Dedicated football fan completes 45-year 'life ambition' visiting over 2,500 grounds

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Football fan Tony Incenzo will today complete an incredible “lifetime ambition” visiting every single non-league ground in the football pyramid. He will be visiting Fulwood Amateurs FC in Fulwood, Preston in Lancashire to finish his 45 year dream - a feat which has been praised across the world of sport. Tony, who is a football reporter, spoke of his pride at the achievement and completing the entire set of grounds in England’s national league system.

And he posted online to reveal“My football life in numbers": 5,804 = football matches attended. 2,687 = football grounds visited. 1,359 = QPR consecutive home games attended since April 1973.”

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He took to X this morning to recall: “In 1981 John Craven interviewed me for BBC1 Swap Shop as I visited all 92 League clubs. “His signed photo read: ‘We'll film you again when you have done all the Non-League clubs!’ Now 45 years later John Craven has interviewed me for a BBC report ahead of my last Non-League ground.”

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He added: “I will never the moment 45 years ago when John Craven and the BBC camera crew parked up in our London council estate and all the local kids came running out of their houses to see what was going on!"

Fans across the country paid tribute to him ahead of his record-breaking game between Fulwood and Thornton Cleveleys in the North West Counties League First Division North game. Dave Carolina said: “An amazing journey over soooo long Congrats to @TonyIncenzo on completing this today. That’s some commitment.”

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Incenzo posted a picture this morning: “Here is my breakfast at the hotel in Preston ahead of me completing visits to every Non-League ground in the country's entire National League System at Fulwood Amateurs FC this afternoon.”

He is a passionate supporter of lower league football saying: “The huge TV coverage of football means that kids are now growing up "supporting" a team that they only watch on TV. But we must promote and maintain the tradition of true football supporters actively supporting their local team otherwise the smaller clubs will die in the future."

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And he added: “One of the most unpleasant aspects of armchair Premier League fans who never go to watch their teams play is that they will go into work/school on a Monday and ridicule proper supporters of smaller clubs who do actually go to watch their teams play. This is called banter.”

He recalled one of his favourite days: "One of the best groundhops was being part of a world record in March 2004. I joined 250 other groundhoppers to watch five matches at five different football grounds in one day in the Central Midlands League.