Peterborough United's London Road

Peterborough United is a rarity in the Championship, not only having terracing at all, but having two stands of it. After spending the majority of their lives in the lower leagues, Peterborough United can be excused for having a ground the isn't quite Championship standard.

DATES VISITED THIS GROUND

21/1/2006 - P'boro 1 Lincoln City 1

23/12/2006 - P'boro 1 Lincoln City 2

29/3/2008 - P'boro 4 Lincoln City 0

If you're looking for one of two different types of grounds then this is the place to go. Those two types of grounds are a very old school style ground that is a throwback to the 80's, and the other, is a complete shithole complete with a pitch that even Worzel Gummidge couldn't play on, luckily, you get both with London Road.

Luckily, Peterborough is fairly easy to get to from Lincoln but as soon as you get off the train, you're forced into a police escort and the police automatically assume that all the people under the age of 25 must be hooligans because everyone over that age, even if they were wearing City shirts, were allowed to just go on their merry way. Also annoyingly, the police force you to go into a pub near the ground which quite frankly, fucked me off because I didn't want to spent 3 fucking hours in a dive of a pub, especially when I don't drink. This is unless you're clever enough to avoid being looking like a football fan.

Anyway, when you finally get into the ground, you could be mistaken for expecting to see people dressed like Boy George walking around. The away end is the horrible type of away end, a terrace that's as shallow as a toddler's swimming pool, the view of the action at the other end is quite poor and if the terrace is packed, it's almost impossible to get a perfectly clear view of what's going on due to the people in front.

The stand to the left is easily the best stand at the ground. It is a similar size (capacity wise) to Sincil Bank's CO-OP stand with the executive boxes in between the 2 tiers. This is a very smart stand but for some reason, on the far side at the top, the rows suddenly get lower. Normally this would be because there were houses behind it that didn't allow for the extra building but god knows what Peterborough's excuse was.

The stand behind the far goal appeared to be a larger, steeper version of the away terracing and the final stand had a remarkable similarity to the main stand at Leyton Orient. Infact, it you repainted some of the seats, it would look identical to that stand. It again is a 2 tiered stand with the classic wooden variety chairs. Ironically, just like the main stand at Orient's rivals, Southend, all the blocks in this stand are different colours.

The previous night, I had watched "Night of the Living Dead" and there was more life in that than there was in the home fans at London Road. It is one of the quiestest grounds I've ever visited and you're more likely to find a turtle with 7 heads than see a decent home atmosphere at London Road.

Overall, Peterborough is "exactly what it says on the tin", it is a shithole, devoid of anything remotely interesting and with less atmosphere than a cemetery before the Resident Evil film crew get to it.  However, I suppose that's the good thing about it, you don't have to pretend that you're about to go to a brilliant ground and get all excited about it.

I wouldn't recommend Peterborough to anyone who wanted to visit a random ground and there would be few who would argue, that this is the worst overall ground in the whole East Midlands/Anglia area.

SCORES

Overall Ground Quality : 2

Ease of getting there : 7

Atmosphere : 0

Programme : 7

View of Action : 2

Terrace Nutterage Rating : 7

The "football" feeling : 4

Friendliness of Home Supporters : 2

Quality of the game : 4

Chances of Coming Here Again for a Random Game: 0

Overall : 37/100