Bootham Crescent is a ground which oozes with character and nostalgia in abundance.
There's a tiny little car park full of pot holes, rattly old wooden seats situated in a Main Stand that has no smoking signs plastered everywhere, terrace steps with years of history, and spiky metal fences in the Popular Stand that would have health and safety inspectors fuming with rage.
Do some 'ear-wigging' and you'll hear many terrace tales about bucket collections to save the club from liquidation, free Kit-Kats and Yorkie Bars on matchdays, whilst the names of the many hundreds of players who've pulled on the famous 'Y Front' shirts in years gone by will roll off the tongue in all corners of the ground.
The smell of deep heat wafting from the old changing rooms up, through the players tunnel, and up to nostrils of spectators in the Main Stand and the sense of community - a football club hidden away in-between terraced houses in the city centre is what makes this place so special.
I've seen 10 games in total at Bootham Crescent - some good, many bad and plenty of ugly ones!
My first visit, on a Sunday afternoon in April 2004, included a certain Jon Parkin returning to haunt the Minstermen, not long after he'd joined opponents Macclesfield Town. York were on a horrendous winless streak stretching as far back as the New Year, and it eventually culminated in their relegation from what was then-known as Nationwide Division Three (now League Two) a few weeks later.
It took eight years for the club to regain their Football League status and I was at the ground on a handful of occasions in a press capacity in 2011/12 as Gary Mills oversaw a brilliant season that also included FA Trophy success.
Bizarrely, there was even a Blue Square Bet Premier clash between Gateshead and Kidderminster Harriers at Bootham Crescent in freezing thick fog on a cold night in March 2013. I missed the start of the game due to problems on the trains (some things never change) and the Tynesiders won 2-0 - something which put a massive spanner in Kiddy's title aspirations that year.
I've got several memories of squeezing into the tightest (and probably worst) press box in the country, but one game in my double-figure amount at the ground stands out above the rest.
It was Wednesday 2nd May 2012 and the Blue Square Bet Premier Play-Off Semi-Final between York City and Mansfield Town - or, as many people will remember it, the night when Carolyn Still (the Stags' CEO who was, allegedly, an escort girl before marrying the chairman) got nicked for a variety of reasons.
Working at the club at that time, she was a nightmare - wild, crazy, unpredictable and someone who you didn't want to be sat anywhere near when she was 'off her head'. The same stand would be too close for comfort, but the problem this night was she was sat about two f**king seats away.
Bearing in mind she was meant to be 'responsible' in representing the football club, her ear-piercing screeches of 'COME ON MANSFIELD' throughout the first 45 minutes, along with getting up and down like a human yo-yo at various points to visit the toilet and a cry of 'WOOOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOO' when we opened the scoring were cringe-worthy.
It was nothing like anything I'd ever seen anywhere previously in any football ground, or anything else I've ever witnessed since.
At another point, she told the Family Stand to 'F**k Off' which, as you'd expect, didn't go down well and got her quite a bit more attention than what she was already getting from stewards. They'd realised who she was but, seemingly, were scared to kick her out which just prolonged the entertainment!
During the half-time break, and after throwing a strop at York's directors for celebrating their equaliser just before the interval, she tried to get on the pitch to speak to the TV cameras and make an 'announcement' to the Mansfield fans.
Unfortunately, she was denied; such a shame as it'd have been hilarious to watch her potentially 'Do a Delia' and look even more stupid. After being told no, in yet more drama, she couldn't resist shouting at Mark Cooper (the current Forest Green Rovers manager) that he wasn't fit to run Premier Sports - mistaking him for being the person in charge of the TV cameras!
In the second half, it was eerily quiet for a while until she re-appeared then subsequently disappeared - and word filtered through that she'd been asked to leave the ground. Then, a bit later on, came the news that she'd been arrested for an incident outside which surprised nobody!
Quite a few of the folk who'd been in the press box - such as the guys from the Non-League Paper, one or two nationals and radio journalists, etc, were on the same train on the way home and it was a very funny journey as we 'discussed' events.
The game itself barely got mentioned and that, by the way, ended in a 1-1 draw.
Unsurprisingly, the mother of sh*t storms followed in the days afterwards with national papers having an absolute field day due to the (alleged former) escort being escorted away in handcuffs in a police car. Her then-fiance, the chairman, tried to play the incident down which fooled nobody and the club tried to blacklist every journalist or photographer who'd said bad things about her in print or published photographs.
Even better, the local Safety Advisory Group wanted to postpone the second leg (scheduled for the following Bank Holiday Monday) as, somehow, her name was on the safety certificate for Field Mill. SAG claimed, given the events, she wasn't a responsible person to hold it. It got changed to ensure the game went ahead, but they did have a very, very, very valid point!
Another funny thing was Sophie Hicks (one of York's directors - and a fellow female in football which was played on in the media) made a comment to one of the papers that Carolyn Still 'seemed a little distressed' during the game. It was the understatement of the century and, whether it was intentional or not, it wound up a few people in the boardroom at Mansfield whilst pretty much everyone else found it to be hilarious.
Needless to say, when Mansfield next played at York, a good part of the pre-match build-up was spent dodging 'jokey' questions on whether she'd be attending. For some reason, I don't think she's ever been back to the ground since - nor has the in-match entertainment ever been as eventful, bizarre or funny.
That's just one of many stories about what life was like inside the lunatic land - and, subsequently, it's something which will always be my abiding memory of Bootham Crescent.
Anyway, back in the normal world, as someone who also lived through the change when Doncaster Rovers left Belle Vue in 2006, what's certain is when the ground is gone, it'll be sorely missed by those who've frequented it for years, if not decades.
It'll be a really strange era in the months afterwards - joyous, bright, hopeful and optimistic in many respects as the club will be thriving, but it'll be a time still tinged with sadness because both the club, and outsider perceptions of it, WILL become different.
Trust me, everything changes. The comforting smell of deep-heat, crap press facilities, makeshift tunnel barriers, old terrace steps, rickety seats clattering, the proximity to directors in the Main Stand, the two managers slipping around in a muddy technical area, the experience of getting p*ss wet through in a wet car park full of pot holes, will all disappear for good.
Initially, it won't be home - it'll just be a stadium.
Everything will feel just a bit 'too nice' - a bit too clean, a bit too corporate, a bit too pristine and a bit too different to normal. There'll be some fans who resist the change and, to start with, will loathe the new place. There'll also be dozens of teething problems (stewarding, car parking and a general sense of identity amongst fans) as everyone acclimatises to the new place.
Things will take a few years until it becomes the 'norm' and memories of Bootham Crescent start to become etched further and further back in the memory bank.
It'll be a sad day when the final whistle goes at the ground for the final time, but what a memorable, funny old place Bootham Crescent has been over the years!
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