St James Park

Sunday 13 October 2013

Exeter City 0-3 Hartlepool United

Aerial shot of St James Park (Bing Maps)

Programme - £3.00

Ratings

Overall Ground Quality : 6/10

Ease of getting there : 8/10

Atmosphere : 3/10

Programme : 8/10

View of Action : 7/10

Quality of the game : 4/10

The "football" feeling : 6/10

Chances of coming here for a random game : 1/10

Legroom : N/A

Surrounding area : 8/10

Overall : 51/100

The Big Bank

St James Terrace

The Grandstand

The Grandstand turnstiles

The Grandstand

A warm welcome to the Hartlepool United supporters from Exeter City

Flybe Stand

The Big Bank

Flybe Stand

An unusual door leading to the pitch (?)

Exeter City's strong international link

Before the match.....the Flybe Stand

St James Terrace

The Grandstand

Midway through the first half..... the Flybe Stand

St James Terrace

The Grandstand

Someone decided that the job of painting the Grandstand red and white
was more difficult than first thought

During the second half..... the Flybe Stand

St James Terrace

The Grandstand

The rather pleasant surrounds in Exeter....

......

St James Terrace with the city centre in the distance

The sunsetting at St James Park

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Exeter City 0-3 Hartlepool United
Instead of our usual Saturday morning start, you'll be surprised to know that on this occasion we left at 5:45pm on Friday evening and made our journey south-westbound towards Gordano services.
We intended to stop at Gordano services overnight before making the shortened journey down to Exeter the next morning via various stops on the way.
We travelled down the M42 before joining the M5 in the gloomy autumn drizzle.
With the lack of traffic, we found ourselves at Gordano services on the southern side of Bristol by 8pm....Just in time for England v Montenegro on TV shortly followed by bed!
We both woke up fairly early and were out of the Alan Partridge styled ‘Travel Tavern’ by 8:15am.
Our first stop of the day was in Portishead where we had a great view of the Severn Estuary in the strong windy condition which in no time woke us both up!
We continued down the B3124 towards Clevedon Town who play at the Hand Stadium. The Hand Stadium is named after the Hand family who were involved in running the club for nearly 100 years. The facility includes an all weather pitch, training facilities, a 300-seater stand, tiered terracing around the whole ground and a clubhouse. The Hand Stadium is also home of Vibe, Clevedon's only nightclub!
We then continued our journey parallel to the M5 southbound and reached ASDA in Weston-super-Mare by 9:25am to get some breakfast.
Only a minute down the Winterstoke Road, we found ourselves at the Woodspring Stadium, the home of Weston-super-Mare with a capacity of 3,500. The club moved to the new purpose-built Woodspring Stadium in August 2004. They previously played at Woodspring Park a short distance away from their current home.
We continued our non league adventures with a visit to Bridgwater Town who play at Fairfax Park which holds 2,500 supporters.
Approximately half an hour later, we were going through the Sir Vivian Richards Gates at the County Ground in Taunton and taking photos of the rather quaint home of Somerset CCC.
Only around the corner was Taunton Town's Wordsworth Drive. In 1953, the club moved to Wordsworth Drive where they have remained ever since. The Peacocks leased the ground from Taunton Borough Council until the 1970’s when the club purchased the ground and installed floodlights.
After that, we drove across the Devon border and found ourselves at Tiverton Town who play at the rather impressive Ladysmead. It was opened in 1946 and has a capacity of 3,500. The record attendance currently held at Ladysmead is 3,000 for an FA Cup first round match against Leyton Orient in 1994.
With all our non-league stops finished for the day, our final leg of our southbound journey was Exeter.
Parking near the ground proved to be difficult with a large amount of residential parking in action meant that we had to park slightly further away on Abbey Road just off the B3212 Pinhoe Road only half a mile from the ground.
St James Park has a capacity of just over 8,500 spectators. Positioned on the bank of a railway line, St James Park has seen only a few changes since the 1920’s due to limited space. The current Grandstand was built in 1926 when the previous stand was destroyed by a fire. Since then, both the Grandstand and even the St James Terrace hasn't changed much. The club began to redevelop St James Park in early 2000, rebuilding the Big Bank and replacing the Cowshed terrace with an all-seater stand (Flybe Stand).

In 2003, the club was taken over by the supporters trust following many years of financial problems. Celebrating 10 years of fan ownership, The Trust has now made the club financially secure and has in that time seen promotion back into the Football League.

The game was a very one sided affair with the away side dominating throughout the 90 minutes. Jack Compton scored one goal and made two as Hartlepool eased past Exeter to earn a third away victory in a week. Midway through the first half, Jack Baldwin was on the end of a well worked corner before Luke James and Jack Compton sealed the victory with a fine lob and a brilliant half volley.

Following the game we ran back to the car and were on our way out of Exeter by 5pm heading northbound up the M5.
We had already planned where we were going to eat so we could get a quick meal and drink before continuing our journey at a reasonable time. We decided to eat at a 2 for £10 pub called The Quantock in Bridgewater which was conveniently placed close to the M5.
In no time we finished our meals, Adrian chose the Roast Dinner whilst I chose the Chicken Tikka washed down with a cider for myself and sadly only a coke for Adrian as he was driving.
We left Bridgwater at just gone 6:30pm and went through the town before rejoining the M5 for our long journey back to the Midlands.
Even though we had a long journey home, it was still not as far as the travelling Hartlepool faithful who were faced with a 345 mile return journey home. Well done to the 144 Hartlepool United supporters who made the journey to St James Park. This is real football with real supporters!