Sleaford Town's Eslaforde Park

City's pre-season before the 2007/8 season saw an Imps XI make the short trip to Sleaford Town and it was City's first visit to Eslaforde Park, the club's new ground. I didn't know what to expect but I was hoping for more than I got. I was hoping for a ground that would be quite well designed, obviously not a world beater but still one of the best at that level of football.

Finding the ground was fairly difficult as it is based on a long road and there are no signs indicating how far away the ground is. Even when getting relatively near the ground, there's not a lot at all that indicates that you're getting near your destination.

Thankfully parking at the stadium is plentiful but that's one of the few highlights. There is a social club that you can access from both inside and outside the ground, although it's not the biggest and there aren't a lot of features, other than a pool table that seems constantly covered up, and a darts board.

The ground can be best described as a football pitch with a white rail around it and a fence around that. The only actual stand at the ground is an 88 seated effort down the far side of the pitch. As I say, I wasn't expecting brilliance but this grounds feels rather minimalist and as Julian Soons say "I could have put together the same ground in less than 12 hours."

There isn't a lot to shout about at this ground, even the supporters club isn't much as there is little in there in terms of entertainment. You could always go into Sleaford's town centre, which is reasonably sized for a small location such as Sleaford. The town centre is also reasonably close to the ground.

Thankfully the locals are reasonably friendly and you get a fairy decent view of the action wherever you happen to go, but those are two of the few plus points. To be honest my Sunday League ground is not actually too dissimilar to this and if this is the new ground that they've spent quite a lot of money on,I dread to think what their old ground must have been like.

Seeing as it is exceedingly unlikely that we'll ever play them in a competitive fixture, it now means that I have very little need to visit here again as I'll be in no hurry to watch our youth team again.