….So then, it seems that I’ll be watching football in different places every weekend again this season. But why, may you ask? Because last season was both tremendous fun (trips to watch Guiseley, Ebbsfleet, Wigan, Portsmouth, Ajax and more) AND it seemed that me staying away from my own club (asides from a couple of times at the end of the season) made us be rather brilliant and get promoted to the Premier League. More than one Leicester supporter has made me promise to continue watching other clubs this year – and every year – if it means we become the world-beaters that our owners want us to be. I will not argue with that at all (plus the people who asked me to do it are bigger than me).
Obviously I’ll once again have to try and stick to my own rules – which you can read here – and I’m throwing myself the additional curveball of trying to not go back to any stadia that I visited last season (even though my own rules just state within one season). I figure that there are enough grounds for me to go to. Saturday was a case in point; with me working in the North West (Preston Frog and Bucket, where I did jokes about Blackpool’s lack of players. They’re a football savvy crowd – I once did ten minutes on Nuno Gomes inexplicably ending up playing for Blackburn Rovers) I had tons of games to choose from. Accrington was quite tempting, having never been there before and being a child of the eighties. You know what I mean. Read the following two words:
Accrington Stanley.
If you either read them in a Scouse accent OR followed the words with “exactly” then you’re around the same age as me. Although that is a more long-winded and niche age test than me just reading out your birth certificate.
In the end I decided to go to Highbury. No, not that Highbury. That one has long since been knocked down and had overpriced flats built in its place. I mean the home of Fleetwood Town, and this season it is a stadium that is hosting League One level football for the very first time. You might be reading this now thinking “that’s not a big deal, it’s only League One”. If that is the case, allow me to slap you around the gills with an amazing statistic: Just ten seasons ago, Fleetwood were playing in the North West Counties Football League Premier Division. I’m a nerd and I didn’t know how far down the pyramid that was until I looked it up. It’s the NINTH tier. They’ve gone from that level to the THIRD tier in ten seasons. That is a remarkable achievement. Seemed only right that I go and watch their first ever game at that level….
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Jim Smallman - The Football Neutral 
That was rather excellent! As a Fleetwood fan myself who was at that game, it was a pleasure to read. Cheers! And enjoy the rest of your season!
As a Fleetwood fan I loved reading this article, well played sir, well played.