A.T.F.C.S.A.

Sorry, no photo's for this one as my camera is bust!

13 out 14 seats were sold for the trip to the extreme north of the county and so off we set on our journey through Matlock , Bakewell, and Buxton. The mini-bus had one of those SatNav things stuck on the dash-board which caused a bit of amusement on the way there as the nicely spoken american woman who lived inside the box kept telling us to go the wrong way!

We did however find our way to Surrey Street and upon debarkation at around 7:15, a few of us hot footed it to The Friendship pub at the end of the street, and the rest made their way to the ground. The Friendship is a Robinsons old corner terrace pub that hasn't changed much over the years and has bags of character. A swift pint of Unicorn and another of Hatter and we just made to the ground in time for kick off.

This was my first visit to Surrey Street and people had told me that it was a pretty bleak place to go. The ground is a little run down and the pitch was one of the worst I have ever seen, and what was left of the floodlights just about made it bright enough to find our way out, but I quite liked the place. The turnstyle at the corner of the ground led us into a small covered terrace along the side and the clubhouse and food outlet behind the goal. The decent size clubhouse which, with the food cabin and changing rooms etc, extended a third of the way along had windows looking out on to the pitch and had a small hard standing in front. The rather nice bitter was well priced at £1.80. Beyond the clubhouse was another small covered terrace which was host to around 40 traveling reds fans in the second half. The side opposite where we came in was a hard standing with a small covered seating area in the centre. Behind the opposite goal was a hard standing backed by a grass area and a wall, behind which was a KFC. As the food cabin only had hot-dogs without onions and one OXO, everyone who wanted to eat snook out to the KFC (including the bar staff!).

It was the quite awful first half display by the reds that made it bleak, not the surroundings. We came back to win it 3-1 in the second half but apart from the odd chant or two it was quiet night from the choir behind the goal.

The most entertaining thing of the night was the SatNav box on the dashboard. Since the american woman inside the box kept giving directions and as the box cost a few hundred quid, the driver decided to follow her instructions. Ten minuets after we set off we found ourselves on some sort of farm dirt track at the top of a mountain cloaked in fog, or more likely, cloud cover!

After half an hour lost in the high peak, we finally appeared back in relative civilisation at Sparrowpit and the road through to Chesterfield. After a quick phone call we just made it to the Vic just in time for the last one!