Firstly thoughts are with the family and friends of the person hit by a train and rail and BTP staff and others who had to deal with the aftermath.
In respect of Dover's travel plans, while it is good to see use of the train, they appear to have been ambitious, even without a possible lack of awareness of
unreliable rail services in Lancashire and Cumbria.
My understanding was that from the 09:30 ex-Euston they had intended to change trains at Lancaster, relying on a seven-minute connection, arriving in Barrow at 13:10 with a fifteen minute walk to the ground - or taxis, perhaps? (I note that some have suggested a coach was planned from Lancaster. The only mention of a coach I had heard at the ground on Saturday was that Barrow had offered to provide a coach from Lancaster to collect the team from the train at Lancaster, later Preston where the train would be terminated. This offer was declined and at least some of the squad were reported to have already left the train at Crewe.
Clearly the ability to return home after a much-delayed match would have been a consideration for the would-be visitors but nineteen Dover supporters, two officials and the kit had arrived at the ground around 13:00 on a full-size coach, having left Dover at 06:00, and were in a position to provide return travel. As it was, the visiting supporters left town after a couple of hours refreshment (and sandwiches provided by the club) in The Crossbar at the ground for their return journey.
Yesterday probably summed up the folly of having FIVE national leagues. Dover will now have to travel to Barrow on a Tuesday night.
It's a nonsense - distances make remaining part-time in the National League that bit more difficult with time off work, etc. Even for full-time clubs, the magic of the fixture compiler comes into play. Barrow, for example play at Torquay on Saturday October 26th then travel to Dagenham & Redbridge on Tuesday October 29th. The former will involve a Friday morning trip south then training in the south-west and a hotel stay before the match day followed by a late evening return north. for the latter, training on Monday at the usual Hopwood Campus base, travel to Essex on Tuesday morning for a loosening up session in the afternoon before the match and a return north just before the milkman arrives.
I didnt even find out if the Barrow Bus Depot was nicer than a packet of Chewitts
Before the West Terrace was demolished this summer for development, leaving the flat area in your first picture, you would have seen the bus depot over the wall. It's now a big metal shed whereas at the time of the Chewits advert it was a big concrete shed with an art deco frontage on a site now occupied by one of the large retail parks on the edge of the town centre (which suffered massively as a result of the development of the said retail parks). Either depot would have taken some mastication...
The only reason for travelling hours ahead is if you want to spend longer in the pub. Which, back to talking about Barrow, is the only thing there to do for visitors.
If spending the afternoon in the pub was the best you could manage then that was a poor show in a borough rated number one in England for its natural environment, including outstanding nature reserves. (Then there's interesting Victorian architecture, ruins of a fine Cistercian abbey, a castle, several islands, a fine museum built into a graving dock. No Primark though...)
I'm struggling to understand why there's an idea that it's sensible to arrive somewhere hours before you want to or it's convenient to.
Avoiding the temptation to suggest it allows one to take in some of the local area and subsequently avoid ill-informed remarks on an Internet forum
, I don't think anyone has suggested that the teams who fell foul of Saturday's sad fatality should have arrived 'hours before' but some contingency built into travel plans would have been sensible.
I live about 100 minutes away from the ground by car and wouldn't dream of leaving home for a Saturday match at 13:00. No matter car or train, one needs to make allowances for possible problems en route.
