Sincil Bank
Lincoln City v Torquay United
League Two
Saturday, August 14th 2010, 3pm
By Mark Horler
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1.
Why you were looking forward to going to the
ground (or not as the case may be):
It
is not often you can say you are going away
because Torquay United are "top of the league",
but after only one game of the new
season it was true!
2. How easy was your journey/finding the ground/car parking? Away
games in August up north are never easy for
Torquay United fans. The trick is to leave early
anough to avoid the 9am to 10am congestion that
happens every Saturday around Bristol during the
holiday period. A 7am start was a must for the
500 mile round trip. In the main the journey is
easy, but do not underestimate the last 60 miles
on A roads, which will take around 90 minutes as
much of it is 40mph speed limits. Thankfully we
saw today that much of rural Lincolnshire is
being dug up to make the A46 dual carridgeway.
Days like today make all the enviromental
concerns pale into insignificance and the
opening of the new road will make journeys to
Lincoln from the South so much easier. Parking
was really easy in side streets. The ground is
close to the town centre and a fair few of the
paultry 3,000 crowd seemed to walk to the match.
Priced parking was available in a nearly field
but not necessary to use.
3. What you did before the game pub/chippy.... home fans friendly? Lincoln
is a friendly town. The people are nice and
genuine and true football supporters. We saw
several Nottingham Forest shirts, they were
playing Sunday, showing some "floating support".
The ground is close to the town centre, near
enough to walk and perhaps visit the impressive
looking cathedral, which dominates the city
centre. We found a really friendly chippy near
the entrance to the ground.
It
was interesting to see a couple of "posh" coffee
stalls outside the ground selling more than your
KwikSave instant. There were the
usual host of volunteers selling 50:50
tickets, programmes etc and everyone of them bid
us a cheery hello. Good to see and sadly lacking
at most grounds nowadays.
4. What you thought on seeing the ground, first impressions of away end then other sides of the ground? Sincil
Bank is unusual for a league 2 ground in that
you can walk around it's entireity. Great views
of the cathedral from behind the co-op stand,
and indeed to your left once inside. The club
clearly have a lot of land and expansion would
be very easy if necessary. However the grounds
biggest fallback is that with a capacity of over
10,000 seats in 5 stands, the fans are spread
thinner than Marmite.
The
atmosphere is very poor. This is a pity as the
Imps fans do try their best to create
atmosphere, but the stands are very open and any
sound generated "drifts away". We were placed in
one block of the Co-op stand. Decent facilities,
a good view but very much "on our own". To our
right was a small seated stand with
executive boxes above. Very dated with no
outside seats for "the suits" and there were no
more than 100 poor soles in this stand. In front
of us was the main stand. Large, tall and
quite impressive and of unusual structure. It
appears very steep. A tiny "family" stand
to the right had barely 30 people in.
Behind
the other goal was where the majority of the
singing Lincoln fans sat (well stood). As far as
possible away from the away fans. Banners and
flags decorate this stand. It was nice to see a
banner dedictaed to Keith Alexander here.
Some
of Lincolns singing support sat as close to us
in the Co-op stand as it was possible to get,
but still miles away from us.
This
was a pity with so little atmosphere despite the
best efforts of the two sets of fans, perhaps
the club should be a little less worried about
segregating fans as if they were playing Leeds
or Millwall!
One
point of note is that concession tickets must be
purchased in the club shop before the game. If
you have children in your group it is worth
allowing a little more time. In addition if you
are 100% sure you can make the game, tickets are
£1 or £2 cheaper if purchased via
the club shop in the week before the game. This
includes away fans
5. Comment on the game itself, atmosphere, stewards, pies, toilets etc.. The
stewards were a laid back bunch.
You
wan't to put your flags up "no problem"
You
wan't to stand up the whole match "no problem"
In
fact it was the first football match I have been
to where every one of the stewards I saw was
actually watching the match!
Catering
was far too expensive, and I noticed how little
food and drinks our supporters purchased in
comparison to other away days....and no pasties!
Oh
the game! Torquay won 2-0. Never really got into
gear and never had to as Lincoln did not really
turn up. We were surprised to hear on Radio
Lincoln that their managers thought they were
unlucky. I have rarely seen a league two team
with such little firepower and feel it will be a
long hard season for the Imps.
6. Comment on getting away from the ground after the game: So
easy, so very easy
7. Summary of overall thoughts of the day out: A
good day out. I will perhaps make this a
weekend trip next season.
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