SCUNTHORPE. The mere word hardly inspires excitement. The smog coated northern town is officially one of the planet's "Greenpeace toxic hotspots", it's got a very naughty swearword hidden in its name (try searching for Scunthorpe United on AOL, they won't let you if your "safe filter" is on) and The Iron's most famous ever player is a cricketer (AKA Beefy Botham). Odd then that I was more excited than a fat kid at a pie convention at the thought of visiting Scunny on Saturday.

Please let me know if I'm wrong about this, but I'm 99.9999% sure Watford have never played at Glanford Park before. It was certainly my first time in Scunny, and the 83rd largest stadium in English football didn't disappoint. While it didn't have the crumbly old charm of many small northern grounds, it was hugely refreshing to be visiting a new stadium that didn't resemble a B&Q with grass in the middle. Every new ground the horns have visited in recent times, from the Mad Stad to The Walkers, Stadium MK and The Ricoh, all seem to be the exact same uninspiring place. Being plonked in your perfect plastic seat in one of those places almost makes you pine for craggy old places like Kenilworth Road. (Almost.)

In contrast to normal new stadiums then, Glanford Park provided odd turnstiles that led straight to the pitch, a budget version of Wembley Way leading to the tiny ground, bacon butties to kill for from the kiosk and a little hole in the roof for Aidy to perch on as Hendo and co. battered their way to a memorable victory. The whole situation of watching a Championship tie in a League Two style ground of course got all the more surreal when the huge Watford contingent started ploughing through rugby songs to celebrate England's shock defeat of the Aussies in the egg chasing.

Let's hope when the Vic's all polished up and reconstructed it'll still have some proper football heart like Glanford Park... with maybe a touch of The Emirates style comfort. Just a touch mind, we don't want to watch the horns in a padded leather seat while we chow Lobster sandwiches, frankly we'd rather be getting steel mill smoke on us in Scunthorpe.

Season Ticket holder Lee Coan will be bringing you regular updates on life as a Hornet and following the team on the road throughout the season. To see past articles click here.

The views in this blog are not necessarily the views of Watford Football Club.

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