Our visit to Leicester City is on Boxing Day, with a 3pm kick-off.  Though City now have a new stadium, the same old over-the-top policing is still a feature of a visit to Leicester.   

The stadium is about a mile and half south of the city centre, close to the site their former home at Filbert Street. If you're coming by car you need to leave the M1 at Junction 21, and take the A5460 towards Leicester city centre. Continue on this road until you go under a railway bridge and carry on for another 200 yards, before you turn right at the traffic lights into Upperton Road (signposted Royal Infirmary) and then right into Eastern Boulevard (just after crossing the river), then keep going straight on to get to the ground.

There is plenty of street parking in this area, especially around the Upperton Road, although you shouldn't double park as the traffic wardens are always out in droves on a matchday. Alternatively you can park at Leicester Rugby Club (£3) which is a ten minute walk away from the stadium. Unfortunately there won’t be any trains from Leeds to Leicester on the day, so I won’t bother giving any walking directions from the station.

The police usually insist that all the pubs will be shut before the game when we visit, so I can't guarantee that you'll get into any of the establishments I'm about to recommend. Most of the pubs near to the stadium are home fans only, in particular the Victory and Turnstile pubs, and the 'Half Time Orange' which is a members-only Leicester City bar, despite being just over the road from the away end. The 'Counting House' pub on Freemens Common Road, usually welcomes both sets of supporters, but does exclude away supporters when the game is deemed to be a 'high profile'. You might have better luck at the 'Pride Of Leicester', which is near to the Victory pub and Leicester Rugby Club.

The new stadium was built by Birse Construction at a cost of £35m, and opened in August 2002. It's capacity is 32,500 and it's completely enclosed, with all four corners being filled with seating. Like most new stadia it's functional but lacking in character. The stadium is intended to be part of a major regeneration of a huge area of previously neglected inner city land, and the club's official website does of course speak lovingly of all the conference facilities and stuff, such as the banqueting suite with a lovely view over the river.

Away supporters get the North East corner of the stadium, which has space for just over 3,200 fans. The view of the playing action is good (although you are set well back from the pitch) as are the facilities. The concourse is spacious, and there is a good range of hot dogs, burgers and pies available. However no alcohol is available in the away section (even though bitter & lager are both available in the home areas). The main problem is that the stewarding and policing is way over the top, with both home and away fans likely to be ejected for any sort of lively behaviour, like dancing, pointing at opposing fans or even standing up.

The official Leicester site says that tickets are selling fast, and the game is already certain to have the biggest crowd of the season. Anyone would think that they’d only come to see the Leeds. Leicester operate a two tier category system and for category A games the away fans ticket prices are  £30 for adults, £26 for senior citizens and £20 for young adults, with children's tickets at £10.

The stadium has been so that an additional tier could be built onto the East Stand at some time in the future, which would increase the total capacity to just under 40,000, but this will probably have to wait until Leicester get back into the Premiership.

Photo: Action Images

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