Over the past few years, my husband Bill has been on a mission and he has now completed it – he has visited all 92 League football grounds.
Bill had always been keen on football and followed the trials and triumphs of Reading whilst he still lived in the area. After travelling to the new ground and smart stadium, he felt he had lost touch with his roots and for some time got his footie fixes by watching Match of the Day.
Our daughter Lou’s partner took him to see Forest Green Rovers in Nailsworth and before I knew it, he was a season ticket holder and one of the noisy bunch on the club away bus.
It is at this point that I tell you have been to the football twice in the 49 years we have been together – Reading versus Southampton standing on the terraces and Barcelona sitting in luxury whilst on holiday in Spain! For somebody with a strong sense of colour, you can imagine the effect the two scarves have on me. One is Barcelona and the lime green and black is Forest Green Rovers.
Looking back, one of the best bits of his quest to visit all these grounds has been that we would go away overnight and share the driving. Bill could be dropped at the ground, and I could go off for an adventure. Sometimes this was just shopping, often a museum and always hunting for stitchy antiques or other potential treasures. Over the past year I have wandered the streets in Liverpool, Newcastle, Blackpool, Bradford, Sheffield and more.
