Our trip to Crewe Alexandra is on Saturday, and the fun starts at 3.00.
Crewe Alexandra’s fine stadium is about a mile to the south of Crewe town centre, handily placed for those travelling in from out of town and close to the Nantwich Road area, the cultural capital of South Cheshire.
If you're driving from Leeds you need to leave the M6 at junction 17 and turn right at the top of the slip road. From here it's about 6 miles to Crewe along the A534. When you get to a big roundabout on the edge of town you need to take the exit signposted for the railway station rather than the one Crewe town centre. You go straight over the next roundabout, then you can follow the sign to the away fans parking down the next turning on the left. From here it's a 5-10minute walk to the ground.
From the railway station it could hardly be simpler, as you just have to turn left outside the station, then take the next left into Gresty Road.
The Railway station is on Nantwich Road, which has the best of the pubs and takeaways in the area. On the three previous occasions when we’ve been to Gresty Road the Leeds pub was ‘The Office’, who’s landlady was a Leeds fan, but unfortunately this establishment has now changed hands. I’m reliably informed that we’ll be able to get into any of the pubs, apart from ‘The Express’, which has been designated as Crewe fans only. But the pub I’m going to recommend is 'The Imperial' on Edleston Road (right at the second set of lights after leaving the station, then keep going down the hill) whose landlord once told me that "we had a number of Leeds fans in the pub and they were a credit to Leeds United".
The best bet for food is the fish and chip shop on the corner of Gresty Road and Nantwich Road, but there are several other good takeaways further down Nantwich Road. Inside the ground you get a good choice of pies, and the prices are reasonable by football ground standards.
All four sides of Gresty Road have been re-developed since 1992, and by the time the £6m Air Products Stand opened in 1999 the capacity had increased to 10,153. This is a single tier cantilever stand, which holds just under 7,000 people and towers over the rest of the ground. Like most other clubs, Crewe will only sell 'home' tickets to fans with customer numbers whenever we visit.
Away fans are usually given the whole of the 1,680 capacity Blue Bell BMW Stand on the opposite side, though the larger visiting clubs also get a further 638 seats in the Charles Audi Stand behind the goal to the right of the main stand. (And it looks like we have been given both stands for this game, a total allocation of 2,318). At the opposite end is the Advance Personnel Stand, which houses the most vocal home supporters. Adult tickets cost £18.60 for all areas of the ground.
At some point in the future, the club hopes to expand the capacity by replacing the Blue Bell BMW Stand with a new two-tiered stand, which will also contain executive boxes. But there is no indication of when this is likely to happen.
Many thanks to Crewe fan Adrian Dobson for his help with this article