[Albion] Newcastle’s away changing room

[dazzer6666]

Do the Amex stadium tour - the contrast between the two changing rooms is quite something.

This. Not dissimilar to the two Newcastle rooms pictured

 

[METALMICKY]

I did like Bart politely setting the ceiling tiles back in place.

Well they couldn't ask Lamptey!

 

[pigmanovich]

And from doing the tour a while ago, the contrast was explained as deliberate!

Heard the same during a tour of Stamford Bridge, assumed it’s standard practice

 

[Dave the OAP]

And full of grass and mud where people had washed their boots off?

Yep…..

 

[Boroseagull]

The pitches above the rocket park up Ditching Road, where you had to play up and down the Eiger, were something like that, only without the stream.

If I remember correctly, you didn't even bother going into the changing rooms but arrived in full kit or changed in your car, which was bigger.

Always changed in the car for that place. There was also a pitch at the top of Wilson's Avenue completely devoid of any changing facilities - ah fond memories of Sunday League football in the early 70s.

 

[Dave the OAP]

Best away changing room ever was at Ripe and Chalvington CC

it was a large shed, with broken windows….no electrics in the shed. Bird droppings all over the floor and broken benches….the first time iwent there, I was getting changed and I heard a rustling around my feet and a bloody great rat ran out straight into my cricket “ coffin” bag! I ran out screaming like a little girl with my mate risking his life by turning out my bag to find the bloody thing.

we had that for a couple of years and then they demolished it ( or it blew down) and built a new decent pavilion behind the pub!

 

[Dave the OAP]

Always changed in the car for that place. There was also a pitch at the top of Wilson's Avenue completely devoid of any changing facilities - ah fond memories of Sunday League football in the early 70s.

…and when, at Ditchlin road pitches, someone kicked the ball out, down the hill, whoever was closest had to go and retrieve it from the trees and brambles and risk your life from tetanus having being scratched to death. Then running or staggering back up the hill whilst knackered to be shouted at by a tosser of a centre back who couldn’t header the ball!

 

[One Love]

…and when, at Ditchlin road pitches, someone kicked the ball out, down the hill, whoever was closest had to go and retrieve it from the trees and brambles and risk your life from tetanus having being scratched to death. Then running or staggering back up the hill whilst knackered to be shouted at by a tosser of a centre back who couldn’t header the ball!

Even worse was if it made the road with the usual Arctic Northerly behind it. No brambles there to stop it bouncing towards Fiveways.

 

[Brian Munich]

Question for those that have done the stadium tour: I notice that for the purpose of the tour that they hang shirts up in the positions that players would normally sit to replicate a match day set up. For the away changing rooms, do they have a load of fake shit sprayed around one of the cubicles to replicate match day after the Palace coach driver has visited to drop off the kit?

If I ever do that tour, it'll be a question I have: Which trap did the dirty Palace coach driver shit himself in?

 

[essbee1]

I've played on Hackney Marshes. Didn't even go into the changing rooms. Decided to play fully togged up

 

[Charlie Livesey]

Always changed in the car for that place. There was also a pitch at the top of Wilson's Avenue completely devoid of any changing facilities - ah fond memories of Sunday League football in the early 70s.

That was Wrights Farm, bitterly cold wind was always blowing, used to change in the bus shelter on Warren Road when we played there. Memories

 

[Cowfold Seagull]

The Newcastle United (a Premier League Club) away team changing room, ladies and gentlemen.

Now, admittedly, I wouldn’t want the Albion to make the away dressing room too luxurious either, but this looks like the sort of place you’d find in a concrete breeze block outhouse in the middle of a dingy park in Worthing. With showers where the water temperature is 70% sub-Arctic and 30% hotter than the sun, lighting levels reminiscent of a mushroom farm, a dent in the chipboard door where an angry player once punched it, a black plastic bin filled with orange segments and screwed up sock tape, and an unmistakable smell of damp and Deep Heat.

Hands up if you’ve personally played on pitches with nicer changing rooms than this?

It sounds like you are decribing the away dressing room at Horsham YMCA!

 

[jcdenton08]

I actually have played there, and we were in that very changing room. This was circa 2014, and the company I worked for bought one of those play on the pitch corporate packages. Probably some kind of tax thing.

What you can’t sense is the smell in there. It might have been fixed in the years since, but there’s basically no ventilation. There was mould in the showers.

It was a great day out though. Each team had an ex-pro playing for them - we had Gary McAllister on our team (really lovely bloke - chatted for a while about the Albion), then there was Nicky Summerbee who scored from 40 yards, and Rob Lee who has an enormous cock. Which he was very proud of, walking around bollock naked in the changing room.

Then we had dinner in the players lounge afterwards. Good times.

 

[Dorset Seagull]

That was Wrights Farm, bitterly cold wind was always blowing, used to change in the bus shelter on Warren Road when we played there. Memories

Don’t even get me started on the numerous flints on the pitches

 

[Lady Whistledown]

Don’t even get me started on the numerous flints on the pitches

Flints? You don't know you're born. We had flints AND dog shit.

 

[thedonkeycentrehalf]

Flints? You don't know you're born. We had flints AND dog shit.

Saw a horrible injury on Sompting Rec where one of my teammates had a cut on his thigh after a slide tackle - when we looked closely he had slid over a flint and the cut went very deep into the muscle.

As for dog shit, one Sunday morning ref dropped his whistle in one of those horrible wet shits but didn't realise (must have thought it was just mud) and put it straight into his mouth to blow for a free kick

 

[Dorset Seagull]

Flints? You don't know you're born. We had flints AND dog shit.

Apologies I forgot about the dogshit

 

[stewart12]

Worst I experienced in B&H is Bevendean Rec where the home changing room was normal sized but the away one was basically a cupboard. So much so that the visiting team couldn't all change together

 

[hans kraay fan club]

Dogshit...

One Sunday game (Kingsworthy rec, for the sake of accuracy), we're warming up, in the traditional Sunday League fashion - taking shots at the keeper, and chucking crosses in.

Someone swings over a cross, and a lad who we'll call BRAD - because that was his name - brings it down nicely on his chest, before volleying it towards the goal.

A moment later, Brad is like "f***ing hell, can everyone smell that dogshit?". Nobody else can.

Brad looks down and realises, that the reason he alone can smell it, is that it is smeared across his chest.

There is no spare shirt. We have a bare 11 players that day, and everyone looks after and brings along their own. Brad has to play the full 90 with the smell of dog egg in his nostrils. The hotter and sweatier his shirt gets, the worse it is.

For all the ribbing he gets, and how disgusting it must have been, Brad that morning scored the only adult football hat-trick of his life. It is possible that he wasn't being very closely marked, perhaps.

 

[Gwylan]

Buckingham Park Shoreham in the seventies

Or in 2025.

I reffed Shoreham rugby there a few months ago and was shocked to discover that the officials had to change in the home dressing room. It would have been a very awkward encounter if I'd sent someone off and them found myself changing next to him. And it was so small, the whole team couldn't change at once.

From my footballing days, I don't remember any that were especially horrific - apart from the fact that showers never seemed to have hot water. I did play at Stamford Bridge once and that was the height of luxury.

I think rugby pitches are worse. The low point was taking a girls team to Sutton and there were no changing rooms at all, there was a single portaloo for the girls to change in. That didn't go down well.