Horspath Road Athletics Stadium; Oxford.

This small stadium is the base for Oxford City Athletics Club. I was playing on an outer park pitch next to it, in a supporters' football match in October, & took the opportunity to pop in and take a few snaps.

There were no football markings, and I was unsure if it had ever been used for football. So I went to the new 'NON LEAGUE MATTERS' website, which is a work in progress, & asked about it on their messageboard. It has not been, and is first & foremost an athletics venue.



Signs on the perimeter tell you it's home of the Oxford City Athletic Club.



This is the outer view of the main building, which houses the changing rooms & other facilities.



Inside, by the track, is this stand.



From inside we look back at the main building. Note the small plaques on the left.



This tells you how the facilities were part funded.



And here we can see when it was opened.



The track is railed off, but the rest of the stadium is very open.



Here we look across the grass, there appears to be banking over the far side, but I didn't bother to walk over there to have a look.



Here we look down the main spectator side, to the other end. My game was played just behind those trees.



This is a side angle shot of the stand.



And in it we look across the seating.



From up in the stand we look over the track.



And we finish with a view of the seats from down at the front.

Olympic Namur

FC Olympic Namur are another minor club from the Namur region. They compete in Division 4B of the regional leagues, which is the eighth and lowest level in the Belgian pyramid. It is probably as basic a venue as you can get, only partly roped off.




This is the view of the ground from the road running alongside it.





Up on the otherside of the netting is the touchline, but nothing else. There was a reserve team match in progress when I popped in.





Entering the ground you see the small bar & changing rooms straight ahead, behind the goal. The door leads into the bar. Note the club intials in the patio area.





Here is a close up of them.





In the bar is a league table on the wall. Reserve one on the left, first team on the right.





Framed on the wall is the club emblem.





Which is also here, on another wall.





From in front of the bar we look down the touchline on the right. Note the low buildings behind. That is a local shooting range, with the nosiy sound of gunshots constantly ringing out. The locals are used to it, but it certainly spooked me a little!





Past the club building it is just roped off, you can see a railway line behind, not fenced off at all.





Down this touchline we see the dugouts, with the railtracks to the left. Presumably not a busy line, as we were here for about fifteen minutes & saw nothing go past.





From in front of the dugouts we look back to the building end. The pitch looks a bit heavy!





This is one of the dugouts.





A nice shot pitchside, of the roped off spectator side, ropes wrapped round tree trunks, with the railway behind.





Back behind the goal where we came in, note the small 'home made' bench!





Finally a bit of goalmouth action from the match. (For any groundhoppers out there who are wondering, I DO NOT count this as a venue visited, as i have not seem a major part of match here, there simply happened to be a game going on as I was passing through.)

CAPS Namur

CAPS Namur are a very minor non-league club, who play in the town of Namur in the Namur region of Belgium. They currently compete in the 3A Division of the Namur regional leagues, which is seventh level of the Belgian pyramid. Again it is a very basic roped off pitch.



This is what 'CAPS' stand for. Presumably some sort of sports academy type thing.



This is the area behind the goal. There was a younger age group youth game in progress. The large building behind is the local police training college.



It's also roped off down this touchline, I didn't venture down the far end to check if continued down there.



A corner flag shot, looking over to the dugouts.



From behind the goal we look down the pitch, with a lonely keeper in the picture!



Here we see the pair of dugouts.



With our last shot being down the dugout touchline.