Wycombe

Ground: Adams Park

Visits: 1

Date: 3rd April 2015

Match: Wycombe - Oxford 2-3 (League 2)

Attendance: 6 892

After a few days back home I returned to England on Thursday evening. A visit to England during Easter is a tradition for me, in the last 10 years I have been to England 9 times during the Easter weekend. This time around I "only" had two matches planned but with both of them being derby games I knew I had a nice weekend ahead of me. Going to matches in High Wycombe and Sheffield Birmingham was a good place to be based and around 8.15 on Thursday evening I was at my hotel in central Birmingham. My first match on this trip was Wycombe vs Oxford in League 2. At 10.12 my train left Birmingham Snow Hill and after changing train at Bicester (engineering works) I was in High Wycombe shortly after noon. Adams Park, the home of Wycombe Wanderers, is situated in the outskirts of the town and since I didn´t fancy a 45-minute walk I decided to make a short tour of the city centre before boarding the 13.05 shuttle bus. The city centre of High Wycombe was actually quite nice but I still didn´t want to walk all the way to the ground.

Adams Park, named after former captain Frank Adams, was opened in 1990 and has a capacity of around 10 000. The biggest stand is the two-tiered Frank Adams Stand which has around 5 000 seats. The west end of the ground is the home end and this stand is the only terrace left at the ground. Away fans are given the Panache (East) Stand, this stand was converted from a terrace to seating in 1996. Wycombe Wanderers were promoted to the Football League in 1993 and was the managed by Martin O´Neill. In recent years the club has gone up and down between League 1 and League 2. Last season the club was nearly relegated from League 2 though but a win at Torquay in the last round meant the club stayed up. This season Wycombe are at the top of table, before the derby against Oxford the club was in the last automatic promotion spot. Las week I met up with Wycombe fan Dale at Dagenham and he had bought me a ticket for the Oxford game. My seat, next to Dale´s season ticket seat, was in row F of the upper tier of the Frank Adams Stand. It was right in the middle and I really couldn´t have had a better view of the pitch. Oxford brought 1 600 to Adams Park for this derby game and it was those fans who could celebrate early on. 0-1 in the 5th minute after a counter-attack. It was then 0-2 after 22 minutes and the Oxford fans were delirious. Dale and his fellow Wycombe fans were shocked and disappointed, 0-2 at half-time. In the 48th minute Wycombe pulled a goal back and the atmosphere inside Adams Park was by now excellent. The referee didn´t have his best day and when he felt to spot a Wycombe player, clear on goal, being pulled down the home fans went mad. When Oxford a few minutes later made it 1-3 it felt like the air disappeared at Adams Park. Wycombe couldn´t find any openings but in the 89th minute the still managed to pull another goal back though. Six minutes of stoppage time but no more goals and this derby finished 3-2 to Oxford.

Adams Park is nicely situated but that also means problems after the match. I boarded the shuttle bus at 17.10 and 20 minutes later I had travelled as many metres. Almost 7 000 fans at the game meant severe traffic jams and it took 45 minutes before I was back at the train station. The train I intended to be on didn´t leave until 18.08 though and I could leave High Wycombe as planned. The last week I have been to two Wycombe games and I wish Dale and the club the best for the remaining crucial part of the season. Next year I might go to more Wycombe games!

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