 |
| Me by National Rail Ticket Office |
 |
| Train to Hitchin 17:10PM Platform 11 |
 |
| Great Northern Train |
After I finished looking around London back on Monday October 5th,
I went to the St. Pancras/Kings Cross train station which is where you
can get commuter & international trains in & out of London. I
told my pal
Sean MacDonald that I would meet him there at 5PM. I got
there around 4:45PM. I waited for a short time by the National Rail
ticket office then Sean spotted me. We were taking a ride to Hitchin
which is about 35 miles north of London in Hertfordshire. We wound up
taking the
Great Northern train that left Kings Cross at 17:10PM. We
arrived at the Hitchin station around 17:45PM which gave us plenty of time to get to a
football match we planned to attend that was starting at 19:45PM that
evening. When we arrived we had to walk a mile to get to the
grounds they were playing at called
Top Field, home of
Hitchin Town FC.
They were hosting
Leamington FC who were one of the best teams in the
Southern Premier League, the semi pro 7th level in the English soccer
pyramid.
 |
| Hitchin England |
 |
| Traffic in Hitchin |
 |
| Victoria Pub |
 |
| Monday Night Supper |
On our way towards the
ground, we were
surprised to see so much traffic in the area. It was rush hour but we
didn't think we were going to a major town but a suburb of London. As we got closer to the
ground, we stopped off at the
Victoria Pub to have dinner. Sean had told
me he wanted to go to this place. I had done research online. I noticed
they
had a great looking menu. I told him, I'll join him. Since it was
Monday, we were able to take advantage of their Monday Night Supper. As a result, I had a lemon butter chicken breast
that came along with mac & cheese bake & green beans to go along
with some English ale. In addition, I had a chocolate brownie with
vanilla ice cream & fudge sauce for dessert. When we finished, we
continued on our way over to Top Field. Shortly thereafter, we noticed a
gentleman who was wearing a Hitchin FC scarf. He was obviously going
there as well. We walked & talked with him. He told us he's been
going to their
matches for 55 years. He also told us that the ground was in danger of
being torn down in favor of a supermarket but thankfully the
local community got together to prevent
this from happening. When we got to the box office, we parted
ways.
 |
| Top Field in Hitchin |
Sean & I proceeded to buy tickets
for the match for 10 pounds which is roughly 15 US dollars. We were
given a small ticket stub that just said adult on it. There was no
detailed information on it not even the date. We proceeded to
walk inside. It was a damp rainy night. The grounds had wooden stands on
both sides of the pitch that were covered so we didn't have to worry
about getting wet. We wound up sitting by midfield on the far side.
They also had an area called the
Canary Club which is a bar that's
open to all supporters during the match. The team was referred to as the Canaries when they were founded back in 1928.
 |
| Live action from the match |
As
for the
match we saw, Leamington FC scored twice to take a 2-0 lead in the
first half. In the second half, Hitchin FC came roaring back as they
managed to tied the score at two. They wound up getting a hard fought
draw in front of a crowd of 311 people. After the match, Sean & I walked back to the train station. We
got lucky as we were able to catch an express train that left just
after ten. We got back to Kings Cross around 10:45PM. We said our
goodbyes as we headed back to get some sleep.
Stay tuned for a special post that will go into detail about another adventurous & exciting day I had that Tuesday.
Thank you for reading & following along.
Yours truly,
Gary Herman
No comments:
Post a Comment