THE HIGHS AND LOWS OF TRAIN JOURNEYS

Travelling from the deep south today, the travellers were given about 3 minutes to get from the gates at St Pancras onto the inter-city train and to find their seats and sit down comfy like. Once the whistle went we were on our way with elderly ladies with sticks still trying to sit down. It wasn't very safe!

I was alright of course, despite my ageing years I was settled and found myself sitting next to a delightful young man, Tom, with whom I quickly got into a conversation about football. I suppose we could have discussed the Trainline failings, the flat landscape between London and Leicester but he mentioned Coventry FC and off we went. For the rest of the journey, it was football, football, football.

He was well informed, especially about more modern football but he was not party to this blog, so I suggest he has a look at this link which covers the Jimmy Hill experience.
http://baileyfootballblog.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/jimmy-hill-very-much-chinned-wonder.html

Although we did digress when the train approach the Sheffield area, wondering if the Steel City was the highest city in altitude in the country. Try Wikipaedia we agreed and it gave us Flash in Staffordshire. Flash is a village at best at 463 m a.s.l.

Working on the principle that the Hawthorns is the highest professional football ground in the country, then there might be the highest point in the West Bromwich area of the Birmingham conurbation.

Buxton is the highest "Non-League" pitch by all accounts but it is not a city by any means.

I still have not solved the problem and whilst hunting through the Sheffield OS Map, I got bored looking at contours and spot heights. Sheffield does range from 29m to 548 metres a.s.l. But the high point is pretty much in the Peak District and not really in the city. BORED NOW!

Actually Sheffield does has more trees per person in the urban area, a European record (4:1). There are more "types of habitat" in the city than anywhere in the UK.

The journey went quickly, Tom got off at Sheffield visiting friends, so did I but I have half an hour to wait for my next train to Penistone, so I nipped into the TAP for a pint of real ale, always served on Platform 1, one of the best stations in the "highest" city in the country.