ROAD 92: THE HAWTHORNS REVIEW

For the second instalment of this series where I go round to different stadiums and review, I took a trip to Birmingham. More specifically, I went to a small place called West Bromwich to go and watch the well named team of West Brom play at The Hawthorns.

Now I have learnt a lot from my last away day to Sheffield Wednesday (if you have not read it yet, then go read it now) and all of the mistakes I made then. One of which being that I arrived into the city far too late and almost ended up missing the match because of how far the stadium was from the train station.

So I arrived into Birmingham New Street station around 12:30 for the three o'clock kickoff which gave me a lot of time to actually get to the stadium which is good cause otherwise it was an hour and a half to walk there.

I've been to New Street Station before and it was a nightmare to deal with then and even now it was a headache. So many different entrances and exists I feel like I need a Tibetan Sherpa to come and assist me out of the gaggle of humans and different barriers.

I did manage to escape and quickly found myself on the sleek metro system. I've never been on any kind of metro before but the idea of sharing an enclosed space between home and away fans seemed like a completely safe thing to do (that was sarcasm in case you did not realise)

The trip went alright much to my surprise and we soon got off at The Hawthorns about 30 minutes later and was guided towards the away entrance with the other Norwich City fans.

I got to the ground at around 2pm and managed to grab myself a burger from a food truck outside while I awaited the teamsheets. I don't know if that food truck is regularly there but I am going to rank it as though it is because that was a bloody nice burger.

The patty itself was good but it was complimented well by the soft bun and arguably the best onions I've had on a burger. This is already going a lot better than my trip to Hillsborough.

After that I made my way into the tiny concourse where finding space was like trying to find a Wayne Rooney team above the relegation zone, you could not find any. I caught up with some buddies I met in Sheffield and sat down in my seat and took in the view with about half an hour to go before kickoff.

Skipping to kickoff and I was surprisingly excited for this, partly because of the return of Angus Gunn in goal and partly because of how well the day had gone so far.

Mason Holgate scores 11 minutes in. It isn't hard to imagine how my excitement drained so quickly and I was dreading a repeat of Hillsborough whilst wondering if I was just a bad luck charm to Norwich.

However, it would only take 9 minutes to equalise due to the brilliance of Emi Marcondes. The feeling will never be lost of scoring at an away day and going into pure jubilance with random people around you.

It gets better when you go in front which we did thanks to Borja Sainz (I know it was an own goal but I can still believe it was him). Maybe this will be the game we finally pick up three points. Josh Maja scores two minutes later to equalize...

That was soul crushing just before half time but now was time for the ultimate test. Will I be able to get something at half time before I get bored. After queuing for the majority of half time, I managed to just get a Pepsi which looking back now was a bit of a waste of time.

I won't lie, the second half was again boring. Nothing of interest happened so I'll do you a favour and skip to full time.

A point away from home isn't bad even with some of the boring football at times. Now I have to get away from Birmingham in the cold and dark. Sounds easy, but more difficult than you would think.

After being squeezed onto a tram that gave the concourse a run for it's money with how little space there was and surviving through the maze known as Birmingham New Street station, I was finally on my home.

So how was the experience?

Well, The Hawthorns is a very nice little stadium with a good away end. The main problem with it is that it doesn't grab me. It feels like it is a place where a football team plays and nothing more. That does not make it a bad stadium by any means of the word but it loses the feeling of having something special inside of those four stands.

The food outside of the stadium was very nice which gives the Baggies some bonus points but on the whole nothing went badly wrong. The only real negatives I can really say about it was about the size of the concourse and the faff of a journey to actually get to the stadium but neither are really the fault of the club (well maybe the concourse but that is clutching at some very thin straws).

Overall, it is a nice stadium but it does not feel like anything special. It does its job as a football stadium but nothing more. Although my experience was not bad and went fairly well, it does not scream out at me that this is a place that I need to return to quickly.

RATING: 5.5/10