EFL fixtures: I've been to all 92 Football League grounds this is every League One stadium from worst to best, which ones you should visit this season and which to stay well away from: OLIVER HOLT

Some grounds are beautiful. Some grounds are not so beautiful. Some grounds take you to the heart of the English game. And some leave you feeling like you're on the periphery.

But each of them holds the soul of their community and the hopes and dreams of the thousands of people who make the pilgrimage there every weekend. 

I’ve completed the journey of a lifetime for Mail Sport. It's something I've wanted to do for as long as I can remember and on April 1, 2025, I did it. I completed the 92. 

It's my love letter to English football, and you can read the full list here - but today we're focusing on League One.

Now that the fixtures are out, it's time to start planning which grounds you want to tick off this season, where you need to go back to ...and where you're better off avoiding altogether.

Read on to find out who comes out on top, where your team ranks and everything else in between - then let me know what you think. 

24th: Sixfields, Northampton Town (overall rank: 87/92)

Opened: 1994 Capacity: 8,203

Sixfields is a blighted stadium.

It is a soulless ground anyway but its issues have been compounded by redevelopment delays and questions about missing money.

It has the same kind of deracinated feel as so many of the new-build stadia pushed to the peripheries of towns. Its supporters deserve a lot better.

23rd: Brick Community Stadium, Wigan Athletic (overall: 82/92)

Opened: 1999 Capacity: 25,133

I stood on the terraces at Springfield Park as a Stockport fan.

Once again, it will not come as a surprise to learn I preferred it to its successor, the JJB Stadium, which later became the DW Stadium and is now the Brick Community Stadium.

The name changes are irrelevant to some but they betray a lack of care for the identity of a football club.

There were some great days and nights there when Wigan were promoted to the Premier League and I remember, in particular, the heady feeling of watching Wigan’s first home game in the top flight, against Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea in 2005.

The limelight has moved away again now and Wigan are left with a stadium that is perfectly adequate and also perfectly unremarkable.

22nd: Select Car Leasing Stadium, Reading (overall: 80/92)

Opened: 1998 Capacity: 24,376 

I was persona non grata for a while at the Select Car Leasing Stadium when I took exception to Reading taking out two Chelsea goalkeepers in one match back in 2006, when Steve Coppell and Wally Downes were in charge at the Madejski Stadium. 

People called it the Mad Stad back then and I remember Neil Warnock telling me about being chased to his car outside the main entrance when he was manager of Sheffield United.

And Wally took a swing at me at a Football Writers’ Association dinner a couple of years later. 

Anyway, I’ve made up with Stephen Hunt, who was one of the players involved in the tumult against Chelsea, and with Downes since then.

Even if the Mad Stad doesn’t have an awful lot of personality, I have only respect for the Reading fans who have endured so much under the ownership of Dai Yongge and are fighting for their club.

21st: Pirelli Stadium, Burton Albion (overall: 77/92)

Opened: 2005 Capacity: 7,088

The main entrance of the Pirelli Stadium looks a little like a car showroom. The rest of it struggles for character, too.

Burton’s a fine club with a distinguished non-League history that can boast Neil Warnock and Nigel Clough as former managers and which has nailed down its place in the Football League.

It has been a club to be admired for a long time, particularly under the former stewardship of Ben Robinson, who recently sold his majority stake to the Nordic Football Group.

They have punched above its weight for much of that time and their stadium is built for practicality, not for artistic merit.

20th: Eco-Power Stadium, Doncaster Rovers (overall: 75/92)

Opened: 2007 Capacity: 15,148

It is, at least, a pleasant walk to the Eco-Power Stadium on the outskirts of Doncaster. 

I parked on the estate grouped around Lakeside Lake and strolled around its shores until I came to the stadium. Things go slightly downhill from there.

It’s a perfectly presentable stadium but there is little to distinguish it. It is a uniform modern bowl stuck on the outside of town that is rescued by the club’s excellent support.

19th: Lamex Stadium, Stevenage (overall: 72/92)

Opened: 1961 Capacity: 7,426

Broadhall Way, now officially the Lamex Stadium, is a decent little ground with a good atmosphere.

It’s a fine club, too, that has consistently achieved more than most expected of it and has held down its place in the Football League.

The fans create more than their share of noise but it’s a friendly club with great staff and stewards.

It’s not spectacular but it’s a lovely day out watching football.

18th: Field Mill, Mansfield Town (overall: 67/92)

Opened: 1861 Capacity: 9,376

My only visit to Field Mill was on Saturday, November 20, 1982.

I know this because I have always been a football stadium nerd and my 16-year-old self logged all the matches I went to in a King’s School Macclesfield exercise book.

I didn’t know then that Field Mill was, and is, the oldest continually used stadium in the league but I stood on an open terrace behind one of the goals that housed the away fans and watched Stockport lose 3-2 in an FA Cup first-round tie.

Maybe that was why I’ve never been back. The atmosphere was a little bit lost because it seemed so open but there is a stand now where that open terrace was. So maybe things have improved.

17th: Cardiff City Stadium, Cardiff City (overall: 62/92)

Opened: 2009 Capacity: 33,280

I was a journalism student in Cardiff so Ninian Park was the first ground where I ever sat in a press box. From that day to this, it’s never lost the thrill.

Rob Phillips, Cardiff’s South Wales Echo reporter at the time, was still commentating for the BBC until this season. He was the first example I came across of a journalist who was courageous enough to tell the truth even if it meant being banned by his local club.

That fate befell him for a spell during my year in Wales.

Anyway, Ninian Park was a force of nature stadium and its successor was always going to struggle to replicate its intensity.

It’s still a good place to watch football because they are such a passionate group of supporters but the stadium is unappealing from the outside – actually it’s downright ugly – and unremarkable on the inside.

Unless, of course, it’s a South Wales derby or Bristol City are in town and then the atmosphere takes your breath away.

16th: Brisbane Road, Leyton Orient (overall: 57/92)

Opened: 1937 Capacity: 9,253

From the outside, the modern Brisbane Road looks as if it can’t make up its mind whether it’s a high-rise housing estate, a conference centre or a football ground. 

Maybe that’s the point. Maybe the future for some clubs is to be all three.

In Orient’s case, they have still managed to retain the character and the pride of the famous old ground.

The East Stand, with the lovely old gable bearing the club’s name, is one of the best stands in the four divisions and, despite all the changes, the place oozes with the local character that makes the best football clubs so distinctive.

I took my son to watch his first Stockport County game here when he was three. He didn’t catch the bug.

15th: Sincil Bank, Lincoln City (overall: 56/92)

Opened: 1895 Capacity: 10,780

I haven’t been to Sincil Bank for more than 30 years but it remains one of my favourite grounds.

The reason is that it’s the home of one of English football’s more eccentric traditions, the sounding of an air-raid siren every time Lincoln get a corner.

It was abandoned for a while upon the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war but I’m told it’s been restored now.

The English game is full of odd histories. It’s what makes it so precious.

14th: Oakwell, Barnsley (overall: 55/92)

Opened: 1888 Capacity: 23,287

They were heady days for Yorkshire football in the late 90s. Leeds United were in the Champions League and Barnsley spent a season in the Premier League.

It was a treat to visit Oakwell in those days and watch Barnsley’s underdog story play out. But there’s another reason why a visit to Oakwell is still special.

The West Stand is one of few remaining examples in our league of a stand designed by the famous football architect Archibald Leitch and it is a thing of beauty.

There was something beautiful about Leitch’s designs. Most have been demolished now but I have sat in the stand designed by him at Raith Rovers’ Starks Park stadium and it’s the best part of any ground I’ve been to in Scottish football.

Oakwell is precious because of that and because of other nods to the heritage of the club like the original changing rooms.

Barnsley’s Premier League status came and went but the club have never lost their sense of history.

13th: New York Stadium, Rotherham United (overall: 53/92)

Division: League One Opened: 2012 Capacity: 12,088

There’s something bold about the New York Stadium that elevates it above the standard new-builds.

The glamour of the name – a suburb of Rotherham, not just one of the greatest cities in the world – helps, as does the charisma and the vision of the chairman and owner, Tony Stewart. It’s bold as brass and it carries it off.

12th: London Road, Peterborough United (overall: 51/92)

Opened: 1913 Capacity: 13,513

I love London Road. A well-run club with a terrific owner in Darragh MacAnthony and a stadium that’s a fine mix of old and new, tradition and modernity.

This is a place with a proper identity and fans that make a lot of noise and turn London Road into a cauldron for big games.

It’s the kind of stadium where you can feel respect for the past as well as an embrace of the future.

11th: Bloomfield Road, Blackpool (overall: 50/92)

Opened: 1899 Capacity: 16,616

Bloomfield Road is in need of a little love these days but any stadium where stands bear the name of Stanley Matthews and Stan Mortensen and where those two legends of the English game once graced the turf should be a pilgrimage for any football fan.

The first time I went was to watch Stockport in April 1983 so I remember the way the place used to look in the days when the greats ran out at Bloomfield Road.

I was there in 2011, too, when Blackpool were back in the top flight, to see players like Charlie Adam and Marlon Harewood taking on Sir Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United on a bitter January afternoon by the Irish Sea.

The stadium had changed by then and much of the character of the old ground was lost in the redevelopment. Those days in the top flight seem like a long time ago now but while they still play at Bloomfield Road, the echoes of history will make it a magical place.

10th: John Smith's Stadium, Huddersfield Town (overall: 49/92)

Opened: 1994 Capacity: 24,329

One of the best of the lower-division new-builds, the John Smith’s Stadium is a classic of new football architecture.

Nestled in the lee of a hillside, its elegant, striking architecture with its curved trusses makes it a worthy successor to the old Leeds Road ground.

Last year, the Twentieth Century Society called for the stadium to be listed and named it one of the best new buildings in the country in the last 30 years.

They’re absolutely right. More stadiums should be listed. More should have been protected. Too many have been lost but it’s not too late to safeguard the best of the ones that remain.

9th: Adams Park, Wycombe Wanderers (overall: 48/92)

Opened: 1990 Capacity: 9,558

I know a lot of fans have Adams Park much lower on their list of stadiums to visit but I’ve always liked it.

Maybe it’s the bucolic setting, in the lee of a wooded hill on the edge of the Chilterns, that does it for me.

The stadium might be modest but the team has a habit of punching above its weight. It’s a great place to go and feel the underdog spirit that is part of the force that drives English football.

8th: University of Bradford Stadium, Bradford City (overall: 45/92)

Opened: 1886 Capacity: 24,433

It is impossible to think of Valley Parade without thinking of the tragedy that befell Bradford City in 1985 when its main stand was engulfed by flames and 56 people lost their lives.

I try hard to think of happy memories there instead and the University of Bradford Stadium holds the distinction, in my football supporting life, of being the only stadium where I got chased by home fans.

I was there with Stockport in the early 80s and I could still actually run at faster than waddling pace then so I got away.

Valley Parade still has its character, it is still a fine stadium to visit. Every trip there is a chance to remember those who were lost.

7th: Vale Park, Port Vale (overall: 39/92)

Opened: 1950 Capacity: 15,036 

I’ve got a soft spot for Vale Park.

It was the first away ground I ever went to and I still remember the excitement of planning the train journey from Stockport, making it to Burslem and getting a thrill out of the entirely different experience – the extra camaraderie – that being an away fan at another club’s ground brings.

Vale Park felt raw and real to me back then and it got even better on my next visit when, in Stockport’s final year in the Football League before relegation to the National League, Anthony Elding got the winner for County in the 87th minute in front of the away end.

It was beautiful mayhem. County were relegated a few weeks later but I’ll never forget those days at Vale Park.

6th: Toughsheet Community Stadium, Bolton Wanderers (overall: 37/92)

Opened: 1997 Capacity: 28,018

When it was the Macron Stadium, one of its several previous incarnations, I interviewed Tyson Fury in a room at the hotel that was part of the Toughsheet Community Stadium in the build-up to his world title fight with Wladimir Klitschko. 

After he’d claimed the Klitschkos were part of a devil-worshipping ring, Fury made some rather unpleasant comments about his views on links between homosexuality and paedophilia.

When the interview was printed, he did not seem best pleased with the results.

He said his brother, Big Shane, was going to break my jaw ‘completely’ with a straight right hand.

‘See big Shane there?’ Fury said. ‘Have a look at big Shane. He’s 6ft 6in and 25 stone. He’s going to break (your) jaw completely with one straight right hand.

'I ain’t going to do it, ‘cos I’ll get in trouble. But the big fella, there – he’ll annihilate (you), won’t he? So Oliver, take a good look at him, ‘cos that’s the face you’re going to see before you hit the deck.’

Fun times. I’ve never found quite the same level of excitement in watching Bolton Wanderers there, although it had some great days when it was called the Reebok and Sam Allardyce was the manager.

It is one of the earliest, and best, of the new generation of stadiums, and even if it is on the outskirts of the town, its bold design makes it a local landmark.

5th: Kenilworth Road, Luton Town (overall: 30/92)

Opened: 1905 Capacity: 10,265

The first time I went to Kenilworth Road was 42 years ago. I stood on the open terrace that hosted the away fans for an FA Cup fourth round tie that Manchester United won 2-0.

The most recent time I went was in November 2021, to see Neil Warnock break the record for the most games managed in English football but unable to stop his Middlesbrough team falling to a 3-1 defeat.

Across those decades, the atmosphere at the old stadium has endured. The Main Stand, which is more than a hundred years old, shook that night Luton took Boro down and the stadium became a bear pit.

It attained a kind of fame all over again when the club’s return to the top flight recently focused attention on the quirky Oak Road End entrance that goes straight through the middle of a row of terraced houses.

Luton will move to a new stadium at Power Court in the city centre in a few years but Kenilworth Road will be missed.

4th: Home Park, Plymouth Argyle (overall: 15/92)

Opened: 1901 Capacity: 17,904

My affection for Home Park was well entrenched even before I took my seat in the lovely Mayflower Grandstand and watched one of the greatest FA Cup shocks of recent years unfold there at the beginning of February when the Pilgrims beat Liverpool.

That was a day to cherish everything about Home Park and the Green Army and the proud local identity enshrined there.

The Mayflower Grandstand, which was renovated recently, remains a beautiful piece of stadium architecture, the staff and stewards are uniformly friendly and welcoming, and the ground occupies a handsome spot in a park on a hill not too far from Plymouth Hoe. It’s one of the best football experiences in the league.

3rd: Cherry Red Records Stadium, AFC Wimbledon (overall: 4/92)

Opened: 2020 Capacity: 9,150

I never made it to the old ground at Plough Lane, which is a regret, but I had one of the best of football days when I finally made it to the Cherry Red Records Stadium, near to the site of the old ground, when they played the team that nearly drove them into oblivion, MK Dons, in September last year.

Just setting foot in this stadium is to feel what it is like to support a team that is at the heart of its community and to be among a fanbase whose team means more to it than just wins and losses.

Love for the game and the team and reverence for the history of the club, the club that was stolen from them and the club they rebuilt, is everywhere, from the kitsch statue of Dave Beasant at the front of the stadium to the illustration on the walls.

It feels like a stadium where everybody knows each other, like neighbours in a street, like a giant, loving, proud family that refuses to be torn apart.

The beauty of the architecture here is not in the stadium buildings. It is in the knowledge that this is something built by fans.

If I lived in London, and Stockport weren't playing, this is where I’d watch my football.

2nd: St James Park, Exeter City (overall: 3/92)

Opened: 1904 Capacity: 8,714

It was the summer of 2010 when Exeter City forward Adam Stansfield died of cancer at the age of 31.

‘Stanno’, the father of current Birmingham striker Jay Stansfield, was a hero at the beautiful St James Park stadium, nestled in a nook at the foot of a steep hill and bordered by neat, densely packed terraced streets and a railway cutting.

I drove down there with my elder daughter to look at the tributes to Stansfield and we wandered among the bouquets of flowers and the keepsakes left by heartbroken young fans and the emotional messages that had been left in their thousands on the Big Bank.

It was impossible not to be moved by the profound emotional connection between a city and its club and as the years have passed, St James Park has come to embody for me everything that a football ground should be: full of character and care and camaraderie and community and passion and pride in what it stands for.

I was there again in April to see Stockport County play and there was a note next to the away turnstile – a turnstile made in another age at the Albion Works in Patricroft – saying: ‘Hatters Fans: Thank you for travelling 474 miles to support your club today.’

Every away fan also got a voucher offering a free cup of tea. The club has been owned by its supporters for more than two decades and it is a model of how successful it can be.

The Big Bank has been extended and is now the biggest terrace in English football. So the locals tell me, anyway. There is a club museum, a stall selling farm produce and a supporters’ club bar with big screens.

They built a new stand a few years back, too. It’s called the Adam Stansfield Stand.

1st: Edgeley Park, Stockport County (overall: 1/92)

Opened: 1891 Capacity: 10,800

My family didn’t have any history with Stockport County.

I can’t boast a grandfather or an uncle who once played for them. My dad was never much of a football fan and was more likely to ask me ‘how did United get on’.

But he was from Heaton Chapel and his grandfather made, and lost, a fortune in the hatting industry in the town in the late 19th century, and he was fiercely proud of Stockport Viaduct and its history and he took me to my first game at Edgeley Park on Monday, April 9, 1979.

We sat in Block A of the Main Stand, now the Danny Bergara Stand, and I breathed in the smell of cigar smoke that drifted up from the man in the sheepskin jacket sitting a couple of rows in front of us and thrilled at the noise coming from the terraces opposite and gazed up to my left at the men working away on their typewriters in the press box, men whose faces I recognised because I had seen their photo bylines in the Manchester Evening News.

I have mentioned elsewhere the curious wonder I felt when people who were strangers to me greeted my dad by name as we walked up the steps to our seats.

I didn’t think my dad had ever been to Edgeley Park before but these people knew him anyway because they were from Stockport and he was from Stockport and those moments made me realise for the first time that football grounds are places that hold the soul of a community. Not for everyone, but for some of us.

And so even if he wasn’t a fan, I still feel connected to my dad every time I use one of my season tickets, that I bought in a row next to the press box, and gaze over at the place we sat that first time.

I am not a proper fan like the supporters who go week in and week out but I love that ground.

I am not a member of any London clubs but Edgeley Park is my club and now, just like my dad, I know people when I go.

I feel fortunate, too, that after the club kissed its fair share of frogs, it has one of the best owners across the whole 92.

Mark Stott has not just invested in the first team and dragged County back up into the Football League but he has bought a new training ground and lavished a lot of love on upgrading facilities for fans in the Cheadle End.

The Danny Bergara Stand still oozes character, it is still similar to the way I remember it from that first game in 1979 and much of the rest of the stadium has been renovated and improved.

I haven’t been yet this season because I spent my spare weekends trying to complete my 92.

I’m longing to get back. Every fan will know that feeling, the feeling of going home.