Boundary Park

Tuesday, 5 March 2013

Oldham Athletic 0-2 Sheffield United

Aerial shot of Boundary Park (Bing Maps)

Programme - £3.00

Ratings
Overall Ground Quality : 4/10
Ease of getting there : 8/10
Atmosphere : 6/10
Programme : 4/10
View of Action : 9/10
Quality of the game : 6/10
The "football" feeling : 8/10
Chances of coming here for a random game : 2/10
Legroom : 9/10
Surrounding area : 6/10

Overall : 62/100

Main Stand

Rochdale Road Stand

Main Stand

Chaddy Road End

Area Unused

The roof being repainted on the Chaddy Road End...maybe
making the most of their FA Cup money

'Oldham Athletic'

Chaddy Road End

Area Unused

Rochdale Road Stand

Chaddy Road End

Area Unused

Rochdale Road Stand

Oldham Athletic 0-2 Sheffield United

After debating whether to go to Yeovil Town v Tranmere Rovers or Oldham Athletic v Sheffield United, we opted to go to Boundary Park. Our journey to the North West started at 8:30am making the direct journey up the M1 to Chesterfield and then taking the winding A6 before reaching our first stop, New Mills, at 10am. New Mills play at Church Lane which has a capacity of 1,400.

We continued our journey towards Stockport and joined the M60 circling Manchester before stopping again, this time at Trafford an hour later. Trafford, who were previously North Trafford up until the 1993/1994 season, play at the well hidden Shawe View. Their ground holds 2,500 spectators.

We continued on the Manchester circular before stopping off at Salford City shortly after. The Ammies play at Moor Lane having a capacity of 1,400. Salford City is well known for having the brothers of two famous Manchester footballers at the club. Rhodri Giggs who previously managed Salford is the brother of Ryan Giggs, whilst Enoch Barwuah who plays for Salford City (at the time of writing) is the brother of Mario Balotelli.

We completed our circle of Manchester by visiting Ashton United. Hurst Cross is home of Ashton United, which holds 4,500 people. Records indicate that the club started playing at Hurst Cross in 1880, making the area one of the oldest surviving, constantly used football venues in the world. They were originally named Hurst FC until 1947 when they were renamed as Ashton United.

We made our final leg of the journey towards Boundary Park. We parked on Westhulme Avenue which was only a short distance from the ground. We then walked to the ground and picked up our tickets before taking some photos of the exterior of the ground. Thanks to a very kind steward, we were given permission to take some photos of the inside of the ground from the Rochdale Road Stand.

We walked up to Oldham Road and looked for somewhere to get some food. We first attempted the Old Grey Mare pub which was signed 'serving hot food', yet upon our arrival, found they were only serving sandwiches. We then walked back down the Oldham Road back towards the ground and found a Fish and Chip shop yet when I (Ross) asked for fish and chips, I got the response of "we haven't got any fish". We walked back down Sheepfoot Lane towards the ground where we found a burger van on the corner of Sheepfoot Lane and Westhulme Way which served tea for £1 and 1/2 pound burger with bacon and cheese for £3.50 which we found very reasonably priced considering the location of the van being outside the ground.

We both sat on a wall outside the ground in the sunshine and read our programmes, which were very poor in our opinions (Too many adverts and lacking in context). We continued to take some photos of the exterior of the ground before we went through the well dated, crumbling, narrow turnstiles into the ground which wasn't much better.

Being known to be one of the coldest football grounds in the country, Boundary Park was first opened in 1896 for Oldham County FC before folding and seeing the ground get taken over by Pine Villa FC. Pine Villa FC changed their name to the currently known Oldham Athletic. The more vocal Oldham fans are housed in the Chadderton Road End (Chaddy End) which is a traditional, small, one-tiered stand. Opposite that is the Rochdale Road End, where one third of the stand is given to away supporters and home fans are given the rest, except when the opposition has a large away following then the situation is reversed (like what we saw when The Blades were in town). The Main stand has been there since the stadium was first built. It is a small two-tiered structure. The terracing on the lower tier has since been turned into seating and towards either end of the lower tier, parts of the old terracing is now disused.During the 1980’s, Oldham installed a plastic pitch at Boundary Park. The pitch proved to be difficult to play on for the visiting teams due to the bounce of the ball and just being completely different to grass. This disadvantage to the away teams was at the gain of Oldham which saw their best ever top flight finish. Boundary Park is known as being the coldest ground in the Football League, earning the nickname coined by Joe Royle, Ice Station Zebra. It is also the third-highest stadium, at 509 feet (155m) above sea level, of any Premier League or Football League club after the Hawthorns, home of West Bromwich Albion, 551 feet (168m) and Vale Park, home of Port Vale, 525 feet (160m).

With the majority of seating being unreserved, we picked our seats and awaited kick off. With about 30 minutes before the start of the match, an elderly gentleman sat next to us which were not a problem. The problem occurred following a gust of wind from our left blew across the strong smell of urine.

After 15 minutes of the strong smell of urine, we decided to move down two seats away from him to the humour of the Latics supporters we were surrounded by.

Sheffield United maintained their League One promotion bid with second-half goals scored by Michael Doyle and Dave Kitson. In fairness, Oldham Athletic had a good first-half with plenty of scoring chances yet they didn’t find the back of the net. It was safe to say, Oldham Athletic have been underachieving this season and should’ve been a lot higher in the table with the players they have.

Following the referee's final whistle, we ran back towards the car and got away promptly even with being misdirected by Adrian's iPad we found ourselves back on Snake Pass over the Pennines back into Yorkshire and down the M1 back to the East Midland and home by 7pm.

Overall, Boundary Park is a very old fashion football ground and must be one of the most dated in League 1 and maybe even the Football League!.... And yes the coldest too.