Our next visit to Tranmere Rovers kicks off at 3pm on Saturday, so if you’ve got the shock of Histon out of your system, come on down!

Tranmere is a district of Birkenhead, and Prenton Park is just over a mile to the south of the town centre. The most direct way by road is to drive through the centre of Liverpool to the Queensway Mersey tunnel, bearing right on the flyover once you come out, and following signposts to the ground from there.

But as that route is likely to be heavily congested, you might be better off going round by the M56, bypassing Chester to the north and coming up the Wirral peninsular on the M53. Leave the M53 and exit at Junction 4 and take the B5151 Mount Road from the fourth exit of the roundabout (the ground is signposted from here). After two and a half miles when Mount Road becomes Storeton Road, turn right into Prenton Road West and the ground will be visible on the right hand side. There is a large car park at the ground (costing £4), but otherwise you will have to park in the street, and probably some distance away, as there is a local residents parking scheme in the surrounding streets, which is strictly enforced.

By train, it’s a bit of a pain to reach Prenton Park even when you’ve arrived in Liverpool. From Lime Street you need to get the escalator down to the Merseyrail system, and then catch a local train to Rock Ferry, which is about a 20 minute walk from the ground.  Turn right outside the station and walk up Bedford road until you reach a roundabout, the turn right again. At the next roundabout (close to the Sportsman pub) turn left down Everest Road and walk straight down to the bottom where you will be standing opposite the turnstiles for the away section.  

There are quite a few pubs nearby that are usually happy to serve away fans, including  the 'Prenton Park Hotel’, which is right next to the away turnstiles. Other options are the ‘Mersey Clipper’, behind the Main Stand, and ‘the Sportsman’s Arms’ on Prenton Road East (see directions from Rock Ferry station, as above). Beware that it’s a criminal offence to drink alcohol on the streets of Birkenhead! Inside the ground alcohol is normally available in the away end, and as far as I remember, this still applied when we were the visitors last season.

 Tranmere first came to Prenton Park in 1912, but the oldest of the current stands is the main stand, which was built in 1968 to replace the original structure which by then was in poor condition. The other three stands were all built during 1994-95, when Tranmere were forced to go all-seater by the Taylor report, as they were then in the first division. Away fans get 2,500 seats (out of a total capacity of 16,587) in the Cowshed stand, but I’m told that despite the name, the facilities are good and the view of the pitch is excellent. Adult away tickets cost £20.50, with seniors and young persons (aged 17-22) at £9.50 and juniors at £5. Predictably, we have to pay more than some visitors just because we’re Leeds fans, as this match is category A, as away fans will have to pay £17.50 for category B games and only £14.50 if it’s category C. And somehow Tranmere get away with charging us £1.50 than their own fans in the Kop at the other end of the ground, even though that’s supposed to be against League regulations.

Leeds have sold our allocation of tickets for the game, but Tranmere’s official site is still saying that tickets for the game are available online, and that the game has gone on general sale, so if you try your luck you never know. But last season their Chief Executive Mick Horton said that "We will take measures to ensure that anybody recognised as being a Leeds fan in the home sections of the ground is ejected" and I’m sure that still applies, so if you do get into the home end you’ll have to keep a low profile.

Some of this stuff came from http://www.footballgroundguide.com/.

Photo: Action Images

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