And it's half time at the City Ground

The visit to the home of the double European Cup winners (in the days when you had to be champions of your league rather than finish in the top four) was bookended by a visit to the worlds oldest club and one a la Harry Potter that cannot be named.

The first leg of the day was a 20 mile ride from Mansfield to Nottingham through some of the old places that I played football at in my formative years.

As we passed a sign for the old mining village of Calverton it reminded me of when I played there in the Nottinghamshire County Cup. The actual game was unremarkable as we won the game comfortably but was memorable for another reason. Spectators in mining villages had a reputation of being a little feisty. This day was no different and after some par for the course verbals aimed at us I had the ball near one of the touch lines. I headed towards the opponents goal only for one of the mothers of the other team to hit me on the back of the legs with her umbrella. Needless to say I played the remainder of the game in central midfield and we did not stay for refreshments afterwards.

Josh joined me for the 20 miles on our way to Notts County through sadly what is unremarkable countryside.

Notts County, the oldest club in the world, has had its struggles in the past few years. They seem to be through the other side now as they are under the stewardship of Martin Mad Dog Allen. The ground is neat and tidy although unattended on a Sunday so we were not able to get inside.

We then went what is the shortest journey of the trip, a whole half mile to the City Ground. My choice of photograph today was inevitably going to be of the City Ground and you can see they know how to welcome someone home. The crowds were out and the coaching staff even arranged for a coaching session to be put on. I do of course jest. My visit coincided with the Nottingham Forest Open Day so we had little problem getting in for photos. The visit to Forest was half way at least in terms of the number of clubs and we will wait to see at the end how close it was to half way in distance once we get to the end.

We were safely reunited with Rebecca after her mid trip break as we headed off to the club that resides at the other end of the A52. Near to their ground there is the biggest array of food chains that you have ever seen. KFC, McDonalds, Subway, Frankie & Benny's, Greggs, Burger King, Starbucks -no wonder Kris Commons had to be transferred - he would have exploded otherwise. We were met at the ground by Stephanie's cousin Andrew, along with his partner Karen and his daughters Isobel and Helena, who as they live nearby kindy came down to show their support. We were unable to spend too long with them though, as getting started again after a long stop is incredibly hard work!

We then zipped off for our last leg of the day to the hotel at Burton and for the first time the wind blew, much of the way into our faces. That made the last few miles hard, particularly the uphill miles.

The scores on the doors for today are 52.7 and total 369.6 miles. Averaging per day 52.8 miles.

I will check in from the Black Country tomorrow.