By Nathan Jackson
July 5 2010

Farsley are the phoenix club following on from Farsley Celtic, who went out of business in 2010 following on from living the non-league dream, a year in the Conference. City visited the Throstle's Nest just before the 2008/9 season and it was a ground I genuinely enjoyed visiting, full of lovely people, a nice surrounding area, and one of the more random headquarters for a national sport you'd ever see.

Lincoln City made the trip to Farsley Celtic in a pre-season match, but only because our game against Derby was cancelled after drawing them in the Carling Cup. It was a rare game against a Conference side as the Imps rarely used to test themselves against clubs from the top of non-league football (obviously before we were relegated to that level.

I hadn't counted on enjoying the day out as much as I did. To be honest I didn't even know where Farsley was, so was quite relieved when I found out that it was just outside of Leeds, meaning a quite sort and easy journey, especially as I was living in Nottingham at the time.

Trying to find the ground wasn't hard because although the stands were tiny, the floodlights stood a lot higher than the buildings around them. There was no car-park, just a field near the away end that has no protection from the sun, meaning that once we got back to the car it was very hot indeed.

Due to arriving stupidly early, we decided to take a look around the town/village of Farsley and rather amusingly came across the English Basketball Association Headquarters. Other than that there didn't really seem to be a lot to do, other than a few nice little cafes around the place, one of which had lovely food by the way.

Other than that it was simply walking back down to the ground, which fortunately wasn't a lengthy walk as the town is fairly small.

I found the people around Farsley, especially those at the club, to be very friendly and this made for a decent day. We returned to the ground reasonably early and we were invited into the ground before the turnstiles even opened, into their social club (which is located within the ground itself) and we got into several conversations about football with some of the locals.

Nowhere I have been to date even compares with the friendliness of the people at Farsley and it's such a shame what happened to them just under 2 years later.

Their friendliness is the thing that really stood out for me during my visit and whilst the ground wasn't the best, the people have made me develop a soft spot for their club and the subsequent feeder club.

As for the ground itself, I wasn't expecting much to be honest and this way probably a good thing because it's not that great. Two small seated stands mixed with terracing doesn't make for a great venue, but the view of the action was fairly decent from pretty much everywhere within the stadium.

Once entering the turnstiles you have a small half terraced/half seated stand, watching later highlights made it seem like the seated section was for away fans. Continuing around in a clockwise direction you come to a small terraced stand at the side of the pitch. Standing behind the dugouts lets you get involved with the action effectively. You can hear everything that the management of both teams are saying and during our visit, we had the chance to have a length conversation with Peter Jackson, then manager of the Imps.

Continuing clockwise around the ground sees you arrive at a flat terrace behind the far goal and neither during the match or in highlights was anyone stood there, so I can only guess that it's not officially a stand.

The final stand is probably the best at the ground, a small terraced stand to your right as you enter the turnstiles. I had initially gone in this stand but quickly moved away due to the etremely hard seats.

There's not a lot to say other than that really, it's a decent day out that I would recommend if you're local and your team aren't playing. The people are pleasent and it's one of the more enjoyable days out in the non-League.

The club that arose from Farsley's demise also play at Throstle's Nest.

Farsley Celtic's Throstle's Nest

Discussion started by theimps.ka (IP Logged), 05/07/2010 13:17

theimps.ka
05/07/2010 13:17

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