"I have to say, I’m not a big fan of these out-of-town football grounds," my friend said as we caught a glimpse from the roadside of the JobServe Community Stadium.
Although the stadium has grown on Colchester's younger generation of fans, some of the club's long-standing supporters remain unconvinced.
Having been to about a dozen grounds across Britain – mostly as an away fan – I was keen to see what the JobServe was like in the rough and tumble of the North Stand as opposed to the press gantry, where I'd been situated a few times before.
With a friend of mine heading to Colchester from London to watch Wimbledon try and pick up their first win of the campaign, Tuesday night seemed the perfect chance to try it out.
As most football fans will know, one defining aspect of the away day is the walk to the ground.
At Millwall, you negotiate a cramped, crowded tunnel as you shuffle from south Bermondsey station towards the Den.
At Aberdeen, you catch glimpses of the North Sea, heading down the steep Merkland Road towards Pittodrie.
At Everton, you walk past street after street of terraced houses to get to a stadium which makes you think you’ve just travelled in a time machine.
Colchester, I’m told, used to have a unique sort of ambience, too.
The old Layer Road, which was the venue of one of the all-time great FA Cup shocks, was rickety and dilapidated by all accounts – but it was actually in Colchester, and I am told it is a ground fans actually felt a genuine connection to.
The JobServe does not feel that sort of love from many U’s fans, and I am not sure it will live long in the memories of away fans either.
Instead of a walk through the city of Colchester to get to the turnstiles, making your way to the JobServe involves a walk along Severalls Lane and Axial Way – relatively pleasant parts of Colchester, yes, but they are not what you would call historic or atmospheric.
Arriving at the stadium itself, we walked behind the JobServe stand to get to the away end, and at first, it seemed as if we had taken a wrong turn.
The place was deserted, and you would be forgiven for thinking there wasn’t actually a game on at all – it was quite bizarre.
After walking round the corner, we breathed a sigh of relief after seeing a queue of away fans.
Inside the ground itself, the concourse is fairly spacious – at least, certainly more so than Goodison Park.
But the stadium itself offers little by way of inspiration; opened in 2008 as the Weston Homes Community Stadium, the now-JobServe has a capacity of more than 10,000, although it is rarely filled to capacity on match day.
If the stadium itself is uninspiring, Colchester United's players made sure to match that theme with their performance, one so lethargic manager Ben Garner described it as "horrifically bad".
To their credit, the fans at the back of the South Stand gave it a go; it was the first home game after all, and after a draw away at Cardiff and a narrow defeat to Bradford City, there were grounds for cautious optimism.
But the U’s gave the supporters little to get excited about, and the chanting and cheering faded to a murmur after about 20 minutes.
Given what was being served up, the decibel level would have ticked downwards at most grounds across the UK; this was not a problem unique to the JobServe.
This malaise added to the feeling that the JobServe is not a daunting place to come as a fan or a player – the stadium is well outside the city, the design is bland, and the team, at least on Tuesday, was passive.
It meant the excitement of the crowd slowly evaporated, and the atmosphere was about as vibrant as the sodium-vapor lights which bathe fans around the stadium in a sort of retro orange glow.
Even though I was in the away end, I still hoped Colchester fans would have something to cheer about – Wimbledon aren’t my team, after all.
Instead, they got the bizarre antics of Mandela Egbo who, with five minutes to go, thought it apt to steal a few yards – as if it was going to confer any sort of advantage – on a free kick which was virtually on the Colchester United byline.
As well as getting a booking, it whipped up the Wimbledon fans into even more of a frenzy.
As I hope is the case with anyone in Colchester, I want to see the club succeed, but with a stadium which fails to strike fear into even tame opponents, it’s going to take aggressive and assertive performances from the U’s to make the place intimidating.
Those qualities were nowhere to be seen on Tuesday evening.
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