Richard Sutcliffe: The never-ending task of trying to take my place in the '92 club'

Sadly, as with many of the best stories, it is a myth with the current paint job due to finish next year and the work being guaranteed for at least another quarter of a century.

As the project only began seven years ago, clearly there will be plenty of painters looking for work across the east of Scotland during the couple of decades that follow 2011.

Now, dear reader, you might be wondering what a railway bridge has to do with a column about football. It is a fair point, but I feel I have found the footballing equivalent of a never-ending task – trying to earn membership of the '92 Club'.

Formed in 1978 with 39 members, the '92 Club' was set up to recognise the hardy group of fans who had watched a game at every Football League ground.

I first heard of its existence in the mid-Eighties and it quickly became an ambition to join. For a time, it seemed attainable as, by 1994, I had moved to within a single figure of reaching the Holy Grail with 84 grounds having been visited and serious plans afoot to complete the rest.

Living in London for three years when studying for a Media Studies qualification, what 'Er Indoors, complete with her Chemistry and Law degrees, now describes as 'Remedial Studies', had been a major help with the capital being an ideal base to chalk off a few of the grounds that would not normally have been on the radar.

Barnet's Underhill was ticked off as Fulham won 2-0 in the Fourth Division, as was Brentford one particularly enjoyable Saturday where a visit was paid to all four of the pubs that can be found at the corners of Griffin Park. After that, even a particularly tedious 0-0 draw against Burnley did not seem too bad.

Naively, I believed back then that within another couple of seasons I would be able to tick off the remaining eight grounds and qualify for the '92 Club'.

Unfortunately, it would be as close as I got with a two-fold attack coming my way via a host of clubs relocating and the Football League relaxing their ground criteria for the Conference champions.

Suddenly, grounds I had ticked off were disappearing – meaning their replacements had to be visited for the club in question to be reinstated to my list.

A taster of this had been provided by Scunthorpe United's switch to Glanford Park in 1988 plus Wimbledon's decision to vacate Plough Lane and Walsall's move to within a lusty clearance of the M6. This time, however, the stakes had been raised significantly higher as, within a couple of years, famous old venues such as Ayresome Park, Leeds Road, Burnden Park, Elm Park and the Baseball Ground bit the dust.

Then, as if that was not enough, along came all those clubs winning promotion from the Conference.

Halifax Town had gone out of the League in 1993 and been replaced by Wycombe but the five seasons either side of the Shaymen's demotion saw no change to the list of 92 Football League members.

A failure to meet ground criteria offered not only salvation to the clubs who had finished in 92nd place but also my dwindling number of grounds.

From 1997, however, the rules changed and Hereford United's Edgar Street was the first to disappear from my list, replaced by Moss Rose in Macclesfield, and of the 20 clubs relegated since then, only two – Boston and Kidderminster – were not on my 'done' list.

It was a nightmare and one that means today my total stands at 78.

Only the south Wales duo of Cardiff and Swansea are missing in the top two divisions but with Grimsby and Darlington due to drop out of the League this summer and, therefore, off my list, any chance of ever qualifying for the '92 Club' seems as far away as ever.