I’ve only been to the Ricoh once, back in 2005. The third ever home game there. The experience was telling.
Highfield Rd was my second home for 27 years. Not only for first team games, but the reserves too. It was what I’d describe as a proper football experience. The fact it was old gave it character and a magical quality, a feeling that the stadium itself, and the fans inside, could rise above any opposition, no matter how good.
Although I’d seen those four floodlights towers, probably well over a thousand times, I still would look for them on the way to the ground and get nervously excited for the game. A feeling repeated upon seeing the stands and team crest between the narrow streets as you’d walk around the ground. Fuck, even the shit parts of the ground had character....the prostitutes were no oil paintings and I ‘lost’ a car stereo once, but HR never soured me. The pipes, cigars and cigarette smoke, the greasy burgers, the Pink and the uncensored views of peoples washing hanging in their back gardens. Highfield Road was home.
They had finally started building the Ricoh when I left. There was a delay because of a problem with demolition of the gas towers, and the location had acquired its
first set of unwelcome tenants.
I left for the States in 2003, intending on returning within a couple of months, but circumstances changed somewhat, and I ended up getting married. As you do.
I returned in 2005 and met up with a(whatever is the collective term for GMKers is... a fart I believe) I met up with a fart of GMKers at a hotel bar near the Ricoh (the name of which escapes me). We had a few, spilt a few and staggered to the ground. My first experience of the Ricoh was always going to be compared to my memories of HR, I’d already prepared myself for that. The Ricoh had a lot to live up to.
The game was v Reading, only the third home game at the new gaff. The attendance was limited due to some bollox about a hill not being safe or summut. There was 22,000 and change there I believe. The stadium looked okay from the outside, although it had a feeling of lazy design, no real character and not ultra modern (as Grendel alluded to earlier). Inside, I took an instant dislike to the stand I was facing (the West Stand). It looked like it was thrown together with MDF and Meccano. The rest of it was okay, but it was a bowl, what can you expect? The atmosphere wasn’t great but I put it down to everyone still trying to figure out where the old HR East and West end singers resided in the new stadium. We scored a last minute equalizer, so, at least, we left on a high.
Ever since, when I’ve visited, by design, I’ve planned vacations to the UK around away games. Leyton Orient and Bury are hardly salubrious but they captured the smallest of memories of Highfield Road. And that’s the way I want to remember
my team.
I do hope for a future that comes with a new stadium, perhaps a little smaller, with a semblance of character. But then, we’re owned by SISU so...
