early July football in around Bath or London
 

Hi all. We will be in London and surrounding area the first week in July. My son really wants to see a football game . We have already checked the schedules for the FA (Chelsea, Tottenham, Arsenal) with no success.

Can anyone recommend any good football at this time of year in the area where we will be?

Many thanks.

Hi Karens, I have a boy that would love the same in early July. No such luck. It is about the only month when no football is played. We opted for a cricket game instead. Should be fun.

thereyet

Regular season finished in May, and the new season doesn't begin till August. Training starts around the beginning of July, with some mini-tournaments and overseas tours and friendlies, though they typically start from the middle of July to just before the start of the season. You need to check all the league teams in the London area for details - which include, other than the three you tried, Fulham, West Ham, Charlton, Crystal Palace, Millwall, Queens Park Rangers, Brentford, Leyton.

And around Bath there are Bristol City, Bristol Rovers, Swindon Town and Yeovil Town.

The Premiership and the League get started on the 11th of August, but there are games played in July. It's a time of warmup "friendlies", usually with (and at) lower-division clubs. For instance, Tottenham are playing a friendly away at Stevenage Borough on July 7th.

Other London clubs appear to all be playing elsewhere, or after the first week, unfortunately:

Chelsea are in Porugal and America.

Arsenal are away to Barnet on the 14th; that's in London, barely. Take the Northern Line tube to the end of the line at High Barnet (zone 5) and walk five minutes to Underhill.

Charlton (who are relegated) are away to Welling United, a Conference South team in the London borough of Bexley, on the 16th.

Fulham are away to Dagenham & Redbridge (Conference, outskirts of London) on the 17th.

West Ham are also at Dag & Red, on the 14th, and have an inter-London match at Leyton Orient on the 24th.

Crystal Palace are away in Sweden; QPR don't list theirs.

Brentford are away to Hampton & Richmond Borough (a very low-level club, but in London) on the 17th, and at home to AFC Wimbledon on the 21st.
Millwall are away in Scotland.

There are other clubs in London, if you are really keen on low-level football. Some of these matches might be a lot of fun, given that the stars may not play and the whole thing will probably run at three-quarter speed.

Stevenage is in Herefordshire, 36 minutes by train from Kings Cross, then a one mile walk or short bus (the number four), if you are really determined to see Spurs play on the 7th! I can think of better things to see with a short time available in London than Stevenage, though.

If you're still going to be around on the 11th, Bath FC is playing host to Cheltenham Town. Whoo-hoo!

Wow, that is a whole lot more then I could find out. Are there any youth tournements in the London area beginning of July?

thereyet

fnarf999 shouldn't that read Hertfordshire?

Karens
In the absence of any footie, If you want some exciting sport, and don't like the all day format of Cricket, check out the twenty twenty cricket matches near where your staying.
Its a great fast format and over in a few hours. But its excitement all the way.

http://www.thetwenty20cup.co.uk/db/e...7/fixtures.asp

Muck

Yes, of course, the 'e' is only two left of the 't'. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!

You should thank me again, because I have saved you the trouble of visiting official football club websites, a harrowing experience that has sent weaker men (and computers) cowering in a dark room for days. Really, what is it with these sites? You couldn't imagine uglier, slower, nastier, more difficult to navigate sites if you tried.

I can't find any updated schedules for the top-level academy teams, unfortunately. I'm sure there must be training matches going on somewhere. There are over 7,000 organized football clubs in Britain's league system (any of which in theory could climb the ranks and win the Premiership, though even in perfect circumstances it would take most of them decades to get there), so finding a team isn't difficult. But finding a match to see in early July is about as tough as it gets.

Spurs are promising to put out tyheir "strongest available side" for the Stevenage game (to thank Stevenage for hosting our reserves for the last decade or so).

If you want to go you MUST book a ticket - it will be completely sold out.

Also mucky - can you think of anything nice to say about Swansea:

http://fodors.com/forums/threadselec...p;tid=35016158

By "hosting their reserves", do you mean using their stadium to play in, or do the Spurs reserves actually play for Stevenage?

No; spurs reserves play their games at stevenage - there's no connection beyond that.

Ah. Thanks. So probably half of the big club have played in that stadium before?

Most of them won't - we have a first team squad and a reserve squad. If they're not playing for the first team they still stay with the squad. So most of our internationals are in for a bit of a culture shock

Audere, I missed that thread, and indeed I can say lots that good about Swansea. Thanks for the link I will do so.

Muck

Wow, thanks all for your informative replies!

I did find the Stevenage-Tottenham game, but we are in Bath that evening, and that would be about 2.5 hours away.

Maybe next time...

Bath City are at home to Cheltenham Town on July 12, see www.bathcityfc.com for details.

I'm fairly sure that one of the Bristol teams plays at Bath City's ground as well.

Bristol Rovers are going to play their home games at Cheltenham Town's Whaddon Rd ground from a certain date during the coming season - I though it was around January when their ground - Memoriam Stadium - is demolished and rebuilt as an all-seater.
They have played at Bath City's ground before they moved to the present ground from Eastville, their former home in 1996.