Chesterfield

Ground: Proact Stadium

Visits: 1

Date: 18th April 2014

Match: Chesterfield - Exeter 1-1 (League 2)

Attendance: 7 331

With the exception of 2012 I have been to England every Easter since 2006. This year my Easter holiday was the week before Easter, I would have preferred to have my holiday after Easter but never mind. After my tour of the Czech Republic and Slovakia I arrived in England (Manchester) on Thursday evening. I woke up on Good Friday feeling quite excited. England is after all my favourite destination when it comes to football and this day I even had two matches looking forward to. First up was Chesterfield vs Exeter at Proact Stadium. This was to be my 78th ground visit in England (and 72nd of the current 92). At 10.43 my train left Manchester and shortly before noon I was in Chesterfield. Ten minutes later Stefan and Jocke, from Umeå in northern Sweden, arrived as well. We were going to three matches together and since we hadn´t seen each other since August we had some catching up to do. We decided to walk to the ground and that took us around 25 minutes. As we were about to arrive at the ground we spotted a pub where we had something to eat and drink. Around 13.50 we then went to the ticket office. Our ticket provider had given us "Print yourself tickets" but the ticket office were very friendly and printed "proper" tickets for us. Thumbs up to Chesterfield for doing that! After a few exterior pictures we then went inside to have a look at the ground.

The Proact Stadium (formerly known as the b2net Stadium) is an all-seater stadium on the site of the former Dema Glassworks. It replaced the Saltergate Recreation Ground as the club's stadium from the start of the 2010-2011 season. It has a capacity of approximately 10 500 and was designed by Sheffield-based architects Ward McHugh Associates. Our seats were in row I in the East Stand. That meant a warm day in the sun, quite a change compared to last time I was in England. The three stands available for home fans were almost completely full. Exeter brought 227 fans and they had the entire North Stand for themselves. With Chesterfield being third in the table and Exeter facing relegation this was a very important match for both teams. Exeter made it 1-0, from a defected free-kick in the 19th minute. That was the only exciting event in the first half. The second half started with a glorious chance for Exeter to double the lead but a great save from the Chesterfield keeper. Chesterfield had a man sent-off before Exeter headed off the inside of the post.. Exeter were a bit unlucky not to ne 2-0 up. In the 78th minute Chesterfield were rewarded (a very soft) penalty, 1-1. No more goals and the match ended 1-1. Not a very entertaining match if you ask me but a good crowd and some late drama in the sunshine still made this a great day out. After the match we had something to eat at a Chinese restaurant before going back to the train station. At 18.46 we then arrived in Tamworth for the second match of the day.

flaming grill