STADIA: FRATTON PARK (PORTSMOUTH) AND HOME PARK (PLYMOUTH)

The Good Companion pub on Eastern Road, less than half a mile from Fratton Park, where the fans of Plymouth Argyle have gathered before the game against Portsmouth. This assemblage cannot be offered as a cross-section of Plymothian society, but they are legion: the total attendance of away fans on the day will reach 2,405 – way above average for League Two. Many of the older supporters look out-of-shape, unwell, lacking any concern for their appearance. The younger are more neatly dressed but have drank too much, some of them spilled over tables next to barely touched pints, others behaving more boisterously. The bar is at least three deep, and this is not a small bar. The staff is doing its best to chronologise service, but it cannot be guaranteed. There is queue for the men’s toilet that leads well out of its door. Approximately 90% of those present are male, all are white. There is nothing to fear; the partisan is reactive, moved to oppose only when opposed. The atmosphere is congenial, if unrefined. Pasties are being hawked in the car park.

The North–South divide is mythic, a dichotomy that supposedly hard northerners perpetuate when wishing to denigrate supposedly soft southerners. I determine so because whenever I've travelled somewhere in this respect considered 'north' – Edinburgh, Sedgefield, Leicester, Nottingham, Grantham, Cardiff, small towns and villages in Wales and Lincolnshire – I've found the manner and attitude to be comparable in tone to that found in places like Plymouth, Bristol, Exeter, Torquay, Southampton, Portsmouth, small towns and villages in Cornwall and Somerset. The implication is predictive by dint of geographical allusion: it is not a North–South divide at all but a South East–the rest of it divide.

This still doesn’t quite satisfy. Romford and Southend hint at trouble, Cambridgeshire is as bleak as hell, and I’ve heard the Medway towns are very rough also. Jonathan Meades talking to The Quietus:

I don't think the South is a paradise, that's a complete nonsense. I have a friend who grew up in Liverpool 8 above a pub, and he went to university in Southampton and he said that Liverpool will kick you but then say, ‘Sorry, whack,' but Southampton will just kick you. We're talking about places that are hard, without any doubt, especially port towns – Plymouth and Portsmouth as well. Say if you go to the Medway towns, they're very hard and rough places.

My formative years spent in Plymouth give credence. Whenever I return from London I’m reminded of the variance in mood, the dissimilar mores. The city isn’t as violent or shabby or parochial as it was, yet there’s still something inured about many of the residents. Not a more pleasing quality necessarily, but maybe more sincere.

Specks Lane around the back of the away (‘Milton’) end at Fratton Park, the sort of passageway you wouldn’t want to be caught walking along, having visited as an opposing spectator, by an active mob of Portsmouth fans coming the other way. The rear gardens of terraced houses look over it from behind breeze-blocked walls and incongruously large flat-roofed garages. Facing this are graffiti covered concrete slabs aligned vertically, like a portion of the Berlin Wall. This is by far the cared less for quarter of the ground. Signs assert “No Smoking”. Fag-butts, ubiquitously littering a weedy declination held in place by those concrete monoliths, suggest otherwise. This is what all inner-city football grounds were once like, built ad hoc, giving rise to strange wasted spaces with no access; buildings born of utility, it is the spectacle within that counts.

The view from the Milton End may be the best Fratton Park offers: the South Stand to the right, North Stand left, the Fratton End straight ahead with just four spindly stanchions required to carry the corrugated iron roof above it. If the goals go in here you won’t miss a thing. The South Stand is by far the most interesting, dating back to 1925, designed by Archibald Leitch (responsible for the Johnny Haynes Stand at Craven Cottage, Ibrox, much of Villa Park, etc.) and one of the few examples of his work that remains. The North Stand exhibits a certain charm too: its rectangular shape is compromised at one end, rather like Everton’s Goodison Road stand. (It is unclear why as behind lies simply a car park, as opposed to the residential housing that hampers at Goodison.) Both stands are double tiered but the South Stand more elegantly so. The Fratton End is an example of the sort of single-tiered structures built over the last twenty-odd years where clubs have been unable to redevelop, or move away from, their existing ground – or there just isn't the attendance to justify it. In and of themselves they’re rarely much to look at but are usually raked more steeply and their roofs cantilevered, which benefits sight-lines greatly.

Portsmouth was competing in the Premiership as recently as 2010 and had intended to build a new stadium elsewhere in the city. Following the club’s calamitous decline these plans were shelved. Vague ideas concerning the redevelopment of Fratton Park have since been proposed but such schemes are unlikely to come to fruition while Portsmouth remains playing in League Two. Yet how many other clubs’ home fans get to enter their ground via a mock Tudor façade dating back to 1898? And despite the business parks to the west (a contemporary conglomeration of hotels, supermarkets, gyms and fast-food establishments) and north (red brick industrial units and warehouses), much of the surrounding area is still residential. There are parks nearby too.

View from the Milton End. Archibald Leitch's stand is just visible to the left.

Central Park, not New York but Plymouth. See it on a map, it’s no token recreational space. There is: a library; a clinic; pitch-and-put; 5-a-side; extensive leisure and sporting facilities in the form of the Plymouth Life Centre; allotments; a cemetery; a number of playgrounds; a bowling green; a baseball field; more allotments; ample seating; Home Park – residence of Plymouth Argyle Football Club.

Central Park is 'trust land', which is how it continues to exist – only leisure related facilities may be raised upon it. Like much of Plymouth, it undulates. Home Park occupies the western apex of the park adjacent to a large open carpark that adjoins Outland Road (a component of the A386, which continues up to Dartmoor and ultimately as far as Appledore on Devon’s north coast). To the east this verdant landscape falls away, meaning the stadium’s profile appears more elevated from its eastern aspect than from any other vantage point. When observed from the higher ground of the suburb of Hartley the impression is of a stadium almost twice its actual size.

In fact Home Park is of modest proportion, always has been. In 2001, the ground underwent redevelopment. The Lyndhurst Stand and Devonport and Barn Park Ends were knocked down and a continuous all-seated U-shaped structure built in its place. This reconstruction contributed little in terms of capacity and was focussed mainly on comfort and improving viewing angles, as well as complying with legislation that applied to the leagues Plymouth was rising towards at the time. Phase 2 of Home Park’s development was to involve replacing the existing Mayflower Stand with a new multi-tiered grandstand that would have granted an all-seated capacity of 18,500. Like at Portsmouth, the project was put on hold, and the Mayflower as it was survives to this day, restricting the capacity to around 16,000.

Artists’ impressions tend to deceive, so it’s hard to say whether Home Park has missed an opportunity or benefitted from a stay of execution. Clad in corrugated aluminium, the Mayflower may be outmoded but it simultaneously remains a far more arresting structure than the Devonport/Lyndhurst/Barn Park combo presently surrounding it. It looks like another Archibald Leitch job but was in fact built some ten years after his passing, a testament to his influence in the field. With a shallower rake, the grandstand rises only a little higher than the rest of the ground but its two tears impose a much more commanding disparity. Only from the air does it appear insubstantial.

Not to say that progress should be resisted. The old Home Park was a rickety and disjointed affair. None of the roofs stretched as far as the goal-lines; the Barn Park End didn’t even have one. The Devonport End was set at a funny angle and the uncovered junction separating it from the Lyndhurst – the Spion Kop – lacked cohesion. The Lyndhurst – rectilinear, fan-trussed – afforded a little more protection, and actual seats were installed toward the end of the 1980s. (The crowd leapt out of them and jeered as Gascoigne’s reputation preceded him in a pre-season friendly against Tottenham Hotspur.)

But for all that, the general feeling was one of openness and of free movement (despite the perimeter fencing, which was deemed reasonable back then). You could look towards the Barn Park End and see Hartley rising up above the dot-matrix scoreboard (prone to malfunction) and the trees beyond. Like at Portsmouth – and at Fiorentina to a fanciful degree – there were separate sections you could move around in, with views towards the rest of the ground that were unique to where you stood. Light permeated almost throughout. There was shade if you preferred. Now, aside from your allocated seat, the only place to loiter is within the industrial interior of the stands themselves. Try to imagine what it might be like having a quick pint in your local B&Q.

Home Park pre-development. Plenty of space to move around in.

Fratton Park and Home Park feel comfortable in their surroundings. So do many modern stadia, but when you consider that those surroundings are more usually out-of-town industrial estates then maybe that’s not so much comfort. It becomes not so much a question of architecture relating to its surroundings – although it is still that – but finding surroundings worth relating it to. In the case of Portsmouth and Plymouth, if undertaken with sufficient regard, their surroundings could have a positively mitigating effect. My fear is that, when it finally comes to pass, these grounds will be subject to either the cheapest tender or the demented ego of some preening architect, determined to leave their mark where it’s not welcome.

STADIA: WEMBLEY STADIUM AND THE EMIRATES, LONDON

The fad in England for fabricating stadiums from scratch is relatively new. Take the Premier League. Anfield, Goodison Park, White Hart Lane, Old Trafford, Selhurst Park, Stamford Bridge, The Hawthorns, Turfmoor, Vicarage Road and St James's Park have all evolved over time, unbeholden to any overarching scheme or long-term vision. Like Theseus's proverbial ship, they have mutated, in fits and starts, and resemble little their nascent self. (At Old Trafford they have aspired to create the illusion of architectural forethought, but those horribly disjointed corner sections fool no-one.) Conversely, the Emirates Stadium, Britannia Stadium, King Power Stadium, Kirklees Stadium, Liberty Stadium, Vitality Stadium, St. Mary’s Stadium and Falmer Stadium are all ‘new builds’. That’s a lot stadium, constructed to replace grounds that were deemed variously to be too small, too old, too awkward, too dangerous, too uncomfortable, or too ugly – and irredeemably so. Unfortunately, from an architectural perspective many of them can be found wanting. Much of them look like they have been assembled by the same firm that knocked up your local supermarket (and may well have been). They have also been divested of their original name, to be rechristened in honour of the patrons who pay money to be honoured.

It is a matter of cost and spatial constraint. The clubs that have developed their existing homes remain where they are. Those that have built new stadiums have done so out of town, or – particularly in London where out of town can manifest itself as somewhere else entirely – on derelict land, probably at greater cost. Indeed, out-of-town developments appear to be all the rage, again echoing the sort of cheap and prefabricated buildings that are more usually built on the fringes of urban conurbations – supermarkets, factories, storage facilities, head offices.

Other stadia have neither been razed to the ground nor replaced stand by stand but built upon and expanded upward and outward. This has certainly happened at Old Trafford, and it is in the process of happening at the City of Manchester Stadium (upon a stadium purpose built in the first instance but now regarded as lacking capacity). This approach has precedence elsewhere, particularly in European countries lining the Mediterranean: the San Siro in Milan; Bologna’s Stadio Renato Dall'Ara; the Stade Vélodrome in Marseille (hard to tell since they wacked a roof on it); the now demolished Estádio das Antas in Porto which was extended downward to increase capacity; Barcelona’s Camp Nou, Estadio Santiago Bernabeu in Madrid, and stadiums in Spain generally; as well as the Philips Stadion in Eindhoven, where the effect is reminiscent of that at Old Trafford.

It has been suggested that by the time Wembley Stadium had been rebuilt its design was obsolete. The conceit is that it was the last of a generation of stadia constructed in the mid-1990s through to the early 2000s that might be said to include grounds such as the Amsterdam Arena (opened in 1996), Stade de France (1998), Cardiff's Millennium Stadium (1999), Lisbon’s Estádio da Luz (2003). The supplanting of the original Wembley Stadium (and whether or not its iconic twin towers could be incorporated into any notional design) was conceived in the late 1990s, scheduled to commence in the year 2000 – ground was eventually broken in September 2002 – and completed in 2007, by which time it was one of the most expensive projects of its kind.

The economics, politics and general shambles of the whole affair aside, the new Wembley Stadium, with its iconic new arch, appeared to go down rather well. I suspect that those who applauded it didn't bother too much appraising its exterior but were pleased with the scale and uniformity of its interior, which wouldn't look out of place hosting American Football (which it does from time to time). In comparison to its predecessor, the thing is luxuriant.

And what of its exterior? It is inoffensive enough, and from the air the roof imparts a certain fragmentary appeal. The arch, which can be illuminated, seems less of a gimmick now than when it was first proposed as some sort of conciliatory exchange for those famous twin towers. Overlooking the decision to install bright red seats, it is a decent enough stadium, albeit, in an architectural sense, a very predictable one. It presents as a rotunda of glass, steel and plastic, just like any other inner-city edifice.

It was perhaps Munich’s Allianz Arena that underlined the fact that stadium presentation had moved beyond more familiar modes of urban planning. From within, the Allianz Arena doesn’t appear to break any moulds, although the seats are a pleasing shade of grey, which in itself is refreshing. From outside the stadium’s ambition is immediately apparent. Shrouded completely in Ethylene Tetrafluoroethylene – a fluorine-based plastic – when illuminated the effect has been compared to that of a paper lantern, or lampshade. You get the feeling the whole structure could at any moment float upward like some benign zeppelin. Moreover, the roof can be scrolled backward in sections to let in light and aerate the interior as required. Wembley’s roof can move about a bit too, but more laterally and with a greater sense of burden.

Wembley’s lack of imagination is not confined to its sense of inertia or its garish seating. The matter is not one merely of materials, or that it could so easily be mistaken for something else. The removal of the twin towers, and the arch in its place, is forgiven. What disappoints is that the design for Wembley Stadium was so obviously derivative. It looked around at what other cities were building and elected to do blandly the same, just on a slightly larger scale.

The Emirates, home to Arsenal FC, doesn’t suffer from the same deficiencies. By embracing its financial limitations, and making a virtue of them, an idea relating to its specific purpose is embraced. Ostensibly, this ground is as conservative as Wembley: oval, the seats are red again, oscillating top tier, plenty of glass and steel. But these constituents have been arranged differently, with more thought. The almost perfectly elliptical perimeter of the building is broken up into alternating sections of glass, then concrete, glass, then concrete, etc. The fashion for cladding has been resisted, nothing is hidden, utility defines it. There are pleasing touches, such as vertical slits cut out in these concrete sections that reveal the stairwells behind them. The glass fronted portions of the building are canted and protrude slightly, overlapping over the joins with the concrete. The underside of the roof is smooth, reflective, and supported by steel trusses painted in white. Overall, the structure is not as cumbersome, more airy, and doesn’t impose so evidently upon the surrounding (and less industrial) environment. It conveys that what goes on here is something out in the open. I stare at Wembley Stadium and imagine a thousand office workers sat at their desks.

STADIA: ESTADIO LA ROSALEDA, MALAGA, AND ESTADIO DE MESTALLA, VALENCIA

The Estadio La Rosaleda, home of Málaga CF. I recollect the football ground from Inglis’ great work The Football Grounds of Europe, but it is much altered since that was published. You might come at it from a southerly direction, along either side of the Rio Guadalmedina. If it is summer this river will be dry, dusty, dormant. The area around the stadium itself is residential in nature but the watercourse allows a clear view of the mountains to the north. La Rosaleda occupies its own space, contrary to the dense and moderately high-rise surroundings. Because of its riparian setting, you may regard it from a variety of angles.

The structure itself is typical of many a Spanish stadium (although this may not hold true for those constructed over the past decade). It possesses a Modernist aesthetic: the rectilinear concrete struts attached to the two main stands support the roofs in the same way many mid-20th century buildings employ a series of reinforced concrete columns to bear their loads. Such a retrospective approach towards architecture – if you choose to see it that way – has precedence elsewhere. I am considering in particular Valencia's Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias, a concrete extravaganza, albeit one mantled in white paint. Valencia's City of Arts and Sciences is considered something of an architectural indulgence. Conceived of and built in the 1990s it should not be tied too neatly to the strain of thinking that elected to work so prominently with reinforced concrete in Malaga: José Segui Pérez, if it was indeed he who was responsible, did not opt to have La Rosaleda painted white – or painted at all.

It must be emphasised that these concrete abutments are primarily functional: they support the roofs and partition the executive boxes that run along underneath. We know this because before they were built, between 2000 and 2005, the upper tiers adjacent to the touchlines were set lower than those facing the goal-lines. Initially they weren’t. Instead, the curves of the second tier rose upward away from the main stands only to stop abruptly at the point where they might be expected to join the lower, shallower rake of the upper tiers overlooking the goal-lines, as if anticipation that the upper tiers were to be extended upwards at a later date. The upper tiers of the main stands could not be raised to the same height because of the road behind one of them and the river to the rear of the other. This is where these more solid concrete columns come in. The roofs could have been set at the lower height of these opposing tiers but would have then been subordinate in aspect to the rest of the stadium – you should be able to imagine why this was undesirable. To allow, then, for the height of the new roofs to correspond with the uncovered upper tiers behind each goal, the struts were angled outward to overcome the spatial restraints on the ground. Furthermore, this permitted the inclusion of the executive boxes in the newly created space between.

You sense these days that architects are a little bit funny about exposed concrete. Perhaps they think it looks cheap – cheaper than the rough paint or cladding commonly used to cover over it up. The point can be taken on board within a climate harsh upon the patina of this material, but Spain generally doesn’t have to worry about such precipitous scarring. The 38 concrete columns – 19 either side – at Estadio La Rosaleda have been left proudly exposed. The opportunity has been taken to build a concourse around the stadium using similar techniques, although the concrete supports in this instance have no reason to be anything other than perpendicular and are much more slender, conveying a sort of lattice-like quality to the surrounding colonnade.

With a capacity of 55,000, the Valencia C.F.’s Mestalla Stadium is the fifth largest stadium in Spain. As at Estadio La Rosaleda, it comprises of a rectangular concrete bowl with rounded corners, and a flimsy, brown corrugated roof covering what might be reasonably described as its ‘grandstand’. The lower tier is continuous, the second tier is not. The second tier of the grandstand recedes backward and upward to expose much of the tier that lies beneath (the Tribuna Baja) and therefore stands taller than the second tier sections overseeing the goal-lines (the north and south ends), but not the portion of the second tier facing it (the east side of the ground), which rises to approximately the same height.

At least this is how the stadium looked in 1997. The logical thing would have been to extend the north and south tiers backward so that they lined up with the already augmented east stand. Instead, a disjointed third tier was added following the existing edges of the north, east and south stands, thus replicating the irregularity that existed prior to expansion; it appears as if the third tier of the east stand has been cut away and moved diagonally backward by 15-odd rows. The grandstand remained as it was, on account of its shallower rake. Strangely, its shabby (cantilevered) canopy meant its visual impact as the ground's focal point was undiminished. Resting upon a dense trellis of metal, it is hard to make out exactly how the roof is supported. The two glass fronted pavilions (or ‘radio cabins’ as Inglis refers to them) that sit either side of the top tier look to have nothing to do with it, and the impression is one of weightlessness.

Until relatively recently the seating used to be mostly a tasteful shade of blue (the lower tier’s seats were white) which contrasted well with the brown of the roof. These have since been replaced with predominantly orange ones: the grandstand is completely orange, the rest a mixture of orange and white, save for black chairs forming the image of a giant bat stretched over the three tiers of the Mestella’s east side. The exterior of the stadium has been given a similar treatment. The breezeblock walls and concrete lattice structure have been painted black, the underside of the balconies and metal gates orange, and the railings lining the balconies white – as have those within the ground itself, of which there are many, especially among the seats of the very steeply raked third tier.

The Mestella is an exercise in the economy of space. It’s also in thrall to the concrete that forms it, and probably why it’s been painted so exhaustively. Trees line its perimeter, roads run around it, and residential blocks sit opposite. It is a wonderful stadium, and the lack of available space must make for a delightfully claustrophobic – and intimidating – atmosphere, especially after dark.

In 2007 Valencia C.F. began work on the ‘Nou Mestella’ only for the project to be put on hold  after the financial collapse of 2008. It’s getting to the stage, apparently, where the structure may be unsalvageable: the concrete skeleton has been left exposed to the elements for too long. This new ground is/was intended to hold 61,500 spectators – just 6,500 more than the present stadium. You wonder whether it was ever really worth pursuing.

STADIA

If 25-odd years ago you’d asked what my favourite book was, with complete sincerity I would have told you this: The Football Grounds of Europe by Simon Inglis. My reading then was more usually a means to an end – school work, which bored me – but this book was something else: it satisfied both my appetite for sport (football in the main) and a passing interest in architecture.

A substantial hard-backed tome, it covers in great detail the stadia selected, built or modified for the 1990 World Cup, held in Italy, and many more besides (but not British football grounds – Mr Inglis had written a separate book on that subject a few years before). No mere glossary, the history, architectural detail, and cultural and social relevance – where it applies – are all explored, and there is substantial photographic coverage too. It really is a wonderful thing. As research, Mr Inglis toured Europe extensively, making notes, taking pictures, asking questions. He would go on to write a column for World Soccer magazine, and he now stewards a website called Played in Britain that concerns itself with chronicling, and where possible preserving, sporting sites of historical and cultural significance and interest.

            My interest in stadia persists and I make a point of journeying to them when I travel abroad: am often thwarted by geographical limitations, time constraints, and the lack of interest on the part of whoever accompanies me. I should try harder, but many a ground can be found on the periphery of its host, involving convoluted and time consuming journeys to reach them, although I have travelled farther for less.

Other more normative and diminutive stadia have been chanced upon: the Stadio Artemio Franchi in Siena, and Prague’s FK Viktoria Stadion for instance. Where I have made the effort I’ve only sometimes gained entrance, normally at football grounds deemed worthy of being granted entrance to: Barcelona’s Nou Camp, Madrid’s Santiago Bernabéu, Valencia’s Estadio Mestalla. With others I’ve had to make do with inspecting their exterior, with varying degrees of satisfaction: Bulgaria’s Vasil Levski National Stadium is barely discernible as being such; the San Siro in Milan could be little else; Istanbul’s Şükrü Saracoğlu Stadium appears like an industrial building of the sort found near motorways and airports. The fact of the matter is that a lot of football grounds aren’t very pretty, and were never intended to be. That is not to say they don’t have character or charm, but sometimes it can be hard to tell from the outside. Like I said, I’ve not often gained entrance to find out either way.

ROT RATING HANGOVER CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM

 

The International Rot Rating Hangover Classification System [©2015] explained:

Rot 1: A little tired but otherwise fine. The only real sign you've been been out drinking is the cash you've spent.

Rot 2: A bit spaced out and unsure of yourself, but nothing a packet of crisps and cup of tea or coffee wouldn't put right.

Rot 3: Tired and 'jumpy'. Work is manageable, provided human interaction is kept to a minimum. Come the afternoon, it should have passed.

Rot 4: As above but communication has now become problematic. You fancy a cooked breakfast, are dehydrated and have a mild headache. It will not be a productive day.

Rot 5: A fully formed headache, with added paranoia. You can just about cope with work, although it's a real effort to string coherent sentences together. Must have water.

Rot 6: You're on the ibuprofen but feel queasy and fatigued. A fried breakfast is no longer appealing but you could probably manage a bacon sandwich. If it's a weekday, you will consider phoning in sick. Must have Lucozade.

Rot 7: Your headache is debilitating and you feel nauseous. You may actually still be slightly drunk. Hair of the dog would sort things out, if you were so inclined. Doing any work is out of the question.

Rot 8: Your eyes hurt, your head is pounding and you may very soon be sick. You can only tolerate certain food stuffs, like crisps and toast. Noise offends; hair of the dog is no longer an option.

Rot 9: As above except eating is right out. If you haven't already thrown up then you think about inducing it. Movement of any kind makes you feel ten times worse. You want to cry.

Rot 10: You have vomited - more than once. Your head feels like it might explode, the mere sight of food repels, and you have succumbed to a deep depression. You would sleep it off if you only could but instead toss and turn relentlessly, and vow never to drink again.

MY NEW BIKE

I have a new road bike, my fourth in as many years. I first bought a Raleigh Record Ace, probably manufactured towards the end of the 1970s, maybe the early '80s. It cost me something like £140 and I sold it for about the same within mere months of acquiring it; needed too much work, the wheels were an unusual size, which limited the choice of tyres, and I was very much fumbling in the dark with the whole thing.

Next I purchased a rather charming, heavily chromed velocipede with a funny name – called Carlos – whose components were a little tired, but the general condition of the frame was reasonably good; I'm guessing it was about 30-odd years' old. I rode that for about 6 months before suddenly deciding to sell up and look for something else. It didn't take me long and I inspected a number of solutions before committing myself to a metallic blue Romani with Shimano 105 group-set, Wolber rims, Campagnolo brakes, in pretty good shape all-round with just a few scratches but no actual rust. The look of the frame and its various components suggested the bike was put together in the very late 1980s. It was upon this bike that I would ride three consecutive London-to-Brightons: 2013, 2014 and 2015. I made the decision to replace it in late 2014 but couldn't find the appropriate bicycle, so by default it partook in three of these charity rides instead of just two.

In the spring of 2014, I added a carbon Look 566 to my stable. The nature of this bike, the material it is made from, how much it cost me and the sort of cycling I undertake on it, excludes it from being meditated on alongside the rest. There is no danger of it being supplanted, just as it wasn't bought to supplant anything else. It is its own thing.

'Carlos'

For the moment I still have the Romani, but I have also its successor, a yellow Fondriest with 130 mm spacing between the rear drop-outs, which allows for 8 sprockets and the potential for more should I ever want to augment its capability. This vehicle is probably little more than 20 years old, and this is obvious from looking at it: the yellow paint job with black and pink spray painted geometric detail is typical of the era. What is also clear is that this bike represents a move on from the Romani, just as the Romani exemplified the progress made since the Carlos, and the Carlos in turn since the Raleigh. In other words, I have bought my bikes chronologically and they can be used to measure certain developments in the field over time. Considering the gears alone, I have moved from 5 at the back, to 6, then 7, and now 8. The actual gear ratios have steepened too. The braking mechanisms were friction operated on the first two bikes, indexed on the third, and integrated now with this fourth. Wheels seem lighter, appear more modern, may have fewer spokes.

This is a natural, if unwitting, progression. When I acquired the Raleigh I was already riding a single-speed bike that was attractive in its simplicity and coloured a pale green olive. Aesthetics were at the forefront of my mind when I bought that bike, continued to be so, but more practical concerns have gradually come to the fore. If I could afford a mint-condition metallic blue Rossin dating back to 1982 – such as the one I saw selling on eBay a while back – then the look of the thing might take precedence. I can’t, so I’ve come to approach my subject from more pragmatic angles. The Fondriest in not unattractive, but what drew me towards it was the vintage, the integrated gear shifters, its dimensions and overall condition. The fact that it is yellow – although I do like yellow – is neither here nor there – I would prefer it if was sprayed a metallic pale blue, as the Romani is, but that now lies low on my list of priorities.

The sequence implies a fifth bike, probably with a 10-speed rear cassette, in at least 3 years’ time, the duration of ownership having risen exponentially. But I don’t intend on this being the case. For one, buying and selling bikes is quite a drag. Second, I would have happily persisted with the Romani, maybe invested in new components, had it not been slightly too small for me. Finally, the Fondriest represents a sort of apogee in cycling design: thereafter aluminium and carbon began to dominate, and the steel framed bikes that have been made since have followed more contemporary geometries and technical advancements. I will draw the line somewhere, and that line coincides with about the time that top-tubes began to slope, rear derailleurs became long in gauge, stems moved to being threadless, rims became very deep. Unless I want something bespoke – and I have considered building a bike from bought parts – then there is nowhere I can go from here.

CHERTSEY FIELDS

Road cycling has defined for me certain environments. Or rather there are physical spaces that I relate to purely within a cycling context. Such psychogeographic relationships are particularly pertinent to cycling, a pursuit that demands mobility and encourages an acquaintance with one’s milieu.

It is more to do with perpetuating a mind-set, rather than covering physical ground. The cyclist is restricted to the road, and certain roads at that: motorways are out of bounds; many A-roads are best avoided; and cul-de-sacs, crescents and alleyways will rarely feature on any cyclist’s itinerary. The quotidian commute to work is particularly limiting, informed as it is by the need to move from A to B as swiftly as is feasibly possible, but wherever one cycles, and for whatever reason, there will always be constraints.

Geographical abandon is not what it’s all about. It could be, if you liked, but cyclists tend to want to know where they are going, how much ground they might cover, and the time all this is expected to take. The physical dénouement is the thing, as opposed to an interrogation of the landscape for its own sake.

For illustration, the first 7 miles of a 30 mile ride I take semi-regularly out to Chertsey are of no great consequence; I am too familiar with them and the attendant roads are trammelled with traffic, uneven surfaces and perpendicular junctions. It is not until I reach Marshall’s Roundabout and pull clear along the B375 that I begin to feel some sort of harmony within my location. Passing through Shepperton the road rakes upward. The approach into Chertsey itself offers a port-side vista over the Thames which, on a hot day, is singularly reminiscent of some of the riparian features I’ve come across in Southeast Asia (I think it’s the boats moored along the Thames’ riverbank, obscured by reeds and framed by Dumsey Meadow to its north and Chertsey Meads south). And then, as one leaves Chertsey via the A317, there is another roundabout, which is the fourth in a whole series of roundabouts that will ease my passage all the way into Kingston some 14 miles later.

It is this corridor – from Chertsey to Kingston – that more vividly conveys these psychogeographic elements I wish to explicate. I mix my route up a bit once I’m south of Thames, which is not so easily done on the northern approach through Twickenham, Hampton and Sunbury. Occasionally I’ll head down to North Haw and Byfleet, but more often than not it is through and around Weybridge, Hersham, Molesey or Esher where I seek to venture.

Chertsey itself is something of a dismal vicissitude, a necessary portal I must navigate to reach more fluid pastures and through which I take the path of least resistance. I did venture to its heart once, intent on pausing somewhere for coffee, but very quickly actuated an about-face and didn’t stop again until I’d made it all the way to Kingston.

Anyway, one needn’t hang about. Crossing Chertsey Bridge, I effect the first meaningful left turn and then take it all the way out the other side of Chertsey, almost bypassing the town entirely. Next, I attack the first climb – if you can call it that – a steady 700 metre push that is Woburn Hill. Road markings encourage you to diverge off the road and onto a cycle path that takes up much of the pavement. I might occasionally disregard an injunction such as this, but for some reason motor vehicles are want to floor it up this particular incline, and the road itself is fairly narrow. Then the road levels out again for the short approach into Weybridge – or the part of Weybridge known as Elmbridge – with its peculiar High Street and incongruous collection of boutiques. If I’m going to be impeded by traffic then I’ll expect it here. There are potholes to be mindful of too, and then the next ‘climb’ – a sharp 300 metre kick up Monument Hill – where after I’ll pass Weybridge Green and start on the 3.5 km long stretch along Queens Road as far as the five-spoked roundabout that grants access to Hersham. This might be the best part of the whole ride. The roads are in fairly good condition and are flanked by many trees. The air smells fresh along here. If it’s been raining then you might find yourself cutting through cool pockets of air – something to do with Walton Common being there, I think.

Weybridge is an odd place. I like passing through it but wouldn't want to live there. It epitomises some sort of suburban ideal, although I'm not sure whose. There's no sense of there being a central hub, and neither any distinct periphery. The merest hint of a town centre will dissipate no sooner than it has appeared, but will then resurface again, apparently at random, despite the woods that intervened in-between. I do like the preponderance of trees but I'm not so keen on the fact that the general environment is so governed by groves, crofts, closes, drives, walks – residential avenues that lead nowhere, or do lead somewhere but forbid you from finding out. It is these gated communities (as well as the many golf courses) that seem to define much of Surrey – and Berkshire too.

Eight roundabouts on from Chertsey – after having passed through Weybridge/Elmsbridge, and Hersham (nothing doing there) – I enter Esher. There's an 800 metre climb up Lammas Lane, before I decide whether or not to take the northerly route around Sandown Park or continue east through Esher town centre. Esher is only marginally more intriguing than Weybridge and I will invariably have to stop at traffic lights. Still, from there it's an almost uninterrupted run into Kingston along Portsmouth Road, 6 km of fast riding before negotiating Kingston's one-way system. I might stop for coffee here or continue on to Richmond and the Hollyhock Cafe off Petersham Road, where familiarity nullifies the exciting potential of not knowing exactly where I am.

[Photograph courtesy of Alan Hunt.]