Which is the biggest English football club without a train station nearby?

“With the Liverpool v Leeds game having been rescheduled for a time when the last train back to Leeds leaves 20 minutes into the second half, what is the biggest club without a viable train station in the vicinity?” tweeted The Jet Van Set.

Let’s start with a chillingly comprehensive answer from one of our readers. “As a football fan and a railways nerd, this was the perfect question for me,” writes Athena Blight. “For the sake of argument, I’m looking only at clubs in the English league.

“This question is more complicated than it might first appear. There are technically two categories here – clubs with no National Rail station nearby, but that might be served by other railed transport (London Underground, trams, etc), and then clubs furthest from a station of any kind. I will be defining viable as not hugely annoying to get back to on foot, so within three kilometres or roughly a 30-minute walk seems more than generous. In addition, service times (such as stations closed or with limited service on matchdays) are not taken into consideration. I have used the ‘How Far is it Between’ checker on freemaptools.com.

“Using the strictest definition possible, the biggest club without a viable station nearby right now is Reading of the Championship, whose Select Car Leasing Stadium lies 3.756km from Reading West station. However, Reading Green Park station, built partially in order to serve the stadium, is due to open in December of this year, so I feel like this is an unsatisfactory answer.

“The biggest club without a station mantle will thus, in December, pass to one of several League One teams from whom you can take your pick. Cheltenham Town‘s Completely-Suzuki Stadium is just a squeak under three kilometres away from