Who knows?

This afternoon, with City away and not being able to get to Gravesend, I popped along with a friend to watch the Exeter Chiefs play their first game at their new ground out at Sandy Park. Parking was in Sowton car park 30 or Digby Park and Ride (which is where we were, for £2 which went to charity). From the car park its a 5/10 min walk to the ground. Prices for the ground were £16 for the grandstand, £14 terrace, £12 ground.





One thing the rugby club need to work on is ticket sales. No pre-orders had been available so everyone had to pay on the day, causing huge queues.







The picture below shows one of the bars in the grandstand.



There was also an external bar and food place. Not sure how good that'll be when its raining as there was no cover. (You could take beer from here into the ground to watch the game - one of the great things about rugby, plus there was another bar in the ground).





The main grandstand, it must be said, is very nice and seats 2400 (I think).





However, the one terrace, opposite the main stand, is pretty poor and is roofless.



Being able to buy a beer during the game was good - though they ran out of many things and I was left with a choice of guiness or Best.



In the background of this photo is where I was stood for the first half, and took the above photos of the grandstand etc. Clearly, a stand would be needed before we could move there.



A view of the terrace and grandstand from the other end.





The view from the grandstand isn't bad, no better/worse than from the Cowshed.





There are 4 bars inside the grandstand. One for memebers, one for general supporters, one for Gold members or something along those lines and one for the boxes (there are about 10 of these I think). The bars look like this:



All in all, its a nice rugby stadium, but is not ready for a football crowd. It needs more stands and segregation would be a problem. With "rugby specials" running, plus the train station at digby and the parking, I think transport should be ok. Id guess the crowd today was over 3000 and the area seemed to cope ok.

Oh and the score? 13-13. Entertaining game, mistakes on both sides. Exe opted to kick for the corner near the end rather than extend their 13-10 lead and paid for it giving away a late penalty.