Simon Hood’s Season in the Saddle

Listening to The Football Ramble podcast recently (recommended, by the way) I heard about Simon Hood. He’s a fan of English National Conference team York City and has committed to attending every single game this season.

Nothing so unusual about that. Except that Simon Hood will travel to every single game – home and away – on his bicycle. To put that in perspective, when York City play Gateshead, that’s a 176 mile round trip.

If only it were that simple. The end of August saw York City play three away games in a row. First Wrexham (Wales) then Hayes & Yeading (London) and finally Gateshead (near Newcastle in the north-east). Hood wrote a guest column on football365.com, explaining how he felt when he first saw York CIty’s 2009/10 fixture list:

Mystifyingly, the powers that be had organised our August Bank Holiday match at Gateshead on the same day as an international athletics meeting in the same stadium. It had the makings of a fun double-header, but hopes of seeing our players snapped out of their customary lethargy by incoming javelins were cruelly dashed.

The match was moved forward a few days, leaving me with a ten day itinerary of York to Wrexham to London to Newcastle; with three days to complete the 300-mile last leg. This mini-tour of Britain aside, Torquay’s welcome promotion leaves the trek to Eastbourne and back as the longest trip, barring us drawing Penzance AFC in the cup. On the flip side, there is a real dearth of local derbies. The demise at Conference level of our traditional rivals Scarborough and Halifax means that I’ll be spending New Year’s Day alone at not-so-near neighbours Mansfield, staring into the dark rivers of my soul.

Like all the best crazy adventures, Hood is doing this for charity, raising money for The Alzheimer’s Society. He’s blogging about his journey as it happens at Bicycle Kicks – A Season in the Saddle and also Twittering as he goes.

At time of writing Hood has raised £1,345 of his target £5,000 for the Alzheimer’s Society. If you want to donate, you can do so online via his Just Giving page.

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Category: England