The Riverside Stadium: Middlesbrough 1-2 Watford

Monday, 14 January 2013

Middlesbrough 1-2 Watford

Aerial shot of The Riverside Stadium (Bing Maps)

Programme - £3.00

Ratings
Overall Ground Quality : 8/10
Ease of getting there : 5/10
Atmosphere : 4/10
Programme : 7/10
View of Action : 8/10
Quality of the game : 7/10
The "football" feeling : 7/10
Chances of coming here for a random game : 2/10
Legroom : 9/10
Surrounding area : 7/10

Overall : 64/100

Adrian attempting to avoid the mud on the way to the ground

The Riverside Stadium from a distance

Approaching The Riverside Stadium

From left to right - The Transporter Bridge, Temenos Sculpture,
the old Able UK Crane and The Riverside Stadium

West Stand

Ayresome Park Gates

The Riverside...by the River side!

North Stand

East Stand

South Stand

Welcome to Teesside, Gianfranco!

West Stand

You wouldn't be in the North East without
a spot of rain and sleet!

Ayresome Park Gates

West Stand

South Stand

East Stand

North Stand

North Stand

East Stand

West Stand

North Stand

East Stand

South Stand

South Stand

Redcar Steelworks in the distance

More than half empty, Attendance 17,499

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Middlesbrough 1-2 Watford

Our visit to Middlesbrough was to be the last Championship ground to be completed by myself (Ross) during the 2012/2013 season.

Our journey to Teesside started at 8:30am. We decided to stop at Garforth Town, Harrogate Town and Harrogate Railway Athletic on our way up to The Riverside Stadium.

We arrived at our first stop, Garforth Town at 10am. Garforth Town play at the Genix Healthcare Stadium which holds 3,000 supporters and was built in 1998. The ground features one main stand which looks like a stand from an athletic stadium and the other stand which appears to be just a covering shelter behind one of the goals (built to comply with ground-grading regulations in March 2011 and is nicknamed "The Strawberry End" by supporters after the fruit grown in the adjacent field). Garforth Town is famous for signing the late Brazilian International, Sócrates in 2004 for 1 month as a player-coach and made just 1 appearance coming on as a substitute which was seen by 1,385 spectators. In the same year, former Manchester United player, Lee Sharpe played for Garforth scoring 4 goals for the Miners. To add to this mayhem, Paul Gascoigne was set to become the manager of Garforth in 2010 and changed his mind at the last minute.

Following our stop at the Genix Healthcare Stadium, we continued Northbound briefly before making two stops in Harrogate, first at Harrogate Town’s Wetherby Road and the closely followed by Harrogate Railway Athletic’s Station View.

With our stops complete we continued towards Teesside.

We decided to get some lunch at Morrisons in Stockton on Tees where Adrian and I ate on our way to Sunderland almost a year ago giving the journey a hint of déjà vu.

We arrived at The Riverside Stadium and bought our tickets before finding a place to park which ended up being Benedict Street which was just on the other side of the A66.

We walked towards the ground going underneath the A66 and wading through a muddy path. We arrived at the ground and took some photos before walking towards the river to take some more photos.

We continued to walk around the ground taking more pictures including a photo of the Watford manager, Gianfranco Zola, getting off the team bus. The weather took a sudden turn for the worst so we decided to get our programmes and go in.

The Riverside Stadium was built in 1995 originally holding a capacity of 30,000 replacing Ayresome Park following the Taylor Report.

In 1998 following Middlesbrough promotion back to the Premier League at the first attempt, the capacity was increased by 5,000 by filling in the north and south west corners at a cost of £5 million. This expansion gave the stadium its current 35,000 capacity.

In 2005 the club saw the old Ayresome Park gates resurrected at their new home. They are the same gates which had been famously locked when the club went in to liquidation.

The game was ‘the game of the day’ with both Middlesbrough and Watford positioned in the Play-offs. Watford won the game 2-1 with goals scored twice by Matej Vydra for Watford and a consolation goal scored in the last minute by Boro’s Scott McDonald.

Following the game we walked back towards the car (this time in the sleet) and made our journey home. As we got onto the A1 we found that junction 48 to 47 was closed due to an incident meaning we had to be diverted down the country lanes adjacent before getting back on a few junctions down.