Kidderminster Harriers' Aggborough

One of the nicer grounds to come into the League from the non-League over the last decade of so, Aggborough proved a happy hunting ground for City before the Harriers disappeared back into the non-League in 2005.

My first trip to Aggborough came in August 2002. This was back in the days when I didn't go to many away games at all, infact at this point I had only gone to see City away from home on 2 occasions, away at Hull at the end of the previous season, and a 3-2 win at Mansfield 16 months earlier. However, this game was more special to me than those as it was our first game after exiting administration, and if anything it felt like the first game of a new era, so the trip became a must and was actually the game where I decided that I wanted to go and watch the Imps on a very regular basis, at the time of writing I have only missed two games since then.

I had gone on the official coaches with the club and Kidderminster seemed an easy place to get in and is located in a reasonable position within Kidderminster. After getting off the coach, I headed straight towards the club shop and was greeted with smiles and very, very polite people within the shop who were very helpful in helping me find a product. When you walk around a ground you expect to be given some trouble if wearing your colours from the local teenagers, however, I got quite a few "alright mate?" which came as a pleasant surprise.

At this point Aggborough still had a terrace instead of their now all-seater main stand. Upon entering the away terracing at the time, I was struck with just how tiny the place seemed. I hadn't been used to a behind the goal view, but this was far better than the views from the terraces of Field Mill or Boothferry Park. Don't get me wrong, the view from Field Mill is good, although it's the size of the pitch that makes the away end at Kidderminster decent.

A year later and fans were given the choice of either standing in the terrace behind the goal or the seated stand, I've never been an overly large fan of terracing, so chose to go in the new seated stand. Although the ground did seem considerable bigger in here than it did from in the terrace, it offered a considerably better view.

The stand we were in had only been completed a few months earlier and was a pitch length stand, with about 15 rows to it's name. Sharing with the home fans, this seemed like quite a nice stand to a view a game from. The fans next to us were friendly as well, not offering any sort of abuse, and the fact the segregation only covered the width of two seats tells it's own story.

The one thing that I've always liked about Aggborough is that it is the correct size for Kidderminster. It's not like Darlington where you get a stadium they are never likely to fill, you have a quaint little ground that is fairly neat and pleasing to the eye.

The other three stands obviously weren't as visually pleasing as the others. Both stands behind the goals were similar size terracing with the one holding away fans having a scoreboard about it. The view from the far terrace is excellent and due to the relatively small size of the pitch, you get a decent view of the action down at the other end of the stand, even though the terrace isn't that big.

The stand opposite the one with away fans is another seated area although this is quite small and not particularly eye-catching. Every bollard resulted in a square block of seats being removed, however, this puzzled me when I saw people walking behind the other seats and behind able to get between the seats and bollard with space to spare. This stand also had the executive boxes around it.

The atmosphere inside Aggborough was quite good despite of an inclusion in the pre-match songs of the "Witch Doctor" song by the Cartoons. Kidderminster fans sung quite loudly and for long periods of time making the game quite enjoyable although the term "you only sing when your winning" does apply quite a bit to Aggborough.

The stewards were very polite when informing everyone that the block nearest the Kidderminster fans was closed for City fans although you could see one or two of them just didn't want to be there.

I would seriously recommend doing Kidderminster as a random game, so much to the point where two weeks after moving to Nottingham in 2008, I randomly decided to go to a friendly between Kidderminster and Plymouth, that's how much I liked the ground.