Away Days - Bury
First Impressions -- Around the ground -- Facilities -- The Stand -- Overall -- Pictures
Fixture: Bury
V Preston North End
Competition: Pre-season Friendly
Ground: Gigg Lane
Date: Saturday 20 July 2005
Kick off: 3.00pm
Final Result: 0-1 Nugent
The ground was pretty easy to get to following the directions I had been given. We went down Manchester Road after getting off the Metrolink at Bury Interchange. It was just a 10 minute walk at most to Gigg Lane. The first glimpse of Gigg Lane came when we were just outside the ground as you can't see it from Manchester Road due to it being obscured by trees.
I was rather disappointed by the appearance of the supposedly 'main' stand. Usually main stands have a kind of 'frontage' to it but the Main Stand at Gigg Lane was rather bland and 'boring'.
The car park also seemed rather odd as part of it seemed to be based in what appeared to be former 5-a-side pitches.
It wasn't possible to go round the ground unfortunately, so we had a wander round the outside of the main stand.
First stop was the Bury club shop where I was hoping to buy a fridge magnet for my Dad. Unfortunately the shop turned out to be very disappointing as it was just club sportswear and there were literally no 'gifts' to be spotted.
We then got something to eat from the burger van outside the ground. Needless to say it was quite tasty although it wasn't very filling.
Since we couldn't walk round the exterior we opted to go straight in. We sat in the Manchester Road End.
From the inside I could form a better impression of the ground. All of it was quite new and very smart. In fact the ground was quite picturesque with the surrounding trees and just added something to the experience.
In the top corner was what appeared to be a former floodlight pylon. Still used for floodlights, although much lower than what they would've been, it was also used as a mobile phone mast. It did look rather odd.
This was quite odd as the facilities weren't actually in the stand itself but in the side of the Main Stand.
Firstly the catering bar was experienced. The access to this was very poor as you had to go through an couple of doorways - this would've made queuing pretty awkward. The food and drink was very expensive also.
The toilets were no better either - in fact being far worse. It was something I came to expect in an old stand and not a stand that appeared to be pretty new. This was a case of 'pissing against a wall' and a little 'ditch' at the bottom.
The stand was a tad disappointing, especially as it was quite new. The view of the action wasn't at all brilliant due to a pillar obstructing the view. Why they had to include this when building this stand i'll never know - badly planned in my opinion. Not only this but the stand was very shallow and also below pitch level. This would've made the view from the bottom few rows very poor.
As said above the facilities for this stand were actually in the Main Stand which proved to be quite awful. These were the only facilities for this stand and obviously this would be a problem for teams bringing a large away following.
Other than that the stand was quite smart-looking although that was the only thing 'going for it'.
Another ground under my belt and again it proved very enjoyable. The ground is picturesque with the surrounding trees and is very smart and quite impressive. The let downs were the amount of pillars - very disappointing considering the ground has been redeveloped and all the stands relatively new.
I was a tad disappointed at the exterior of the Main Stand which I found rather bland. But overall it was a pretty decent ground.
Ratings
Appearance: 7/10
Facilities: 6/10
Enjoyment: 9/10
Fans: 8/10
Stand: 7/10
Overall: 7/10
