Tims 92

Wimbledon

Selhurst Park

Ground No. 9

Visited - Saturday 14th February 1998
Result - Wimbledon 1-1 Wolverhampton Wanderers
Competition - FA Cup
Attendance - 15,332

It was a last minute decision to go down to London for our FA Cup 5th round tie with Wimbledon, it was only on the morning of the game itself that I was persuaded by a couple of friends, so off up to Molineux we went and got ourselves on a coach ready for the trip down to the capital.

The journey went fairly well, stopping off in Oxford services before arriving at the ground. Someone had said that apparently Selhurst Park is the most difficult of all the 92 grounds to get to, and they weren’t lying, as a large proportion of our journey seemed just to actually be going through the winding streets of South London, but it was quite a sight, being in the first of a long procession of coaches, to come out of a road and stand in front of a traffic island at the ground and see gold shirts filling the roads and pavements everywhere, literally everywhere, it could have been a home game the number of fans that were there.

After departing the coaches, we had a quick walk around the ground, and it was the same on all sides with Wolves fans having taken over for the afternoon. Afterwards it was announced that we’d actually taken 9000 of the 10,000 allocation, which gave us 2/3rds of the attendance that day, quite astounding for what wasn’t really that big a game.

After buying tickets and going in, we found our seats in the Arthur Wait Stand and had a look at the rest of the ground, which seemed a nice place, with a lot of character, to our left was the impressive two-tiered Holmesdale Road Stand, where most of the home fans were, and to our right, the much smaller and less impressive Whitehorse Lane Stand, which had a small section of seating in front of some executive boxes. Opposite was the main stand, which looked quite old, and similar to the stand we were in. Facilities were average, although were showing their age.

The game was quite an entertaining one, with both sides doing a lot of attacking, and we certainly didn’t look out of touch with our Premiership opponents. Unfortunately most of the games actual details escape me now, but it finished 1-1 and went to a replay, which we eventually won. The atmosphere from us was quite good, I think everyone must have been proud to see how many Wolves fans were there, and doubled their efforts in singing, because you couldn’t hear the home fans over us, afterwards, outside it was much the same as before the game, with Wolves fans everywhere, and there being no sign of trouble, mainly because there was little sign of the home fans!

Overall it had been a great day out, a good result against a team supposedly better than us, and also a great sight seeing so many travelling fans, its one game I was very glad that I'd decided to go to. Of course Wimbledon have now moved, or more to the point, the club have been moved by its owners who have changed their name with no regard whatsoever for their fans. I have since seen MK Dons play at their new home in Milton Keynes, and was less than impressed with the results of franchising, with it certainly not seeming like a revisit to the same club. As for Selhurst Park, hopefully I’ll get to go back there when we play Crystal Palace again, as it is a nice, traditional sort of footballing venue, one I’ll enjoy re-visiting.