Worst town in the National League.

[GTFCfish]

Yeah Freemo is a shocker. What about the Nunny? How's that these days? I got bit by a Staffy there once. Happy days.

Still rough as fuck the Nunny, and the Grange isn’t much better, a married couple got attacked walking there a couple of days ago by a gang of 12 and the woman’s had to have 30 stitches in a head wound and her husband also has a head wound caused by an axe and he was also stabbed twice in the chest.

 

[MrGloverLover]

If you don't get the train to Yeovil and decide to drive instead, beware our new disco-based road system. On a 2 mile stretch of road that goes right by the stadium we now have 145 traffic lights.

https://www.somersetlive.co.uk/news/somerset-news/yeovil-western-corridor-roadworks-46-2878880

 

[Magpie Mike]

You love writing lists. Personally it doesnt matter to me whether the place is a shithole or not. As long as you can get a beer and we dont get beat I'm happy

You must love Maidenhead then.
Lovely Rebellion ale at the ground and 3 points to take away.

 

[Jabba the gut]

Easily Barrow.
League 2,Grimsby by a country mile.I know Hartlepool
is a bit rough around the edges,but Christ Grimsby,I've never seen so many boarded up or simply abandoned buildings:

??? Aren't you from Hartlepool? I walked around it for a couple of hours when we played you in L2 & was struck by the same thing.

 

[Jabba the gut]

I hope you're looking forward to Yeovil Junction being 2.5 miles outside of the town, then from the town centre a 45 minute walk to the ground. Then nothing to do at the ground.

Christ - what a ridiculous place to put a train station. For some reason a few places on that line suffer the same problem. Apparently Crewkerne is another one where you almost need a train to get to the station to catch a train. I believe Yeovil had a city centre station where the newish complex is, but bizarrely that one didn't go inter city..

First time we played you I tried to walk to the station to catch my booked train back to Waterloo. (i got a lift to the ground from the station, so had no idea how far it was from the town centre).

Google Maps showed what seemed to be a footpath - only after it was too late to turn back did it dawn on me that it was only a virtual, unmarked public footpath across fields and that fast road with no pavement.

When I realised how ridiculously far I had to go there was nothing else I could do but run - quite literally across farmland and past surprised livestock towards the end - I was shifting myself that they would charge me. i'm unfit to say the least and was in agony by the time I got to the station.

The next time I went via Pen Mill as I live relatively close to Paddington and there are at least paved roads to Pen Mill in the event I had to travel on foot.

After the game the bus was so ridiculously late that it was another case of panic stations and a not-so-fun run when I got to the town centre. I was so knackered that I briefly gave up, coughing and wheezing like an emphysema victim puffing unfiltered Gitanes. I decided to give it one last effort and literally hobbled on to the platform just as the train arrived.

No offence, but I'm glad I don't have to do that again next season.

 

[Jabba the gut]

Had a go at ranking them from worst to best:

Dover
Barrow
Ebbsfleet
Aldershot
Dagenham
Braintree
Hartlepool
Halifax
Salford
Chavant
Eastleigh
Maidstone
Boring Wood
Wrexham
Orient
Gateshead
Bromley
Barnet
Sutton
Maidenhead
Solihull
Harrogate

Never been to Chesterfield and didn’t really see Fylde.

Woking will obviously overtake Harrogate next season.

Chesterfield's not a bad place, but the trek to the ground is a pain compared to Saltergate, which was central. Only passed Fylde on the way to Bloomfield Road from Preston station - I got the bus once just to look around. Not much there from what I saw.

 

[Jabba the gut]

Last went to Grimsby about a year ago, seen worse places to be honest but if anything it just highlights the lack of investment up north, places dying and people surviving.

But that's a debate for a different section.

Having grown up mainly in nice parts of Surrey and affluent Exeter, plus brief stints in Essex and East London and having lived in Notting Hill for years this is what always strikes me - the almost obscene disparity in wealth between some parts of the north and some parts of the South.

I don't think many people in affluent southern areas realise quite how bad it is and tend to dismiss northerners' justified complaints as whinging.

 

[Jabba the gut]

If you don't get the train to Yeovil and decide to drive instead, beware our new disco-based road system. On a 2 mile stretch of road that goes right by the stadium we now have 145 traffic lights.

https://www.somersetlive.co.uk/news/somerset-news/yeovil-western-corridor-roadworks-46-2878880

I think that might explain why the bus was nonsensically late after the game. That and the exodus from out-of town centres at the same time.

Seriously, anyone booking a train from Yeovil junction and who doesn't want to pay for a taxi should factor in a long walk to the town centre to get a bus from there. I wouldn't risk waiting for a bus that goes the whole way again.

 

[Jabba the gut]

Boreham Wood.

Lightning fast & frequent trains to St Pancreas though - it probably isn't much harder to get to the West End from Borehamwood than where I live and I'm considered Central London. so there isn't really any need to hang around in Borehamwood itself.

Not that it would matter to the casual long distance football visitor but Grimsby/Barrow/Hartlepool it ain"t - there are some very affluent genteel areas not very far away - Totteridge is mega-wealthy Premier League footballer country and a lot of the area on the way to Barnet is very pleasant and countrified. Even the likes of Mill Hill and Edgware Town centre are OK.

Ground is reasonably tidy, but one of the stands is a bit cramped considering it seems fairly new. I go to Arsenal Ladies sometimes and being 6'2 it can be uncomfortable in some seats if I don't get there early.

 

[Jabba the gut]

Hmm, well we seem to have come through that with hardly a scratch. Just a reminder there's ANOTHER telly vision series based in our beautiful town (I know, I know but come on, we are a fantastic looking town!), making it's national premiere on Sunday...…….

Must be well over a decade since I've been to the Shay, but remember feeling Halifax was slightly surreal (in a good way) with that honey-coloured stone everywhere. Dramatic countryside on the route of the connecting train as well.

 

[MrGloverLover]

Chesterfield's not a bad place, but the trek to the ground is a pain compared to Saltergate, which was central. Only passed Fylde on the way to Bloomfield Road from Preston station - I got the bus once just to look around. Not much there from what I saw.

Don't Chesterfield still put on a free bus to the ground from the town centre?

 

[LeWhites]

Dover is far better than Aldershot, Barrow and Ebbsfleet, although I will agree that it's a bit rubbish

 

[Jabba the gut]

Don't Chesterfield still put on a free bus to the ground from the town centre?

Nobody told me.

 

[Casey]

I noticed a few people having a go about Crawley in this thread and although I would agree that great big housing estates can be soulless they are quite well maintained and there is quite a bit of ye olde worlde history and such around here. Trouble is, walking or getting the bus to the ground you don't see it.

16th century coaching halts and inns on the high street and an 11th century church in the town and I live a ten minute walk away from an 8th century church.

Having been born in the EC1 area of London and then moved due to slum clearance to Basildon in Essex I'm not doing so bad living in Creepy.

It feels very odd sticking up for this place.

Casey

 

[Magpie Mike]

It would be great to extend this thread to National South and North.
I know many South grounds and they are unrelentingly featureless, soulless and any other less you can think of.
Grim.

 

[#Beebot]

It would be great to extend this thread to National South and North.
I know many South grounds and they are unrelentingly featureless, soulless and any other less you can think of.
Grim.

I mean, Canvey definitely belongs on this list.

 

[shoddycollins]

I've not been to Halifax, but Radio 6 keep telling me how up-and-coming and trendy it is these days.

Barra, if you can get past how out-of-the-way it is, the deprivation and the general impression of Northern industrial decline isn't doing too bad for itself. Feels fairly solidly built and well-maintained and the air is fresh. It was pretty much built all in one go (one shift I sometimes wonder) so has a sort of tidy uniformity to it.

Of course you'll see none of this from Holker Street or the railway station.

Gateshead doesn't feel like a real place. It's ten minute's walk to Newcastle city centre and has the Metro Centre, so its own town centre is relegated to essentially some kind of suburban shopping street and all the good stuff in Gateshead is as close to Newcastle as they can get it, right on the river.

I once went to see a show at the Sage, and the singer commented that management had stuck a sign on the way out of the dressing rooms saying 'you are in Gateshead' because of the amount of people who walked out onto stage and shouted 'good evening Newcastle!'

 

[Essex2Wessex]

I noticed a few people having a go about Crawley in this thread and although I would agree that great big housing estates can be soulless they are quite well maintained and there is quite a bit of ye olde worlde history and such around here. Trouble is, walking or getting the bus to the ground you don't see it.

16th century coaching halts and inns on the high street and an 11th century church in the town and I live a ten minute walk away from an 8th century church.

Having been born in the EC1 area of London and then moved due to slum clearance to Basildon in Essex I'm not doing so bad living in Creepy.

It feels very odd sticking up for this place.

Casey

Have to agree with that. I grew up in Dagenham, and have relatives in Basildon and Stevenage, and know Harlow a bit too, and Crawley is quite a cut above those other new towns from the same period and with similar histories. Granted the town centre is horrible and soulless (one surviving old street apart), but the residential areas (those I've walked through between the station and the ground at least) didn't seem at all unpleasant. I was surprised.

 

[Raymondo316]

It would be great to extend this thread to National South and North.
I know many South grounds and they are unrelentingly featureless, soulless and any other less you can think of.
Grim.

Concord/Canvey Island & Dartford are both pretty damn bleak.

 

[Jabba the gut]

Concord/Canvey Island & Dartford are both pretty damn bleak.

A swathe of that part of South/South-East Essex is absolutely horrific. Basildon is one of the most depressing places I've been to and Canvey/Benfleet are even worse, if only because Basildon at least has a reasonable amount of shopping etc. Much different than say Brentwood, let alone the genteel countrified/wealthy London/Essex border areas. It seems bizarre that somewhere like Theydon Bois and Canvey Island are on the same planet, let alone in the same county.

Dartford seems to have nosedived since the early nineties. I went there a few times in that period and don't recall It being that bad. I went back a few years ago to see Dartford's new ground and was surprised by the air of doom and decay. That's modern Britain for you I guess.

 

[Jabba the gut]

Have to agree with that. I grew up in Dagenham, and have relatives in Basildon and Stevenage, and know Harlow a bit too, and Crawley is quite a cut above those other new towns from the same period and with similar histories. Granted the town centre is horrible and soulless (one surviving old street apart), but the residential areas (those I've walked through between the station and the ground at least) didn't seem at all unpleasant. I was surprised.

Harlow is weird. There are really nice bits that could almost be in the country and then you stumble into the appalling, dystopian town centre.

Our post-war town planners should be shot - and those already dead should be dug up and shot.

 

[Jabba the gut]

Grays was a horrible place too. Bizarrely they were financially doped high-fliers when we we were in the Conference. We played them at home in a 1st v 2nd match believe it or not and got a 6k attendance IIRC.

Fantastic football team in that era - a few of that side went on to better things. I recall playing them away in the Trophy QF when they were smashing Conference South and all our fans watching in disbelief as they passed us to death.

My most vivid memory is a bunch of us pointing and laughing at what looked like a spindly schoolkid lining up for them as further confirmation of how tinpot non-league was, only for our jaws to hit the floor as he waltzed effortlessly past a couple of our defenders, including a former top flight right-back, before laying Grays' first goal on a plate and continuing in much the same vein for the rest of the game.

He turned out to be a (barely) 17-year old Gary Hooper.

 

[MrGloverLover]

Christ - what a ridiculous place to put a train station. For some reason a few places on that line suffer the same problem. Apparently Crewkerne is another one where you almost need a train to get to the station to catch a train. I believe Yeovil had a city centre station where the newish complex is, but bizarrely that one didn't go inter city..

First time we played you I tried to walk to the station to catch my booked train back to Waterloo. (i got a lift to the ground from the station, so had no idea how far it was from the town centre).

Google Maps showed what seemed to be a footpath - only after it was too late to turn back did it dawn on me that it was only a virtual, unmarked public footpath across fields and that fast road with no pavement.

When I realised how ridiculously far I had to go there was nothing else I could do but run - quite literally across farmland and past surprised livestock towards the end - I was shifting myself that they would charge me. i'm unfit to say the least and was in agony by the time I got to the station.

The next time I went via Pen Mill as I live relatively close to Paddington and there are at least paved roads to Pen Mill in the event I had to travel on foot.

After the game the bus was so ridiculously late that it was another case of panic stations and a not-so-fun run when I got to the town centre. I was so knackered that I briefly gave up, coughing and wheezing like an emphysema victim puffing unfiltered Gitanes. I decided to give it one last effort and literally hobbled on to the platform just as the train arrived.

No offence, but I'm glad I don't have to do that again next season.

Wow, that's quite a trek! Personally i'd never walk up Babylon Hill and through Bradford Hollow, well done for not getting run over. Yes we did used to have Yeovil Town Station but the lovely Dr. Beeching closed it in the 60s. Pen Mill is at least in the town but a good hour's walk to the ground.

 

[Pink Panther]

Dartford seems to have nosedived since the early nineties. I went there a few times in that period and don't recall It being that bad. I went back a few years ago to see Dartford's new ground and was surprised by the air of doom and decay. That's modern Britain for you I guess.

I went for the first time in over a decade this season and was shocked at how depressed the town centre is. Yet their ground has a big sign proclaiming it to be "Built by a Conservative Council", and when I checked online 34 of 44 local councilors in the borough are Tories. On my way home to the station there were lots of big expensive cars on the main roads, lots of affluent looking people coming out of the train station and getting into cars or waiting for cabs, people dressed up nicely catching trains into London for an evening out. I think the town has expanded quite a lot in recent decades and there must be a lot of nice housing around the outskirts of town, but the people who live there all commute into London or go shopping at Bluewater and the old town centre is just decaying, all pound shops and a shabby market populated by poorer people. Proximity to motorways and frequent fast trains to other places means people can sort of live there without really doing anything there; there's no real community feel in places like that.

 

[Jabba the gut]

I went for the first time in over a decade this season and was shocked at how depressed the town centre is. Yet their ground has a big sign proclaiming it to be "Built by a Conservative Council", and when I checked online 34 of 44 local councilors in the borough are Tories. On my way home to the station there were lots of big expensive cars on the main roads, lots of affluent looking people coming out of the train station and getting into cars or waiting for cabs, people dressed up nicely catching trains into London for an evening out. I think the town has expanded quite a lot in recent decades and there must be a lot of nice housing around the outskirts of town, but the people who live there all commute into London or go shopping at Bluewater and the old town centre is just decaying, all pound shops and a shabby market populated by poorer people. Proximity to motorways and frequent fast trains to other places means people can sort of live there without really doing anything there; there's no real community feel in places like that.

Mick Jagger famously comes from Dartford. His family were affluent and middle-class, so you'd imagine it used to be much nicer.

There are much nicer places nearby there days like Sidcup, Bexley village and Chislehurst, with good access via fast roads. I imagine a fair few people have moved there and maybe work in Dartford.

 

[Reginald Fodstain]

Mick Jagger famously comes from Dartford. His family were affluent and middle-class, so you'd imagine it used to be much nicer.

There are much nicer places nearby there days like Sidcup, Bexley village and Chislehurst, with good access via fast roads. I imagine people have moved there.

Keef does as well though and he grew up in a tiny terrace next to a bomb site!

 

[Etienne Vermeer]

I went for the first time in over a decade this season and was shocked at how depressed the town centre is. Yet their ground has a big sign proclaiming it to be "Built by a Conservative Council", and when I checked online 34 of 44 local councilors in the borough are Tories. On my way home to the station there were lots of big expensive cars on the main roads, lots of affluent looking people coming out of the train station and getting into cars or waiting for cabs, people dressed up nicely catching trains into London for an evening out. I think the town has expanded quite a lot in recent decades and there must be a lot of nice housing around the outskirts of town, but the people who live there all commute into London or go shopping at Bluewater and the old town centre is just decaying, all pound shops and a shabby market populated by poorer people. Proximity to motorways and frequent fast trains to other places means people can sort of live there without really doing anything there; there's no real community feel in places like that.

I guess this is my field of expertise being a (former) local.

The death of Dartford town centre can be explained almost completely in a single word - Bluewater. Who wants to shop in Dartford town centre when that's a mile or two down the road?

 

[Jabba the gut]

I guess this is my field of expertise being a (former) local.

The death of Dartford town centre can be explained almost completely in a single word - Bluewater. Who wants to shop in Dartford town centre when that's a mile or two down the road?

Isn't Lakeside reasonably accessible as well?

 

[Etienne Vermeer]

Isn't Lakeside reasonably accessible as well?

Yeah but next to nobody on the Kent side wants to travel to Essex to shop. The tunnel and bridge are less than fun.

 

[Essex2Wessex]

Grays is the absolute pits (most of Thurrock is hideous, with Tilbury worst of all, but there's not usually any particular reason to go there). Killed off by Lakeside and Bluewater and the M25 and cheap trains to London.

Canvey is maybe a bit of an acquired taste (and is well rough in an "old East End" sort of way) but it at least has some life to it, although the sub-sea level status meaning it is surrounded by an enormous concrete wall thing adds bleakness even on top of the gasworks and among the ruins of the never opened or completed 1970s oil refinery (exceptionally rare insect life there, from the sub-Thames soil dredged up and placed there apparently). Granted Concord Rangers are in possibly the bleakest bit of the island, but if you know where to look there's a smugglers Inn referenced in "Great Expectations" maybe 15 mins walk away, and also in a desolate location (the big post-1953 sea wall rather spoils the ambience). And it charges very much Not London prices. South Benfleet is fine, North Benfleet (eg Tarpots) rather not.

Still, given the choice of South Essex or North Kent, there's only one way, and it's not the same side of the river as the A2.