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Barnsley Awaydaze
Friday, 24th Nov 2017 13:54 by Tim Whelan

Our game at Barnsley kicks off at 12.30pm on Saturday, and yet again we’re going to be live on Sky Sports. We’re not famous any more!

To get to Oakwell by car you need to leave the M1 at Junction 37 and take the A628 towards Barnsley. Just keep following the A628 and following the signs the ground will eventually come into view. There is a large car park for away fans right behind the away end of the ground.

The railway station is about 10 minutes’ walk from the ground and you have to go in the opposite direction to the town centre and keep going uphill. I could give more precise directions, but every time I’ve been to Barnsley by train we’ve been rounded up by the police for an escort to Oakwell. In recent years there have been one or two disturbances close to the town centre after the game, so we can expect that the police will have far more than their usual numbers on duty for this one.

I don’t know how many of the local pubs will be admitting Leeds fans on the day, or if any of the local hostelries will be open at all. You probably won’t get into anywhere in the town centre, but one place that is worth a try is the bar at the Metro Dome leisure centre.

There are another couple of possible options a few minutes walk from the ground, along Doncaster Road. The ‘Dove Inn’ is listed in the CAMRA good beer guide, and a little bit further along is the Barnsley East Dene Working Men’s Club. Barnsley don’t usually sell alcohol inside the ground when we’re the visitors.

In the good old second division days of 1980s Barnsley was always a chaotic away trip with thousands of Leeds crammed into the open away terrace, and we were so tightly packed that even when it rained only our heads would get wet. In those days the ground was gloriously old-fashioned and they only had seats in the top half of the main stand, with the rest of Oakwell being terracing. But to meet the demands of the Taylor report they had to build three new stands in the 1990s, although the West Stand, part of which dates back to 1904.

The normal away section is in the modern North Stand, where the facilities are good with unrestricted views, as you would expect. The normal allocation for away supporters is 2,000 tickets but bigger clubs can have the whole of this stand and bring over 6,000 supporters, out of a total capacity of 23,009.

But strangely the official Leeds site says that our allocation was 4,500, so there must be some parts of the away stand that will be closed for segregation. Not that we will care about Barnsley losing the revenue from the extra 1,500 tickets they could have sold.

It’s no surprise that this game is ‘Category A*’ (the highest category out of a five), so ticket prices for are adults £36, with various categories of concessions at £24, £10 and £5. But despite the expense there are no more tickets for sale on the official site, so I presume we’ve now sold our full allocation.

And as far as tickets for the home stand are concerned, Barnsley’s site says “a previous checkable booking history is required to purchase for this game.” And that “any home supporter who is found to have purchased tickets for opposition fans in a home area may face a ban from Oakwell”, so if you have managed to get a ticket for any of the home stands, you will need to avoid drawing attention to yourself.

For several years there has been talk of the club replacing the old West Stand with another modern stand in the same style as the other three stands, but so far nothing has ever come of it.

Some of this stuff came from www.footballgroundguide.com .


Photo: Action Images



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