"Yate Town - Lodge Road"

A weekend in the Cotswolds with the wife and plans to attend a local game – either in the Southern League or the Hellenic looked to be in doubt as snow was forecasted starting late Saturday morning. My first choice – Cinderford v Paulton Rovers – succumbed to a waterlogged pitch by midday, which left the choice of Yate v North Leigh or Fairford v Windsor with the former being slightly easier to get to and further off my normal beaten track, so Yate it was.
To be honest, its a fairly standard Step 4 ground, similar in size and facilities to the likes of Didcot, Shortwood, Royston etc

Location

Yate is a town a few miles north east of Bristol, with the nearest exit of the M4 being Junction 18. Lodge Road is on the north west extremity of the town close to the B4059. Yate Railway Station is approximately 15 minutes walk away. The ground itself has a large car park on site. Yate town centre is at least 20 minutes walk away, but there are 3 pubs within 5 minutes of the ground – namely the Fox, the Codrington Arms and the Cross Keys

View

Entry into the ground is via turnstiles to the left of the clubhouse (the latter can be accessed from the car park or from inside). Once inside the ground the Main Stand is to the left, with clubhouse and snack bar to the right. The Main Stand contains a little under 250 seats and is reasonably comfortable. Unfortunately it is situated over the halfway line in the left-hand half of the ground so spectators using it are far closer to the action at that end of the ground. Next to the main stand is an covered area (basically it looks like a lean to) which provides further shelter for fans. The only other cover is an impressive covered terrace behind the goal at the Town end of the ground. The far side of the pitch and the area behind the northern goal have no cover and a simple concrete path to view from

Facilities

Toilets are located inside the clubhouse and there is a separate, dedicated, clubshop located in a portakabin to the left of the turnstiles. This sells a variety of club merchandise, including scarves, badges, hats etc as well as old programmes from across the country and soccer books. The programme was good value for £1.50, with plenty to read, including pen pictures of both home and away teams and full results and appearance details for Yate this season

Food & Drink

Hot drinks and food can be bought from the snack bar for reasonable prices 9comparable to other grounds in the league) – although word of warning from the wife – the Hot Chocolate was disgusting ! Alcoholic drinks (including Doombar on handpump) can be bought from the bar in the clubhouse

Atmosphere

Neither Yate nor their opponents, North Leigh, are the best supported teams in the league so the crowd of 116 wasn’t the noisiest I’ve witnessed but they were supportive of their teams. Yate were by far in ascendancy in the second half which meant the crowd got louder as the game progressed

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