"Aveley FC - Parkside"

Visited here on 20th January to see Aveley v Bury Town. It wasn't my first choice game as I was planning something further north in the Colchester area, but heavy rain meant that games were dropping like flies.
Nice brand new ground...very clean and tidy

Location

So….Parkside, the new home of Aveley FC. It’s just off the A13 at the junction with A1306 9which actually puts the ground in Wennington, not Aveley). The stadium is part of a new development which mostly consists of housing. Whilst it’s perfectly convenient to get to by road (it has a large car park) it means that the location is rather in the wilderness for public transport. Nearest train stations are either Purfleet or Rainham, both at least 3 miles away. There is also the problem for the footie fan that there don’t appear to be any pubs or places to eat in the immediate vicinity (which perhaps encourages you to use the club bar?).

View

The ground itself is entered by turnstiles at either end of the main stand. Dealing with this structure first, it doubles as a seating area (pitchside) with a standing area behind, with the clubhouse / bar, changing rooms and admin area inside. Seats are provided for about 150 fans. The far side of the pitch is home to another stand which straddles the halfway line and has, probably the same amount of seating. Behind each goal stand two ‘bus shelter’ style metal stands (4 in total). Thr pitch itself is 4 g so it is also used by the local community.
All of the facilities are brand new (this is Aveley’s first season at Parkside) so everything is in very good condition and clean. The ground is, apart from the bus shelters, not your average ‘cookie cutter’ ground, the main stand is quite a nice design. Unfortunately it still lacks the soul of places like Northolme in Gainsborough and Marston Road in Stafford, but give it time.

Facilities

If I could find faults one would be the toilets. I couldn’t actually see any signs for any inside and could only find some located in a far corner in a wooden shed. Another fault was the lack of a club shop. Aveley seem to be on the up and wanting to progress, with a stadium to match, yet there is no club shop with limited merchandise sold from the bar

Food & Drink

Hot food can be purchased from a hatch near the main turnstiles, with the usual fayre of burgers, bacon rolls etc on sale. Alcoholic drinks etc in the bar

Atmosphere

The atmosphere for the game was pretty good, lots of kids in the crowd as the club were doing a special promotion of two adults and two kids for a tenner (I was on my own and didn’t get it any cheaper!). The attendance was an impressive 281 and there was plenty of noise from the crowd. The teams came out to a specially ‘modified’ version of Blurs “Parklife” (what else) although the slightly derogatory reference to groundhoppers was a tad un-necessary.

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