Football teams on trains

Mrs Kneedown once served the Leicester City team, along with Caudio Ranieri to St Pancras, although it was the day prior to the match.

Loving those advocating regional football is the answer. My team is in the 6th tier and we will be making a 460 mile round trip to Truro later this season.

At least the game is scheduled for a Saturday. A few years ago we had to travel to Truro for a Tuesday night game as we were one of their closest rivals, geographically speaking. While non-league competitions do try to keep midweek travelling to a minimum, it doesn't always work out, particularly for clubs in the far SW, NE or East of England that lack local rivals. Truro, Blyth and Lowestoft spring to mind.

Also, due to how the non-league pyramid works in terms of regionalisation, that well known northern club, Bishop's Stortford had a spell in Conference North. And, a couple of years ago, King's Lynn had to travel to Weymouth and, a couple years before that, when in a different division, they had to travel to Workington.

sprunt said:

They weren't catching the train from Kent to Cumbria - it's been mentioned numerous times in this thread that they were catching the train from Euston to Lancaster.

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Assuming they don't all live on Euston Road, they've still got to get to Euston. It is 80 miles from Dover so even if many of them are based in and around London, that's no good for a part time club.

gazzaa2 said:

Assuming they don't all live on Euston Road, they've still got to get to Euston. It is 80 miles from Dover so even if many of them are based in and around London, that's no good for a part time club.

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They're not a part time club.

sprunt said:

Manchester United do (or did until recently) often travel to games in London by train, from Stockport as a rule.

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Obviously they travel First Class and usually reserve a complete carriage.
Bolton Wanderers also used Virgin a lot to/from Wigan NW (when they were a decent Premier League team ..!!)

Dover went full time last October when Andy Hessenthaler replaced Chris Kinnear.

In the good old days of the late 1960s, when Bradford were still in the fourth division and there were still through workings to the SouthWest, I came across our hapless team on such a train somewhere south of Birmingham. Our manager, the late Laurie Brown asked "Off to the match like?" and promptly gave me a complimentary ticket when I answered in the affirmative. But our full back, the late Gary Hudson said "You're not coming to watch us are you? You must be bloody mad!". I had been Gary's form prefect a couple of years earlier. Needless to say, Exeter won 4-2, part of Bradford's 56-game run without an away win in the FL (which was suspended rather than ended when we got booted out in 1970 with a lot less sympathy than Bury).

Old Yard Dog said:

In the good old days of the late 1960s, when Bradford were still in the fourth division and there were still through workings to the SouthWest, I came across our hapless team on such a train somewhere south of Birmingham. Our manager, the late Laurie Brown asked "Off to the match like?" and promptly gave me a complimentary ticket when I answered in the affirmative. But our full back, the late Gary Hudson said "You're not coming to watch us are you? You must be bloody mad!". I had been Gary's form prefect a couple of years earlier. Needless to say, Exeter won 4-2, part of Bradford's 56-game run without an away win in the FL (which was suspended rather than ended when we got booted out in 1970 with a lot less sympathy than Bury).

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Last away game BPA won was ironically at Bradford City in Feb 68.

Travelled with the Barnet team to Wigan from Euston circa 1971 for an FA Trophy match in the days when Barnet were Southern League and Wigan in the Northern Premier League. The team mingled with the fans and it made for a great day out. Popped into a working men's club in Wigan after the match (Barnet won 2-1 IIRC) and paid the princely sum of 3 shillings, or about 15p, for a pint, which was cheap even then.

Leigh White said:

Last away game BPA won was ironically at Bradford City in Feb 68.

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Indeed - I was there and can still picture Bobby Ham and Dickie Down scoring our two goals. Bradford City were top of D4 at the time and Bradford were bottom. As a reward, we won the Umbro "Team of the Week" award in Football League Review.

Historically, the Bradford derby is almost certainly the closest in the country. Park Avenue are 21-20 ahead with 11 draws in the league. City are 2-1 ahead in the FA Cup while Avenue lead 1-0 in the FL Cup.