This Saturday, I travelled down to Lewes via bus and train to watch the F.A Trophy 3rd Qualifying Round match between them and my hometown side, Hemel Hempstead Town FC.
The game, played in very wet conditions at The Dripping Pan, was an end to end affair with both teams having plenty of scoring opportunities before ending in a 2-2 draw, with Lewes coming back from two goals down to salvage a replay, which will be played back in Hemel on Tuesday.
FACILITIES
The Dripping Pan is made up of an unusual curved roof stand, modern all-seater stand at the side of the pitch, a smaller terrace behind one of the goals and fence which is situated at the top of a steep bank and extends the length of the pitch, enclosed within a medieval looking stone wall that surrounds the ground. It is a unique stadium and one that you will remember after visiting and I like it very much. In a good location too, only a short walk from the train station while large chalk cliffs are visible in the background from the curved roof stand (Philcox Terrace).
8/10
FOOD AND DRINK
The portion of chips I bought where of high quality and while it wasn’t the largest portion ever, at £2 you can’t complain. The burger my friend bought was very well put together and included just about everything you could want (burger, bacon cheese and a salad). Cost £5 but looked like something from a restaurant than a football ground and was apparently very tasty too. Good selection of food served at two different outlets, although no pepper for my chips will bring the rating down a bit.
7/10
FANS
I was a little bit disappointed with the amount of Lewes fans that turned up for this match, with the attendance only being 325 as opposed to their normal league turnouts of around 700. However, this is most likely due to Brighton, which is just a train stop away, playing at the same time and the wet weather and early round fixture probably meant many fans opted to give this one a miss. The Lewes fans that did come out grew into the game and started singing a lot in the second half and the fans that we spoke to seemed very friendly and knowledgeable about their team too.
6/10
MATCH PROGRAMME
The match programme is available for free for everyone online at https://lewesfcprog.com/ and I massively rate that the club opt to do this as it means less resources are used to produce the programme and anyone that is interested can easily access previous match programmes all in one place, not to mention that you can read the match programme for free. Being online also benefits the content, allowing the club to include audio in the form of an interview, attach a Spotify playlist to enhance the “Today's Match Music” section while YouTube clips are included to the show recent results. Can’t really ask for much more, and free! Hopefully more clubs at this level choose to go with the times and start to offer similar services
10/10
PRICES
The £12 standard adult ticket that I payed to get in is fairly average nowadays for this level, while the food and drink prices where also very reasonable, with the £2 I payed for chips and £5 my friend payed for a burger resembling good value for money for the quality of the product. Overall cost for me was £15 inside the ground which includes a £1 “guess the minute of the first goal” ticket (I unfortunately didn’t win). Overall, very acceptable prices that is made cheaper due to a free programme!
7/10
OVERALL
Despite a slightly disappointing result for me team, Hemel Hempstead Town, I very much enjoyed my visit to the unique ground that is The Dripping Pan. Although it might not be for everyone, I really liked this ground, with the food, drink and service of high quality for a good price and a free match day programme included. The amount of Lewes let me down slightly, however they made a good amount of noise, especially in the second half, to get behind their team while also coming across friendly and knowledgeable to us away fans. Lewes FC seem to be a very forward thinking club in terms of being completely fan owned, having a free online programme and being a pioneer in equality – as they are the first professional or semi-professional team to pay its male and female teams equally. I would happily make a trip back to the Dripping Pan in the future and I would recommend it to football ground enthusiast and potential away fans.
38/50
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