DURING last weekend's break in the domestic football season I found myself standing on the terraces, alongside my father, at the 1,000-capacity Lancer Scott Stadium.
Home of Ashton and Backwell United, the ground is roughly five minutes' walk from where my father lives in the sleepy village where we moved as a family in 1982 when I was 14.
The match itself was a cracking affair with the home side coming back from being 1-0 down at half time (after being battered for 45 minutes, I hasten to add) to win 2-1.
As my experience of watching football at this level is limited, I expected blood and thunder with the occasional over-the-top tackle from an agricultural 40-year-old left back on some skinny teenage winger who'd spent 90-minutes giving him the runaround.
But I was more than pleasantly surprised with the quality of the match.
While I was there my father introduced me to his mates who he usually watches the game with.
There was Mike and Tony, who spend the 90 minutes drinking beer from the clubhouse and taking the mickey out of each other.
When Mike hears that I'm a journalist he goes on to leave my jaw on the floor as he tells me about how he worked at the New Musical Express during the halcyon days of the 1970s.
And there is also Ted, who has recently been roped in to helping the club out as secretary.
People like this are, I know from experience, the very lifeblood of smaller clubs like Ashton and Backwell, a team that rarely get more than 50 spectators to their matches.
My visit to the Lancer Scott Stadium got me thinking about how many grounds I have visited over my 30-plus years following football and a quick look at the current 92 league teams shows me I've been to exactly 50 of them.
I know they're currently not a league club, but I've seen both Bristol Rovers and Brighton play at three different grounds they've called home over this time and if you include in the mix the 24 teams in the Conference, you can add another seven to my half-century.
But this is nothing compared to Ted, the secretary of Ashton and Backwell.
"I've currently almost finished going to all the grounds in the Northern Premier League," he told me as we chewed the fat on the sideline last Saturday.
"And I'm up to Whitby for half term, where I'm hoping to get another couple of new grounds in," he added for good measure.
This ground-hopping stalwart tells me that he estimates he's been to the homes of 15 former league teams that have now been bulldozed and that if he went back to see his own childhood team – Gillingham – play, he would not recognise how much the Priestfield Stadium has changed since he last went.
"I like terracing" he tells me. "I'm not one for sitting in seats watching football. It doesn't feel right."
Apart from my own team Notts County's Meadow Lane, I've so far, this season visited Charlton's The Valley, the iPro and now the Lancer Scott in the village where I spent my formative years growing up.
And with all due respect to the league teams I've watched so far, the best value for money (£5 for me, £2 for my OAP dad) has been at the last one.
Play up Ashton and Backwell, I'll be watching your results with a little more interest from now on.
