EFL fixtures: I've been to all 92 Football League grounds this is every League Two 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: Stadium MK, MK Dons (overall rank: 91/92)

Opened: 2007 Capacity: 30,303

I know it’s a soft target but I really don’t care much for Stadium MK. Or for MK Dons themselves for that matter, even if they are inviting supporters to redesign their club crest and rethink their name.

The club was born under a bad sign when it was jemmied out of Wimbledon and moved to Milton Keynes in 2003 and it has never been able to shake the stigma since. The stadium fits the club.

It is a soulless, faceless, gloomy place. More than that, there is something rather forbidding about it.

Its 30,000 capacity is too big for the club it hosts and, apart from the joys of the local KFC and McDonald’s, there is little to recommend in its immediate surrounds.

Its black seats lend it a sinister air, too. It’s the kind of stadium only its mother could love. And it doesn’t have a mother.

Unless you want to do the 92, give it a miss.

23rd: Broadfield Stadium, Crawley Town (overall: 86/92)

Opened: 1997 Capacity: 6,134

Not an awful lot to relish about the Broadfield Stadium, to be honest.

Decent fans, of course, just like at every club, but Crawley Town’s home is a bit of a modern monstrosity, next to a roundabout outside town on the A23.

The place has had a bad vibe since it was acquired by Wagmi United LLC, a group of US cryptocurrency investors. Wagmi, by the way, stands for ‘We’re All Gonna Make It’.

If you visit the Broadfield Stadium, I think you might doubt even if they are in League Two.

I had fun when I visited because I was in the away end with Stockport fans but I’m not in any hurry to go back.

22nd: JobServe Community Stadium, Colchester United (overall: 84/92)

Opened: 2008 Capacity: 10,105 

The staff at the club are great, the stewards are friendly, there’s plenty of parking, there’s a Wendy’s next door and the home fans, largely ranged in a stand behind one of the goals, make a superb fist of creating an atmosphere.

But this stadium on a roundabout on the A12 in the middle of a retail park is still rather a bleak place to watch football.

It probably didn’t help that I went on a dank March night a few weeks ago when a wispy fog lingered in the dim floodlight glare but there was something ethereally gloomy about the JobServe Community Stadium.

The empty corridors and the cavernous suites lent it a slight feel of the Overlook Hotel on the inside. On the outside, the four corners of the stadium are open, which makes for especially bitter nights in the winter.

Home is home and there was still plenty of drama and passion in Colchester’s 1-0 victory over Chesterfield – the match I saw – but it came despite the stadium, not because of it.

21st: Poundland Bescot Stadium, Walsall (overall: 83/92)

Opened: 1990 Capacity: 10,863

The Bescot Stadium was the first of the generation of identikit new-build arenas I went to and there is not, frankly, much to recommend it apart from the loyalty of the fans.

It’s close to the M6 and it’s a seven-minute walk to Walsall station, so you can get away from it quickly, which some would say is a bonus.

20th: The Croud Meadow, Shrewsbury Town (overall: 81/92)

Opened: 2007 Capacity: 9,875 

Gay Meadow, the former home of Shrewsbury Town, was one of the best grounds in our top four divisions.

It might have flooded now and again because of its position on the banks of the River Severn but it was a fine old ground and the tradition of a boatman taking to a coracle to fish wayward shots that cleared the roof of the stand out of the river was one of the most cherished peculiarities in our game.

The Croud Meadow is altogether more prosaic. Abutted by a McDonald’s and a TK Maxx on the outer fringes of the town, it feels like a disembodied place, separated from its community, functional but uninspired.

19th: EV Charger Points Stadium, Cheltenham Town (overall: 71/92)

Opened: 1927 Capacity: 6,923

It is a high bar in these days when money counts a lot more than heritage and finances are fraught at the wrong end of the EFL but the EV Charger Points Stadium may have the most chequered naming rights past of any stadium in the country.

We should just stick with Whaddon Road really but it was renamed the Abbey Business Stadium in 2009, then it became The World of Smile Stadium, then the LCI Rail Stadium in 2016–17, then the Jonny-Rocks Stadium in 2018–19, and the Completely-Suzuki Stadium in 2022 and now its current glorious and evocative name. 

I hope they got a lot of money for those sponsorships because they make the club look stupid and cheap and rip chunks of its identity away from it.

Again, I know it’s probably not financially viable to do away with them but I hate stadium naming rights. I’d ban them if I could. Football survived for a century without them so why not now?

It’s a shame because it’s a fine little ground that provides a different focus in a town dominated by horse racing.

18th: Priestfield Stadium, Gillingham (overall: 70/92)

Opened: 1893 Capacity: 11,582

I remember the journey as much as anything.

Kent might be the county I’ve been to least and so it felt slightly exotic driving down the M2 and seeing the Priestfield Stadium not far from the River Medway.

Some may damn Priestfield but Gillingham have played here for more than 100 years and that weight of history counts as much as anything when you visit a stadium. 

However hard clubs may try to replicate tradition with forced rituals, you can’t cheat history.

17th: Hayes Lane, Bromley (overall: 69/92)

Opened: 1938 Capacity: 5,000 

Hayes Lane is one of those stadiums that feels wide open to the elements. It’s the opposite of a tight, enclosed ground like Loftus Road but it’s still a pleasure to visit.

I went with Stockport when Bromley were in the National League and stood on the open terrace, which was reserved for away fans.

It was a wild evening in February 2022 and it felt as if the wind was blowing horizontal but County won 3-1 and a steward went out of his way to bring me a programme from where they were being sold in the home end, so it felt like a golden night all round.

16th: Peninsula Stadium, Salford City (overall: 68/92)

Opened: 1978 Capacity: 5,032

The players who comprise the Class of 92 were the players at the heart of one of the greatest stories I ever covered – the Manchester United Treble of 1998-99 - so perhaps it shouldn’t be a surprise that I enjoyed my visit to Moor Lane, now rebranded as the Peninsula Stadium.

Many dislike and distrust the way Gary Neville, Ryan Giggs and the rest took over a non-League club and oversaw its rise to the Football League but I like what they’ve done at Salford.

It’s a neat little ground and it’s been nicely modernised without losing all its character. 

I went to a League Two play-off semi-final there a couple of years ago when Salford played Stockport and the atmosphere was excellent.

Stockport lost the first leg but made the final. So that helped.

15th: Blundell Park, Grimsby Town (overall: 63/92)

Opened: 1899 Capacity: 9,031

I’m not saying that Steel’s Cornerhouse fish and chip restaurant is the best thing about Cleethorpes but eating fish fresh from the North Sea certainly made my visit to Blundell Park more memorable.

Ground experiences are about a lot more than the game. They’re about going with your mates, they’re about getting a sense of the local community, they’re about embedding yourself in tradition and they’re about the game, too.

I loved Blundell Park for all those reasons.

14th: Memorial Ground, Bristol Rovers (overall: 58/92)

Opened: 1921 Capacity: 9,834

A quirky mish-mash of a ground whose architecture betrays its origins as a rugby stadium, the Memorial Ground is still a decent place to watch football.

Rather the kind of visual chaos you get at this place with the Popular Insulation Stand isolated like a widow stand on part of the one touchline and the West Stand looking more like a cricket pavilion than the monotonous uniformity you get at so many new-builds.

Owners are always threatening to move to a new site but the Memorial Ground, successor to Eastville, still survives.

13th: Meadow Lane, Notts County (overall: 47/92)

Opened: 1910 Capacity: 19,841

The first time I went to Meadow Lane, it was to see Manchester United play a top-flight game there.

The away section was uncovered and the stadium had quirks and character. It’s still a wonderful ground to visit and it has evolved into an impressive modern arena that has plenty of nods to its rich history and its status as one of the founder members of the Football League.

Its location, on the other side of the River Trent to the City Ground, is not quite as spectacular as Forest’s, but it’s still a venue that blows the breath of football history across your face.

12th: Highbury Stadium, Fleetwood Town (overall: 46/92)

Opened: 1939 Capacity: 5,137

Like Leeds, Morecambe and Grimsby Town, going to watch Fleetwood is enhanced by local fish and chips.

If you can’t get good fish and chips in Fleetwood, you’re not trying hard enough and I dined royally in the Granada Fish Bar before heading to the Highbury Stadium.

The ground may not be quite as august as Arsenal’s old stadium but it has an elegant, modern main stand and a fierce local identity.

The club’s nickname is The Fishermen and the fans chant a lot about the Cod Army. It’s a great day out by the seaside.

11th: The Hive, Barnet (overall: 44/92)

Opened: 2013 Capacity: 6,500

The Hive flirts with soullessness but just about evades it.

For a start it’s one of the only stadiums that allows you to watch the action, fleetingly, from the London Underground.

The Jubilee Line travels past it on an embankment between Stanmore and Queensbury and the open corners allow you to gaze in at the game.

I’ve been inside a few times, too, most recently to see Stockport lose an FA Cup tie there in December 2018, and it was hard not to warm to the vision of the ground as a hub for community sport even if it looks a bit like a Lego stadium.

10th: Mornflake Stadium, Crewe Alexandra (overall: 42/92)

Opened: 1906 Capacity: 10,109

I have got a lot of affection for Gresty Road. On a Friday night at the end of September 1983, it was where I saw Micky Quinn score a hat-trick for Stockport County at the home of our bitter rivals.

It was one of my best football experiences, seeing Quinn leaping on to the railings at the Gresty Road End after scoring his third, shaking his fists at us in triumph as we leapt about on the terracing.

If there was footage of the fans’ wild celebrations now, the caption might say ‘limbs’. 

Gresty Road is a better stadium now than it was then, which isn’t a high bar, and it has a better owner than it did then. But it can’t be easy living in the shadow of such mighty neighbours.

9th: SMH Group Stadium, Chesterfield (overall: 41/92)

Opened: 2010 Capacity: 10,400 

I used to have a bit of a vendetta against the SMH Group Stadium. Perhaps not a vendetta, but certainly a prejudice.

I loved the old ground at Saltergate but when the club moved to the new stadium and called it the b2net Stadium, it felt as if it had sold its soul.

Since 2009, it has also been called the Proact Stadium and the Technique Stadium. 

But getting to know a club sometimes changes your view of a place. I spent a bit of time there earlier this season when I went to watch Kieron Dyer, who is a coach at the club, and Paul Cook, the manager, at work.

I met the owners, who are local businessmen and clearly have the club’s best interests at heart, and took in a game and suddenly the SMH Group Stadium had new life and character and soul breathed into it for me.

It’s a club on the up and it’s a club that cares about its fans, and so my prejudice against the SMH Group Stadium is no more.

8th: Boundary Park, Oldham Athletic (overall: 40/92)

Opened: 1904 Capacity: 13,186

I remember the cold at Boundary Park. I think a lot of people do.

For a long time, I laboured under the misapprehension that it was the highest ground in the Football League when, in fact, that distinction belongs to the Hawthorns. 

Boundary Park just feels like it should be the highest. It’s not the most beautiful of stadiums but it’s got some grand old character and it’s embedded at the heart of its community.

It just so happens some of my best friends are Oldham fans, too, so I was delighted when they came up from the National League.

It’s a treat to have the ground back in the 92.

7th: Abbey Stadium, Cambridge United (overall: 32/92)

Opened: 1932 Capacity: 8,024

I made it to the Abbey Stadium for the first time on Boxing Day last year for the game against Reading.

I walked to the ground down Cut Throat Lane and stood on the terraces at the Newmarket Road End where the singing is at its loudest and where the names and shirts of the celebrated early 1990s team of John Beck that included Dion Dublin are painted on the wall at the back of the stand.

Cambridge might have lost their battle against relegation to League Two but the noise inside would have put plenty of Premier League grounds to shame.

6th: Rodney Parade, Newport County (overall: 28/92)

Opened: 1877 Capacity: 8,722

A Cardiff taxi driver once told me that the best fights in Wales happen outside Newport railway station late on Saturday nights. He said he sometimes took a break just to go and watch the action.

Rodney Parade’s a fine place to watch sport, too. Not far from the banks of the River Usk, it’s a modern stadium with remnants of character that come into its own when the giants come to play for the FA Cup.

I was there a few years ago when Manchester City visited in the fifth round and after the game, the way out for fans took them past the open windows of the small changing rooms behind one of the goals where you could hear the celebrations of Pep Guardiola’s team booming out into the South Wales night.

Like the railway station, it’s not a place for the faint-hearted.

5th: County Ground, Swindon Town (overall: 27/92)

Opened: 1892 Capacity: 15,547

There were more than 20 years between my first visit to the County Ground and my most recent, a 0-0 draw with Accrington Stanley towards the end of March. It wasn’t the best game but I had the best time.

I’d had a week of being abused on social media by Newcastle fans (which is part of the job and, yes, I agree, I don’t have to read it) and going to Swindon felt like a wonderful breeze blowing on my face.

For a start, there were more than 7,000 supporters there, for a fourth-tier game which meant nothing to both teams in terms of promotion or relegation. The atmosphere was lively and passionate and the ground has character and warmth, even if one of the ends was closed.

At half-time, I watched a DS Active match between lads with Down Syndrome representing Swindon and Bristol City and it was a joy. It was a joy to see their uncomplicated joy in the beauty of football and the way they celebrated their goals and their skill and the way they looked for their parents in the stands when they scored and the way they supported their team-mates.

The match was a reminder of what it means for a football club to be at the heart of its community. A stadium is about more than just a game.

4th: Exercise Stadium, Harrogate Town (overall: 19/92)

Opened: 1920 Capacity: 5,021

Maybe there’s a bit of recency bias in putting Harrogate in the top 20.

Wetherby Road, now known as the Exercise Stadium, was the ground that completed my 92 when I went to watch them beat Tranmere Rovers there in April and so I’m always going to feel nostalgic about being here.

It’s a charming, quirky ground, cobbled together in a way that might not satisfy an aesthete but I had a brilliant night here.

My friends and I stood on the raucous, seething Kop behind one of the goals in the first half. It was only six or seven rows deep but there were enough surges to make it feel like being back in the 80s.

We moved to a more sedate spot in seats behind the other goal after the interval. There were only just over 3,000 fans there but it felt like 10 times that.

Tranmere brought 500 of those supporters from Merseyside for a midweek bottom-of-the-table game in League Two, which was a tremendous effort.

And it was a fine match, a 3-2 win for the home side that almost certainly guaranteed their safety from the threat of relegation.

A couple of old friends came with me to make the occasion even better and even though there were no fish and chips, I had breakfast at Betty's the next morning, and an eclair for dessert, to make the experience complete.

3rd: Prenton Park, Tranmere Rovers (overall: 14/92)

Opened: 1912 Capacity: 15,012

Prenton Park became a beloved second home for me for a while.

Like Stockport, they used to play their home games on a Friday night at one time and that offered a chance to go and watch them under the lights.

I loved Prenton Park and its sense of community and its noble old stands from the start and when I started work as a trainee on the Daily Post and the Liverpool Echo in the early 90s, I got to cover Tranmere in the glory days under Jonny King when John Aldridge, who had returned from Real Sociedad, was scoring for fun.

The atmosphere inside the ground on some of those nights on the Wirral was electric. When I was a news reporter at the Echo, I even had to go round to the house of Tranmere’s midfielder Kenny Irons in Norris Green to check out a story.

Kenny had been playing football in his front garden and kicked a ball over a hedge into next door’s garden. His neighbour was an old lady and she wouldn’t give Kenny his ball back.

When I pitched up on his doorstep, he saw the funny side.

2nd: Wham Stadium, Accrington Stanley (overall: 12/92)

Opened: 1968 Capacity: 5,278

For once, I can turn a blind eye to the renaming of the ground as the Wham Stadium. 

That’s because I know how much love and commitment and time and money the Stanley owner, Andy Holt, has put into the resurrection of his local team since he cleared its debts in 2015 when it was on the brink of folding.

Andy doesn’t get much thanks for it and is planning to leave the running of the club at the end of the season but he will bequeath a lasting legacy in this part of Lancashire. 

The ground has improved out of all recognition since he became involved and any visit to it is a visit to the heart of the difference one man can make to a football club and a community.

Visionaries like Andy are few and far between in football and the game will be poorer for his absence.

1st: Holker Street, Barrow (overall: 6/92)

Opened: 1909 Capacity: 6,500

There’s a frontier feel about Barrow and about its Holker Street ground that makes it special to visit.

It’s not for everyone. I know away fans complain, with some justification, about restricted views but I’d rather take restricted views and a ground with character and love and passion than one of the identikit tin bowls that are closer to the norm in the lower leagues.

Holker Street was my 90th ground out of the 92 and I loved everything about it from the friendliness of the club staff and the fans and the steak pie I bought from the Farm Shop inside the ground.

I was there in late February for the Cumbrian derby against Carlisle United and the atmosphere was magnificent.

It was raw and loud and industrial and real. It felt like a throwback to the way football used to be before the invasion of tourists and corporates and it was all the better for that.