You wake up, realise it’s Saturday and smile. After a train trip, a pub stop and a walk through unfamiliar streets, you turn a corner and it’s there
By writer Daniel Gray and photographer Alan McCredie
You wake and for a few seconds think it is one of those other mornings. The dreary 345-or-so in a year when you’re not going to a match. It takes a few seconds to remember what day this is. Who you are, even, especially if Friday night was good. If there was a Friday, though, then this is Saturday. If this is Saturday, the right kind of Saturday, then it is sacred. A day of worship. It is even richer if your pilgrimage will take you somewhere new. To walk around a rosy corner and see a
Football ground for the first time is bliss.
Happy as you are, there is no leap from bed. You lay there for a few minutes, thinking about the day ahead – even the smiling sun sometimes rises groggily. You think about the travel, the timings, the things that can go wrong, the walk to the ground, and whether there will be a useful pub on the way. Too much thought, however, can spoil this day’s finest quality: the unbridled thrill of the new.