Location : Pirelli Stadium, Burton Upon Trent, Staffordshire
Match: Burton Albion v Torquay United
Date : 6th April 2009
Competition : Blue Square Premier
Level/Step : 5/1
Attendance : 2782
This was a game too good to miss. Only a few weeks til the end of the season and Burton top were 11 points ahead of Torquay at start of play. we had a game in hand on them and also to play them on the last day of the season (could it really be a last day shoot out?). The Hampshire Gulls were up for this one!! Well two of us were! Paul 'Samaritan' Samain (who was in his shorts!!!?) and myself made the journey up from Portsmouth. Roger 'Bannister' Metcalfe was at home in Basingstoke watching this one on Sultana, whilst Rob 'Rob' Hawes was in Southampton on his 70 Million inch plasma screen watching too. Not sure if the other Hampshire Gulls stalwart Paul 'Nelson' Nelson (need to work on these nicknames) may have been with Rob but he seems missing in action at the moment. We set out quite early for this one around 2pm for what was really a 3 hour trip. I do prefer getting to grounds early though. A first visit for both of us to the Pirelli. A good journey sees us as the first of the Torquay fans to arrive and got to say the area is a bit of a wasteground outside the stadium. You could not get into a bar until the turnstyles were open, bit of a pain as we needed some refreshment. Paul and I had a good wander around the ground and found the club shop. We got a good badge to add to the collection. a small club shop but a good selection of other programmes there too. I had a veryt weird experience before hand as we passed by the Sultana rigs. An older guy who was with the security for them stopped us and said the he recognised me!!! Huh?? he said that he was at the Torquay v Coventry game and he saw me and now recognised me. 6ft6 though i am not hard to miss!! I saw an old Torquay boy who is now Youth Manager at Burton, and it was good to see him. The gates finally opened at 6.30 and i was first in! Sad! I must say from the outside i felt the ground was a typical new identikit ground but inside it was a really nice ground worthy of up to League One. One side reminded me of the Plainmoor Popside, the far end housed terraced Burton fans and to my left a good pitch length grandstand, which you can see a picture of a part of it above. Our away end was the length of behind the goal and again well covered and a good terrace. It was a pleasant surpise as we were told it was a seated area for away supporters. we made our way after getting a burger and damn it was a bigun!! Was very impressed with that. We were all in good voice and it was not long before Danny 'Nipper' Stevens ran half the length of the pitch and took on five players before his 3ft 5" frame placed a shot in the back of the net. I tell you, i am not sure how it looked on Sultana but it looked like goal of the decade from where we were. Very similar to his first goal at the Hampshire Gulls first game last season away at Aldershot when he came on and scored with seconds. Bannister exclaimed 'go on Nipper' from nowhere and ran 100 yards in a world record time as it went in. In fact he was nearly at the half way line by before the ball hit the back of the net. Hence his eternal nickname 'Bannister'! We were all over thm in the first half however as we were tightly packed in the middle we were giving them space down the flanks. Burton had a player sent off in the first half with a straight red and of course the usual thing happened, we struggled against ten men in the second half but i tell you we did play our hearts out and got the bloody win!!!! if we win our game in hand we are only 5 points behind. Play them on the last day and beat them that is in a roundabout way a gap of two points. So one win for us and a defeat or draw for them in one of them and it us up (Histon, Cambridge and others may have something to say about that) Maybe just maybe it could happen. One thing is for sure Burton are bottling it big time at the moment. This was one of my most enjoyable away days and to come a way with a win was just the icing on the cake!!! One funny story from the night was that i went to the toilet during the second half, which i never do as i hate missing any action but needed to go. As i came back i looked in the bar and we were on the attack on Sultana and i thought if i ran back i may miss a possible goal so i stood outside the bar for 5 mins watching it on tv!!! We didn't score! At least my three game run of Torquay defeats got broken. An excellent evening! For once we could hear the tannoy clealry too. Bonus!
Entry : £10 (Student) but normally £12
Programme : £2.50 but did not purchase one
Pin Badge : £2.50 and very nice too
Refreshment : £3.50 double cheese burger and blooming huge!
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