Away Days 23/24: Stevenage - The Game That Never Was

When I think about Stevenage (thankfully this is rare) I think about trouble makers, touchy stewards and that Scott Rendell goal. It had been a while since I’d made the short journey to Hertfordshire for football. With Cambridge playing a team that we rarely beat, managed by a manager who nearly always beats us and having no fit strikers available, what could go wrong? It turns out, a lot could and did go wrong.

Parked up

I worked an early shift, picked the lads up and got to Stevenage early. Partially because I wanted a good parking space for easy exit and partially because we needed to get food for the New Years Eve party! Happily, Stevenage is home to the newest M&S in the country. It was lush, modern and spacious. There was even a button that when pressed made the noise of a “happy cow”. Shopping done, we headed for a pre match Nando’s. My extra hot 1/2 chicken was just the job.

Walking in Stevenage is a bit of a nightmare. They love an underpass and complicated lanes on paths:

Why are mopeds allowed on paths?!

We then headed to The Broken Seal Tap Room.

The Verdant Penpol was decent. Pints drank, it was time to head back to the car, get our football scarfs and then get into the ground.

The Lamex is one of my least favourite grounds in The EFL. It’s small, cramped and the facilities are inadequate. Of course, on the way in I got a Stevenage special search. Basically one step behind a full body cavity search. Then it started to go wrong…

The lights went out. Emergency lighting came on. Announcements from Stevenage were few and far between. The stadium announcer loved the sound of his own voice. He basically said that there was a local power cut and that an engineer was at the stadium. At the time, UK network’s website stated there were no reports of a power cut in the area. Even if there was, why would an engineer be fixing a local power cut at a football stadium? Time passed, no further updates and no players on the pitch. It was not looking good. We were told kick off would be at 20:15, if the lights came on. There was one brief ‘light show’ and that was it. The flood lights came on with about 1/3 of the bulbs working. People started leaving and the players came over to clap the fans.

Stevenage blamed the issue on a local area power cut. UK Power Networks said today that the issue was with “the customer’s equipment” and nowhere else in the area suffered a power cut. It also transpires that Stevenage have no back up power supply. Click here for source

Disappointed, we headed back to Cambridge, dumped the car and headed to the QE. Something special was waiting for us at The QE:

Thankfully the lights at The QE worked just fine. Can’t wait to head back Stevenage on a Tuesday soon…

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