Normally a football away day is spent heading somewhere in the car or on a coach.
I've only managed to get some gricing/football related action on a handful of occasions.

A trip to Stoke and a very reasonable priced hotel/train combo proved irresistible. Opportunities to tick stock, get some untouched track marked off as well as adding another football stadium to the done list!

£55 Family Railcard/Split-ticketing and some flexibility with tickets enabled us to jump on a late-running XC Class 43 as far as Darlington. 
Making use of the warmth there and then a short connection at York between a VTEC Class 91 and TPX Class 185, we made our way to Picadilly.
Connections were tight, but we made our Class 390 with time to spare. Using the stairs and over-bridge enabled us to avoid the queues at the barriers.

I had never been on a Class 390 (always stuck with a Class 221 on anything on the WCML) before and instantly I felt the space within the carriage. I much prefer intercity type coaching stock to anything resembling commuter-type.
However, the lack of views out of the window was noticeable.
The ride was smooth, but the journey depressing. I love passing the time looking out of the window. Not much of that went on on the trip South!
Half an hour later, we arrived in Stoke. New stock and new track. Brill.

Guided to a pub by police, time passed (with tremendous beers) before two Stanton's deckers arrived to transport us to the ground.
An Alx400 and an Omnidekka still in its NCT Go2 livery.
Ending up on the Omnidekka, it was clear it wasn't just the outside that remained untouched.
Maps of the NCT network, seating and coving adverts all remained.

I won't bore you with any details about the match, food etc.

So heading back, we got to the station an hour ahead of time, just as a Class 390 arrived heading towards Picadilly.
We jumped on it, found a seat with a view and realised that this one called at Macclesfield, so was a little slower.

From Pic, it was a 185 to York and a 220 for the last leg.

In an ideal world, I would have tried to get home from Stoke via Derby and cover more new track.
That's just being greedy though.

On another note, I thought back to the 'mapping' thread I started a while back.
I did plan on doing something with it, but may just head there and update my list for now.
If anyone else wants to add to/create there's for a future project, feel free.
http://northeastbuses.co.uk/forum/showth...hp?tid=610&pid=11856#pid11856