ROAD 92: HILLSBOROUGH REVIEW

During my absence from this blog, I've been spending my time honing my craft in my lectures and also in my writing for VAVEL. The problem with being in Leicester and surrounded by fans of the Foxes is that it can sometimes be hard to find much content about Norwich. It feels like everywhere in the Midlands has a decently sized Norwich fanbase apart from Leicester.

However, one of the strengths of the Midlands is that you get some very good train links to a majority of away games that I had never gone to before. It is something that I never took advantage of during my first year, but now with a railcard in my hand I am determined to make amends.

Which leads me to the creation of this new type of articles that you can find on this page from now, because it gives me a reason to put some non wrestling stuff on here again. I will be giving reviews on the away days I go to based on things like food, atmosphere, stadium and just the general vibe.

So, we start in Sheffield for the first of two away days that take place in the so called Steel City for a midweek late kickoff against Sheffield Wednesday. Honestly, I do not really know why I chose this one for my first away day of the season but here we are.

I had not been to Sheffield before this so I did not really know what to expect but by the time I had arrived I had already made my first mistake. I got into Sheffield train station at 6:50pm for a 7:45pm kickoff, which sounds like plenty of time but Hillsborough is an hour walk away, and 25 minutes by bus.

I had met with some Norwich fans at a bus stop as we waited for a bus that never came and thankfully we managed to flag down a taxi that took us to the stadium just before kickoff. When I say just before kickoff, I mean we got to the stadium with around five minutes remaining.

Hillsborough is one of the stadiums that makes you feel like you are about to despise everything about the whole away day experience. The comic sans 'Sheffield Wednesday football club' font on the side of the stadium is the main reason for it in all honesty, but come on you could at least but it Times New Roman or something similar.

I had split from my new friends and headed to my seat as the whistle was blown and away we go for my first away day of the year, what wonders would I experience. We were one-nil down within 15 minutes thanks to Josh Windass..... I love my football team

More sloppy football later and another goal conceded because George Long had conceded two easy goals, a half time whistle was blown to the relief of many Norwich fans including myself. Turns out that my preconceptions of Hillsborough that I got on the walk up towards the stadium.

After waiting in a queue for far too long and eventually getting bored and not even getting any food or drink I sat back down and tried not to pull my hair out.

There is not really much to say about the second half as it was a boring old display that would put the most energetic of people to sleep as Norwich sat in and Wednesday couldn't score.

And as I began to panic about missing my later train to Nottingham, the ref decided he had enough of watching the dross display of football in front of him and blew the whistle as I got out as fast as I could to catch my train.

When I first saw Hillsborough, I was really afraid that this was going to be an awful away day. I thought with my troubles to get to the stadium and my immediate opinion of seeing the dodgy font of the side of the stadium I was prepared for the worst.

However, I have to admit that I was completely wrong in my initial thoughts. It is a very nice stadium right down to its core. It feels new and modern yet retains an old spirit that acts as the beating heart of the club.

Even though The Canaries got battered six ways from Sunday which made for an uncomfortable viewing experience for me I really want to go back again.

What made my night was the round of fireworks that seemed to applaud me on the way out of Sheffield train station because of Guy Fawkes night. It was a really pretty display, although it did not do much to deter how cold I was even in early November

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/0d9deb_344d12f2e0cf4c45b274b1c305f6729d/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

Overall it is a very solid stadium. I can't give it a ten because there are still some things I did not enjoy like their food but I still had a good time. I do want to go back and I suppose that is the crucial thing when it comes to doing this kind of thing.

RATING: 8/10