The influx continues...

More and more replies flooded in yesterday with Rotherham, Colchester, Cheltenham, Bradford, Cardiff, Ipswich, Notts County, Yeovil and Exeter all giving us access to the stadium with Notts Co imparticular talking about donating to the cause.

Man City started the day by emailing to say they'd be sending a piece of signed memorabilia which will be gratefully recieved! Unfortunately access to the City of Manchester Stadium is restricted on Sunday's and as such we're not able to go in.

Leeds however, became the only club of the day to turn us away without any help. A shame that we won't get to go into Elland Road but there's plenty to take pictures of outside. At least its a ground we've been to before so there's nothing we haven't already seen. Having said that, it was the coldest night i've ever been to football game on. Snow on the ground and ice everywhere. And Gillingham lost...

Of possible grounds that time restraints will allow us to go in, we're now only waiting to hear from 13. Today's a new day though and i expect a few more before the weekend.

64 responses as of this morning..

Yesterday brought a lot of good news, and a little bit of bad.

Morecambe, Doncaster, Darlington, Chesterfield, Stoke and Swindon all confirmed we could visit and be taken pitchside for a photo. Manchester United replied confirming that in theory it was possible but i'm just awaiting confirmation from the stadium manager. And Liverpool told us that if we could visit on a weekday there wouldn't be any problems accomodating us but on a matchday or weekend it's not possible. I sent another email to them to ask if there was any special dispensations that may be allowed but i'm not keeping my hopes up.

Tottenham, unfortunately, are closed on the Sunday we visit and as such cannot help, but Oldham Athletic have shown the way with a great email from Lois Best. Oldham are also closed on Sundays but, Lois has given us her mobile number and asked us to call her on the day. If she's free she'll come and open the ground for us. Customer Service of the highest level!

Leyton Orient, although closed on the Sunday, have donated a signed shirt to put towards the fundraising. Very impressed with the response from them. They were interested in the tour and determined to do whatever they could to help. Looking forward to seeing what today brings.

Plenty to talk about..

I took it upon myself to start emailing all the clubs we're yet to hear from to make sure they'd recieved the letters we sent and to see if they're dealing with the requests we've posed to them. Most of the clubs that have responded haven't actually seen the letters but were more than happy to deal with the request over email. Brentford, Peterborough United, Leicester City, Derby County, Sheffield United, Hull City, Bury, Bournemouth and Reading were all very friendly and welcoming and happy for us to visit them with access inside the stadium. Gillingham finally got back to us but unfortunately they'll be no one at the ground on the Sunday we're there and as such are unable to help. I'm not overly dissappointed with this though because it was partially expected. It's also the first time i've ever recieved any form of response from the Gills. Previous letters and emails have always gone un-answered regardless of the subject.

Another reply came in just before lunch time today from Arsenal. Generally very good with charity requests and helping towards whatever cause you're raising for, I expected something a little more than we got. The mail from the clubs official charity representative basically just said 'no' on all counts. No access to the stadium, no donation and no help with parking. It took a further 3 emails back and forth to even get a suggestion of where we could park. Photo's outside and off to our hotel that evening.

However, the email replies have been topped by Preston North End. We've been planning on visiting Deepdale on the middle weekend of the tour to see them play Swansea City and as such our letter suggested so. A very friendly guy called Ilyas responded to us and confirmed we had been given 2 free tickets to the game and how to collect them. It's a game we're looking forward to because we've never seen a game at Deepdale and now that the fourth stand has been completed it's quite an impressive stadium as you can see in the picture above.

Unexpected Lull...

When we sent the letters off to all of the 92 i expected to hear back from more than half. Obviously a few will just discard them but most should respond, even if that does result in some blanket replies. I'd rather have an ignorant reply that no reply at all. At least i'd have got something!

I'm writing this really because it's been 3 days with no new mail now. I understand that most teams are busy and it could take a little while longer so it's about playing the waiting game at the moment, but with so many teams still to respond i'm hoping that what we've recieved so far isn't all we're going to.

The last responses we recieved were from Tottenham and West Brom. Spurs sent us a blanket (which was nice) but West Brom have asked us to contact them closer the time to arrange access to the stadium.

Here's hoping for a good couple of weeks now.

Part of the tothe92 clan....

As promised a little while ago, above is a picture of a few of the shirts I had made. With me in the photo are 2 of my work coleagues who I hassled (over a number of weeks) into buying one! All of the shirts and fleeces etc have actually come out really well and for the prices i'm very impressed with the quality. Hopefully they'll keep me warm when i'm up at 6.30 every morning on the tour.......

Calm after the storm..

Well, it wasn't exactly a storm, but since i last blogged i've had a few more responses from the 92. Aldershot sent a short reply (on a compliment slip) confirming the date and time we're arriving and advising us to seek out the groundsman who should be able to show us around. Which was nice. Chelsea sent a rejection letter. Unfortunately it was quite a poor response from one of the biggest clubs in the world. They sent a blanket reply, as a few teams have, and in doing so failed to answer all but 1 of the several questions I asked in the letter. I've said before that i've got no problem with clubs not being able to donate, that's something they're asked to do a lot of and something most, if not all, do a lot of. But i dont see why it's so difficult to actually reply to someone's letter directly. If someone's taken the time to write to the club and they've done everything correctly and professionally, sent it on the charities letter head and all, I just feel they let the public relations of the club down by sending responses like that.

However, that was the only 'Dear Mr Court, Unfortunately' letter i've recieved this week.

Middlesbrough sent along a football signed by the team along with a very welcoming letter providing us with details about parking and confirming that we can take photo's inside the Riverside. A fantastic effort from a team that, having just been relegated, are going through quite a sticky patch right now. I barely had time to sit revelling in telling the family about the first piece of signed memorabilia to be donated before another response came in.

Accrington Stanley emailed me early on Tuesday morning to say that access to the stadium would be fine. They then went on to ask if we would be able to get to the game they're playing on the Friday night before we'd be visiting them as they'd be more than happy to sort out a couple of tickets for us to see the game along with a spot on the pitch at half time to promote the cause. If that wasn't enough, they are also putting a mention in the programme about the website and donation page, presenting us with a couple of tickets to auction to help raise money and on top of all of that, they donated £10 directly into the tothe92 justgiving account. What more could you possibly ask for?

7 weeks and counting

It's coming around quite quickly now. Things are happening, and at the end of the month i'll be starting to really push the donation side of things. I've said on numerous occasions that the amount we raise is of little consequence and although I still firmly believe that, I obviously want to raise as much as possible. The balance as of 10pm this evening is just £60. However, that's £60 that I haven't asked anybody to donate. At the start of August i'll be taking sponsorship sheets in to work and then we'll see how much is feasibly possible to colate.

3 more replies came in over the weekend. Burnley and Wycombe both confirmed that we can visit and have our photo's taken inside the stadium which is great, whilst Bolton said that although they have a game on the weekend we'll be visiting, if we were to phone closer to the time they should be able to accomodate entry. All in all, these were 3 very welcomed responses and the first 2 from Premier League clubs. Bolton also confirmed that they will be donating an item and when we speak to them closer to the date, they'll confirm exactly what that is. Very good news.

It'll be interesting to see how many teams fail to reply. In theory, emails should be easier to reply to but that thought has already been blown out of the water by Barnsley who replied to the letter but not to numerous emails.

Who'll be first from the prem?

Another few responses to talk about. Barnsley wrote a very short letter in response saying that they were unable to donate. Nothing about taking photo's inside the ground or the parking space etc.. Not so much of a surprise though really because of the 92 teams, only 2 failed to respond to my original emails asking for a contact and Barnsley were one of those. Doncaster replied conveying that they were unable to grant access to the ground as they dont own it but to contact the Keepmoat's owners directly and a nice reply from Nottingham Forest said they look forward to us visiting but as we're there after normal hours they're unable to allow us into the stadium.

Sheffield Wednesday sent a great letter with directions to the ground. They've allowed us access inside and a parking space for our trip. Tremendous response there.

But, David from Swansea City sent us a letter confirming our trip and also offering us 2 free tickets to the Swansea v Bristol City game on the evening we'll be there. He also gave us contact details for the best person to get in touch with for the media side of things. i.e. a mention in the programme. What more could we ask for. Very much looking forward to the trip to the Liberty Stadium now!

More responses

After watching England save the first test of the ashes against Australia at the weekend I felt like this week could be a good one. Hopeful on replies from the 92 letters I sent out, I waited with baited breath for the postman to arrive on Monday. Sure enough, he brought with him a letter from Port Vale along with another from Tranmere Rovers.

Both were rejections unfortunately. Although Tranmere's letter held me in suspense for a little longer by asking me to call them on an 0871 number to be told the bad news. To give them their due, Dawn (the Tranmere secretary) was actually very polite and apologetic about it. It's a shame though because the weekend that we're in the North West, they have a game on the Saturday and with no staff in on the Sunday we have no room to manoeuvre. It'll have to be a quick stop and go.

Port Vale's response was focused entirely on the donation side of things. They are already supporting other charities and this is something we fully expected to encounter and fully accept. However, the letter did feel a little like a blanket response because it didn't mention anything about the request for a parking space, a mention in the programme or allowing access to have our photo taken inside the ground. Whilst I appreciate that football clubs are busy, recieving a blanket response is a pet hate of mine and after taking that into account I emailed Bill Lodey (the Port Vale contact) to ask about the other requests direct. It may still be that they cant help.

Spirits were raised however by an email this afternoon from Huddersfield Town. 'Linda' wrote to us confirming the date and approximate time we'll be reaching them and granting us access to the stadium for photo's ect. A fantastic response.

Nothing from the Premier League yet. I'll update again once i have more news.

Busy busy busy...

If it wasn't made obvious by the title, the next few weeks promise to be rather busy. We sent the letters off and already have a response from Dagenham and Redbridge who have very kindly agreed to meet us on the day and show us into the stadium where we can take photo's. We've also been offered 2 tickets for a home game to raffle in order to help raise money for the charity.
Terrific response and very very quick. Full credit to Terry Grover and Dagenham.

The main order of embroidered shirts arrived today. I'll be posting more pictures on here tonight or tomorrow. Looking forward to going home and opening them up. It's like christmas.

Done now. No going back..

Ok, i took the plunge yesterday and bought the iPhone 3gS. So far so good. Everything seems to be working absolutely perfectly, i've downloaded a load of apps that should be incredibly helpful for our journey and even managed to work out how to use most of the features entirely on my own (google).. I'll let you know of any future developments on the phone front but for now, all news is good news.

Incredible weekend of sport I had. Pool on Friday night and Saturday lunch time, Darts Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights, cricket and obviously the Wimbledon finals as well. On that note, I felt for Andy Roddick on Sunday. He put up one hell of a fight. More so than anyone expected. I think he'd have beaten anyone else the way he was playing including Nadal but Federer just took everything he threw at him and kept giving it back. Full credit to surely the greatest tennis player of all time.

Also, the letters to all 92 teams went this morning. I expect replies to start flooding back in the next couple of weeks. Actually, I really dont know what to expect. Anything i get back as long as it's polite will be greatfully appreciated. I'll keep the blog updated with the responses.

No more thoughts...

The dillema of the past few months has revolved around the phone i'm going to upgrade to. This phone is ultimately going to responsible for getting my Dad and I to and around all the 92 football grounds and numerous other places during those 12 days in September. So it has to be the 'right' phone.

I've been torn between the new iPhone 3Gs and the Nokia N97. I hear nothing but good things about the iPhone but i've always been a bit of a Nokia fan so i ignored the reviews of the N97 with reports of sluggishness with the operating system and went and tried it out myself. I was impressed. And the salesman obviously works his pitch very well because by the end of the demonstration he was giving I was almost ready to buy it. That said, by the time i'd got back home i'd talked myself out of it again and I was back to square one.

Today, the iPhone is supposed to be back in stock. If it is, i'll get down there this afternoon and upgrade. There's reasons i shouldn't such as the camera only being a 3.2 megapixel but there's just so many reasons that counter act. The ability to utilise the bigger screen as a satnav will be very handy as will the apps to edit and amend dns and ftp data so i can update the website whilst we're away. I'm sure you can do this on the N97 but it's not easily accesible or easy to find out the details.

So by about 3 o'clock i'd expect to have my new phone.. But knowing my luck, they'll be sold out again.

Posing..

It was our pool league presentation night last night.. Thought i'd throw up a few pictures of me collecting trophies. The prize money can help pay for our tour!

The first interview..

Well, as per previous blogs, i spoke to a guy named Simon from Kent News a week or so ago. We discussed the tour, what it's for and why we're doing it, what i'm looking forward to and not along with a lot of other bits and pieces. The story was published today in the Your Medway paper and here's the link...

http://www.yourmedway.co.uk/kent-news/Gills-fans-to-undertake-mammoth-road-trip--newsinkent25822.aspx?news=local