Darlington Travellers Rest 2 v Heighington 3 - 18/02/17 - ground #430 - Longfield Academy of Sport 3G

due to a last minute fixtures change, I had to abandon plans to recomplete the Eskvale & Cleveland league and luckily have a local 3G to tick off!  I'd already paid a visit to this venue, but not the 3G pitch which many count as a "new ground", so that gives me a few more local ticks to do! :)
I headed to darlo north road on the 12.26, same train & station as quite a few Billy Town fans on way to Darlo RA. My game was the semi-final of the Colin Waites Cup, in the other direction but about same distance walk, in which darlo travs took an early lead. after that the away team took advantage of some sloppy defending goin 3-1 up. Travs made a game of it again in last 20 mins but could only pull 1 more goal back. after the the game, I got a local arriva bus from over the road into town. made my usual visit to sainsburys for the evenings cans (inc for 1 on the train home) & then onto the Old Vic Real Ale pub.

there's usually 3 or 4 real ciders on, but on this occasion, there were only 2, both dud! so just had a half of Happy Daze 4.5%, then made way to station for the 16.30 back to thornaby. this was my 12th darlo ground, tomorrow should be my 13th as I head back to darlo to watch darlo 1883 reserves at their new 4G pitch :)

season 2016/17 - 18 new grounds , 83 goals :)

transport -
142087 thornaby - north road

3a longfield road - town centre
142026 darlo - thornaby

Heighington 1 v Bishop Auckland Hogans 2 - 03/10/15 - ground #393 - Heighington Parish Playing Fields

Finally, the time had come to tick off Heighington! I've always wanted to, mainly because of the Locomotion Number One pub next to the station! :)
The ground was about 30 mins walk from the station, mainly along country lanes & paths til I arrived in the village.after all that walking a pint was well required, the only Cider sold there was a botttle of Bulmers. various ales & beers were on sale, but I didn't take much notice which they were.
if you're not one for pubs & country walks, there's an arriva bus from darlo that stops outside the ground, but where's the fun in that?

season 2015/16 - 14 new grounds, 60 goals :)

transport -
142016 thornaby - heighington
142092 heiington - thornaby

Model T 5 v Heighington 0 - 25/07/15 - ground #382 - Springfield Park

another PSF & another neutral ground tick :)
an arriva day rover was again required for this day. a short trip to north darlo on the x66 for the footy,  followed by a trip to Richmondshire CC to finally tick off that ground ! :) 

transport -
x66 stockton - harrowgate hill
x66 harrowgate hill - darlo
x26 darlo - richmond
x26 richmond - darlo
x66 darlo - stockton