The Match:Durham v FC Halifax Town, Unibond League Cup 3rd Round.
The Date:Tuesday 24th November 2009.
The Result:Durham 2-4 FC Halifax Town (Riley2, Sanasy and Smith).
As public transport was not an option for this journey our car full left Halifax at 4.05pm (it should have been 4pm but it was not me that was late it's just everyone else got there before me!!) for what we expected to be a tough old journey up. However the weather was good and the roads were clear and we had an excellent run up arriving at about 5.50 pm but had to park over the road from the stadium as we were informed by the car park attendant with the customary limp that the main car park was for 5 a side player's only?? The ground is only 5 minutes or so from the A1 and is a five minute drive form the wonderful city of Durham.
Thankfully the clubhouse outside the ground was open and we were afforded a friendly welcome in what is a very nice building under the main stand.
By 7.30pm the weather had worsened and after paying the £6.00 admission money we looked for somewhere sheltered to stand. The ground itself has uncovered viewing areas behind both goals and all down one side with the only covered area being the man seated stand which had a small paddock area in front of it which is where we took our vantage point. I am not going to do a programme review as Durham had decided not to do one with hand written team sheets only being available. However these had our old logo and we had a player called Kevin Sanasy on the bench!!
The food bar was at the end of the main stand and offered a limited choice but the standard and prices were good, however it's the first time I have seen burgers on sale without having either onions or cheese to go with them. At least there was enough food to go round the sparse crowd of 128 half of which I would estimate to be from Halifax.
The game itself was played in a gale and had persistent rain throughout but thankfully The Shaymen managed to battle their way to an unconvincing 4-2 victory with James Riley no longer an FC Halifax Town goal virgin as he bagged two of the four. I just hope the knock suffered to Richard Marshall is nothing too serious and he is available to play this weekend.
So we embarked on the return journey home and despite the heavy rain and winds doing their best to spoil the trip we made it back into Halifax for around 11.30 pm having driven through some horrible heavy rain. Again my thanks to Royston Reidy for driving and to Zeb for NOT snoring and allowing me to hear the football results on the radio!!
Journey Distance:216 miles.
Total Distance for the Season:1,817.8 miles.
Terry"Chadders" Sunderland hoping to be fit to travel to Farsley next Tuesday after my knee operation the day before.
