Standing beside a muddy pitch at a Lancastrian playing field, a football fan excitedly adds the final touches to a massive, well-worn scrapbook. The notes he scribbles mark the end of a five-decade-long journey.
When Tony Incenzo was 17 years old, he visited the last of the 92 grounds in the Football League in 1981, becoming the youngest person to complete a pilgrimage that hardcore fans across England might take a lifetime to achieve. But instead of stopping there and simply following his beloved Queens Park Rangers, Tony set a new goal—to visit every single ground in the English non-league system, spanning hundreds of clubs in every corner of the country.
On Easter Monday, when Fulwood Amateurs kicked off at home against Thornton Cleveleys in the North West Counties First Division North, 54 years after his first non-league match, Tony’s epic quest was finally complete. Stamps and signatures from every home club he has visited fill the pages of his precious scrapbook, a behemoth record of the ultimate football groundhopping adventure. Fulwood’s entry now sits on its own fresh page, his teenage dream finally realized.
“It’s just overwhelming emotion,” Tony said, after a guard of honor given by both sets of players. “To finally do it, on a glorious sunny day, with a lovely green pitch, is a great relief.”
The non-league system comprises steps five to 10 of English football, with all leagues except the top division—the National League—being regional. The system has undergone multiple revamps since Tony began his adventure but now includes 996 clubs spread across 48 divisions. Some clubs are fully professional, drawing home crowds of thousands, but many are amateurs playing in municipal parks with no stands and crowds made up mostly of family members and passing dog walkers. Adding in clubs that have since dropped out of the system or dissolved entirely, Tony has watched football at over 2,000 non-league grounds.
“I get as much enjoyment from going to humble non-league clubs as I do big showpiece games,” Tony, now 62, says. “You can turn up at a non-league game 10 minutes before kick-off, park outside, pay your admission, stroll around the ground, stand wherever you want, buy food and drink—and probably have change from about £15. I’ve been to places that I would never ever visit if it wasn’t for football—lovely little villages in Devon, remote seaside spots up in the North East and so on. It’s just great fun to travel all around the country and meet the people—people are what make a football trip special.”
Tony’s passion isn’t limited to non-league football. He has also watched matches at all 92 stadiums in the top five tiers of English football, at all 42 in Scotland’s four professional divisions, and at many others across Europe and around the world. And, if that wasn’t enough, he has managed all this while not missing a single minute of any QPR home game—including friendlies and testimonials—since 1973, planning his non-league adventures around his dedication to his first love.
Tony’s current total stadium count stands at 2,689, spread across 5,804 matches. In time spent watching football—not including stoppage time or extra time—that works out to 522,360 minutes, or 8,706 hours, or 363 days. “It’s my way of life—my whole life,” Tony says. “I simply have to be at a match every Saturday.”
And it’s often not just one match. If the fixture schedule is kind and he plans his travel smartly, Tony might fit in five games across a weekend. This requires a meticulous approach to planning, grouping together grounds in similar areas of the country with different kick-off times weeks or months in advance.
