"Harrogate Railway Athletic FC - Station View"

Match 2 of my NCEL week. The previoius day I had been to Knaresborough Town – top of Division 1 and buoyantly beating Rossington Main to go 15 points clear. For this match I was at their nearest neighbours, Harrogate Railway Athletic and the contrast between the clubs could not be more marked. Having been relegated from the NPL Division 1 North last season, the Rails are near the bottom of the NCEL premier and conceding goals for fun. The atmosphere at the ground was very flat (but that might have been affected by the persistent drizzle ‘dampening’ home spirits).

Location

The Rails play in the Harrogate suburb of Starbeck, located on the A59 on the east side of the town, nearest to Knaresborough- It is about a mile into Harrogate town centre. The ground itself is at the end of a residential road called Station View – you can’t actually see the station from the ground, but its only a 200 yd walk ! Starbeck station is, Like Knaresborough, on the Leeds to York line so is erved approximately every 30 minutes. There is a fairly large car park at the ground, but as there was construction taking place at the time of my visit, spacest were limited. I parked in the road outside the ground without any problems.The nearest pub to the ground is the Prince of Wales in the High Street (about 200 yds from the level crossing), whilst there is a variety of fast food outlets (Pizza Hut, KFC etc) nearby.

View

The clubhouse is outside the ground and is a modern construction with changing rooms and club offices downstairs and the bar located on the first floor. Turnstiles are just outside the clubhouse located in the corner of the ground nearest the road. Once inside it is apparent that Station View is quite different to most other grounds. Apart from the fact that the pitch has a marked slope – lowest side is on the turnstile side, sloping acros the width of the pitch, the near touchline is an uncovered concrete patch (meaning you have to walk the length of the pitch to find any cover).
The most striking feature of Station View is the Main Stand, simply because it is situation behind the far goal. Quite an old structure it runs the full width of the pitch and is seated for 2/3s of the distance, a total of about 240 seats in total. The rest of the stand is a covered terrace. There is one other stand in the ground – on the far side of the pitch straddling the halfway line. This is more akin to the modern day temporary structures and contains approx. 50 seats.

Facilities

At the present time the toilets are located out in the car park in a set of temporary portakabins. Exit to these in the corner of the ground nearest the snack bar (opposite end to the clubhouse). The toilets are a temporary structure but are suprisingly clean and in good condition. There is also a club shop on site – located next to the snack bar (Main Stand end of the ground). Unfortunately, at the time of my visit this was closed due to the volunteer who runs it being unwell. Programmes were £1 and were decent value, with pen pics of the home players, some colour photos and stats of the Rails games so far this season. However it lacked the quality of neighbours Knaresborough’s effort from the previous evening.

Food & Drink

Hot food and drinks are available in the hut next to the clubshop, with charges being pretty much in line with other grounds at this level and alcoholic drinks are available in the clubhouse bar which is accessible before the game and at halftime

Atmosphere

As stated previously, the Rails are facing a potential second relegation in successive seasons and, as such – on a damp Wednesday evening – the crowd of 42 made very little noise indeed. Infact the only kind of encouragement came from 4 young lads following Liversedge. As such the atmosphere was probably as flat as I have seen it.

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