Memorial Stadium

By Nathan Jackson
September 11 2005

DATES VISITED THIS GROUND : 17/10/2002, 1/5/2004, 18/9/2004, 10/9/2005

THIS REVIEW IS BASED ON THE VISIT DATED: 10/9/2005

Having visited the Memorial Stadium three times before, I wasn't particully looking forward to the game or visiting the stadium because, I aint a big fan of mainly terraced grounds. There were some things to look forward to those as we were not in the seated stand behind the goal rather than the terrace. Getting to the ground once you're in Bristol is almost as complicated as getting into Wycombe and after half an hour of driving around, you encounter a place makes the football ground seem really random. It's in a massive housing estate and then you just come across a random football ground, it's quite amusing in a way.

After being in the terrace, I was really curious about what it'd be like to go into the seating stand and it felt really odd going into the ground because there were no turnstiles, just a random steward on the gate. You get into the stand and look out and surprisingly, it's a better view than the one you get from the terrace. The stand however is temporary and it is incredibly unstable. The stand kept vibrating quite badly in the wind and often felt like it would collaspe.

The stand to the left is very similar to a cricket pavillion with terracing below and seating above once again. This stand also has the most annoying/slowest scoreboard in the world. The scoreboard reads like this, ROVERS 0    0  LINCOLN   03, this basically is the score is in the middle with the minutes on the right, all in the exact same text and size so anyone who hasn't been before and sees this after arriving late, don't think you're 3-0 up, don't laugh but in 2002/3, someone came up and saw that and thought we were already 3-0 up.

The stand behind the far goal is a large terrace which is apparantly where all the singing comes from and when they get going, they're quite loud. The final stand is a pitch length terrace with a fairly large seating section above it.

Overall, the ground isn't too bad but it isn't too good either. I do look forward to the trips here but I don't think I'd be too bothered if we didn't have to go their again.