Crewe Alexandra's Gresty Road

This was a ground I was really curious about visiting due to it's unusual structuring, however, other than seeing the oddity of a stand that is bigger than the other three combined, there wasn't really a lot to get excited about at Crewe's Gresty Road.

Crewe always looked like a fairly strange ground and when they were on TV. One massive stand surrounded by three tiny efforts makes up Gresty Road, making it one of the most unique grounds in the entire Football League.

Getting to Gresty Road depends very much on what route you take as to how difficult it is. Our route took us down what I can only describe as a massive pothole with thin country roads, it certainly wasn't the easiest place to get to going via that route. When you eventually merge into Crewe out of nowhere, you're met with an area that really seems to be devoid of anything other than the ground that is worth visiting.

The other route into Crewe is extremely easy with a dual carriage way and motorways seemingly surroundinng the area.....trust my friend to have gone via the country road in the previous visit.

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WULVERN HOUSING STAND

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Once you arrive at the ground, you have a ticket office right next to the away end, meaning quicker entry to the stadium when they open up the turnstile system. There is a relatively new club shop at the gorun but it is packed with empty space, there are very few items in there and even if I was a Crewe fan, I'd be disappointed with the lack of products available in the shop.

I've sat in two stands at Crewe, the away end and the main stand. We'll start with the away end (and the ratings at the bottom are mainly based on this end. Once inside the away end, you are near enough instantly hit with a feeling that you're just revisiting another version of Stockport's away end. Other than the differences in terms of colour, the height, general structure and view of the pitch are near enough identical to Edgeley Park's away stand.

Being at the side of the pitch, it offers a good view of virtually the entire pitch and the rest of the ground. The leg space wasn't brilliant but thankfully the Crewe stewards weren't fussed about Lincoln fans putting their feet up onto the away end.

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THE AWAY END - BLUE BELL BMW STAND

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The stands either side of the away fans are small seated stands, similar to Lincoln's IMPS Stand. Both are sparesy populated and neither are likely to have more than 1,000 seats in them. I'd be surprised if in that if you were sat in the Wulvern Stand if your head reached the cross bar if you were on the top row, that's how small it is.

The final stand is absolutely massive, towering over the rest of the ground. It's so tall that if you're sat in the away end then you can only see the top of the stand when sat on the first two or three rows. I sat in this stand for our visit in 2010/11 and the view from this stand is absolutely fantastic. You get to see large sections of the town of Crewe....and the surprise is that it doesn't look too dissimilar to what you can see out of the CO-OP Stand at Sincil Bank.....masses of terraced housing.

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AB NUTRITION STAND

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The fans seem reasonably friendly enough and are passionate in the sense that some of them get extremely angry about the smallest of things. However, not once have I ever felt threatened at Crewe so no real problems there.

Other than that, there's not really a lot to describe about this ground, there's no atmosphere at all, even when scoring a goal they didn't actually make a lot of noise (just a low cheer and then quickly sitting back down again) and the programme was nothing more than average.

Overall it's an average addition to the 92, but not really a ground I would get particularly excited about visiting again, having said that though, it's certainly not one of the worst in the division.