"Northfleet has changed a fair bit since we last went there in 2004-2005. It now hosts a stop on the new Eurostar Rail Link to France and the rest of Europe, and has spawned a whole new area of the town, a stones throw from the old football ground. Whether that area is known as Northfleet or by this new name of Ebbsfleet is anyone's guess, perhaps the whole town will be merged into this new bastion of the finest public transport.
The local football club has already experienced such change, it's as if the Ebbsfleet tide is slowly closing in from the station. The only change to the club is in the name however, as Gravesend & Northfleet became Ebbsfleet United. Well, it probably makes club specific songs a bit easier for the locals. Aside from a few rows of temporary seating behind the goal erected due to safety concerns, Stonebridge Road is just as uninhabiting as it always has been. Being unsegregated, it allowed us to visit the areas that had previously been off limits.
For a start, the surrounding area is not the kindest setting for a football ground. Towers of the labouring industry peek above the stands and the nearby bus graveyard winds its way around the back of two stands. Big tanks and pipes fill the skyline around the ground and it seemed a somewhat weird decision to start building a football ground right in the middle of this area.
The uneven terracing, flaky paint work, rusty tin roofing and crumbling walls were hardly welcoming, but I spent most of the game trying to make up my mind whether I hated the ground, or absolutely loved it. I think by the end I was leaning towards the latter, even when you add the factor of the dreadful leg room in the Main Stand, which looked like it had been constructed by a few old chaps in flat caps many many years ago. Rustic and old-fashioned, the whole place evokes thoughts of working class men with their big coats and rattles squeezed onto the uneven steps, standing on tiptoes as they try to get a glimpse of the action. It's the sort of thing you only see in the oldest, grainiest of photos, and I think it's superb.
Perhaps quite apt then that having taken a brief view over the locals down there, a fair number of them seemed to be over 50. Not often have I see such an aged support at a football ground but it seemed to fit in quite well.
To top off the mix, we were well and truly back into the present day when the two teams took to the field. The purple and greys took on the sky blue and whites with a vast array of strangely coloured boots. We had some lime green, some yellow but Yannick Bolasie's bright pink pair were the most striking. Perhaps we could attempt to make all the colours of the rainbow from our kit/boot combination? How silly. Stick to black boots, or white at the very worst.
Still, the first twenty minutes of the game highlighted a huge gulf in quality. Barnet cut through Fleet as if they weren't there and were 2-0 to the good after ten minutes through Albert Adomah and Paul Furlong, despite desperate claims that someone was offside. My completely unbiased eyes told me that it was just a very poor offside trap. The game soon slowed down as the Bees took their foot off the gas. some sloppy play allowed Ebbsfleet a foothold in the match and they created a few openings of their own.
Other talking points of the half were limited to Gary Breen being assisted off the field with a bad looking injury (though he seemed to have recovered well by the end of the game) and an outrageous piece of skill from Yannick Bolasie on the near side which baffled the nearby defender. It seemed that only I saw it though, but it was magic!
The second half was much of a muchness to be fair. Ebbsfleet made changes across the field and continued to offer a small threat, but were punished by a swift counter attack midway through the half by Albert Adomah's second. Keeper Cronin appeared to let the well struck ball through his hands however, as it flew into the roof of the net. Ebbsfleet were to get their goal after an unfortunate error by substitute 'keeper Viner allowed a man in a Fleet shirt to finish into an empty net.
So that was that, and it's now with great excitement that we look forward to the new season, less than a week away. Come on Barnet!"
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