Are we Really the Worst Away Day? | Vital Football

Are we Really the Worst Away Day?

Where are we in Terms of the Worst Away Day?

  • Deservedly the Worst. 92nd out of 92nd

    Votes: 6 17.1%

  • Somewhere in the Top Ten.

    Votes: 8 22.9%

  • Somewhere in the Top Quarter

    Votes: 16 45.7%

  • Somewhere in the Top Half

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • We’re Actually Better than Average

    Votes: 5 14.3%
  • Total voters
    35
Trev_GFC

Trev_GFC

Vital 1st Team Regular
www.givemesport.com

England's 92 clubs have been ranked from worst to best based on experience for away fans

😳 84. Crystal Palace 😬 36. Arsenal 🤔 11. Manchester City One of England's 92 league clubs boasts a score higher than 80 🏟️ 👏
www.givemesport.com www.givemesport.com

I know our scaffolding is appalling and the town is grotty. We’re known for poverty, chavs, etc. But are we REALLY the very worst awayday you can experience out of the 92?

- The scaffold is rarely open, but when it is it’ll hold half of our entire League 2’s away followings to us. More people experience it than not. But at least you get a view unlike places like Barrow.

- The town is shit but you can drink in Rochester before or after instead, technically the same city. That’s really adds to the awayday experience.

- It’s the furthest Southeastern club, an hour from London on an expensive train which is a ball ache. At least the stadium is near the station and town centre.

- The biggest advice given to away fans is take a coat if it’s raining. No threat to your safety. Other places bar you from most of the pubs and advise you to hide colours etc. At Millwall you can only walk through a fucking cage between the station and stadium for your safety - how is that a better awayday FFS?!

- You’re less likely to see a victim of a stabbing or a shooting outside Gillingham Road Sainsbury’s on your walk to the ground than, say, Thornton Heath Tesco. Oh no, someone might accost you and try selling you a £10 handbag from their market stall.
 
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MK Dons or Northampton are far worse from my experience. The former a plastic, empty, soulless bowl in a plastic, empty, soulless town, the latter a shit stadium, miles from any decent pubs or public transport with brown seats
 
Virtually every club visiting us has to eventually encounter the road to hell (M25). Will it take one our or three to get round? Then actually need to find our little ground hidden away in narrow streets with little or no parking nearby. Alternatively they can battle by train and underground through London from Euston, Kings Cross etc to trundle slowly down to Gillingham Station and enjoy the picturesque walk to the ground. If they are unlucky they will end up sitting in a 25 year old temporary stand that is fully open to the elements. That's why when Doug announces the away attendance I always give them a hearty round of applause.
Of course for most Gills fans the very opposite travelling hassles apply for getting to almost every away ground!
 
Quote from the highlights of the article:

"Luton Town and Crystal Palace are surprising entries in the bottom ten rankings"

OK, anyone surprised to see Luton in the bottom 10 raise your hand. I'll wait.
 
I voted - top quarter - among the worst 25% in the EFL. But, I think we need to take a look at the criteria used to rate the list.

Although it includes location it doesn`t consider the actual "day out" - which, for me includes the wider location - in which case places like Rochester would enhance the vote for GFC. Away fans often get to the away venues quite early, so "vicinity appeal" should perhaps be a key consideration as far as "the day out" is concerned. Our closeness to London could therefore be quite a plus for many of the long distance visitors.

It does include "Total mileage" - which for many long distance visiting supporters is a big negative when it comes to driving to Kent. I now find the car journey down to GFC simply too much.

When it comes to the actual stadium, Priestfield is badly stigmatized by our "temporary" stand - this must be the main factor for most of the critics - understandably so, notwithstanding that we now allocate around 250 covered seats in the GRS.

For me, Luton is probably the worst, followed by Bristol Rovers then Barrow (though they`ve literally just substantially improved the away facilities).

Don`t know why Cheltenham and MK Dons fared so badly. Chelto`s a lovely place to visit and the ground`s walkable from the town centre. MK Dons, whilst difficult to get to from the centre of MK, is a superb stadium - the seating and facilities for away fans is, IMO, second to none in the EFL. Crikey, the seats give a super view, they`re wide and even have drink holders - the business class version of EFL seating. Even accounting for lack of atmosphere (due to smallish crowds) the stadium itself is never a bottom twenty facility.

Pricing is another criterion in the ratings - we`re not the most expensive. This season, Crewe appear to have pretty steep ticket prices for away fans.

I go to the vast majority of our away games every season and I wouldn`t put us at the bottom (worst) of the list. If it were not for the temporary stand we`d be ranked much higher. The immediate surroundings at Priestfield are not the best, neither is parking but, on the other hand, Priestfield is generally a much improved venue and the ground is very walkable from the train station - that`s a big plus for away travellers.

As for the overall #1 in the poll - Sheffield United, I wouldn`t argue too much against that. Good location for train travellers, good atmosphere, walkable from city centre and a surprisingly excellent view of the action from the away seats.
 
Couldn't really give a toss what the away experience is like at Priestfield, I'll never have to experience it.

That said, now I'm midlands based I do have to undertake the somewhat 'pot luck' experience on the M25 when I come down to the hallowed turf - as said earlier it could take me under 2 hours to do the trip, more likely nearer 3 and on occasion 4+. Then once you're there, finding somewhere to park is pretty tricky if you aren't familiar with the area. Add in that the closest pub to the away end is long gone with the closure of the Livi, and it starts to make sense.

On the train it's a piece of piss getting to the ground though, and it seems a lot of the more prepared away fans get off at Rochester and enjoy themselves there which is a far better option. As with every away game, if you put the slightest bit of preparation and research into your day then you'll probably have a reasonable enough experience - just turn up and expect to work it out when you get there and you're more likely to have a bad one.

As ever of course, the big problem is the BMS. We all know it's not great, but the views are good and you can get a decent number on there plus of course the 250 covered seats in the GRS which is more than enough for most visitors in this division. The facilities are better than most, especially at our level. A quick check of the weather forecast before you set off would let you know if you might need to bring appropriate attire with you, so it's difficult to claim being caught out by the lack of roof. Overall though, the BMS is our achilles heel.

But is it so much more of an achilles heel than say Shrewsbury being miles from the centre of town and therefore a long old walk with nothing en route? Or Bristol Rovers where you're stuck in the corner on an open terrace with basically no facilities? Or Barrow (where I've not been personally), which appears to be a Chernobyl tribute act? Everywhere has faults - even number one ranked Sheffield United where the chip butty I had pre game was rank.

For me, the best in the country is either of the Nottingham clubs, followed by Villa, Plymouth, Newcastle and Ipswich in no particular order.
 
I get that the BMS stand isn't ideal for away fans but hardly any of them sit in it anyway. Most of the away followings are so small they're sat in the corner of the GRS
 
HerrLjunga said:
MK Dons or Northampton are far worse from my experience. The former a plastic, empty, soulless bowl in a plastic, empty, soulless town, the latter a shit stadium, miles from any decent pubs or public transport with brown seats
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Yep the Inn on the Park no match for those glorious Gills pubs, or theres the dreadful hotel bars on site and in the ground. 2 minutes walk will take you to
Nando's, TGi Fridays or Pizza Express, Odeon Imax and retail for the family if they don't fancy the football , parking next to the ground, park and lakes complete with a flock of geese if you want a breath of fresh air.

The ground is used for women's football internationals, the Rugby world cup and Northampton Premiership rugby. The city has a fantastic theatre, art gallery, retail, Snowdome , Bletchley park, Indoor skydiving, Gullivers land, Aqua parks, Go-karting centre and quite a lot else.

Really mate there are plenty of crap places but MK ain't at all bad.
 
Colburn said:
I get that the BMS stand isn't ideal for away fans but hardly any of them sit in it anyway. Most of the away followings are so small they're sat in the corner of the GRS
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Nail on the head. We’re ranked dead set last purely because of the reputation of the BMS. It is talked about by away fans constantly and ridiculed and laughed at. Even tho the number of fans that have had to sit in it is very small. Nowt we can do about that.

If we had a regular away stand with a roof , even if the other facilities were poor, then we’d be nondescript about half way down the list of the 92 clubs.

The area around Priestfield isn’t great maybe, but it’s probably similar to at least 3/4 of all the other football clubs in UK. I’ve personally seen the areas around clubs like Bristol Rovers (and city back in the day), Old Trafford, Swindon, Peterboro, Donny, Luton, Millwall, Stoke, Liverpool and Everton etc etc. all very similar.
 
OneSirKeefy said:
Nail on the head. We’re ranked dead set last purely because of the reputation of the BMS. It is talked about by away fans constantly and ridiculed and laughed at. Even tho the number of fans that have had to sit in it is very small. Nowt we can do about that.

If we had a regular away stand with a roof , even if the other facilities were poor, then we’d be nondescript about half way down the list of the 92 clubs.

The area around Priestfield isn’t great maybe, but it’s probably similar to at least 3/4 of all the other football clubs in UK. I’ve personally seen the areas around clubs like Bristol Rovers (and city back in the day), Old Trafford, Swindon, Peterboro, Donny, Luton, Millwall, Stoke, Liverpool and Everton etc etc. all very similar.
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I think the issue is made worse because if arriving by car there's almost no public parking unless you really know the area and the walk down from the station takes you past nothing in the way of pubs , eateries or decent retail.
As we all know the High street is like a plague village.
Personally I think the BMS is a disgrace to the club and not really representative of the ground as a whole but if you were stuck there in crap weather it would colour your view of the place forever.
I don't buy into the 'who cares about away fans' narrative . Aside from the contingent of no-marks that follows every club, most of them are just fans supporting their local football team as opposed to sitting at home in their Man City shirts moaning about Arsenal or Liverpool.
 
The big picture isnt great.

Long way for anyone north of the midlands.
Very little in Gillingham hight street to welcome away fans.

If using the scaffold and it rains then not nice experience.

I can see why it scores so low but Luton wins for me. Everything about it is crap......everything.
 
Stoke is probably the worst town/city I’ve been to off the top of my head, based on how much of a shithole it is. Entire streets of boarded-up buildings. Menacing town centres (Burslem!).

Tranmere is atrocious too. Luton. Barrow was less atrocious than expected but hardly Monaco.
 
Crawley is possibly the worst town South of Watford that’s I’ve been to. Makes most of Medway look up market! Couldn’t believe what a hole it was. Plus you get all the aircraft constantly flying overhead with its proximity to Gatwick - must be a nightmare to sleep there!
I think that’s its main plus point, you can fly away fairly easily from there.
Ok the stadium isn’t the worst but i wouldn’t lose sleep if I never went back there.
 
HerrLjunga said:
MK Dons or Northampton are far worse from my experience. The former a plastic, empty, soulless bowl in a plastic, empty, soulless town, the latter a shit stadium, miles from any decent pubs or public transport with brown seats
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I will never return to Northampton away after watching us get battered during the Stimson era. Don't like the walk up the hill to the station either!
 
Lark said:
Crawley is possibly the worst town South of Watford that’s I’ve been to. Makes most of Medway look up market! Couldn’t believe what a hole it was. Plus you get all the aircraft constantly flying overhead with its proximity to Gatwick - must be a nightmare to sleep there!
I think that’s its main plus point, you can fly away fairly easily from there.
Ok the stadium isn’t the worst but i wouldn’t lose sleep if I never went back there.
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Like many places I think it has good and bad bits. The town centre is dull but the leafy suburbs out towards the stadium and beyond to Tillgate Park are lovely.

Stevenage is another one. Dirge of a town centre but cracking old town.

Lincoln - two sides of the train tracks.

Swindon, Gillingham and Luton all seem miserable all over.
 
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