Newport's pedestrian bridge and its importance for football fans

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 Newport Pedestrian Bridge and its importance for football fans


What do fans want? Good refreshment before the match, a good chat on the way and a win!

What do we get from Newport and the County? Dozens of places to get together beforehand whether your tastes are alcoholic or not, a ground almost in the City centre, and matches that are in turn absorbing, exasperating, a waste of time, a marvellous spectacle or very occasionally even boring.

Until recently, the match routine was to meet a mate or two in town for tea or coffee, a cake, a good moan about the last match and a look forward to the next match with the unbridled optimism of true supporters.

Eventually, we set out for the match. This used to involve walking over the Town Bridge and shouting a conversation in defiance of the traffic, breathing in the fumes, then on to the ground.

After many years, the Council has provided us an elegant alternative to the noise and fumes - a shiny new pedestrian bridge. From a distance it looks futuristic - so elegant and modern and a little fragile. Walking from our pre-match lair, it looks imposing, but still a little fragile, as we go down the stairs from John Frost Square. Walking on the bridge disabuses thoughts of fragility. It is much more stable than expected and even has its own foible: the deck of the span has hundreds of (metal?) slats each especially adapted to be rattled by a bike, but also to be all but silent underfoot. No chance of a bike catching you unawares. So ecologically sound is the bridge that the spars of the bridge provide a safe perch on which gulls, terns and the occasional peewits spend their time spotting the shoals of small fish passing underneath as the tide goes up and down.

Once over the bridge, it is a short walk, mostly right by the ground, and a relaxed (OK, sometimes heated) conversation in the mostly traffic-free streets. We arrive relaxed. What we feel like 90 minutes later is another story.

This Newport  County Jersey is part of Newport Museum and Art Gallery's Collection. 

Oliver Blackmore  (Collections and Engagement Officer) comments on the  Newport County jersey -

'Newport County AFC celebrated their centenary season in 2012. As part of the celebrations Newport Museum hosted an exhibition and collected this jersey. Newport County play in similar colours to Wolverhampton Wanderers; as when the Club started, it was heavily supported by steelworkers from Wolverhampton, who had come to work at Lysaght’s Orb Works.'



A blog written just before lockdown: click below

On the banks of the River Usk - a day in Newport

23 Feb 2020   by johndewhirst a Bradford supporter. 

 

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