Pete Sixsmith has seen 180 games since the season began. The ones he regrets most involve the Lads in red and white, or whatever away strip in which they were purporting to play. But along the way, he’s seen some great football as well as the duds …
Pete Sixsmith had his say with Gary Bennett on the radio as he left the Sunderland-West Ham game, had his say at Salut! Sunderland and then started to enjoy his Easter football programme. Read on for a groundhopper’s fascinating description of journeys to Yorkshire and across the Pennines to add another batch of grounds to those he has hopped between …
A long weekend of international football, starting with France’s disgraced World Cup flops – or some of them – being welcomed back by Laurent Blanc and continuing with perfunctory success for England, holds no joy for Pete Sixsmith. So off he went on the sort of mission he regards as heavenly, others might consider grounds for having him certified …
It’s 7.15 on a Friday night. After a busy week at work and a bout of unpleasantness with rumbling gall stones, I am parking the car next to a small football ground in a South Yorkshire village called Kinsley.
Situated between the liquorice fields of Pontefract and the (former) coalfields of Barnsley, this is not the most prepossessing of places. It’s only a spit and a throw away from Grimethorpe, immortalised as Grimley in Brassed Off and, like many similar towns, it seems to be made up of boarded up pubs, kebab shops and places selling anything and everything for 99p.