checking through this seasons fixtures just to see if it was possible to get 92 matches done in a season, I grouped teams by division but if/when I plan for it properly I think the only way to do it would be to group teams by geographical location and then plan some overnight stays for the distance games. Fortunately, being in the Midlands a large majority of grounds are within a 2 hour drive (as well as having mainline trains on my doorstep) which would probably make this easier for me to do than someone from Carlisle or Devon for example.

Regarding the days for fixtures, in my mock up I think all PL visits were on either a Sunday or a Monday so I would certainly look down the same route when planning properly. Agree about the lower league midweek fixtures as well, there were plenty of L1 and L2 fixtures on Tuesdays and Wednesdays this season so assume that will be the same again next season. May also need to take advantage of lower league postponements in winter which would be re-arranged for midweek. And talking of this, may also have to consider targeting those grounds where postponements are unlikely during the winter months to avoid wasted journeys. There are also Friday night Championship matches which seem to have become the norm these days.

I suppose that Sky have made this a more doable task by giving us live football from Friday through to Monday over a weekend. I suppose it would have been completely impossible to do this when every match kicked off at 3pm on a Saturday afternoon. I will continue to consider the pros and cons of it before deciding if it is a viable option as I wouldn't like to start it and then find out it just isn't working for whatever reason, nothing worse than failing particularly if involving charities.

There will be Friday night Premier League games next season too under the new TV deal. .

I know groundhoppers who come here from abroad, and as much as we hate TV moving games all over the place, it does come in handy for multiple games. Easter is another good one, especially as the Premier League often treat it as a normal weekend, so there are often multiple games from Friday through to Tuesday, in some cases, you can do 2 in a day as well.

Good call too on the postponements. Obviously there are freak weathers (I remember going to Northampton and Carlisle over Easter a few years ago, and there was heavy snow all over the country that whole week! I was luclky both games went ahead!) but there are others who always seem to struggle. Accrington is one to definitely do in the summer, and likewise Newport. Newport was the only one I did through the 92 who were called off when I got there so had to go again.

The Johnstones Paint Trophy and early League Cup rounds are very useful too, I ticked off a few of mine in the JPT where tickets are dirt cheap. You will occasionally get some interesting ties in it too, with it throwing some derbies between teams who dont play each other that often. Think we've had Plymouth and Exeter, and Oxford and Swindon in last few years.

 

[Abertawe]

GEEKS