Travelling for Kicks

Change of site

2011-04-03T21:52:00.004+01:00

This blog is now updated at Stadiums and Cities at wordpress.

As well as all posts here, the new site currently has a dozen extra games featured, as well as an enlarged gallery section of photos for each entry.

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Recent Posts

* Sagantosu 1 Ventforet Kofu 1
* Thailand 1 South Korea 2 (U-19)
* Windsor & Eton 2 Burnham 0
* Ferencvaros 4 Honved 0
* Barcelona 8 Puchov 0
* (AFL) Collingwood 119 Carlton 95
* Czech Weekend, Ceske Budejovice 1 FK Siad Most 0, Slavia 7 Zlin 1, and Viktoria Žižkov 0 Banik Ostrava 2
* Bohemians 1905 1 Jakubčovice 1
* Slavia Prague 1 Slovan Liberec 0
* Real Madrid 3 Sparta Prague 0
* Sevilla 1 Real Mallorca 2
* Fortuna Dusseldorf 2 Wuppertaler 0
* SV Wehen Wiesbaden 3 Erzgebirge Aue 0
* Besiktas 0 Sakaryaspor 0
* Galatasaray 1 Genclerbirligi 0
* (HK), Happy Valley 2 New Radiant 1
* Hong Kong, Happy Valley Racecourse
* Torpedo Moscow 1 Rotor Volgograd 0
* Lokomotiv 0 Zenit St Petersburg 1
* Zenit St Petersburg 1 Krylia Sovetov 2
* Frankfurt, Japan 1 Greece 0 (CC 2005), South Korea 2 Togo 1 & Portugal 2 Iran 0 (WC 2006)
* Nuremburg, Australia 2 Argentina 4
* Hanover, Japan 1 Mexico 2
* FC Köln 4 MSV Duisburg 0
* Borussia Dortmund 2 Hansa Rostock 1
* (MLB) Toronto Blue Jays 8 Boston Red Sox 4
* Kyoto Purple Sanga 2 Tokushima Vortis 0
* Rochester Raging Rhinos 3 Long Island Rough Riders 1
* Chicago Fire 1 N.E. Revolution 1, Chicago Cubs 3 Milwaukee 6, June 2001
* Witham Town 1 Stansted 1
* Tilbury 2 Waltham Abbey 1
* Hearts 1 Gretna 1, Scottish Cup Final
* Eindhoven – Sevilla 4 Middlesbrough 0
* Urawa Red Diamonds 0 Oita Trinita 0
* SV Hamburg 1 Mainz 0
* Anderlecht 2 Cercle Bruges 2
* Braintree 1 St Albans 1

Thailand v South Korea U19, Thai Army Stadium, Bangkok

2011-02-05T17:15:00.006Z

To believe the tabloids, anyone visiting South Africa for the World Cup would be robbed, beaten up, shot, murdered several times, given AIDS, beaten up again and then shot once more for good measure. And that would be before clearing immigration at O.R. Tambo. None of that happened to me though. Partly it was because I’m experienced enough to avoid tricky situations, but mainly because I cancelled my trip. Due to South Africans having convinced themselves that the average football supporter owns his own yacht and sprinkles ground banknotes on his cornflakes in the morning, I cut my losses on $900 worth of tickets, and in a fit of pique, booked myself a three week trip to Thailand instead.
Bangkok does have a certain reputation. When western tourists are lured by bright lights and find themselves in the company of 18 year old young men, typically there’s a rather alarming element of surprise to the proceedings. Luckily for me, my encounter was purely intentional, and strictly above board – the lure of floodlit football.

Keen for my World Cup substitute trip to also include something of a football fix if possible, I scanned the internet for any games in the country during my stay. There wasn’t a lot on, it has to be said. The Thai League isn’t the most vibrant, but even that had finished by the time of my visit, but there was a Thailand v South Korea fixture on. Great! Except it was the U19s. Ah.

But I wasn’t going to let something like a possible low quality game being played in from of a small crowd in a basic stadium deter me. Oh no. In some ways the novelty value made it more appealing. At least that’s what I convinced myself of while having a bottle of Chang or two in a Bangkok bar before heading to the stadium.

And the bars there can certainly be interesting. I recall one bar offering not only very cheap beer for happy hour, but also the chance to watch the Merseyside Derby on the big screen. As every single person in Thailand, by law it seems, supports either Liverpool or Manchester United, interest was high. All the workers in the bar were watching avidly, and were all female. The bar had something of a cowboy theme, and the cowboy hats and boots looked authentic enough, although it’s hard to remember bikinis typically featuring in too many westerns. At one point I turned from the screen to notice that the workers had discarded the less authentic parts of their outfits, and certainly weren’t now dressed in a way I recall from any John Wayne films of my youth – and funnily enough, for some reason I did seem to get distracted from the events at Goodison Park for a while.

The Thai Army Stadium, venue for my game for the evening, is well off the usual tourist route, tucked away next to a quaint and picturesque 16-lane multi-level highway leading to the old airport and all routes north. Luckily I didn’t have to cross this road. Dignitas could no doubt send their clients here and give them a more interesting exit than a weekend in Switzerland. I did, however, have to negotiate the typically Thai labyrinth of side-streets to get from the metro stop to the stadium. Losing my bearings slightly, and the impossibility of rushing to do anything in the Bangkok clinging humidity, meant I arrived just as the teams kicked off.

Unlike my world cup tickets, where I’d paid $160 for some games, entry here was priced at just 50 Baht, about £1. The price, and “AFC U19 Qualifier” were all I could read on the ticket, bought from a man sat by the door at a trestle table, as if selling tickets for a school disco. I half expected him to put a stamp on the back of my hand in case I wanted to come back later.

Inside, before I’d even had a look round, I was able to make my usual scarf purchase, even if a foreigner, a “farang” as Thais have it, supporting the Thailand U19 side might look a little unlikely. Unusually for a football scarf, it was of the synthetic “fake silk” variety favoured by 80s new romantic bands. Even more unusual was that the flip side of it featured Thai script and love hearts, which I later found to say “We love the King”, which isn’t that surprising in a country where the King is the Queen Mother, Lady Diana, The Beatles, and any other cherished icon you can think of, rolled into one. The Thai royal family has always been revered. It used to be unthinkable for a member of the public to even touch a member of royalty, which had tragic consequences in the 19th century when locals thought it an unforgiveable breach of etiquette to touch the Queen, even when she was drowning in a river.

With my scarf – no programme sadly, even though it would have been utterly indecipherable – I took my seat. The lateness of my arrival, and a crowd better than I’d expected, meant I was confined to Row B. The stadium itself was fairly basic. An oval around a running track, about 15 rows deep, with bare concrete deemed adequate in lieu of anything resembling actual seats. The main stand, where I, and virtually all of the other spectators were sat, was the only covered part of the ground, and was more or less full of surprisingly enthusiastic fans, banging drums and singing away to cheer their team to victory.

The crowd were in full voice, and soon the sound became something of a visual spectacle as well, with the arrival of a giant flag unfurled over the seats. The guy who brought the flag also handed out specially printed Thailand headbands to all those in the front rows, including myself. I could have tied it banzai style around my head, but didn’t, partly because I thought it’d make a good souvenir, but mainly because I thought I’d look a right tit.

The farang contingent also doubled, as another western tourist arrived, looking thoroughly cheesed off as he saw me, seeing that he wasn’t the only westerner at the game. He walked the other direction, avoiding me, perhaps not wanting the pair us of to look “same same” as the ubiquitous Thai-English phrase goes. Maybe he even took the extra step of wearing the headband, as that would make us, as the Thais also uniquely say, “same same, but different.”

As it happens Thailand didn’t actually need to win the game. They were already top of their group, which was one of several round-robin groups played over a week and a half in the same Asian city. Second placed South Korea had already surprisingly lost to Vietnam, who were third in the group. Thailand just had to avoid defeat in this, the final game, to qualify. South Korea needed to win to make qualifying certain, but if they won, and Vietnam also won, then Vietnam could pip Thailand for the 2nd qualifying spot. It would go down to the head to head scores. Vietnam had beaten South Korea 1-0. Thailand had beaten Vietnam 1-0. A two goal win for South Korea would knock Thailand out, but a 1 goal win, in which both teams scored, say perhaps 2-1 to South Korea, would guarantee both Thailand and South Korea qualified on goals scored. I don’t want to ruin the surprise, so I’ll dwell on this no more.

Much more important was my surprise at how good the play was. The Thais might not be giants on the field (or indeed off it) but the U19s exhibited levels of ball control and skill that belied a nation who thought employing Peter Reid and Bryan Robson as national coaches would improve their game. And if a few cynical souls had predicted an obvious outcome to the match based on the situation, the Thais certainly hadn’t read the script, going at the Koreans and full pelt. It was no surprise that Thailand took the lead, with the ball being bundled in in uncharacteristically untidy fashion, given the play so far, to be greeted with a mix of a roar and of a squeal of youthful exuberance. The fans, and the players deserved more, but it didn’t come, so it was just a one goal lead at half time.

I was feeling slightly peckish so I went in search of food, but found nothing I could identify. Buying food you can’t identify can be an adventure, but unpleasant when it goes wrong, such was the time, gasping with thirst, that I accidentally bought a bottle of tonic water in Budapest. In Thailand I’m a bit more wary though. An incident on a previous trip caused by something odd I ate, made me temporarily lose 90% of my hearing and vision, beyond bright lights, on parts of a very unpleasant journey home. And as delicious as the street food probably was there, I only had to look at it to have visions of my hotel toilet turning from a casual acquaintance to an earnest and trusty friend. At least (and apologies in advance to anyone eating lunch) they have an alternative to toilet paper in such cases, which might as well by industrial strength sandpaper after a day or two of such a scenario. They don’t go the whole hog Japanese style, with full electronically controlled bottom valet service, but they do provide a hand-held jet-wash, rather like the extendable soft drink dispensers they have in pubs. I don’t think they have a Coke, Sprite or Fanta option, but they are welcome all the same.

For the second half, I, like several other fans, opted to forsake the cosy confines of the main stand and seek alternative viewpoints. While not fit for the King, the main stand area was palatial in comparison to the rest of the stadium. The concrete had a kind of gritty patchy black coating which is the kind of look that haunts neglected cheap 1960s stadiums the world over. Maybe being an army stadium, it’s intended for hardy souls who regard such conditions as being the sort of thing to put hairs on your chest, while lesser civilians only worry about black marks on their clothing.

The first half had been something of a black mark against South Korea, who’d barely competed at all. Either there had been some very strong words in the dressing room at half time, or an envelope stuffed full of used high-denomination Baht banknotes was slipped under the Thai dressing room door, as the second half was completely different. Gone was the enthusiasm and competitiveness from the Thai players so evident in the first half. It was South Korea, as if suddenly realising the ramifications of losing, who came out playing all the football. My decision to move behind the Thai goal was now something of an act of folly, as all the play was up the other end in the distance, with a backdrop of the curious Army club behind the goal, with its sloping curved roof looking like it had escaped from a Dali painting.

On the hour Korea levelled the scores, sending the South Korea fans present into a frenzy. Their drums beat out on the far side of the stadium, making as much noise as seven people with two drums between them are ever feasible likely to make.

This minor set-back seemed to inspire Thailand for a while, and those who’d lumped their savings on that ever-so-possible 2-1 South Korea victory were starting to get nervous every time the ball crossed the half-way line. It didn’t last though, and South Korea pressed again. As time ticked on their play went from urgent to desperate, and local bookmakers started to anticipate the flutter of discarded betting slips. South Korea couldn’t have been more camped in the Thailand half if they’d pitched tents and cooked dinner on a barbecue, but that elusive goal just wouldn’t come.

A late chance for them came two minutes from time. A free kick, fairly central and a few yards outside the box, presented a great opportunity. The kick was hit with power over the wall. Either side of the keeper and it would surely have been a goal, but the kick taker decided he’d seen a gap where the goalkeepers hand would be, and aimed there instead. It was an inspired decision, as the ball went straight through the keepers hands as if his palms were made of barley sugar, powering into the net.

So 2-1 it was. A script as predictable as a Roger Moore era Bond movie, complete with late against-the-clock drama to avoid disaster. The Buddhist Thais would no doubt just claim it was fate, and as the Vietnamese qualified anyway as best third-place finishers, probably no complaints there either.

With qualification assured, both teams left the field to almost embarrassed delight. The seven-strong travelling army cheered away, and the pink-clad stewards had an easy afternoon coping with the not-quite-sure-how-to-react crowd. There was a palpable sense of anti-climax, tempered by qualification, which the prospect of sticking around for the bottom-of-the-table clash between Bangladesh and Laos would do little to ease. That 3800 of the slightly ambitiously stated 4000 crowd chose to not stick around to witness that game wasn’t a surprise. Even later drama there saw Bangladesh score two very late goals, going from last place to the giddy heights of fourth in the process, while condemning Laos to the wooden spoon. Like 3799 others though, I wasn’t there to see it. Those less traditional bright lights can only appeal for so long.

The travelling army make themselves heard, just.

Early action, when Thailand in blue were dominant.

South Korea stun the football world tucking away the completely unexpected winner, although you might need to trust me on this with this photo.

Soi Cowboy, where men are men, and perhaps some of the women are too.

Japan - Urawa Red Diamonds

2009-07-28T15:20:00.005+01:00

Outside Saitama

“Delicious Sandwich” said the writing on the box of the half time snack I purchased at Saitama Stadium. Now I could hardly have argued that it wasn’t tasty. The filling, I think some kind of pork in a thick sauce covered batter, had plenty of taste. It was just a taste that didn’t, to my western palate, belong in a sandwich. Food, or the mystery of having no real idea what you are about to eat, is one of the joys for the tourist in Japan. Restaurants almost never have English menus on display, and those that do often have translations such as “Fried Cartilage of the Cock”, which hardly you tempt you inside. My knowledge of Katakana, one of Japan’s three “alphabets”, usually reserved for words borrowed from other languages, allowed me to identify “ramen” - noodles bars, but my one ill-advised foray into one meant I wouldn’t try again. I’ve heard it said that the Japanese, although perhaps amused, aren’t concerned about westerners lacking chopstick skills, and in fact rather like appreciating a dog walking on its hind legs, marvel that it is done at all rather than complain about it being done badly. But although I can use them in a functional manner, I wield them with the elegance of a one-armed man doing the breast stroke, and as I struggle to eat spaghetti with a fork, noodles with chopsticks was like asking me to nail blancmange to a tree.

Being an experienced Japan-o-phile, on my second trip and with over three weeks of Japan experience under my belt, it would take more to surprise me. More to evoke that “what on earth are they thinking of?” feeling which is such an enjoyable part of experiencing Japan, Tokyo in particular. The most extreme example on this trip was in Akihabara, the district famed for selling electrical goods, where my own purchase of a UK/Japan plug adapter was decidedly at the lower end of the food chain. No sooner had I left the station than I was accosted by a gauntlet of suitably attired women handing out restaurant flyers. Suitably attired, that is, for a Merchant-Ivory production about domestic servants, as these young women were dressed as French maids, handing out flyers for “Maid Cafes”, where similarly dressed women will attend to (almost - they are apparently above board and distinctly above the waist establishments) every need for their customers, most of whom, I’d image, were missing the point when advised that they should get out more. That I’d been singled out as a potential customer was perhaps slightly disconcerting, but I guessed they just weren’t choosy. The cafes did look kind of interesting, but I wasn’t tempted to venture in. And not just because I couldn’t read the Kanji-symbol map, oh no. But that wasn’t what got me. I had heard of maid cafes before. What got me was the manga comic book shops also endemic in the neighbourhood.

I’ve never been into manga, or any comic books for that matter, since about the age of 11, but I thought I’d find what all the fuss is about. I was expecting lantern-jawed superheroes, perhaps with capes and masks, fighting villains and evil. The books here seemed to feature covers with wide-eyed young girls whose fighting characteristics seemed to involve looking disturbing in a school uniform. And then I saw the basement section, for over 18s only, and like approaching a motorway car-crash, I felt compelled to look. All I can say is that I now understand why they are referred to as “Graphic Novels”, as believe me, the stories on display were about as graphic as you can imagine. In honour of those café maids in the area, I picked up an issue featuring similar types on the cover, albeit with rather less of the uniform on show, and other than a few pages which somehow featured aliens, I can’t really describe anything here. All I can say is that being a Japanese book, with the spine on the right as you’d view the cover, the Japanese certainly know what they are doing, as anyone who read the story would be turning the pages with their left hand as they did so.

As for eye-opening surprises of a rather more footballing nature, given how young the league is in Japan, many from the “established” footballing nations would be surprised how popular the league is, and in particular that one team, from a place they’ve never heard of, can average 50,000 fans at their games. The Urawa Red Diamonds scarf I purchased before the match v Oita Trinita hailed the team from this distant northern Tokyo suburb as being “The Pride of Urawa”, and without being too unkind to the area, after passing through it on the train and stopping off there to buy a ticket at the club shop on an otherwise rained out day, you kind of wonder what they were proud of before the club came along. Regardless, the club shop staff were very helpful and chatty, and I’ll even forgive them for using a “simplified map” for the website directions to the shop, on the grounds that I actually found it. Simplified maps belong in the lowest pit of Dante’s inferno in my book, as someone who has travelled a fair bit and had to rely on them for direction to hotels etc, I’ve never grasped how anyone can believe that taking a genuine street layout and redrawing it in such a way that it no longer resembles the unfamiliar streets someone is about to try an navigate will in any way help they find their way. But find the ticket shop, I did, as do thousands of others ever week.

I was offered the use of the shuttle bus from Urawa, but not only would that not exactly be handy from my base in central Tokyo, just north of an area called Roppongi (a very friendly area where as any foreigner will know, you can’t walk 10 yards without meeting a new friend who wants to invite you into his club, at a special price, just for you) but I would also be going to the game after a day-trip to the small northern suburb of Kawagoe, which is architecturally much nicer, with loads of pleasant old buildings and shops, and a very friendly small museum about the Kawagoe parades held every year. So pleasant and friendly were the staff inside, as they uncomfortably switched to their very best English to try and explain about the floats used and the tradition behind them and make sure I got the very best of the museum experience, that I felt compelled to nod and be as outwardly appreciative as possible, just to try and hide the fact that I wasn’t really that interested in the Kawagoe parades, and I’d only gone in because I was dying for a crap.

From there it was a relatively simple, if not exactly speedy, route to Saitama Stadium, and slowly, stop by stop, the train began to fill will red-shirted people on their way to the same place as me (oh, and if by some slim chance anyone from Japan Railways is reading this, it would be nice if you thought less about whatever tune you could play next when a train arrives at a station, and more about providing information such as, ooh, I don‘t know, perhaps where trains stop other than the terminus station, it would be much appreciated. Plans which involve changing trains at a particular station become somewhat easier if you know trains stop there before you board).

I said I’d been to Japan before. The previous time had been in August, when the weather feels like you are being breathed on by a pack of giant dogs. September, on the other hand, must have been a whole 2 C cooler, and although still rather uncomfortable to someone used to English weather, it was quite bearable as long as you weren’t directly in the sun for too long. It was perhaps less than ideal then that the game was scheduled for 2pm on a baking hot day. Even less ideal was that although the stadium does have its own station, it’s a full km from the stadium itself. A km isn’t far in most countries, but the heat and humidity had me redefining what a long way was. Anything over 300m had me looking for a public transport option. 1 km on the completely shadeless route was like crawling over hot coals, and I began to wonder if fanning myself with the branded fan handed out at the station was making me hotter than the fanning action was cooling me down. I’m glad to see I’m not the only one suffering. Some of the locals actually look worse, and give the impression they’ve been breaking rocks all morning, or just use an exceptionally bad brand of deodorant.

But then, after a pocari sweat o.d. in an effort to stop my brain frying, you turn the corner and see the stadium. Wow. The place is huge, impressive, and the risk of dehydration all seems worth it. Despite all the great sights I’d seen over the prior two weeks of travels, this was something I was really looking forward too. I bought a scarf and a 99% unintelligible match day programme, and made my way inside. Some crazy people sat happily drinking away in the completely open beer garden, but I was after the coolness of the stadium’s shade.

Some big stadiums can be a little disappointing and bland, but there’s still nothing like that buzz of seeing the vista of a large stadium open up before as you make your way out to your seat for the first time. It reminded me of the big new grounds I’d seen in Germany at the world cup. Not so much in design, but in style. In felt open and spacious, and for a 6 year old stadium, it somehow also felt like they’d only taken the wrapper off that morning. The huge roofs on each side hung weightlessly over the seats, and although perhaps those at the back of the top tier may disagree, everyone looked to have a good view.

All around me were red-shirted people, none more so than in the home end, where if there was a seat occupied by a fan not in a red shirt, I didn’t notice. Unlike England, where away shirts are common even at home games, I didn’t see one. I don’t know if have Urawa even had an away shirt, but my guess is that if they do, then it’s red as well. It certainly makes for a far more impressive spectacle than at many English games, where the number of “lads” who think wearing colours is uncool is depressingly high. And I have to say, the atmosphere and noise generated by the Urawa fans was terrific. So what if its all very organised and orchestrated. They made a heck of a racket, and with their willingness to jump up and town and sing to a man, they could certainly teach a lot of English fans a thing or two. Other than for a short peculiarly silent period about 10 minutes before kick off (I actually wondered if someone had died and there was a minute’s silence, but nobody was standing) the atmosphere was building. The teams took the field. Flags waved, the not full, but nonetheless considerably large crowd sang and roared. And then the game started. Oh dear.

Critics of the game will often tell you that there can be nothing more boring than a 0-0 draw. Supporters will respond, accusing the critic of being unable to appreciate a sport that doesn’t have scoring every few minutes, and that the “nearly” moments of the game as an integral to the excitement of the game as the scoring. We’ll even say that some 0-0 draws can be terrific games, and they can. Privately though, we’ll admit that a lot of 0-0 draws are about as welcome as a visit from Jehovah’s witnesses. I wish I could tell you I this 0-0 was one of the better ones. I did enjoy the experience, but the game itself was an absolute turd.

It didn’t help that the game kicked off during the hottest part of the afternoon. Such conditions seldom produce flowing open football, and the tactic for both teams seemed to venture little beyond getting to half time and having a drink. Urawa did put one shot into the side-netting after about 7 minutes, but both seemed to regard that as probably more than enough excitement for one half. Oita took advantage of some lethargic defending to register a tame shot of their own, but that was about it.

The second half wasn’t quite as bad, although that’s a bit like saying Malaria is better than AIDS, as the shade of the main stand now covered the whole pitch, and the grinding poverty of ambition was now tactical rather than partly enforced by the conditions. There were shots in this half at least, and you have to admire the confidence of players sometimes, as this clearly was a game that was only going to be opened up by a terrible rick at the back or a piece of magic, but you’d think a player might realise that if he’s played all day as if his feet were numbed with cortisone injections, then going for the dramatic shot into the far corner every time isn’t perhaps the best option.

Despite Oita having a game plan which clearly revolved around them having their families kidnapped and threatened with execution if the game didn’t end 0-0, they actually went closest to scoring, having one header come back off the post, and forcing a full-length diving save from the Urawa keeper, in perhaps the only genuinely exciting moments of the match. Urawa’s response was to substitute attacking midfield Robson Ponte. He was furious, probably because he knew it meant he’d have to watch the rest of the match. The Urawa fans, to their eternal credit, did their best to rouse the team. If their team had had the fan’s energy and drive they’d have won easily, but they just continued to stroll around with the urgency of a child on the way to the dentist.

Had the game been a farm animal it’d have been taken out to a barn and shot. Urawa’s manager Gert Engels, who looks like Vladimir Putin’s uglier brother, but without the sunny laughter-filled side to his character, later commented that the 0-0 draw wasn’t two points dropped, and this was probably best summed up when Urawa had a great chance of a break in the second half, but when the ball had reached the Oita area, Urawa still had eight players back in their own half as the midfield slowly walked out from their defensive positions.

Eventually the ref put everyone out of their misery. The Urawa fans stopped dead mid-chant as soon as he blew and the ground fell strangely silent again. True, there wasn’t a great deal for the crowd to applaud, and it did seem appropriate that such a non-event of a match should be greeted with an absolute non-reaction from the fans, but it was a trifle odd to say the least.

Any thoughts about the slim possibility of taking in a second match, kicking off two hours later in the western suburbs, were conclusively buried by the huge amount of time it took to get back to the station, let alone get back to central Tokyo, as 46,000 people shuffled like zombies down the one path that lead back to the station. OK, it hadn’t gone quite to plan, but it was fun all the same. Time now to think about getting something to eat and having a night out. Fried cock cartilage, anyone?

The red army behind the goal, showing a hint of a slight tendency to wear replica shirts to home games.

It's a bit of a blur, as nearly the only moment of excitement in the whole match comes and goes with the Urawa keeper doing an oustanding impression of a Subbuteo goalkeeper.

Maid Cafe land - Akihabara.

Shibuya Crossing

Japan - Sagantosu

2009-07-28T15:03:00.008+01:00

Sagantosu Stadium - handy for the station.

Six short hours from Tokyo on the Shinkansen is the island of Kyushu, the westernmost of Japan’s large islands. Nearly 800 miles as the crow flies (albeit rather more slowly than the Shinkansen) away, it can feel, if not quite a different world, almost like a different country. Certainly the pace of life is a lot slower. Even the Island’s big city, Fukuoka, doesn’t have the same feeling of walking the streets with the people coming at you like the over spilling bubbles from a shaken cola bottle that Tokyo has. What it does have, although I’m sure it’s not as a direct swap, is musical pedestrian crossings with two tunes. One is a jolly little tune, albeit of the sort that a precocious 12 year old would have played on a Casio VL-Tone in the 1980s. The other, for crossing in the other direction, is a dirge that Morrisey would reject as too depressing, and I’d imagine is directly responsible for a large portion of Kyushu’s suicide rate, as depressed types hear it and walk the other way, hoping a nice bus will be coming along. You have to also pity anyone who works with earshot of one, and probably hears the tunes several hundred times every single day of their working lives. I’m sure Yakuza hitmen have been hired for lesser crimes.

Other than Koreans it seems, not too many tourists venture down this way, which is a shame as the island has a lot to offer. Fukuoka is pleasant enough, with plenty of bars among the stereotype neon backdrop by the river, even if the thinness of the crowds on some nights makes you wonder how they survive. The sculptor of a pleasant little statue of two Geisha girls by the river hadn’t thought about the effects of pigeons, however, and a few unfortunately placed calling cards from them had looking like they spent the day being the unwitting stars of a bukakke video.

There’s also the “hells” at Beppu, the multi-themed and often multicoloured cluster of volcanic springs. Unashamedly touristy, and tackier than a council estate’s pub carpet in places, some of them are quite stunning in their beauty. Towards the far end of the island is Huis ten Bosch, a vast Dutch theme park, where a Disney-style vision of a Dutch canal town, windmills and pointed gable townhouses et al, is dumped among the rugged hills of the region. Given that Holland is like a billiard table in real life, it just adds to the odd charm of the place. It is very pleasant, just incredibly strange. Chris England, in his fine book “No more Buddha, only Football” about his time in Japan for the 2002 World Cup, likened it to the village in Patrick McGoohan’s cult 60s series “The Prisoner”, and it did have enough of that surreal edge to it, particularly on a very non-busy like when I was there, to wonder if my “escape” over the footbridge to the Huis ten Bosch station would be stopped by The Prisoner’s giant white balloon “Rovers” before I made it to the other side.

It was returning from another day trip, to Kumamoto, that I took in a game while on the island. Kumamoto itself, apart from a fine large black castle, also has a 350 year old garden, Suizenji-koen, about a mile to the south east. Not really being one for gardens usually, I only went there on the grounds that if I was seeing the castle, I might as well see it as well while I’m there. I was even slightly put out that I had to pay to get in, but I was so glad I did as the place was stunning. It was like something out of a fairy tale, but without being overdone. Every single piece was just right and you felt you could be in no other place in the world but Japan. If only someone would be considerate enough to take a wrecking ball to the few ugly boxy buildings which poke into view over the tree-tops, then the place would be perfect.

Directly on the route back to Fukuoka is the town of Tosu, and close enough to the station to hear the train announcements is Sagantosu’s Best Amenity Stadium. Which amenity in particular the stadium was best at wasn’t specified, although “handy for the station” must be a likely candidate, nor why the stadium’s name was spelled out in English on the wall that clear, given that apparently most people in the country don’t speak English. It was something that as English speaker was something that took a while to notice as it doesn’t stand out - the overwhelming amount of English text that is everywhere is Japan. I’m not just referring to signage, but adverts, shop names and a whole host of things where there doesn’t seem to be any need to not write in Japanese. For whose benefit are commuter trains in Kyushu labelled “Kyushu Commuter Train”? Why is Japan Railway named using two words, neither of which are Japanese, and why did the “Yellow One Man Diesel Car” I saw in Tosu station need to be explicitly named as such?

I just wished they’d saved a little bit more English for the Sagantosu ticket window, where I realised that colour-coded areas marked on the ground plan would be of little use to someone such as myself who’d not learned the Japanese for “yellow”. It still might not have helped, as I’d already realised that small deviations from the correct pronunciation can still leave Japanese scratching their heads in befuddlement (my attempts at ‘Hikone’ completely stumped a ticket collector at Maibara station, despite the town being about 5 miles away and the destination of nearly every single tourist who gets off at the station) . Maybe I could have pointed at the yellow one man diesel car, but as it happened pointing and the power of mime was enough to overcome the language barrier and get my ticket.

Tosu’s stadium is a modern ground, but unlike quite a few, particularly in England sadly, that from the outside look like a warehouse or possibly a multiplex cinema, there was something unmistakably “football-ish” about the place. Maybe that was its best amenity.

Walking up to the entrance I passed some people handing out free gifts of some sort. As I got nearer I realised it was just the standard flyer packs of free tissues, so I wasn’t too bothered, but one of the women handing them out seemed quite insistent, so I took one. At pretty much the other end of the spectrum from the maid café tissues I’d been handed a few days earlier, they were for a performance of Noh Theatre*. I’m not sure if football fans are typical watchers of Noh Theatre or not, but there can’t be too many westerners who go along. Even guide books, which usually praise any local culture to the skies, tend to err on the side of caution that westerners would find a Noh performance “challenging”, which is a polite way of saying “It’ll bore your tits off”. Personally I think I’d be able to appreciate its artistic merit for a good 10 seconds at least, but as much as I’d rather not knock someone’s traditional culture, it sounds appalling. Traditional Japanese singing and music, to me, sounds like a banjo player falling down the stairs in slow motion. I’m sure someone from Japan could be just as scathing about, oh I don’t know, Morris Dancing or English folk music, be at least we hate that as well.

At least the second set of freebies were OK - a free match programme (read “one sheet of colourful A4) and a free fan, although the evening was pleasantly cool for Japan. The ground itself was just as good inside as it looked from the outside. Double-decker stands all the way round. Terraces at both ends. Cover down both sides, and a slightly asymmetrical look about it to stop it being monotonous. What more could you ask for? Well, a few more fans being honest. Crowds, as far as I could tell, seemed to be typically around 5000, which is a shame for such a decent stadium. I had high hopes when I first arrived, about an hour before kick-off, as there seemed to be quite a few already in, but they seemed to stop coming in with about half an hour to go. Those that were in, despite the thinness of there numbers, had just enough there to give it a go, and give it a go they did, singing away and waving their flags, and you couldn’t help but wonder what it’d be like if they could tempt more along.

Maybe it’s the club badge. There can be few clubs around the globe who have turquoise and pink as the club colours, and the club slogan “True champions in the hearts of all who love Sagantosu” (in English, naturally) comes across as a polite Japanese way of saying “we’re shit, and we know we are”. Maybe pink doesn’t have quite the same connotations in Japan as in the west, and Sagantosu’s keeper seemed more than happy to dress from head to toe in a completely pink kit including some fetching pink leggings (either that or he’d stolen the legs of a sunburned Scotsman). The fans, and the rest of the team, opted for the turquoise option.

The game started to a fair degree of enthusiasm, with both team whipping the ball about with purpose and energy, and no little confidence about their moves. That can be a good thing, but very quickly it became clear that on this night the players’ minds were writing cheques their abilities couldn’t cash all too often, and I could feel my English hackles rising and I kept finding myself wanting to shout at them to keep it simple, but I calmed and tried to enjoy the different style. The approach play was good, no doubting that, but from 30 yards it was all Hollywood passes executed with sub-Bollywood ability. Even after about 20 minutes, it had that worrying look of 0-0 written all over it, and even the fans to my left were noticeably subdued. That half time arrived without either keeper having to do too much wasn’t exactly a shock.

For the second half, sensing that things might not get much better, I vacated my lofty main stand seat with its excellent view on the grounds that their hadn’t been too much to actually view, and went behind the goal with the noisy fans themselves. They were great. I can’t praise them enough. English fans would have been booing at half-time, but they were so bright and cheery you’d think the food kiosk offers shots of prozac to all who need them, and soon enough they were gearing themselves for another 45 minutes of hard effort in the hope that the team might follow suit. I was surprised at just how many women were among them. They even had a chant that was predominantly sung by the women, with the guys providing a kind of “backing vocals” after their bit, which was certainly a first for me.

Alas the second half started much as the first did, as a distillation of confidence and incompetence, with the shots not so much raining in as being an occasional light shower. Pretty soon it was obvious that tactics were unlikely to provide a breakthrough, and if there was to be a goal it would take an absolute defensive howler or a real piece of magic to get a breakthrough. With around ten minutes to go, and my deciphering of the Katakana on the team-sheet disappointingly revealing that neither side featured a David Blane or Copperfield among their line-ups, the other option of a defensive howler took centre stage.

I could be possibly be being unkind, as it was down the far end and my eyesight isn’t what it used to be, but it looked like the classic situation which causes fans to watch the game through their fingers as they see the horror unfolding in front of them. A high ball bounced towards the Tosu keeper at the far end with defender and attacker giving chase. Now we all know it should be an easy thing to defend, but experience tells us that in those situations keepers and defenders tend to react with the agility of oil tankers, and like an indecisive couple perfectly tuned to be unable to decide what to do together, they both leave then both go for the ball in alternate seconds, allowing the striker to take advantage of the confusion and chip in an easy gift to put the visitors ahead. If my reading of the goal was right then it’s a shame I wasn’t at the other end as I can imagine I could have learned the Japanese phrases for “gosh, that was a silly thing to do wasn’t it” and “yes, we must try harder to not make such mistakes in the future”.

Normally I’d have imagined that would be the winner, but that goal was like applying cardiac paddles to the Sagantosu side, who burst into life with a zeal and enterprise that didn’t seem possible before. The ball barely left the Kofu half after that, as Sagantosu poured forward. Pressure told and after one or two near things, a half-cleared corner was turned back in, perfectly placed, and even the defender on the line couldn’t stop it floating right into the top corner. The end went crazy. Perhaps a little higher pitched crazy than I’m used to, but crazy all the same. The singing and jumping grew as Sagantosu went on the hunt for the winner that they deserved, on the grounds that they were the only team that had looked dangerous in the whole match, even if it had been only for the last five minutes. They pressed forward. More corners. More pressure. Into injury time, and a shot came in, and it just looked in. The keeper was beaten, but somehow , almost unbelievably, it just went the wrong side of the post. Then deep into injury time, the ball broke again. A Tosu forward, 12 yards out, just the keeper to beat, volleys towards goal. Anywhere but directly at the keeper and it’s the winner. But, sadly, the forward seemingly thought he’s spotted a hole in the keeper’s stomach and aimed for that. Five and a half thousand heads go into eleven thousand hands. That was the chance, and everyone knew it, and also knew there wouldn’t be another. The whistle went but seconds later.

Such is football that a match that is pretty dire for 80 minutes can leave you feeling you witnessed a great game at 90 if things go right. It was a terrific finish, and even if it lacked that winner that would really have made it perfect, I still sensed that people went away happy rather than disappointed. The crowd gave them a rousing send off. True they didn’t win, but perhaps it is true, that in the hearts of those who love Sagantosu, it was enough to make them seem like champions. As my souvenir scarf say, they were proud to say “We are Sagantosu”. I’m still not sure about that pink though.

* While doing the bare minimum of research for writing this, I was pleased to noticed that the main actors in a noh performance are called “the shite”, so if you were to ever meet a small time noh actor and said he put in a shite performance, he’d be quite pleased.

Anyone wondering about the musical crossing…
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=h5Vk4h...eature=related

And here’s the depressing one…
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ommgK1...eature=related

Behind the goal with the fans who are not afraid to wear turquoise and pink.

Sogantosu's late equaliser

...and very nearly the injury time winner.

One of the steamy "Hells" of Beppu.

The surreal Huis ten Bosch.

England (Non-League) - Windsor & Eton

2009-07-28T14:58:00.003+01:00

Even in defeat, the joy of playing is clear for all to see in the Burnham keeper.

Supporters of the smaller clubs in the game will tell you with pride that they support their local team, and will often sing about the fact whenever playing "the big boys", and their presumed travelling support from all over the country. The truth is, this often isn't exactly 100% accurate. I live, as the crow flies, about 12 miles from the Madejski Stadium, yet there must be at least a dozen other clubs physically closer to me. And this is just senior clubs, even if some of them get crowds where the players and officials rival spectators for numerical supremacy. The difference is that they are all non-league clubs. Now I'm all for non-league football. I follow the leagues quite keenly and have a fair degree of interest, but, and it's quite a crucial but, it's incredibly rare for me to feel tempted to venture out and actually go and watch.

Now and then, with Reading away somewhere or not playing, I get a slight urge to check a game out. Almost always something persuades me that there are better alternatives. Woking is a place I've fancied going a few times as they are still at a decent level, but they seem to be perpetually at home to Northwich Victoria, which isn't a fixture to get the pulse racing. A week before Christmas though, and the home match of Windsor & Eton just piqued my curiosity enough to make me feel like venturing the 10 miles or so to their game.

Windsor is known around the world and is a tourist hotspot - whether you want to pay a "bargain" £12 to see the castle (£40 million repair bills don't repay themselves, especially when one neglects to take out fire insurance), take a stroll around the historic cloisters of Eton College, or just want to walk around the historic old town and see the house where Nell Gwynne offered her ripened jaffas to the king, it's a fine place to go. Naturally enough, the football ground is absolutely nowhere near any of that stuff and is of rather less obvious appeal.

One big plus of local football is that you don't have spend 15 minutes finding somewhere to be overcharged to park, half a mile from the ground. I was at most 40 yards from the turnstile, but I headed just slightly further in the other direction first, as Windsor's place is very near a decent real old pub - the kind that achieves the look of tradition without at any stage look like it's trying to be traditional. It even had a proper English barmaid too - the kind that is friendly, slightly dappy, slightly hung over, slightly less than professional, and attractive enough to be pleasing to the eye, but you'd think you are still in with a chance after a couple of beers or four.

The pub, in some ways, was the driving force behind me venturing out. Reading were playing at Birmingham and it was live on SKY. Not having SKY at home, a double dose of football gave me the chance to make a day of it. The first half certainly went swimmingly, with a comfortable as you can hope for away win made all the sweeter by a Guinness or two and a fine large all-day breakfast. The pub, virtually empty when I arrived, slowly began to if not fill, certainly get less capacious, and many seemed to be off to the game later as well. One group, whose numbers swelled one by one as individuals in various states of post-inebriation unsteadiness arrived, talked enthusiastically about the advertising campaign they'd done for local radio advertising the club using ex-BBC commentator Barry Davies . Finding out later that he's Windsor's club president made it slightly less of a coup, but it was interesting, to me at least, that they spent all their time talking about fundraising rather than the actual football. And this from a group of young lads too, although I admit that I'm at an age when a few football club managers, let alone players, look young to me.

Fortified with three points and three pints, I made my way to the ground. One of the things that's often put me off non-league football is that the romantic idyllic charm is usually rather trampled by the brutal reality of it. You imagine leafy landscapes poking over quaint enclosures, and get faced with 8 foot high concrete fencing being overlooked by modern housing and industrial units, covered terraces that make you suspect a line of commuters in the town are puzzled as to why anyone would steal their bus stop, and the inescapable fact that unless you are one of those people who really enjoys the pitch side view, you really aren't going to be well catered for.

To mock though, it too easy. I felt in generous mood. It was certainly a welcoming place. I passed through the turnstile (singular) into a place where the club seemed genuinely pleased that you were there, where the people doing jobs seemed to want to do their jobs, and where a huge number of the fans seemed to know each other. The ground itself wasn't even that bad. Sure, the Castle doesn't need to worry about Stag Meadow becoming a rival attraction, but a curious small and pointy church and a backdrop of Windsor Great Park behind the far goal added something to the setting. It even had a view steps of terracing. True, not enough to get a sense of watching up on high from a kop end, but enough to get a sense of how watching such games could be improved for the non-league spectator if only glam rock and outrageous platform boots made a comeback in the fashion world. For those who can't wait for the second coming of Marc Bolan for a half-decent view, the main stand is a better option. It may be slightly reminiscent of something out of a Subbuteo set. It's seats may be faded, and a good proportion of them all but unusable due to the once transparent glass screen ends not having been cleaned since fish came off the ration, but it was enough to give an "angle" on the pitch to see the play develop, as well as nice view into Windsor Great Park during the less interesting moments.

Another thing that had attracted me to this game was a Reading connection. Not only are Windsor & Eton known as the Royalists, to Reading's "Royals", but the manager and one player are both Reading old boys - Keith Scott and Martin Williams respectively. Neither are names known much beyond those that saw them play regularly, and neither excelled at Reading either during a "difficult" (OK, rubbish) period for the club. Keith, according to wikipedia, was on the books of no less than 19 clubs during a 16 year career. He was signed by the late Tommy Burns for £250,000, and for all of Tommy's other talents, prudence wasn't among them, as Wycombe were considering giving him a free transfer at the time. Williams, known as "skittles" to Reading fans for his tendency to fall over like one without due reason, stuck around rather longer without ever becoming a permanent fixture in the side.

Facing Windsor today, having made an even shorter journey than myself, were Burnham, just 6 miles away across the boxy expanse of Slough's trading estate - an area most famous for featuring in the opening credits of the Ricky Gervais' "The Office". Less well known is that Thunderbirds was also made there, and it's easy to see the inspiration for Tracey Island, as it's exactly what Slough doesn't look like. Burnham itself is undoubtedly not as grim, but however pleasant Burnham village may indeed be, return there would be about the only joy the visitors would have on this day.

Knowing Keith Scott's playing style, with the finesse of a cement mixer and only slightly more mobility, it was quite a pleasant surprise to see that as a manager he had Windsor trying their best to knock the ball about on the floor and play a bit of football. I'd seen the odd game at this level, the British Gas League Division 1 West (Windsor are a mere 6 promotions from league trips to Old Trafford), before and the tactics then seemed to revolve around aiming the ball in the general direction of the opposition goal at any height that was deemed appropriate, so this was a welcome change. OK, it didn't always work, but full marks for effort. Even Martin Williams appeared to have shrugged off his banana-peel slapstick ways, and was operating down the wing, controlling the tempo of the game as an "experienced head".

The league table suggested the Windsor were one of the best teams in the league, but a relatively low goal total hinted that they don't make things easy for themselves, and that was to be the feature of the game. Windsor's keeper could have taken out an easel and painted a nice picture of the park or the planes from Heathrow flying overhead, so rarely was he called upon. Burnham's keeper was much busier, but nowhere near as busy as he ought to have been, such was Windsor's inability to fashion a decent chance when one seemed likely. Approaching half time it was still 0-0. A palpable hush has fallen over the ground as people contemplated what to do with the next 15 minutes of their lives during half-time. A few shuffled towards the tea bar. One or two other retrieved match programmes from coat pockets in readiness, but one or two Burnham defenders appeared to be mentally already seeking the warmth of the dressing room, allowing a Windsor player enough time and space in the box to have planted an allotment of vegetables unhindered if he'd wished. Instead, he took the option of calmly passing the ball across the keeper, who could only watch, expletive ready but unused on his lips, as it rolled slowly into the corner of the net.

Opting for the main stand view in the second half, avoiding the seats reserved for officials, those requiring a degree of x-ray vision to see the goals, and those seeming popular with the local pigeon community, I settled in readiness for the second half with a quick read of the programme, and noticed that the club's patron was Prince Phillip. The lack of the royal standard being flown from the corner flags suggested that he wasn't in attendance today, and it's kind of hard to imagine him popping down too often. That's a shame, as apart form offering the chance of the incongruous sight of a member of the monarchy queuing up at the tea bar for a coffee and chips, his stereotypically tact-free comments could be interesting to hear, particularly if an angry opposition manager overhears and realises who is giving stick back to mid-sentence. Instead all in the stand were treated to the combined wit and wisdom of a huddle of pre-pubescent boys at the back of the stand. Fair play to them for their enthusiasm for their club, and even the humility which had them singing "We're by far the greatest team The British Gas (league) has ever seen", but mostly their shouts from the back had me wanting to weep for the future of the country. Then again, if I'd popped a few miles up the road and listened to the 12 year olds at Eton, who one day probably will be running the country, then I'd probably be really worried.

Windsor had scored a minute from half time, and effectively killed the game with another goal a minute after. Martin Williams, who'd stayed uncharacteristically upright for 46 minutes so far, was challenged in the box and went down. The ref looked briefly towards his linesman, a sickly child of a man, thin and awkward, and with a complexion pale beyond even English winter standards, before deciding he'd give the penalty regardless. No messing about, the penalty was whacked low and hard into the corner, with the keeper, an ex-Windsor player, taking just as much of a wrong direction in goal as he looks to have in his career.

The goal took all the wind of of Burnham's sails, although they weren't exactly the Cutty Sark beforehand, and they all but settled for defeat from that point. They only had one more effort on goal, and that was right at the end when they were probably just trying to do something to keep warm. The only mystery was why Windsor didn't add any more goals. "Their forwards not being all that good" is the most obvious answer on this game's showing, but the Burnham keeper just seemed to benefit from all the practice he'd had throughout the game and made a smart stop or two.

So the game drew to a close, 2-0 to the hosts, with the Royalists watched by a princely, if not exactly royal, 201 people. I didn't come to Windsor as a true convert to the non-league game, and despite viewing the game slightly rosily after Reading's earlier result, I still wasn't sold on the idea that what the game lacks compared to the professional game, it makes up for in other areas, but to those who do go, full credit to them, it probably doesn't matter. At a normal, for want of a better word, football match most see the final whistle as their cue to leave, but many today, if not most, instead made their way to the sizeable clubhouse to extend their evening. Maybe at this level what goes on in the social club is just as much part of the club as what happens on the pitch, and the fans can really feel part of their club in a way that even supporters of the league's smaller clubs can't imagine, and that really is the appeal.

Martin Williams (No.8) in unaccustomed upright position, as the church steeple prepares for lift off.

A kick from the Burnham keeper poses a threat to flights leaving Heathrow.

Windsor seal the points. At least one person behind the goal looks excited.

Holland - Philips Stadion, Eindhoven

2009-07-28T14:52:00.003+01:00

UEFA Cup Final, Middlesbrough v Sevilla.

Like many fans around the country, Reading fans don’t have much of an opinion of Middlesbrough. As a club they are neither big enough to evoke admiration or envy, nor small enough to feel respect or empathy with. There’s no rivalry at all between the clubs, and few memorable games between the two. For Reading fans the one that they’d most readily associate with Middlesbrough would be the 3-2 win on the opening day of Reading’s first premiership season. For me though, the club trouble me with bad associations.

Part of it is down to the way the town of Middlesbrough itself partly nipped a short-lived fling with a Greek girl in the bud. One of a series of interviews she attended in England when planning to move over was in the town. An Athenian girl, she was very used to Athens’ warm café society and dramatic backdrop. I did try and warn her that the city wasn’t England’s most beautiful, and the interviewer did do his best to show her the sights, but being used to sitting outside a café and seeing the Acropolis, with the hills in the background, somehow the Riverside Stadium and the Transporter Bridge didn’t quite cut it. Although Leeds and other grim northern towns near where her sister lived were more to blame, I still bear a slight grudge towards the town over her decision to stay in Greece.

Part of it though, not Middlesbrough’s fault at all as it turns out, was that seeing a UEFA Cup match involving Middlesbrough in Eindhoven wasn’t quite the trip I was hoping for.

Early in 2006, I’d noticed quite by chance that UEFA were running a ballot for 6000 neutral tickets to that year’s UEFA Cup Final in Eindhoven. I applied and didn’t think too much of it, assuming it’d be hugely oversubscribed, but my luck was in, even if I did get bumped up to one of the rather eye-watering 110 euro tickets.

I arrived in Eindhoven in the early afternoon before the game, fresh from a day in Amsterdam, where I’d learned just how much of a racket a few hundred drunk Northerners could make as they leered their way round Amsterdam’s most notorious tourist attraction. I’m not going to claim any moral high-ground, having been around the same mind-boggling and body-oggling walk on a previous trip, but the canals I was looking forward to walking around were the stunningly beautiful and peaceful ones that were just a few hundred yards away on the other side of the city, but which felt like a few hundred miles away. I seen the area briefly before, when paying a visit to the Anne Frank House, where I realised the aesthetic appeal of the district perhaps outweighed my sense of history, as I looked out of the window of the small attic where Anne and seven other were forced to hide in fear of their lives, and couldn’t help but think that “this would be a great place to live”. The whole area is about the most pleasant morning stroll as can be imagined. I also got to see a multi-storey bike-rack, which isn’t high on any tourist’s agenda, but does make you appreciate that the Dutch love their bikes almost to a degree of fetishism.

Travel to Eindhoven was thankfully by train rather than bike, and after dumping my bag and hopelessly unneeded coat at my hotel (an act that would have unfortunate repercussions later), I made my way into the city.

Everyone was clearly there with the intention of enjoying themselves, and it was very relaxed with no hint of tension – either in the match nerves sense of any niggle between the two sets of supporters. Two fan camps had been set up in the centre. The one for Sevilla fans did look a slightly more rewarding part of town, but the Middlesbrough one had plenty of room, and plenty of people pouring beer as fast as people could order it, so everyone was happy. The DJ certainly knew how to get the party atmosphere going on a warm afternoon, and everyone was happy, with the consensus being that after their remarkable semi-final comeback against Steaua Bucharest (winning 4-3 on aggregate after being 0-3 down), Boro’s name was on the cup, with 2-1 being the scoreline of choice.

The lack of genuine “facilities” in the fan zone mean that many were having to dispose of the after effects of all that beer in the none too discreet confines of an alfresco urinal, looking like a 6 foot tall elongated orange-squeezer. Having seen these before, incongruously once in the middle of a footpath near the Amsterdam Arena for example, I got the impression that the Dutch clearly were rather less delicate than some about such matters.

I wanted to get to the game early, to savour the atmosphere and take a few pictures, and left with just over two hours before kick-off, for the 20 minute walk to the ground. Initially everything was great. I walked round the stadium, took a couple of pictures, then went to one side which, across a couple of lanes of traffic, backed onto the railway line. It would be a good spot to get a picture getting the whole stadium in. I was about to take a picture when I noticed a line of Sevilla fans getting rid of the remnants of the beers they’d drunk earlier in the bushes lining the fence between them and the railway line. Maybe it was psychosomatic, because although I had partaken in a few beers (of a low enough alcohol content to make them barely the legal side of the trades descriptions act, it has to be said) and it had been a longish walk from the fan zone, I was hardly crossing my legs in desperation, but something inside me just took the suggestion that it could be worthwhile doing similar while I was there. Let’s just say it was something of a mistake.

I heard a voice requesting I stop, and realised a policeman had chosen me at random from the rogue’s gallery by the fence. Apparently using the giant lemon squeezer things, virtually on public display to all is fine, but being discreet by a bush is right out. OK, the only thing for it was to be very cooperative and appeal to his reasonable side. He did seem a reasonable kind of guy at first, almost apologetic for putting me in this spot. After establishing I had a ticket for the match he then asked for some ID. Now I’m English, above a certain age. Nobody has picture ID, except of course when travelling abroad. Except of course my passport was in my coat pocket, back at the hotel. If I’d had my passport, he explained, I could have just paid a 40 euro fine and that would have been that. “Without it…”, and these are words you don’t want to hear at any time, particularly not relatively shortly before trying to see the most expensive game you’ve ever bought a ticket for, “…you are in a lot of trouble.”

With a whole police van to myself for the sort journey to Eindhoven police station, I did try and point out it would be a lot easier all round if we just drove to my hotel and got my passport, but somehow he seemed to regard this suggestion with an incredulous all-knowing laugh, as if it was some kind of elaborate escape plot and I’d dug tunnels called Tom, Dick & Harry underneath my hotel room’s minibar. Instead I found myself a few hundred yards away being photographed, parted with my shoes and personal effects, and invited to share a large cell with several Middlesbrough fans, all of whom were there for similar threats to the very fabric of society as my own.

I wasn’t too worried at first. There was still an hour and a half until kick-off. Just how slowly can the wheels of justice turn in modern day Holland? Very slow indeed was the answer, as it turned out. In fact it would require time-lapse photography to detect any turn at all. On what promised to be one of Eindhoven police station’s busiest nights of the year, they only seemed to have two women to take all the statements of everyone who’d been brought in, and they both dealt with each case together. As time ticked by, the beer I didn’t manage to dispose of by the fence started to make its presence felt. They allowed me out to use the toilet across the hall, but with a cream-covered slice of irony, considering why I was there in the first place, they insisted that I couldn’t shut the door so I’d be visible.

The cell itself wasn’t too bad. It was reminiscent of a large modern bus shelter, but enclosed on all four side, with the kind of seating that designed to be just uncomfortable enough to deter winos from spending the day and night there. One surprise addition, outside the cell and inaudible, if perfectly viewable, from within, was a plasma screen tv tuned in to show the match. While thoughtful, it actually became quite a torture seeing it there, knowing the stadium is just a few hundred yards away, and there’s nothing you can do about it. As each minute ticked away, you had to reassess you chances of making it there in time, until the crushing moment when you were now reassessing how much you’d miss. And further still, when it hits you that you may see none of the game at all.

That was how I felt at half time, and then suddenly my name was called and I was whisked off to a small interview room, where I attempted to give the world’s fastest confession. I did object at one point, to when my crime was described as “urinating in the street”, as if I was an cocking my leg like incontinent dog with a superiority complex, trying to mark every landmark as his territory, but I realised any argument would just delay things. With a sign of relief it was over – or so I thought. I may have given the statement, but I couldn’t go until they’d confirmed my identity. Put back in the cell and asked by an officer who seemed to be getting off on the fact that those were locked up were missing the game – perhaps the only chance in their lives they’d ever get to see Boro in a European final – I was told I’d need to wait for the British consulate to arrive before I could go. Missing the game was now taken for granted. I was worried now that I’d miss my flight home in the morning.

Luckily the guy must have either being wrong, or indeed just enjoying annoying the fans too much, as about five minutes later I was ushered out to pay my fine – now up to 100 euro – and re-united with my belongings. I was off to the match!

If there is one thing to commend getting to match late, it’s the almost poetic sound of a crowd you get from outside the stadium. It seems almost alive, as if the stadium is a living creature. All the cheers, roars and gasps of excitement take on an almost heightened quality that make you appreciate just what a special place a sports stadium is. Nowhere else sounds like that. It makes you want to be inside, and if I could only find a damn turnstile that was open, I soon would be.

I was in the top tier, but I bounded up the stairs like an excited child to find my seat, not wanting to miss another second, as I’d missed quite enough seconds already. Despite having a supposedly neutral ticket, the area I was in was to a man purely Middlesbrough. I knew Boro were a goal down, but I couldn’t tell what sort of game it was from the soundless pictures I’d seen. The sea of glum faces, such a contrast from the joy of a few hours earlier, told me all I needed to know about how well Middlesbrough had played so far. The Sevilla fans, on the other hand, were loud and clearly confident. Getting in with little over 25 minutes left, my hope was for extra time. I’d been similarly late for a match before, once arriving at Swansea with half an hour to go due to getting very stuck in traffic, and the final whistle in such a case feels hugely unsatisfying, but at least both teams had had the decency to wait until we turned up before scoring both of the goals that evening. The confidence of the Sevilla fans, and the fact the Middlesbrough were attacking with a frequency that made ice ages seem common, didn’t leave me with too much hope I’d get my wish.

The hope lasted barely a quarter of an hour. Even with the limited football I’d seen, it was clear that Sevilla were the far better team on the night, and with Schwarzer unable to parry a shot to safety, Vicenzo Maresca turned in the rebound to all but end the game as a contest with 12 minutes to go. The joy pouring down from the Sevilla stands was a stark contrast to the sullen end I was in. If there were any lingering doubts or hope, they were comprehensively extinguished five minutes later, when a poorly hit shot, again from Maresca, somehow found its way into the bottom corner. Caught pushing forward, Middlesbrough were now a boxer flat out on the canvas, completely beaten. You felt it should have been stopped as a contest, and despite a few towels clearly being thrown in by the Boro players who no longer wanted to be out there, Sevilla kept going, with Kanoute bagging a fourth which felt like an insult. A few tempers cracked in the Boro end – not violently by any means – although the one or two Sevilla fans who celebrated by running through the walkway directly in front of the Middlesbrough fans might have found little sympathy in some quarters if one or two had decided to let them know how classless such a gesture was. There was nothing like that though. The fans were just too crushed, and I realised that despite how bad my evening had gone, I was probably about the most cheerful Englishman in the place.

Not knowing the number for the Samaritans in Holland, I felt the only thing for it was to try and get the feel of the Sevilla celebrations. They did look a very worthy champion, after all, and despite being stage-managed, the celebrations did manage to avoid the cheesiness they can sometimes seem, and had a good authentic feel. It also allowed me to take in the stadium a bit more. In other circumstances it would probably have ranked as one of my favourites, looking far larger than the 36,000 it holds, yet with everyone close enough for it to feel intimate. The steep stands almost give the impression that the crowd is leaning over the pitch, and the deep guttural roar of encouragement which greeted every Sevilla attack, poured down the stands like dry ice. A real cauldron of a ground, and despite my deep empathy with those who surrounded me, I did selfish enjoy the sound of the late goals crashing in – and not least the fact that I was actually there to see them. At 37 euro per goal, and about 4 euro per minute, I really needed to get my money’s worth.

The Middlesbrough Fan Zone

Outside the stadium, shortly before it all went a bit wrong.

A lesson in celebration and annoying the cleaners.

Sevilla fans fly the flag

What it was all about

The other side of Amsterdam

Now where did I park my bike again?

Czech Republic - Slavia (again), Ceske Budejovice & Viktoria Zizkov.

2009-07-28T14:43:00.002+01:00

Midfield action at Ceske Budejovice

Things don’t always quite go to plan. Most people use trips abroad for a bit of rest & relaxation, but when I was thinking “what am I doing here?” on my first full day of this trip to the Czech Republic, it wasn’t a question of spiritual awareness, but a reflection of walking back empty handed from a fruitless trip through one of the less enticing parts of a small provincial town in the pouring rain.

A football themed long weekend in Prague had offered the opportunity of three matches, the second of which was due to have been watching my Czech favourites, Bohemians, in Mlada Boleslav. The home side had only offered Bohemians 330 tickets, for sale to season tickets holders only if I guessed right from the ticket details in Czech on the Bohemians web page. My plan was to go up to Mlada Boleslav, buy a ticket (even if in the home ends), before nipping off to another town nearby that I’d planned to see, before dashing back for Slavia v Zlin in the evening. It wasn’t the ideal way to spend the first full day, but the weather forecast had been poor for the morning so it wouldn’t be total waste.

My plans unravelled as soon as I reached the station. I had allowed an hour to walk the 800 yards or so from the station to the stadium, get a ticket, and come back. There seemed no problem with that. Unfortunately there was. Although I had looked at a map of the town and noted quite rightly that the stadium is just up the road from the station, when I peered out down the road from the station, rather than the road to my right that I expected, there was just a dead end leading to some farm buildings. I had read the map quite correctly, but not closely enough to realise the station I was currently in wasn’t the one on the map. That was Mlada Bolestav Mesto (town centre), whereas the station I was in, Mlada Boleslav Hlavni Nadrazi (main station), was in the middle of nowhere, as confirmed by the woman in the station’s ticket office. At least she gave me a map of the town, carefully ripped out the yellow pages (or Gold Pages, as they are in the Czech Republic), in case I ever made it to the centre. While trains between the two stations weren’t quite every third Tuesday in infrequency, they didn’t exactly rival the Tokyo Metro at rush hour either, and the next was over 45 minutes after I arrived.

The second problem was the rain. The forecast had said rain, but being English I’m used to a spot of rain so I can put up with it. Unfortunately this wasn’t a little bit of rain, though. It was the sort that makes you consider building an ark. Indeed, when I eventually found the train I needed to board, its isolation did make me wonder if I should start gathering animals two-by-two, even if its size, roughly akin to a slightly well proportioned minibus, would have required a few selective extinctions.

The train shouldn’t have been difficult to find. It was, after all, the only train in the entire station and completely visible, particularly as despite the station boasting a good half a dozen or so tracks, it only had one platform. I was used to larger stations, one’s that call themselves main stations in particular, having departures boards, stating train times and the platform the train leaves from. After hunting in vain for such information, I noticed that the isolated stubby carriage about four tracks away had a small wooden board beside it on the floor announcing its destination. Walking across railway lines anywhere else would have made me a bit nervous, but such was the state of neglect around the place that it made you feel no trains had passed through in the last 30 years, and Czech trains are so slow anyway that it’d be easy to walk away from danger. Travelling on them makes you suspect they are powered by clockwork, and the driver spends the entire journey with his feet up reading the newspaper.

An incredibly wet and joyless walk from Mesto station found me outside Mlada Boleslav’s stadium, only there didn’t appear to be anywhere open. No ticket booths, no reception, nothing. A deeply unsatisfying walk around the perimeter yielded no results, but I spotted some people milling about around an office building of the club that had been locked earlier. I hoped the people there, probably players by the look of them, would understand my requests for a ticket. They didn’t, or at least didn’t care if they did. They did, however, know how to mime actions for instructing me to piss of out of the area, which didn’t help me sodden mood. I had to settle for taking a few pictures of the small ground, which was about as exciting as it sounds.

By the evening the rain had gone, and fortified with a meal and a couple of beers, I was in better spirits as I made my way up to the Strahov to watch Slavia for the second time. It hadn’t been a great experience previously. There’d been a very poor game to watch, a creaking 1-0 home win, in front of 2,500 souls lost in the ground that held eight times that number.

I went for the top seats in the main stand, even if finding out where exactly those seats were was none too easy with no ground plan outside. Paying just 150Kc (about £3.75) was very welcome. In an era when in cost per minute, premiership football is more costly than a premium rate phone line, with it being debateable which is more of a rip-off, paying prices similar to when I first starting going over 20 years ago was good indeed. Oh for the days when I wondered if I’d stop going if it ever started to cost £5 to get in.

The crowd was a good 50% higher than last time, and even though that still only amounts to around 3800, it felt considerably less empty. Reading the programme, however, or at least the bits I could read, I noticed that the three prior Slavia home games in the league accounted for a meagre three goals in total, and wondered if this match v Zlin might be similar to the game I saw last time. I hoped not.

After two minutes my fears were somewhat allayed. A nice exchange of passes around the box – a feature of Czech football that would impress me throughout the whole weekend - put a Slavia player through, and he finished with ease. At least it wouldn’t finish 0-0. Four minutes later I knew it wouldn’t finish 1-0 either, as another through ball resulted in a clinically finished one-on-one. On twelve minutes it was 3-0, with a poorly placed goalkeeper (although some might suggest just being behind the Zlin defence was poor positioning on this night) being well beaten at his near post. I’m not sure what the Czech for “You might as well go home” is, but it could have been such at the Zlin fans, who barely stretched to double figures in the away end, as a fourth went in just five minutes later, just the 17th minute – this time a weak punched clearance being headed back in from the edge of the area. There was a bit of respite, including a goal being disallowed possibly though pity as well as offside, before the pick of the bunch, just before half time – with everyone waiting for a cross, the ball was just chipped with pace to drop in at the far post.

Slavia were simply putting on an exhibition. 5-0 at half time and it could have been more, and was likely to be several more by the end of the game. Now I have a thing about seeing a team score seven goals. I’ve been to about 1000 games or so, and only seen more than six once (not counting a friendly in Holland, where Reading whacked 10 past a collection of players seemingly assembled from passers-by, where even Stuart Gray was able to shake off his granite-like immobility to collect four goals). I’d seen a team score six many times, but other than one hopeless 8-0 mismatch between Barcelona and a Matador Puchov of Slovakia, I’d never seen seven. It looked nigh on certain this evening, and I was starting to count my chickens when a cross was neatly tucked away for a 6th just five minutes into the second term. Zlin were being prised apart and exposed like a gynaecologist’s patient and that elusive seventh was surely a case of when, not if.

Maddeningly, the Slavia players and management had other ideas. Fair enough, with a champions league tie coming up, the better players would be subbed to rest them, but the rest, rather than going for the throat, went about performing party-pieces for what would be a disappointing party. The chances dried up, even if a Zlin defender did his best to enliven things but chipping his keeper, before amazingly getting back to clear from right under his own crossbar. A seventh goal eventually did come, but amazing it came from Zlin. A rare corner was flicked in, sending about 3 of the Zlin fans wild for a second of two. But with time running of, those Slavia players just showed what little teases they been, and another Slavia corner was headed in at the near post to complete the rout with just a minute left to play.

I was happy, and remained happy on the bus back to the metro station, even if I yet again demonstrated my ability to be a kind of magnet to drunken football fans who seemingly wish to sing loudly into my ear. We established quickly that I spoke no Czech, just as easily as I established he was a single man of no fixed opportunity, who no doubt possessed a nickname related to his drinking prowess. Saying that, he wasn’t the only one to reduce Praha to one syllable in a beery tribute to the might of “Slavia Praaarrr”.

With a trip to Mlada Boleslav being discounted as a possibility, what with it being too much of a risk to go without a ticket to such a tiny ground, and also having no desire to contribute in any way to the wages of the Mlada Boleslav players I’d met earlier, I chose to travel down to the town of Ceske Budejovice in the deep south of the country, and see the home team take on SAID Most. Their ground there wasn’t that much bigger, but with the two clubs occupying the bottom two places in the division, I didn’t anticipate getting in being much of a problem.

Ceske Budejovice isn’t an amazing town, but it’s pleasant enough. For starters you arrive by bus at a bus station which sits on top of a brand new shopping mall, which is something of a shock compared to other Czech bus stations, which look like they should smell of turds and rust. I’m convinced Prague’s Holesovice station, pronounced “holleyshevitza” is an incorrect spelling of “shitholevitza”, for example, so grim and neglected does it look.

Nobody visits for the bus station though, it has to be said. In fact most don’t visit at all, and just move on to the almost absurdly picturesque Cesky Krumlov down the road, but having already been there, I made for the centre. Even if there’s not a huge amount in the rest of the town, Ceske Budejovice’s main square is a gem, as well as being the biggest in the Czech Republic, and is also overlooked by a high medieval tower, the likes of which I always feel compelled to climb.

It perhaps not best to visit Ceske Budejovice on a Sunday though. While it may be free of crowds, none of the restaurants around the square seemed to be supplying what I’ve previously assumed to be the most basic pre-requisite of a restaurant – namely food. Eventually I did find one, in a hotel on the square, and as fine and authentically Bohemian as any meal from a hotel restaurant could ever be, it did put me back on my schedule for the day. Not that that was exactly a serious blow though. OK, I had to forego a visit to the small torture museum en route to the stadium, but I doubt it’ll be the main regret of my life when I’m on my death bed.

I didn’t expect a big crowd for this match, but it did strike me as odd that as I walked to the stadium, there didn’t seem to be anyone else doing likewise. I had a horrible feeling that this game might have been re-arranged at very short notice too, something of a feature of Czech football that makes arranging football weekends a tad problematic, and as I didn’t have a ticket back to Prague until over 3 hours later, it would not have made my day. I’ve seldom been so pleased to see a programme seller as I was that day – the game was indeed on, even if nobody else seemed to be going.

Armed with a main stand ticket (a mere 120Kc) I tried to purchase my usual souvenir scarf from the club shop, only to be thwarted as they’d sold out. That was a bit of a surprise, as absolutely nobody, apart from a couple of kids, seemed to be wearing one. Maybe the print run was very limited. The lack of popularity might have been due to the colour. It seems that until recently Ceske Budejovice played in black and white. Certainly the badge was that colour (even if the stadium is blue), but there appears to have been a bit of “re-branding” along the line somewhere, and the club colours can perhaps best be described as “dark pink” (with the badge now dark pink and black), and for some curious reason this didn’t seem to have been universally accepted by the terrace regulars. A dark pink and black scarf would have been “interesting” to say the least, although I’d have to remember to take it off before I went back to Prague, lest I got beaten up by thugs thinking I’d just come back from a gay pride march.

Three sides of the stadium were clearly new, and looking very much like the smart but basic one-tier tier stands at Mlada Boleslav, albeit about twice the size. They even had the same blue vaulted roofs over the stands and blue seats. I guess they don’t do them in dark pink. One end was much thinner than the others, with only five rows of seats, behind which was a sort of cheap imitation gothic tower of no apparent purpose. I was hoping to see a fan watching for free out of one of the windows, but nobody did.

The game itself would have to go a long way to follow on for the Slavia one, but for a while it looked like it might. Again, some very slick passing and movement around the area created a number of early openings, but failings in front of goal, more comical than clinical, were reminders that these were the division’s bottom two. Slowly but surely the passes got a little longer and a little less considered, until at times it resembled a stereotypical match from the English lower divisions, but with less idea of actually how to play a longer game. Luckily, as the game seemed to be drawing to its inevitable goalless conclusion, both sides were struck by an invigorating bout of panic and desperation, as if they’d been informed there were snipers on the roof ready to take action if it ended 0-0. Just as I was considering ducking out a shade early to make sure I caught that 7.30 bus, with the walk back to the station looking like being at least 10 minutes longer than the 15 I’d imagined, a messy cross dropped for a Ceske Budejovice player to turn in the box and scuff a shot past the keeper and just inside the post for an 87th minute winner.

In truth it was still an awful game, but the icing of the goal made it a much more palatable cake, and the two and a half hour bus journey home seemed a lot less long than it could have done. But then again I wasn’t one of the many unlucky ones who had to stand for the whole trip, and at least there was an “in-drive” movie. OK, it was in Czech, and I couldn’t see any of it because the aisle was chock full of people, but it did at least sound interesting.

My last game of the three was the following evening in Zizkov, the slightly ragged around the edges district of Prague behind the main railway station. The ground is overlooked, or at least appears to be before you try walking there up the hill, by the Zizkov Tower. The sleek grey three-legged 700 foot tall television transmitter does look somewhat out of place in the heart of this residential district, and the decision, several years after it was built, to soften the imagine of it by liberally adorning the legs of the tower with models of giant climbing babies, is perhaps one of the more unusual decisions in the world of city planning.

I’d first seen Zizkov’s stadium on a non-matchday six years previously. Then it had no floodlights and only three sides, and two of those had terracing which could have been harvested, so copious was the foliage growing through the cracks in the concrete. Now it at least had four sides, and was, as are all Czech top division grounds, all-seated. Despite the parkland behind the main stand, the ground itself still manages to find itself shoe-horned in among the surrounding buildings as if needing to huddle up against them for warmth on the colder evenings. It certainly gave the ground a certain character that modern stadiums can seldom match, even if in a different setting the actual structure of it wouldn’t be anything to write home about. The new stand at the end added twelve rows of red seats that would have offered possibly the best view of any end in Europe, overlooking Prague’s old town against a setting sun, if only there wasn’t a damn great grey/brown office block in the way.

Those seats were in the open though, and as I’d purchased my ticket in advance on one of the earlier rainy days I’d opted for the cover of the “Hlavni Tribuna” or main stand (although I’d imagine that the “Hlavni Tribuna” at Mlada Boleslav is actually about 2 miles down the road from the pitch), a bargain 100Kc, or £2.50. The club official on duty, working out of a battered portakabin at the corner of the ground, can’t be used to people asking for tickets three days in advance, as he initially assumed I was after a tram ticket, and was directing me to the nearest tobacconists.

This game, between Viktoria Zizkov and Banik Ostrava, was thankfully better than the Ceske Budejovice match, but wasn’t close to the Slavia one. There were still plenty of nice touches around the box, but in a curious mix of genius and incompetence, they weren’t coming off. A Zizkov winger with white boots, nearly always the sign of a player who’ll flatter to deceive, clearly thought himself to be the Czech Cristiano Ronaldo, but while his footwork could be impressive, the direction of his crosses often implied that it wasn’t white boots he needed so much as a white stick. It was interesting, but not quite exciting. Indeed, for the first half the most entertaining thing was the Banik Ostrava fans themselves, who made far more noise, without so much as a hint of roof, than I’ve ever heard 400 or so fans make.

The second half kicked off with it being 6.15, with the gloom of dusk descending. By 6.30 it was becoming apparent that they really out to have turned on the floodlights by now. As neither the scoreboard, nor any of the lights in the stand appeared to be functioning either, I did wonder if someone had forgotten to put a few crowns in the meter. I hadn’t seen football played in such darkness since evening games of my youth, and I was just about expecting the players to be called in by their mothers when one by one, the bulbs in the floodlights flickered into life. At about the same time the scoreboard came back to life, with the time clearly being bumped along manually until the time caught up.

The game improved a bit after Banik Ostrava took the lead – sidefooting a cross in, which seemed to take everyone by surprise. Viktoria Zizkov doubled their efforts and things got a bit heated. This prompted an odd sight after a Zizkov foul lead to the Ostrava physio coming on. Usually a club physio wears a track suit or similar, like a subliminal message that he’s part of the team. The Banik Ostrava physio (I assume that was his job) was more in keeping with the uncompromising image of their supporters, rushing on in jeans and an eastern cut leather jacket, and you felt somewhere an all-night taxi was missing its driver.

Right at the death the game was sealed for the away side, when a cross was met with a shot which took a horrible deflection past a stranded keeper. Banik Ostrava probably deserved it. Their fans certainly did, but with my usual nominal support for the home side it was ever so slightly disappointing. 2-0 it finished. There would be no Viktoria for Zizkov tonight.

The wet and miserable Mlada Boleslav

The Zlin keeper wouldn’t be alone for long

About as focussed as the Zlin defence, a shot of Slavia making it 3-0.

The Dark Pinks sneak an 87th minute winner.

The Zizkov Tower, with babies

Viktoria Zizkov’s main stand, and view-ruining tower block.

A rare good Zizkov cross

Any ideas what this means? Answer on a postcard to “Banik Ostrava fans competion…”

Ostrava’s fans bask in the glow of victory.

And finally, an obligatory “oh, isn’t Prague lovely?” shot.

Spain - Real Madrid

2009-07-28T14:40:00.002+01:00

The Bernabeu. Looks even better at night, unless you have the crappy camera I had at the time.

Several pints of beer, hardwood flooring and an extremely crusty ham roll aren’t ideal bedfellows when you wake up the following morning and realise your late night snack turned your hotel room’s floor into an almost psychedelic arrangement of crusty flaky patterns that seemed unnoticeable when watching the late night tv. Ham is very big in Madrid, especially around the Puerta del Sol, where the “Palace of Ham” and the “Museum of Ham” vie for trade. Slightly more downmarket are the late night purveyors of nearly stale ham rolls, providing a beer-goggles tempting snack for the English, but are merely a starter for the Spanish. At least I was drunk. I’ve no idea what the Spaniard’s excuse for eating them was. But at least I was less drunk than an Irishman I’d got chatting to a few hours earlier in a pub down the road. He had the most impenetrable Irish accent I’ve ever heard, not helped by him adding “…am I roight?” to every sentence he uttered. What I did manage to get out of him was that he wasn’t even meant to be in Madrid. He was meant to be in Cheltenham for the horse-racing instead, but his mates, for a laugh, got him drunk and bought him a one-way ticket to Madrid instead. Other than that the pub was a great, if not exactly authentic introduction to Spain’s capital city, even if the thick iron doors of the toilet cubicle made you think somewhere there was a ship missing part of its hull.

My first stop the following day, visiting a less Irish part of the city, was a visit to the Bernabeu, just down the road from two remarkably leaning office building, which must be a vertigo sufferer’s nightmare to work in. From the outside the Bernabeu isn’t the most beautiful of stadiums, with its “Hey, it’s the 70s and we’ve got concrete…and lots of it” look, but it’s what’s inside that’s important. The three tiers of seats just shriek “look at me, I’m huge!”, but it’s the trophy room, or rooms to be exact, that hits you the most. Even the most bitter of cynics would find it hard to be impressed by the European cup room, where the multitude of European cups won by the club surround you, just when you think you’d otherwise been numbed into trophy apathy by the overbearing collection leading up to that point. Some of the other trophies were bizarre. One was a metre tall and designed to look like a castle tower, making it look like the world’s largest chess set was missing a rook.

Most importantly though, I was able to get a ticket for the match the following night. With Spanish clubs then (an now it still seems) refusing to get caught up the passing fad of that new-fangled interweb thingy, buying a ticket in advance wasn’t possible. I just guessed that a Champions League group match v Sparta Prague wouldn’t be sold out. Having gone to Madrid in February, I hadn’t exactly gone for the weather – just as well as the weather was like an English…errr…well “summer” this year, and a soggy few days in Madrid with no football at all wasn’t what I had planned.

For the fullest, which some might also read as “saddest” football experience I also trekked out to see the city’s two other central clubs. Rayo Vallecano was the easiest to get to, with a metro stop right outside. Getting in was less easy. Not being able to just stroll in, which is usually the case at most continental European ground, I asked a security guard if I could dash in. He spoke no English, but through the power of mime, and that what I’d always thought was an almost uniquely English habit of speaking louder in the belief that extra volume would make the other person understand, he indicated that I should go under something called the “campo”, and pointed round the side.

Following round the side I came across a group looking like a group of visitors with a guide. The guide also spoke no English, but some of his group translated my request. He was then equally insistent on where I should go in, but pointed me back in the direction of the first guard. Not wishing to be the ball in a game of Spanish ping-pong, I gave up a looked for another way in. Sadly there wasn’t one. What I did find was a wall behind one end which, if you stood on it, would offer a decent view of the ground. Or at least it would do if the club hadn’t decided to put up some advertising hoardings, no doubt for that very same reason. There come times in your life when you consider that the benefits of your actions probably aren’t worth the risk. My decision to climb that wall, and lean out over the edge, with a long drop to highly likely death on the other side if I slipped, just to get a couple of photos of the ground, probably wasn’t wise. Mind you, what I saw was a decent little ground, with two smart two-tier stands down either side, and two slim end – in fact the near end was so thin as to have to room at all for spectators. I liked the ground though, kind of quirky. If I lived in Madrid, Rayo Vallecano would be my team.

A couple of miles or so west lies the home of Atletico Madrid. Their ground is located in one of those areas which seem so typical of southern Europe, with a lot of building work clearly supposed to be happening, but nobody around actually doing any of it, as if they’ve been on a siesta since about 1975. The short cut to the ground was through a park. I say “park” as that’s clearly what is was supposed to be, but if parks are meant to be a city’s lungs, these were the blackened lungs of an 80-a-day man. I think the ambience was set early on when you realised that the numerous tramps who’d chosen the area as the class abode of choice, had also seemingly decided to take the liberating step of deciding the stairs leading down would make an excellent al fresco public convenience. To be fair, they did seem to have made some kind of effort to keep it all to the side of the steps, but it did feel like I was walking between a turd-based guard of honour as I entered the park. The park itself appeared to have a “minimalistic” feel to the more typical things you expect to find in a park. Concrete and baked-hard mud were more of a theme than grass and trees. There was a kiddies play area, where a concrete set of steps leading nowhere stood in isolation. Whether they were built, or were an undemolished part of a house was less obvious, but anyone who regards that as a child’s play thing must really hate children.

From that, that stadium could hardly fail to be an improvement. It’d even had curtain-wall glass all round the outside, which looked a lot better than exposed concrete, even if it did have a certain 80s feel to it that made you expect a yuppie with a walkie-talkie sized mobile phone to pop out and jump into Golf GTi at any second. Atletico’s stadium is impressive. It lacks the grandeur of the Bernabeu, but with two large tiers of red and white striped seats, it has a big but unpretentious look about it, and it looks like the one that’d have the much better atmosphere on matchday.

I arrived for the match at the Bernabeu far too early. It didn’t seem far too early, as there were loads of other people around the stadium. What I didn’t realise is that they weren’t going in. And they weren’t going in because the inside of the Bernabeu is more barren that an 80 year old woman’s ovaries, and probably less appealing. Now I wouldn’t claim that concourses at English grounds are typically charming places, not unless you enjoy the feeling of being in a bus station, but for the first half an hour at least of my time there, there was absolutely nothing for sale anywhere. I don’t usually go to a ground with refreshment being a main priority, but on the whole I’d rather there be the opportunity should I feel the need. Eventually the snack bars did open, but it was a big hello to my old friend Mr Crusty/Stale ham roll or crisps. It filled you up, in perhaps the same way that eating gravel would, but could hardly be termed something you’d seek out out of choice.

Instead I made my way to my excellent seat, directly behind goal in the middle tier (a bargain 7.50 euros) and waited for the crowd to arrive. As kick-off approached I realised that the crowd weren’t go to arrive, at least not in any great numbers, but there was just about enough to get that buzz of anticipation. A shame, as the Bernabeu is one of those venues that really comes to life under floodlights, with the stands bringing 78,000 people (or about 30,000 tonight) close up to the players. The fact that the main stand is completely open somehow makes the place more impressive than if it was fully symmetrical and enclosed, although it has to be said the arrangement of seats in that stand is something of a mess.

The game itself wasn’t a high-octane affair. Real were already through, and Sparta were already out. Sparta’s ambition looked to be to avoid defeat, while Real Madrid knocked the ball about in a lazy languid style that seemed designed to convince the fans that they really could score if they put their mind to it, but had better things to do.

Below me a chant leader tried his best to implore the fans around him to voice with the aid of his loud-hailer, but he was roundly ignored as the fans seemed to do their best to appear as cool and unruffled as the players, who probed for openings like a bored child prodding a dead fly with a pencil.

For an hour it looked like Sparta’s desire for a morale and bank balance improving point might have come to fruition, but like the “crack” East European teams of comic-book legend, Real Madrid suddenly adopted their “special tactic” and burst into life for 15 glorious minutes. As if they were just saving all their energy for this one little spell, they carved Sparta up like an ice-sculpture, making ball, team, and opposition all dance to their tune. Three goals followed, and it ought to have been more, with the near misses greeted by the Spanish “ooooooshhhh”, which doesn’t seem to exist in other countries.

And as suddenly as the action started, it ceased, as if to tell the crowd the show was over and there’d be no encore, so you could leave now if you wanted. After all, with the game kicking off at 8.45pm, it was getting towards 11 O’Clock – and in Spain that’s about time to start getting ready to go out. It might have been a long night for the Sparta defence, but for the rest here in the city, it’d only just begun.

Rayo Vallecano – small can be beautiful, but perhaps not worth risking death to see

Atletico Madrid, thankfully it’s not only the tramps providing the local colour.

Germany - Hamburg

2009-07-28T14:35:00.003+01:00

Hamburg’s AOL Arena. Targets clearly at the back of each goal.

Jean-Paul Sartre said hell was being locked forever in a room with your friends. Of course if they snore then hell can be reached must faster. A friend of mine, who I’ve roomed with on a few weekend trips out of cheapness, can do such a fantastic impression of an outboard motor with his nasal passages that I’d applaud if not trying to sleep.

I’m not even sure how long I’ve known him. Certainly over 20 years, but the first time I can recall meeting him was when we both made a dash past the police cordon after a match at Wolverhampton to catch a soon-to-depart train on the opening day of the 1987/8 season. I’d not travelled up with him, nor stood near him at the match, nor did I even know his name (just as it was with 95% of the people I knew from away games) but I’d chatter to him a number of times before and from the next match we met up, and along with another guy, travelled home and away every Saturday for the best part of the next 10 years. I still sit with them both, and indeed, the three of us were the first people ever to buy tickets for the Madejski Stadium’s North Stand, which is our crap claim to fame.

So we got on pretty well, but it was to be a good dozen years, before our first ever trip abroad for a proper match, to see Ajax in Amsterdam, before that friendship was severely tested by his deathly rasp. At least the hotel had been able to provide at short notice an extra bed after telling us that only “doubles” were left. I suspect Amsterdam hoteliers had heard of my previous trip to the city, where I’d booked into a hotel through a tour operator without realising it was listed in the Rough Guide’s “gay hotels” section.

Having descended several levels into Dante’s inferno with other sleep-deprived football trips, not least when his equally sonorous brother joined one trip, it was a great relief to book a trip to Hamburg with separate rooms. It wasn’t just about his snoring. There was another reason – he was bringing his girlfriend. Now I’ve no idea if she snored or not, but as interesting as the extra company was on the trip, they should have got the gravel-voiced voice-over guy from the start of Hart-to-Hart to introduce them, as when they got together, “it was moiyder”.

To explain, he’s no shrinking violet. He’s the kind of guy who calls a spade a spade, or to quote the joke about the nuns and the workmen, he calls it a f***ing shovel. And she is as equally delicate having been in the army. She’d apparently been on at him for a while to take her away. I’m sure she imaged Paris, Rome, Venice. A football match in Hamburg probably wasn’t quite what he had in mind, although compared to going to a football match in Glasgow on her birthday, which also happened, it was practically Mills & Boone.

Somehow he persuaded her, despite her total lack of interest in football, that both trips would be worthwhile, and as we took the bus into Hamburg past the pleasant Binnenalster lake, all looked good. True, her efforts at getting romantic were rebuffed like a 10 year old trying to avoid being kissed by his granny at Christmas, but the £40 return flights I’d found were rather early in the morning and I’m not sure I’d have been totally in the mood either.

The plan was simple enough – to have a quick walk round the centre, pop into a bar for a meal, then dash off to the match at about 2pm – 1.5 hours before kick off. Hamburg isn’t perhaps the ideal city for sightseeing. Sure, the town hall is big, picturesque and impressive, and almost certainly the most photographed building in Hamburg, but that’s mainly because much of the rest of the city centre suffered from looking like it had been built (after total WWII annihilation) by English architects, giving it that same romantic charm and character that makes English cities such unique and joyful places to visit. As such, photographic opportunities, in the centre at least, were at a premium.

As we were making our way to the stadium from the neighbouring U-bahn stop, the lack of distraction wasn’t too much of a problem. We had an hour and 20 minutes to get there. No problem. Of course, it didn’t turn out that way. A route map in the station, which was being rebuilt and was worryingly full of smoke, implied a direct service, an S21, went direct to the stadium from this stop. We waited about 10 minutes and one which would have involved changing came in, so we decided to wait for the next one, as did some Hamburg fans. They must know what they are doing we thought. The next train was going the wrong way. The one after was like the first – going the right way, but not direct. The Hamburg fans asked a station worker something, presumably about trains rather than asking him if it was true that if he worked there he got the uniform to take home at weekends, and didn’t get on this one either, so nor did we. The next train was again in the wrong direction.

Now this wasn’t good, what had looked a quite reasonable hour and twenty had shrunk to about 40 minutes, with the next train nearly 10 minutes away. It required a change, but even a direct one might not have got us there if it took another 15-20 minutes to arrive. It took about that long to get to the station to change. Piling out, we saw two trains. The clueless Hamburg fans we’d trusted earlier got on one, so we looked towards the other. The train said it was going to the stadium. Both trains were about to depart. The platform sign said something else though. We took the risk that the train’s info was probably right and the sign wrong and jumped aboard knowing we had no option of waiting, and seconds after boarding the doors slammed shut like a portcullis, pulling up the drawbridge on those outside still wanting to get to the match.

It was the right train, god knows where those Hamburg fans on the other one ended up, and we arrived at the stadium stop with just over 10 minutes to spare. Joyfully, free buses had been laid on, for even by German standards, Hamburg’s stadium stop was stretching the word ‘near’ to its limits, and was one that would require walking at Olympic pace to cover in 10 minutes.

If only they’d had bus lanes near the stadium, as we hit traffic at a distance just too far to tempt you to get out and run for it instead. As it was we arrived right outside the stadium 5 minutes after kick off. I could live with that. Missing 5 minutes is hardly the end of the world. I wasn’t fussed, and I remained not being fussed right up until the moment a few seconds later when the bus shook from the roar of 55,000 people greeting a goal just dozen of metres, and few feet of obstinately and inconsiderately opaque concrete, to my left.

Now it’s one of the paradoxes of football. A goal is a great thing. It makes you cheer. It’s the thing you crave. There’s nothing you want more than for your team to score. Unless that is, you hear the goal rather than see it. Missing a goal is like receiving a “we called while you were out” message from the ex-catholic high-school girls nymphomaniac society. The misery was etched into the fans faces, and I’m not sure if us being neutral made it any better.

Hamburg’s AOL Arena is about as good as new grounds get. Somehow feeling much taller than it looks in pictures, it has that real feel of enclosure that the best grounds have, with the crowd looming over the players, part of the action rather than just a backdrop. Better still was a large terrace at one end, packed full and making a heck of a racket. We took our seats opposite, on the vertigo-inducingly steep seats of the middle tier, and joked about how “funny” it would be if the goal we’d heard turned out to be the only goal of the game.

Hamburg were near the top at the time, but it became clear pretty quickly this was not a slick table-topping display. In fact it was clear on this day, first five minutes apart, Hamburg’s forwards had no idea what to do with the ball. And this despite the goal nets sporting the Hamburg club badge like a target, right in the middle. The suspicion that we would not only not see a goal all afternoon (the Mainz forwards didn’t even look like they were trying to score, having all the ambition of a 38 year old Burger King employee), but be taunted by hearing one, grew by the minute.

Not that it wasn’t an enjoyable game. If nothing else the atmosphere was great, prodded along at regular intervals by live score updates from other games in the Bundesliga on the scoreboard. News that rivals Werder Bremen were losing really fired up the crowd. Of course it did also have the impact, on those who had missed the only goal, of hammering home how unlucky they were when goals were flying in everywhere else. When planning the weekend, the other main option for a match had been Schalke v Bayer Leverkusen. Had we gone to that one, and been slightly later, we’d have also missed an early goal. There however, as we were reminded at regularly painful intervals by the scoreboard, things might have been slightly more dramatic, where the home side edged home in a clearly tight defensive encounter by seven goals to four.

With about 15 minutes left our patience was rewarded. Mainz’s keeper dropped a cross and predatory Hamburg forward pounced, lashing it the loose ball. The crowd rose. The cheer pierced the air, then ceased prematurely. The goal was ruled out. There was nothing wrong with it, even when watched on tv replays later, but this is continental Europe, where just looking at a keeper in a funny way is enough to merit a foul. There didn’t seem to be any contact at any stage, and my only conclusion is that German referees are all members of a strange cult that worships Jens Lehmann and follow his commandments to the letter, or it was just a crap decision.

From then I knew there’d be no goals, and I was right. Once I accepted that I calmed immeasurably, only getting annoyed again when squashed onto the public transport. Now I’ve travelled on the world’s busiest metro in Tokyo, at its busiest station, Shinjuku, at the height of the rush hour. It just about compares to German football trains. I swear if you were to see one from the outside, you’d see the walls of the carriages curving outwards. It doesn’t help when you have a Mainz fan singing and swaying about a few yards away. I’m sure somebody would have hit him, if only they’d been able to raise their arms.

It also doesn’t help if your mate’s girlfriend is a bit claustrophobic. Not a football fan, she wasn’t overly enthused about the game, and she hated being crushed, and it sort of set the tone for the evening. She wasn’t happy, and he wasn’t happy about her not being happy, albeit it a “pissed off” rather than concerned way. It made the rest of the weekend fraught. Just choosing somewhere to have a meal in the evening became an exercise in compromise and appeasement which made the Arab-Israeli problems look simple in comparison. About two hours of hopeless wandering around the city ended with us going into a pizza place about 50 yards from our hotel, directly opposite the Hamburg Opera house. We could have gone there for an evening of culture, but were slightly underdressed. In fact the floor to ceiling windows of the place showed that anyone merely turning up in “black tie” attire would have been thrown out by security. You really felt like holding up large placards outside saying “yes, you really do look a complete tit” for the benefit of those inside who were unsure.

The following day’s meander was equally tense, popping around a variety of the usual sights of Hamburg, as well as nipping into the ground of St Pauli as a way of making up for turning my mate into quivering jelly by activating his fear of heights up a church spire a few hundred metres away. St Pauli couldn’t be more different to the AOL Arena. A traditional small terraced ground which at face value really wasn’t very good, but one which clearly gained its identity from the people who fill it every other week, rather than any imposing architecture. Whereas HSV had a corporate identity, St Pauli’s ground, located on the corner of the Reeperbahn, was marked by a seemingly officially sanctioned wall of urban graffiti. And rather than being flashy, the team play in brown. Knowing how much she hated the packed train, my mate promising to bring his girlfriend back to Germany to stand on the packed St Pauli terraces didn’t go down to well. We can’t have been the only English to have had that idea though, as a Twyford to Reading train ticket from the previous week lay forlornly on the terrace.

The barely contained niggling from the two lovebirds came to a head at the airport, where a refusal to buy a £50 bottle of perfume bought tantrums & tears, and kind of summed up a not exactly too successful weekend. On the other hand their odd relationship seemed to thrive on that sort of thing, and just an hour or so later she was ringing her mum and saying what a great time she’d had. Overall I’d enjoyed it too. It had been “different” to say the least, but entertaining. The squabbling may have not been ideal, but I’d still choose that over snoring any day.

Outside the stadium. Not the best place to be when goals are being scored.

A very different “brand” welcomes you to the hell of St Pauli.

Hungary - Ferencvaros

2009-07-28T14:28:00.002+01:00

Outside Ferencvaros’ stadium

My tip for the week would be that if you ever arrive in Budapest when temperatures are in the 90s, and you are rushing around trying to find a working telephone to get in touch with someone you were supposed to met 15 minutes ago, don’t do it wearing a coat. While it had kept out the night chills from the first class train compartment that I’d had to myself on the overnight trip from Prague, and wearing it did allow my bag not to weigh in at a level that’d stretch my arms like plasticine, it was now merely acting as a portable sauna.

Finding a phone, let alone a working one, it not helped by the Hungarian flair for ambiguity. Hungary can be a confusing country. Its language has a syntax unlike almost any other in the western world, where the are apparently around 15 different words for yes & no, yet unlike the Knights who say “Ni”, they can go through life without having a word for “is”. It defies efforts to make even a rudimentary stab at learning a few phrases, but does, on the other hand, distinguish itself by been the only language I’ve noticed to have its own spelling of sex shop. Sz is required to get an Anglified “s” sound, with “s” being “sh” in Hungarian, meaning such an establishment (merely noticed while walking along a street I hasten to add) spelled in English would be pronounced like someone doing a very poor Sean Connery impression.

At Budapest’s Nyugati Station (which incidentally houses surely the grandest branch of McDonalds in the world, complete with chandeliers) I faced the age old traveller’s question of “where do you go to find out where the information kiosk is?” A small noticeboard brought out that ambiguous flair with the message that “information can be found on the other side”. The other side of what? The board? The wall? The station? Perhaps the afterlife. After several wasted phone calls, and several trips to a kiosk to buy water for the change money from a vendor who probably though me insane, or at least very very thirsty, I eventually discovered that mobile phones numbers in Hungary only work if you dial the country code for Hungary first. There, naturally, it makes perfect sense.

Budapest is also a city of contrasts. The Pest side is as flat as a pancake, while the Buda side is bumpier than the dressing rooms at a Pamela Anderson lookalike contest. The neon lights that greet you opposite as you exit Nyugati station imply a booming economy – the fact that it’s possible to find a Trabant that’s felt in need of a steering lock suggests otherwise. And for a country with such a storied national team, arguably once thought to be the best in the world, football doesn’t give the impression of ever being that healthy, and certainly not now. True, Ujpest do have a small but very smart new stadium, but it’s hardly brought the fans flocking in, in a league were post-cold-war freedom has given fans the freedom to do other things on a Saturday afternoon, with crowds down by around two-thirds since then. A shame, because the place deserves good crowds, for at least looking like they’ve made an effort, which is more than anyone else in the country appears to have done. Curious triangular floodlights, like giant lacrosse racquets, watch over their stadium, which is more than the local population seem to do.

The giant Nep stadium has also been updated with new seats and a new main stand. Sadly the main stand is hideously ugly and designed so badly that the roof doesn’t even join properly in the middle, and it only contains about a third of the number of seats that something of its bulk should. Apparently the giant upper tier, which curved round one side and added nearly half of the capacity, has been temporarily shut for safety reasons. Other than that, the place is impressive, and provides ample proof that Hungarians can support their team in numbers now and then.

Less convincing on that front, just down the road from the Nep, is the stadium of MTK Hungaria. Some of the great names of world football have played here - Pele, Bobby Moore, Ossie Ardiles, Sylvester Stalone – yes, this was the setting for the film “Escape to Victory”. Sadly the final scene of the players escaping with the crowds would be hard to recreate with the 1500 that bother to watch MTK these days and it had the look of the kind of place that has developers thinking that with a little imagination it’d make a really nice supermarket. If Tesco do look to expand the ever growing East European empire with a new store in Budapest’s north east then they can do a two for one offer of their own, as right next door, just the width of a narrow road away, sits the ground of lower division club BKV Elöre, whose tall main stand, completely out of character with the effectively non-existent remainder of their ground, almost offers about the best view of happenings at MTK.

Another kilometre or so past MTK, down the rather dreary road from the Nep, brings you to the stadium of Ferencvaros. That Hungary’s biggest and best supported club now play in the second division, unable to climb back up due to their debts, seems somewhat symbolic of the shambles that appears to have befallen Hungarian football.

When I saw them play in 2002, they were at least one of Hungary’s better sides, but there were few signs of the new affluence evident elsewhere in the capital around the stadium. Outside, tall girder-like floodlight towers leaned imposingly over the pitch like soviet-era monuments to the success of communism, with flaking paint barely covering the reality. The metro station just outside reeked of austere concrete functionality, and given the less than favourable reputation of Ferencvaros’ supporters, it also looked the ideal spot for finding out what it’s like to be ambushed by a group of hooligans.

If I was glad to have not been wearing any red, the colours of today’s opponents Honved, at the metro station, I was even more glad when I walked round one corner at the stadium. Milling around were dozens, perhaps hundreds of individualistic youths decked out in the hooligan uniform. It was like stepping into a timewarp and going back to 1981 – a world of skinheads, green bomber jackets and Doc Marten boots. I made a mental note to perhaps find a different section of the ground and carried on walking. Seeing a young American boy of about 11 discussing where to go in with his grandmother, I kind of hoped they’d go somewhere else too.

Ferencvaros’ stadium looked like the grandfather of the average new MLS stadium, being predominantly one tier, with a flat end behind one goal. This was not for a stage, however (and having heard modern Hungarian music in a café earlier on that day I guess more modest venues, such as a traffic island, would suffice) and was for a collection of things that would be more at home at a garden centre. At the back was a clubhouse of sorts. Two long roofs at either side gave the appearance of wings to a large aircraft that’d had its nose chopped off, then been cheaply double-glazed in the 1970s. There was about 20 yards of a flat area between here and the goal, artfully filled with some hedges and conifers, a statue, a large inflatable beer can, and a very cheap looking construction reminiscent of a plastic gazebo. You really felt that if you were to have a closer inspection, each of these items would have a price tag on them, slashed down to half price.

This end ought to have been to my left according to my ticket, but having taken my seat and realised it had been heated in the afternoon sun to a temperature which made frying eggs upon it a possibility, I decide to dash round to the other side of the stadium, where the first ham-fisted impressions of a shadow were making an appearance. All three sides of the ground were something of a contrast. While the stand I was originally in was very talkative, mainly in my opinion with people saying the Hungarian for “help me! My skin is melting” and “I think my retinas have shrivelled and died”, this other stand opposite was much more laid back. People here were typically older, and many of whom didn’t seem to have put too much effort into choosing their day’s clothing – an old vest seeming to be the look for the in crowd here. Just as well really, as most seemed to be eating sunflower seeds, and as eating them is possibly the slowest way of consuming food known to man due to having to shell each individual seed, time spent looking for a clean vest would be time wasted.

To my left now was were the main contingent of “bovver boys” had taken their positions, all still defiantly wearing their thick padded green bomber jackets as the sun baked them. As kick off approached they went through a repertoire of volatile songs, which didn’t exactly sound too complimentary to the opposition. To my right, just next to the giant inflatable beer can, was the away end. Despite Honved’s stomping ground of Kispest being just two stops south on the metro, only about 200 fans in red were inside. Maybe more were outside as a roar went up from behind the stand. Half of the 200 ran out the back of the end, and about half in the skinhead end did the same. Whether they could meet up somewhere round the back, perhaps for nice chat and a chance to exchange phone numbers, is unclear, but the police seemed hardly interested, just rolling their eyes before walking off in a “I suppose if we must…” kind of manner towards them.

Whatever kind of beating Honved’s fans took outside, it can’t have been all that worse than the one their team took on the pitch. A goal down after only 10 minutes, things didn’t get any better. Only poor finishing by a Ferenvcaros side more wasteful of opportunities than a pop star with a vow of chastity prevented it being a more hopelessly one-sided game than the 4-0 final score suggested, as Honved looked about as interested as a 14 year old in a Friday afternoon algebra class.

The skinhead end lit flares and sang away, about how great it is to have a haircut you can wash with a damp cloth and there’s no point in footwear that lets your legs bend at the ankles, with a few verses of “we’re so hot and sweaty in these jackets that some Finns will come along and beat us with birch twigs soon” thrown in for good measure no doubt.

With the game over and the Honved fans going home to lick their wounds, perhaps literally in some cases, I set off for an evening of refreshment, preferably in venues that didn’t regard sunflower seeds as a meal that’d help me digest the sad state of Hungarian football. Later on, in the spacious apartment I’d hired, I found on the satellite channel-filled TV that although the Hungarians might not be exporting too many footballers these days, there are indeed some Magnificient Magyars in an entirely different realm of the entertainment industry. The footballers these days can only dream of being as impressive.

Inside, and the strange collection of things behind the goal.

The ultras behind the goal, urged on to greater heights in only the way a group being roused by a man in red tights dressed as a giant glass of beer can be.

Ujpest’s newly rebuilt stadium. Without doubt, the best new small purple-coloured ground in the whole of Europe.

MTK. No “escape” for the groundsman, and precious few victories to enjoy either.

The “Nep”. The People’s Stadium awaits some people.

Czech Republic - Bohemians 1905

2009-07-28T14:21:00.003+01:00

“The Dimple”, before the fall & rise of the club, and its floodlights.

Prague’s other team, if you discount Dukla, unmissed and long since packed up and departed to Pribram up the road, are Bohemians Praha. I should perhaps declare that I have an interest in Bohemians, lest my description of them seem decidedly rose-tinted. I’d first noticed Bohemians Praha in the 1980s. They’d played a UEFA Cup tie against Tottenham, and what I remembered was that while almost all other games “behind the Iron Curtain” took place in soulless windswept ovals, the Bohemians v Spurs tie took place in the ground the size of a shoebox. The fans were so close that when Bohemians scored their fans could just reach through the fence and shake the goal net in celebration.

I’d though no more of the club or the ground until I bought Simon Inglis’ excellent “Football Grounds of Europe”, and it rekindled memories as he referred to its character-filled name of “The Dimple”, and described it as a cubbyhole of ground that was inadequate but loveable.

Again, I thought little of it for the next decade or so, until that first to Prague, when I walked to their stadium, just over ½ a mile south of Viktoria Zizkov (and about the same distance west of Eden). Approaching the ground from the hill to the north, the first time I saw the stubby floodlights, looking low enough for Peter Crouch to change the bulbs without needing a ladder, I felt a surprising sense of almost giddy excitement. I wasn’t sure why, but the ground itself had a real charm to it. Purely from a structural point of view, this Dimple was no beauty spot, but with trees lining the home end and apartments seemingly closing off what would have otherwise been a tatty narrow side terrace, it was just one of those grounds where the total was far greater than the sum of the parts.

From then I took a casual interest in the fortunes of the club. Back then they were one of the better Czech teams, but my timing was a jinx as they were about to embark on the downward slope of the biggest rollercoaster of their existence. In short, they lost their main sponsor and got taken over. Then taken over again. And again. And again, several more times. Each owner seemed worse than the last, either more incompetent or more untrustworthy, and often both. Just over three years later Bohemians were bottom of the Czech 2nd division, no longer playing at their home ground, making do with a squad full of almost nothing but youth players, and staring oblivion in the face. A last attempt at being saved ended when the new owner turned out to not have the money he’d promised, and 100 years of football in this corner of Prague came to an end.

A fan had other ideas though. He had the idea of setting up a new club, democratically run, to take over the Bohemians name. There was a problem. The Czech FA accepted he was serious, but to take over the old Bohemians’ place (in the 3rd Division) he’d have to pay a fine of the equivalent of £60,000 to the Czech FA, owed because the club did not fulfil its fixtures. If they didn’t, the new club would have to start at parks level, eight divisions down. To avoid this, the idea was that fans would buy shares in this new club for 1000Kc each, roughly £25, and raise the money. It still seemed a big ask, but the total was passed with ease, including a £100 donation from a certain quarter of Berkshire.

The new club kicked off in 2005/6 in the third division, back home at The Dimple and setting new crowd records for the division, pulling around 10 times the average. The fairytale didn’t seem to be having quite the ending as expected, but in the end it wasn’t grim as despite not quite finishing top to clinch promotion, they eventually got up by buying a 2nd tier licence from one of many 2nd tier clubs willing to sell.

The eBay like nature of their first promotion may not have been the stuff of dreams, but the second season was more like it. Eleven wins from the last 15 games saw Bohemians recover from a disappointing position at the winter break to clinching promotion back to the Czech top division, along with neighbours Viktoria Zizkov, with a game to spare, recording the second highest average crowds in the country in the process.

Unfortunately it was during the less assured first half of the season that I was able make my first, and so far only, visit to the club I partly own (albeit a tiny fraction) to see a game. It was early September. Although 2nd division games were on, all top division games were off as it was an international weekend, so there was no prospect of seeing another match. Prague was swarming with Welsh supporters, who were playing Prague in Teplice that weekend, and their presence as they encamped around Wenceslas Square assured that you didn’t hear too much Czech being spoken in the region. Wenceslas Square dedication to curious architecture was again visible, this time with a strange display of toilets and other bathroom fixtures suspended from poles. An exhibit from my previous visit, a large pair of splayed women’s legs with knickers round the ankles, was no longer there though. Although many complain the area is plagued by British tourists, the Welsh weren’t too bad, although their habit of thinking the opening bars of “Ring of Fire” constitute a football song grated after a while. I could hardly avoid them having hired an apartment in the area for a few days. It was adequate, but had the world’s most dingy view from its one window, and the sign asking to enter and leave the apartment quietly was rather hopeless given that the only way to shut the front door was to slam it so hard that the walls shook. It was however almost directly opposite a sports bar where women in low-cut tops serve cheap beer and food as you watch sports – in my case England v Andorra.

Handily The Dimple can be reached by a tram from the centre, going right past the end of the ground which is perhaps better glossed over. It looks OK from the outside. A sign featuring a large green kangaroo, a symbol of the club since brings some kangaroos back to Prague after a trip to Australia, stood over the main entrance on the corner. A tatty bar backed onto the ground at that end. Even without knowing Czech, I could understand enough of the sign outside to tell that the owner had seen he could make a bit of trade by letting patrons drink of his roof, where they’d get an unimpeded view of proceedings. The wooden terracing behind, which once, as described earlier, let fans cling to the goal nets, was long gone, leaving a rather untidy gap.

Deciding to splash out, I went for the top seats in the house, which worked out at about £2. A season ticket would cost less than the price of 1 match at the Madejski. Beer was also 1/7th of the price, and food cheaper by similar margins, although they did insist in that curious Central European way of serving hot dogs in buns that were in no way intended or fit for the purpose. With a programme also costing about 20p it would be theoretically possible for me to find budget flights to Prague and see a match there more cheaply than it is for me to watch a match at the Madejski.

Putting such thoughts aside, I went on a tour of the bits of the ground that were open, which meant two sides that day. No spectators seemed to be allowed on the flat area behind the far goal, but although the far touchline was still out of bounds, building work was clearly in place to turn the narrow terrace into a very narrow few rows of uncovered seats. In the far corner, the temporary tarpaulin wall of the builders had been tugged down and a few heads would make a Chad like appearance over it throughout the game. What appeared to be a VIP area was cordoned off to the side of the general admission area. Either there were no VIPs present today, or the thrill of sitting at what appeared to be cheap garden furniture didn’t appeal on this threateningly damp afternoon.

I took my seat in the main stand, towards the centre. All the seats were benches in a steep stand. A guard rail ran in front of each row of seats, reminiscent of a cheap fairground ride as you waited for it to shut down and hold you in place.

The 5600 fans there that day were able to fill the ground rather more than they would have done if all four sides had been open, but I suspect the terrace might have been fuller had it not been decidedly wet that day. The front of the terrace was liberally decked with banners to the green & white cause. As always, these often shouldn’t be thought about too deeply, but either “Piš-Piš Klan” means something in Czech, or the local beer has undesirable side-effects.

The game was decent enough, but rather frustrating. In the main, Bohemians attacked and Jakubčovice defended with determination. I tried to place the standard against the 2nd tier football in England I was used to. It was difficult. To be honest I think both teams would have struggled on this day’s showing, but their level of technique was undoubtedly better, with the exception of one or two centre-backs who looked like they’d escaped from Stockport County. They could out-pass most in the Championship, but seemed to lack the match guile to make use of that better technique. It mattered not, as I got quite into the game, despite the drizzle that fell.

Out of the blue Jakubčovice took the lead. A free-kick from 20 yards was curled up and over the wall, and the scorer ran towards the away fans, more or a travelling reconnaissance party than travelling army, and celebrated. Given how stoutly they’d defended 0-0, this was hardly good news.

It took until the second half to draw level. After a few wasted chances, a good bit of unselfish play deep in the area allowed Bohemians to nod in the equaliser. With Jakubčovice going down to 10 men it was all set for a Bohemians winner, but it was not to be. With The Dimple’s stubby floodlights gone – completely gone and not replaced – and dark clouds overhead, a gloom descended to reflect the mood that it wasn’t going to be one of those days. One last scramble, with the ball hitting the post and rolling across the line was and near as Bohemians came to a winner. They, and I, would have to settle for a point.

Bohemian in name, a club from the wrong side of the tracks.

The home end view. The pub roof patio just visible far left.

Fans fill the back of the terrace, green smoke and banners, the front.

The players await kick off, the fans watching from the windows opposite await a free view, and the ground owners wait for the builders to get a move on building one of the world’s narrowest seated stands.

Czech Republic - Slavia Prague

2009-07-28T14:17:00.002+01:00

As the last of the crowd changes are read over the PA system, Slavia and Slovan Liberec prepare to kick off.

It’s safe to say that Prague has a lot going for it. It’s arguably the most attractive city in Europe. Its women are as equally attractive. Beer is cheap, and anyone from a nun to the Marquis de Sade could enjoy a night out there. And it also has four football teams, all of whom will be in the top division again in the coming season.

It’s six years since I first visited Prague, and I was sold on it instantly, from the warm glow of the streetlights on the buildings, to the rumble of cars over the cobbled streets. It certainly wasn’t the Eastern Europe of the history books. I was, it has to be said, aware that the city had a reputation for attracting tourists who, to put it delicately, liked to get better acquainted with certain sections of the local population. It turned out my hotel was on a street where independent businesswomen would try out their sales pitches to passers by, although thankfully on the other side of the street. Not that my side was pure virtue. On one side of my hotel was a dingy looking peep show, although I’m not sure if there is another kind, and on the other was a small Czech bar much like any other you’d see tucked away in the city. The only difference was that this one would be an ordinary Czech bar in the day, but at some unspecified time in the evening would revert to having a women dance round a pole on possibly the world’s smallest stage. The strange thing was that the pub had a plate glass window, and it was quite amusing to watch people out for an evening walk get something of a shock as they lazily peered in the window as the strolled along.

My first visit to Prague was purely about normal tourism. With no prospect of going to a game in the days I was there I did the usual business of going to the castle, as well as joining the huge crowds waiting by the Old Town Square’s astronomical clock, and sharing in the tradition of being hugely disappointed by the underwhelming wooden figures that emerge one by one from the clock face as it strikes the hour. It does though beg the question of quite what the tourists are expecting – the Tiller Girls and a lazer show, perhaps?

Not that I avoided football altogether. All the grounds in Prague are fairly central, meaning having a quick shufty round is quite feasible if you are in the area, or just have a spare our or so. Sparta’s ground, for example, can be reached via a pleasant stroll from the castle. Although I did get in on a later visit, my first attempt at looking round was rebuffed by a security guard who acted like he missed the days of Soviet rule. As luck would have it his sort were no longer there when I attempted again a few years later. They still charged a small admission fee, but this time I was pursued by the security guard as I’d neglected to take a complimentary programme from Sparta’s previous match. The ground, it has to be said, was almost perfect as a blueprint of what a 20,000 capacity ground should aspire to be, especially now that it had been done up with new seats.

Not quite as grand was the small stadium of Viktoria Zizkov, a mile south across the river. The ground is roughly behind the main station, in the shadow of the Zizkov Tower – Prague’s most incongruous modern building, looking like the product of a giant’s child playing with 3 pencils and some plasticine. The later addition of some giant babies climbing up the structure just makes it stand out even more. The stadium is rather less imposing. Located still in earshot of the train announcements, Viktoria’s place could be flattering described as quirky, only having three sides, and two of those being terracing bearing enough green shoots to suspect the club was growing rice on them to supplement their income. “Security” here was in the form of an ageing man in what appeared to be a garden shed near one corner of the pitch. Whether he was a security guard, groundsman, or possibly both was hard to tell, but did have a visible stock of tickets for the forthcoming derby with Bohemians Praha. Seeing they only cost 40Kc, about 70p at the time, I thought one would be a good souvenir, even if I’d be home days before the match. Sensing I was a tourist he charged me 50Kc, despite the price being quite clearly displayed. Rather than be angered I actually found it almost sweet that he’d sting me for 10Kc. It might buy a small bar of chocolate for his grandchild or something.

There was also a security guard at the gate when I made my way to Slavia’s stadium. It’s since been knocked down, but after a long spell as a flat piece of wasteland it is now being rebuilt. When I went though it was still intact, sort of. I wondered if the guard would let me in, this coming after my experience at Sparta, and asked the guard. I needed have worried. He asked if I was English, and seem so thrilled that someone would venture out to the ground that he threw his arms open and generously said that if I wanted I could stay all day. I thanked him, but suspected that the stadium of Slavia Prague perhaps wouldn’t merit the full day excursion he was suggesting.

Slavia’s stadium was known as Eden, which was somewhat apt as the place was something of a wilderness. The well maintained pitch suggested matches were still being played there, but the sizeable terracing bristled with an array of undergrowth as three sides of the stadium were overcome by nature. Actually, I’m not sure what had happened to one side as it appeared to have been slightly bulldozed by a demolition team who didn’t know how to operate their equipment, and just sat there in lumpy overgrown neglect.

Slavia were to be the first team from Prague that I’d actually see play. I’d planned to see Bohemians first, the previous day, on a short stop of a few days in 2004, sandwiched between spells in Poland and Slovakia. Unfortunately Bohemians went and rearranged their fixture at short notice, which was rather inconsiderate of them. Either way, both games would have been at the same stadium, so I didn’t lose out too much. Clearly first team games were no longer being held at the garden of Eden, and they’d been switched to the national stadium, the Strahov, or the Evzen Rosicky as it’s more properly known.

The Strahov refers to a whole sporting estate of several stadiums next to each other. The strangest was the Spartakiadni Stadium, apparently the largest stadium in the world. A reported capacity of over 250,000 suggests a huge and imposing structure, but the reality is one tier of dreary concrete terracing but on a vast scale. If seen on google earth, the interior of this stadium shows it containing nine football pitches, arranged 3 x 3, but now that the big party parades are gone, it’s hard to see any future for it.

Directly behind was the Evzen Rosicky. Now all-seated and holding just under 20,000, it was Slavia’s home for their exiled fans. I’d rushed back to the Strahov from an unusual morning’s trip to the town of Sedlec. Its macabre attraction was an ossuary, where about a century ago a the owners hired someone to do something with the thousands of bones there. Whether the guy had a strange sense of humour, or was just plane barmy, is open to debate, but he set about turning the collection of bones into a series of sculptures – among other things a set of grand chandeliers and a family coat of arms. The remaining bare bones were piled high into stacks in the corners.

And bare bones was what Slavia’s support was down to up at the Strahov. Not an easy venue to get to, and many didn’t seem to be bothering to try. At least it meant getting in wasn’t likely to be a problem. As it transpired, the crowd was to be one of Slavia’s lowest of the season, with about 2,500 rattling about. The running track between the pitch and the stands just serving to emphasise the emptiness. The away support of Slovan Liberec, all 30 of them, did little to shake off the impression the match was one hour from kick-off, not one minute from it.

All of which is a shame, as the Evzen Rosicky is not a bad venue, and the fans did their best under the circumstances. Strangely I found myself sat next to a group of Slavia fans from Britain and Ireland. They were clearly ex-pats rather than tourists though, and supported with a fan’s intensity rather than a neutral’s. Their angry cries and suggestions to the players caused a few turned heads though. All made good use, in their correct professional capacity I should add, of the pretty serving girls who’d deliver beer to you seat. I don’t know how much Czech they’d learned while in Prague, but clearly “piiiiiivo!!!!” was regarded as one of the more important words to know. She did a roaring trade. Bar owners in Prague have clearly understood that pretty serving girls are good for business, as had the owner of the beer selling franchise at the stadium. At Reading we are quite blessed in that respect in the supporters’ bar, but having girls delivering beer to your seat at the Madejski would be perfect.

I don’t know if the sparse crowd got to the players, but I often got the impression that they put more effort into performing that mornings ablutions than they did on the match, and the motions that went through them that morning were more of an effort than the motions they went through that afternoon. As poor as Slavia were, Slovan Liberec were worse, and you felt if one of their strikers had gobbed on the floor, he’d have missed. Slavia eventually broke the deadlock, and did enough to hang on in a finish that couldn’t have been less tense if both teams had been administered with an industrial strength muscle relaxant.

Sparta’s impressive stadium, more newly tarted up than the workers standing along Skorepka, opposite my hotel.

Prague’s least known all-day attraction – welcome to the garden of Eden.

Hong Kong - Happy Valley FC

2009-07-28T14:13:00.002+01:00

Mong Kok Stadium. Bird Market behind the far goal. Flower market behind the stand, and no doubt a moth market up around the floodlights.

Hong Kong. A land where skyscrapers grow like fungus on the tiny slivers of habitable ground, shoehorning seven and a half million people into a number of square miles that would be considered small for a suburb in some nations. Among those adding to that population, other than myself, were the players of New Radiant FC of the Maldives, whose club motto of “to find players, train them, and give them the chance to expose themselves locally and internationally” promised an interesting spectacle.

They’d come to play Hong Kong’s Happy Valley FC in an Asian Cup group stage match – a tournament which appears to capture the local imagination as well as a spider’s web captures a Chieftain Tank. The Happy Valley Racecourse is world famous – a spectacular track with impressive towering grandstands, set among the skyscrapers of central Hong Kong. The Hong Kong Stadium, just down the road, is nearly as impressive, with 40,000 seats covered by two curving roofs, like two halves of a giant egg-shell. Unfortunately, the Mong Kok stadium, the venue for tonight’s fixture, has a more prosaic appeal. On the plus side, it is nestled in among two markets. Directly behind one goal is the Bird Market, where Michael Palin once had his knees pecked by a parrot while attempting to go round the world in 80 days, which unsurprisingly sells just birds and offers a rather unique soundtrack to any match. Along the other side is the flower market – a market dedicated to just flowers and plants, and for some reason one shop selling motorbike helmets, as if the owner thought he’d spotted a niche in the market, where romantics who felt flowers just didn’t cut the mustard could spell out their true love with a multi-coloured crash-helmet instead.

I’d done my homework on Hong Kong football and knew this wouldn’t exactly be the biggest crowd I’d ever been in, but as I made my way from the station of the excellent and spotless Hong Kong metro (one of the few metros in the world to have the simple but brilliant realisation that as people changing from one northern bound line to another are most likely to be going in the same direction, it therefore makes sense to place both northbound platforms opposite each other, rather than having to go to a different part of the station to change lines) I didn’t exactly sense a throng of people heading to the game. I think if I’d followed the crowds I’d have ended up in a noodle bar instead.

Maybe in Hong Kong they love tourists going to their sporting events. The following night I appeared to be let into the Happy Valley racecourse for free after being asked if I was a tourist, although they did recoup $200 through my night’s wild, reckless, and not too successful gambling. Despite the $200 loss it was a fun evening that I’d recommend – a good night out, a lot of fun, and garnished with the chance to buy a Happy Valley postcard to send to a female friend of mine, for whom the term Happy Valley was a nickname for her cleavage. It made losing those $200 easier to bear. That and the fact the exchange rate for the Hong Kong Dollar makes $200 about the same as the price of a pub meal.

There had been a previous indication of their keenness for westerners at sporting events in Mong Kok too, as before I’d been able to reach into my wallet for the $60 entry fee (which I could possibly uniquely have paid for with three completely different, yet still legal tender $20 notes, as Hong Kong has a bizarre system of letting each bank print its own banknotes) I was approached by a man who gave me a free ticket, complimentary and signed by a member of the Hong Kong FA. I thanked him, and after jostling through the throng of one person at the turnstiles, made my way inside.

There isn’t too much than can be said about the Mong Kok Stadium itself. It could be listed in the Encyclopaedia Britannica as an illustration for “Spartan”, being not much more than four stands of bench seating. About 10 or 15 rows of solid and sturdy rust-coloured benches on the sides, and slightly higher aluminium decking at the ends. A scoreboard, which looks to be worth more than the rest of the ground put together without even being that impressive, just about fills one corner, while a palm-tree fringed fence skirts suggestively close to another.

With incredibly little to divert my attention until the game kicked off just over half an hour later, I chose a spot at the back of the main stand and waited for the ground to fill, or at least to get less empty. I hadn’t expected anything like a capacity 8000 crowd and I wasn’t wrong. The crowd for this match wasn’t so much thin as anorexic, but the bulk of the support also went for the main stand. Clearly it was the place to be as the Happy Valley “ultras” to my right put together a perfectly choreographed display of putting a small banner over the seats and sitting down.

Being an official FIFA tournament, the officials and players came out to the official FIFA music, preceded by the fair play flag carried out by four officials. Normally this is a large enough flag to gift-wrap an elephant, but today, with things scaled down a tad, it was roughly the size of a large beach towel. It really didn’t require four people to carry it out, one at each corner, but I suppose if they’d gone for just two then it would have looked like removal men moving a sideboard, and the moment needed every bit of pageantry it could muster.

As usual, the FIFA message of peace and fair play was read out, to the tangible apathy of those present, and then the lined up teams turned and waved to the crowd. For three of the stands it would have been easier to just have gone over and greet the fans in them individually. All this was greeted with a smattering of polite applause which would have been more at home at a village cricket match after a good bit of fielding.

The match got underway to a ripple of excitement, and very quickly it was clear that Happy Valley were a step above their Maldives counterparts. Not that the Hong Kong side were fantastic, more than the only thing the New Radiant were exposing was their comparative lack of football ability. In terms of basic technique, neither team was poor. It was more that like a teenager getting lucky for the first time, they had a lot of good first touches, but didn’t seem to know what they were supposed to do beyond that. This was perhaps a factor in despite strong territorial pressure, it took Happy Valley until midway through the first half to open the scoring. It was easy to see why the 7745 people who could have filled the other seats decided to find other things to do that night. If you’d already been to that neck of the woods earlier, and picked up a toucan, a bunch or geraniums, and a nice crash-helmet, the game wouldn’t have added anything to your day.

The loyal faithful did stay loyal though, occasionally doing their best to raise their team with chants, which unfortunately in the Mong Kok’s atmospheric black hole were as effective as farting into a hot-air balloon. They got their reward twenty minutes from the end. A rather lazy cross into the box was met by an equally lazy attempt by the New Radiant defence to clear, and an almost apologetic header looped its way on a scenic route of an arc into the bottom corner. For the second time that night the Mong Kok scoreboard erupted in an epilepsy-inducing frenzy, completely out of kilter with the subliminally occupied stands nearby, while the PA system responded with a feminine voiced burst of semi-automatic rapid fire Chinese which makes you suspect that if the Chinese play charades, then the clue for “number of syllables” would be of little use.

Things were now pretty desperate for New Radiant, as became their football. Attempts to get forward were often tempered by an inability for passes to find the pitch, let alone pick out team mates on it. But maybe it was all a cunning plan to lull Happy Valley into a false sense of security. As plans go, you have to say the initial phase was carried out to perfection, but phase two was being left a little late – but pull a goal back they did. A rather needless penalty was conceded, and with three minutes left New Radiant tucked away a goal to make the miracle that New radiant required be downgraded from biblical. Sadly, their chances of survival still looked slimmer than a guy who is due to get married in a war movie, and so it proved to be. 2-1 was indeed to final score and the crowd sneaked off into the night, on an evening where the Happy Valley fans would be Happy, and the New Radiant positively not so.

The Mong Kok scoreboard – made understandable with thanks to the Victorian opium trade.

The crowd go wild as New Radiant pull one back.

Germany - Frankfurt

2009-07-28T13:54:00.003+01:00

Frankfurt Stadium - South Korea v Togo

Anyone who went to the world cup will know just how much hotel prices ramped up. The one consolation of not being able to afford to stay in the centre of Frankfurt was the chance to avoid the usually affordable, but rather seedy looking hotel district around the central station. My trip for the Confederations Cup, the year before, had seen me lodged into a Turkish run establishment which although not terrible, did have that look of one of those hotels that acquires all of its furniture from the house clearance sales of dead elderly people.

As it was I couldn’t check in upon arrival as my room was still occupied, and was told to come back in two hours. On my return I was told I could check in and go to my room if I wanted, but that the room hadn’t been cleaned yet. I decided that would be the best option. After all, how bad could a room apparently previously occupied by teenage girls be? I was surprised to say the least. I’m not a fastidiously tidy person myself, but it looked like a herd of buffalo had stampeded through the room, and then the most insomnia afflicted of the herd had tried sleeping there. Had Black Sabbath stayed there for a week it would probably have looked tidier. OK, I thought, this is all going to be changed and cleaned up by a severely underpaid maid, so I’ll just have a quick shave and be gone. I went to the sink and found I wasn’t the first person to have had that idea that day. Quite what the girls had been shaving, I don’t know, and I’m not sure I want to know, but if those were leg hairs then they must have legs that wouldn’t look out of place in the back row of a rugby scrum. I decided against the shave. I could bear to look scruffy for the day. It was just then, razor in hand, that perfect timing meant the maid opened the door, saw me, and apologized and left. Fantastic – now she’d think I made all that mess. And not only that, if I didn’t clean the sink she’d be convinced I was the one who’d had the novelty shave in the sink as well.

My World Cup hotel in Frankfurt, on the other hand, had me based for 6 nights in a no-frills budget hotel at the end of an industrial estate called Niederrad. The hotel itself was fine, despite having to check in three times as my booking was actually 3 separate internet bookings, due to the vagaries of the internet room availability process, and even the 15 minute walk to the station didn’t seem too bad once you knew the short cut. On the downside, it was at the arse end of ½ a square mile of factories and office buildings, and the streets were so empty you wondered if you’d stepped onto the set of a low-budget 50s sci-fi film, where the whole town has been kidnapped by aliens. The one thing it did have going for it, other than being reasonably priced and free from the trappings of the kind of Brazilian artistry not related to football, was that it was slap bang between the stadium and the city centre, and just one handy train stop from both. From there it was a four minute, one-stop trip to the main station.

The city had apparently been swamped with English fans for the opening England game of the World Cup, but my ticket allocation in Frankfurt was for the Portugal v Iran match, as well as today’s game, South Korea v Togo. It’s fair to say that South Korea’s fans hugely outnumbered Togo’s. The red-clad fans were everywhere, many of who seem to be dressed to get noticed as much as just show their support. One such face-painted, spiky-haired girl caught my eye in the station and I asked if I could take her picture. She agreed and posed with her equally attired boyfriend. To be honest, I didn’t actually want him in the picture as well, as impressively as he was made up, his chubby features rather detracted from her more pleasant ones. I had thought of cropping him out of the picture, but luckily didn’t as he asked to see the finished result.

There would be more photo opportunities in Frankfurt’s main square. It had been taken over by Korean fans, with many of the women seeming to regard the whole affair as some kind of photo opportunity, seeking out the glare of the cameras. Most posed in front of the medieval-looking half-timbered buildings on one side of the square. The buildings were actually fake, having been built in 1974. They were apparently based on buildings that used to be there, but from a historical point of view they had about as much historical heritage as glam rock. It has to be said though, they looked rather more appealing than overdone make-up and spandex.

Also taking over the square were a group of Korean dancers and drummers, who defied the rather warm midday sun to put on a display of energetic dancing and drumming that made me sweat just watching it, so god knows what it did to them. All I know is I wouldn’t have wanted to be within 100m of their laundry basket that evening. They were very impressive, dancing about for at least half an hour, but probably much longer, before making their way on foot, still dancing and drumming, out of the square and towards the stadium. Given that the stadium was about 3 miles away it seemed a tad ambitious.

The stadium station was another of the those where the German sense of humour is I evidence, allowing you to be pleased at how near the railway line is as you pass within touching distance of one end, before carrying on and depositing you so far away you wonder if you’ll need your passport to get back. It was a journey I’d make 4 times in all over the two visits. Three times for games, and one to pick up a ticket from the ticket centre for Japan v Croatia. With great planning and foresight, the world cup organisers had thought about the best place to locate this ticket centre, and come to the conclusion that the most convenient place would be as absolutely far away from the station as possible. I don’t know how far it actually was to get there, just that I suspected that if I’dwalked any further I’d have been signs proclaiming “Welcome to Offenbach”. Naturally there was a strict queuing system in place, even though there were only four people there.

To be truthful, on a nice day the walk to the stadium isn’t all bad, milling along with thousands of other people all going to the match. The two world cup games still had that enthusiastic buzz of people just enjoying being there, with the harsh realities of needing results or having to go home not yet entering into things. For the confederations cup game a year earlier, everyone was there to just enjoy it regardless. The confederations cup game I’d gone to see was Greece v Japan. Germany has a pretty large Greek community, particularly in that part of the country, and around 15,000 or so were at the game. Many were wearing the traditional Greek army uniform – a uniform of pride in Greece, but looking like somebody playing keepy-uppy with a cat’s fluffy toy while wearing Victorian pyjamas, a tutu and a nightcap to anyone else. As I raised my camera a group of such guys were thrilled to be in my picture and waved madly. I was actually just taking a picture of the stadium, but thanked them anyway.

Of far more interest to me were two pretty young Japanese girls in kimonos. I walked near them, thinking of snapping off a sneaky photo, but never quite did. As the ground loomed large I bit the bullet and just went up to them and asked them outright if I could take their picture. Naturally they agreed, but somehow they came out much less photogenic in my picture than in real life. I didn’t do them justice, which is a shame as I was quite taken with both of them. So much so in fact that those two girls turned me on to the idea of going to Japan, which I did just two months later (and where I also realised that they were wearing very cheap kimonos). Of course now I’d broken the ice by being the first to ask them to pose, the world and his dog dived in requesting their picture.

Korean girls, a year later, as I’d said before, were almost as equally photogenic. A whole troupe of them paraded round almost seeking out cameras before the Togo match – among them one who either came from a very unfortunate family destined never to have grandchildren, or it was a geeky guy in glasses looking like an escapee from Revenge of the Nerds, hoping he wouldn’t be noticed.

Perhaps more surprising were the Iranians present for their match with Portugal five days later. Either the media has truly lied to us and Iranian women are a lot more liberated than they are portrayed to be, or the fashion is for burqas to be worn eight inches above the knee this season. Naturally they also posed for pictures happily for ages, although the menfolk who insisted in also being in shot, most of whom who had moustaches which made you think that somewhere there’s a paintbrush missing its bristles, tarnished things slightly.

Frankfurt’s new stadium was a classic new stadium, without the negative connotations the phrase often carries. Two equally sized tiers curving round to hold over 40,000 with a translucent roof that made the place light even when fully closed. The strangest part of it was a large cube-shaped video scoreboard, impossibly suspended on wires from around the stadium’s roof perimeter. These angled out from the cube in such a way that made you suspect the world’s largest spider would make an appearance at any moment.

For each of the three games I went to, I ended up sat at the opposite end to the one I wanted to be in from a supporting point of view, but it didn’t matter. The Greek fans were impressive for turning out in such large numbers. As there were so few Togo fans present for their match with South Korea, it was left to the Koreans to make the atmosphere, which they did. Their enthusiasm, even if it was a little high-pitched at times, was impossible not to be taken in by. The Portuguese were colourful, noisy and passionate, everything a good crowd should be.

All three games were interesting, without being in any way classics. Possibly least was Japan v Greece in the Confederations Cup. The Greeks were no doubt keen at the start of the event to show their Euro 2004 win was no fluke, but by the end they were just trying to show that qualifying for Euro 2004 wasn’t a fluke. It wasn’t going well for them. They were still defending well, with tackles flying in with GPS accuracy, as if homing beacons were attached to defenders’ feet, but up front they had as much punch as the Venus de Milo, increasing the Greek angst by the minute. It came as no surprise that one of Japan’s much rarer attacks resulted in the game’s only goal. The Greek fans took the defeat in good spirit and there were nothing but smiles and handshakes for the Japanese fans they encountered upon leaving, which was a stark contrast to their team, who’d they’d have readily turned into the next day’s kebabs had they been able to get their hands on them.

In the South Korea v Togo match, Togo overcame having almost all of the crowd supporting the Koreans, as well as an ability to look less co-ordinated that a bag-lady’s clothing, to take a first half lead. Korea, urged on by an ever more enthusiastic, and at tenser moments ever more squeeky support, got back into it in the second half. They were helped somewhat by Togo having a player sent off, equalising from the resulting free-kick with a fine strike from the rusty haired Lee Chun-Soo. Ahn Jung-Hwan had received a hero’s welcome when he came on for the second half, and he would be the man of the hour, shortly after the hour, with his deflected strike proving to be the winner.

Portugal v Iran looked to be an open game on paper. In reality it was about as open as a small-town laundrette at 3am on a Sunday morning, with both sides looking like they’d struggle to break through a boiled egg’s shell, let alone a defiant defence. The Portuguese fans sang on regardless, perhaps under the impression that singing can bring people, in this case the Portuguese team, out of a coma. After an hour it worked. Deco, who’d barely been showing any signs of brain activity all afternoon, suddenly had an awakening and smashed the ball from outside the box past an Iranian keeper looking more helpless than a new-born zebra born to a mother being chased by lions.

Iran’s fated was sealed when a defender tripped Figo in the box in a manner that could have only been more comically clumsy had he worn large rubber boots, an orange wig and clown make-up. Cristiano Ronaldo, who again perfected his big-screen ability to look personally insulted by God every time something in his life doesn’t go perfectly to plan, made no mistake and all but invited the Iranians to book an early taxi for the airport.

At least after the Portugal match it wasn’t quite so oppressively warm as after the South Korea match. Catching a train in such conditions is never ideal, but when they let you on, packing you in to such a density that battery hens are writing to the MPs in protest, then shut the doors and wait for 10 minutes, things are not good. The humidity on board was working up its own eco-climate, and most expected tropical rainfall before the journey’s end. The best you could hope for was that the people next to you that you’d be smelling of for the rest of the were pleasant, and preferably of the opposite sex.

There was another opportunity for some to have a further exchange of bodily fluids presented to those outside the Irish Bar opposite Frankfurt’s main station. As the fans packed in to watch Italy play the USA, a bus advertising a local “nightclub” stopped outside and some “workers” got out and distributed loads of calling cards. Those inside the pub could then play a game of “spot who tries to sneak a card into his pocket”. One person spotted (with or without card is unknown) was a guy with a resemblance to Wayne Rooney. Every time he came to the bar a chorus of “Rooney, Rooney” greeting him, and he even posed for photos. Someone said he was Wayne Rooney’s brother, which I took to be a joke at the time, but he did look like him, was a scouser, and did get the whole “posing for photos” bit down to a fine art, so maybe it was. On the other hand he was wearing a shirt with “Brasil” on it.

The city was a real crossroads for the different fans, and this bar the most obvious meeting point. Many nationalities were in, but a fair few Americans and Italians were there, watching the BBC’s embarrassingly unknowledgeable coverage. A US-UK frostiness perhaps not seen for a couple of hundred years descended when a group of English lads cheered when Italy scored, but they also cheered when the US scored to show their deliberate antagonism was nothing person. Before too long some US fans had crossed the room and were dancing with them on the tables and nobody cared. It was an example of what another English fan, chairman of AFC Wimbledon supporters club if I recall correctly, was saying – essentially the vibe about the place was so good that even the sort of English idiot who fight at the drop of a hat would rather have a good time than get involved. On TV the World Cup is about the matches, but there, being there is what’s important.

]

Germany - Nuremburg

2009-07-28T13:51:00.004+01:00

Looking from the parade grounds towards the Frankenstadion, where Argentina would rally and be acclaiming a triumph later on.

“Don’t mention the war!” implored a slightly addled Basil Fawlty famously in Fawlty Towers, but when the stadium in Nuremburg is sat directly next door to the Nazi parade grounds of grainy newsreel fame, it does fix your gaze like a large hairy facial mole and become almost unavoidable. Even the postcards outside the official tourist office in the city centre have a heavy theme of showing the city in the 1940s, with most of it turned to piles of rubble. That the big pile of rubble in the foreground is the site of the very tourist information centre you are standing in, adds a certain poignancy.

The largely still walled old town itself is vast and a real town within a town as opposed to be merely a tourist enclave. There’s even room for a shabby seedy corner, where the phrase “a fool and his money are easily parted” is no doubt proven on a nightly basis. Definitely a real town rather than a tourist trap, with shops, bars, and loads of the kind of restaurants with close-packed tables designed purely to make the single traveller feel inadequate.

More of a tourist trap is the relatively nearby town of Rothenburg ob der Tauber, thankfully spared night time visits by the allies and is consequently a perfectly preserved medieval village (albeit one with paved roads rather than ones covered in mud & straw, and one where the medieval guilds specialised in making souvenirs rather than more traditional trades). Naturally, with my usual luck for timing trips to sights to correspond perfectly with an additional display of renovation scaffolding around them, I found the classic Rotherburg shot down a Y junction of gingerbread houses to be blessed with the addition feature of sewer works dominating the foreground. Coming from a town mainly built in the 1960s, where people would dismiss without evidence of carbon-dating any building claimed to predate the career of The Beatles, it still seemed wonderful.

Back in Nuremburg, on the trail to the stadium, I took the tram to the previously mentioned parade grounds. There are many ways to describe the area, but “vast” is one that springs to mind. Clearly designed by someone who’d long forgotten a world where he wasn’t chauffered everywhere, he created any area that’s inhumanity was only surpassed by the consequences of the events that unfolded there. In one corner, near the tram stop, was the congress hall. More huge, ugly and useless than Iain Dowie’s less talented big brother, it exists now to house the excellent Nazi (or anti-Nazi to be exact) museum. It’s certainly a chilling reminder of the past, particularly with the location, but at times it’s hard to escape the feeling you are watching a feature night on the History Channel, so familiar are the images. From there you can walk around the lake towards the stadium, on the kind of path that makes you wonder if the floor is moving backwards as you walk along, without seeming to get any nearer.

Before the stadium is the main podium and terrace of the area, looking like the world’s most useless thing. It’s comforting that one of the modern era’s biggest monuments to ego stroking is now treated with suitable irreverence, with the area once reserved for party bigwigs now being the home of skateboarders, and the occasional slightly embarrassed tourist tentatively standing in some historically huge footsteps.

The stadium intended to hold 500,000 on the site was never built, but “The Beautiful Frankenstadium”, as the PA guy would regularly refer to it, certainly was. I’m sure another Franken, stein this time, thought his creation was beautiful too, and although in aesthetic terms it doesn’t quite have bolts through its neck, the stadium does look rather like it was assembled using the stolen body parts of several other stadiums.

Stadiums with a running track are never ideal, but the approach here, not surprisingly not copied too often elsewhere, was to have eight sides to the ground, like an elongated octagon. The roof looks like it was added as an afterthought in two stages. The first stage seemingly abandoned halfway through with only the back half built, and the front half looking like it was taken from the bankruptcy sale of a self-assembly greenhouse specialist, before being joined on to the existing roof in the ill-fitting manner of someone trying to make a DIY wardrobe without the instructions.

Despite that, I quite liked it though. The running track gap wasn’t as bad as I’d feared – at least not from my seat – and it looked light and airy on this summer’s late afternoon. Mind you, it only looked airy. On a very warm day, others may disagree, particularly those sat in the lower tier rotisserie section facing the sun, where paler-skinned fans were rapidly acquiring a chameleon-like ability to blend in with the bright red seats.

Luckily many of those present were either Argentinean or Australian and had enough melanin between them to prevent their exposed flesh cooking like bacon on a hot skillet. The Germans, and myself, took to waiting out the back until the sun dipped.

One of the features of this tournament was the complete lack of, or even attempt at, any kind of segregation. It added to the atmosphere of the tournament where everyone wanted to do well, but didn’t seem overly concerned if they didn’t. It was an attitude the Australians took a step too far, with a leisurely care-free attitude allowing a lively Argentina side to take an early 2-0 lead – all very much appreciated by the Argentina fans who made up the bulk of the committed – as well as adopted - support around the stadium.

A third goal before the hour was enough for the Argentines to declare victory, and the enthusiasm of the fans was a joy to watch, not least of whom the very pretty young woman in front of me who clapped throughout in a curiously delicate but rapid manner, as if her hands were operated by the same mechanism as a set of novelty chattering teeth.

The celebrations were a tad premature though. Aloisi pulled one back from the penalty spot ten minutes later, and narrowed the score to 3-2 ten minutes after that. Suddenly the game changed, as did the support of every neutral, as they urged Australia forward in search of the equaliser.

Australia attacked in the sort of waves that’d have had the Bondi regulars present wishing they’d brought their surfboards, but in the 89th minute Figueroa was like a shark slipping through the defensive nets to complete his hat-trick and end the match in deadly fashion. The groans that had almost drowned out the Argentina cheers rapidly turned to applause though. It had been a good game.

The roof glows red, as the stadium’s lower tier cooks at gas mark 9.

After the match, and the excitement builds as the final of the photographers’ 4 x 400m relay enters the final lap.

Japan fans keep the faith during a later visit the following year.

Germany - Hanover

2009-07-28T13:47:00.001+01:00

Like the groove in your top lip, I never really understood what the Confederations Cup was for. It was the spleen of football tournaments. I was sure it did provide some function, but I couldn’t see what. Its champions weren’t champions of anything and appeared to exist solely to give Sepp Blatter another chance to appear on television with footballers that some people around the world actually liked, as if he was hoping to absorb popularity through osmosis.

In June of 2005 it was held in Germany and suddenly it had a purpose – to provide me with an excuse for a short trip away. I’m sure that was not its exact purpose, but I would be spending enough on three tickets to probably pay for entrées at whichever five star hotel Sepp Blatter had generously booked himself into for the duration, so I was probably along the right lines.

Unlike the world cup a year later there were still plenty of tickets available, at least as long as you weren’t too choosy. I just wanted to see two or three games in different venues in a small number of days so I wasn’t too bothered. True, the games on offer didn’t exactly leap out at me, but Argentina v Australia was enticing enough to cover my not overpowering enthusiasm for Japan v Mexico and Japan v Greece. It also got me five nights spread between Hanover, Nuremburg and Frankfurt – three very different German cities. As luck would have it, within a week of booking, FIFA released the embarrassingly undersubscribed corporate ticket allocations and I could have gone to virtually any game, but I was booked up and settled, so no changing now.

First up was Hanover. Hmm, Hanover – hard to know exactly how to describe the place. “Dull” would perhaps be unkind, but it’s not good that perhaps the most remarkable thing about the city was just how recognisable it was from the scale model of the WWII city ruins in the City Hall, where nigh on every single building in the city had been bombed out. The tourist guides had billed the city as being very green, but greenery was rather at a premium in the centre itself, where everything was very orderly but just lacking any sort of spark. I went in the centre and found what appeared to be a kind of fan zone, suggesting Mexican and Japanese food to try, as well as on-stage entertainment. It looked like it might be up and running in a couple of days time - unfortunately the match was later that evening.

It was a nice place, but also the sort of place where the bars still aren’t open by the middle of the afternoon. All very correct and orderly, which made it all the more surprising to be walking through a shopping district and notice a brash couple of streets of seemingly thriving red-light district just over the road. I suppose when you live somewhere where the shops all shut by midday on Saturday, you need some other form of diversion.

If there was something to commend Hanover for though, it’s having a very central stadium, just on the edge of the city centre, where it does start to get genuinely green. The newly built stadium certainly deserved a more promising opening encounter than Japan v Mexico. The stadium itself was very light two-tiered oval, with roof sheeting so clear it looked as if they hadn’t finished building it yet. The dark blue seats had a kind of drab matt finish, as if they’d been in another stadium for 20 years before being installed here, but was otherwise fine.

I was in the cheap seats behind one goal. I had originally opted for a pricier ticket, but noticed that FIFA, in the kind of generous gesture that’s become their hallmark, were charging an extra 10 euros or so postage on all orders over 75 euros (as mine would have done) even though they clearly were going to post them in exactly the same way, with no additional postage charge. So I opted for the cheap ticket. Sure the view wouldn’t be as good, but I laughed at the knowledge that Sepp, in his suite, would no longer be indulging himself with two drinks from the mini-bar and the packet of peanuts on my money, oh no.

The stadium slowly filled, or half-filled to be exact, as the Mexican and Japanese fans who’d been so elusive around town took their positions, although they could probably have sat more or less where they’d wanted. What was painfully obvious was the almost total absence of people in the expensive executive seating away down the side to my right. Maybe the corporate whores had decided to sample the real thing down those interesting neon-lit streets a mile up the road, instead of the game this evening, and put a different kind of VIP service on their expense accounts.

The Mexican fans easily outnumbered their Japanese counterparts, doing their best to create an atmosphere despite being scattered about like litter on a windy day, and they were to outnumber them in goals as well, but not after being given a fright. Japan took a deserved early lead in the game and it wasn’t until Mexico hit back with a fine long-range chip before half time that they settled. The second half was mainly about whether Mexico would go on to get the win, or if Japan could hold on or maybe sneak one themselves. It went with the form book, with Fonseca heading a winner midway through the second half. It had been a decent game though, better than I’d expected with Mexico looking talented but not quite organised, and Japan looking organised but not quite as talented. Just a shame there weren’t more to see it.

When you have a low crowd you do need everyone doing their bit. The Mexicans had a few horns, which they played with all the style and grace that horns at football matches tend to get played with. The Japanese fans made up for a lack of singing with an infectious enthusiasm. The merest hint of an attack was greeting with excited howls of encouragement, even if they did often have a high-pitched quality which made it sound like they’d all just picked that exact moment to spill a cup of very hot coffee into their laps.

Less welcome was Mr Mexican-Wave, sat just to my left. I would learn during my games in Germany that there are people in this country who are convinced that Mexican waves are, like, you know, the best ever, and nothing will stop them in their quest to get them going. I don’t mind the odd one two, but he and his pals, every few minutes would be up, counting down from five, for everyone to enjoy this fun. He was so thrilled when one worked, it was as if he was nearing orgasm, and it really got on my nerves. In fact if he had just taken out a picture of his favourite teen idol and pleasured himself, no doubt while listening to something like Agadoo on his iPod, I would have found it less offensive. No doubt the woman in the row in front might have had a different opinion, but as she joined in every wave too, I wasn’t bothered.

The match also introduced my to the world cup (or confederations cup in this trial-run case) experience where generic souvenirs, food, scoreboard music and entertainment were part of the package. Most depressing were the souvenir stands, where all mentions of the competing teams (let alone the host club) had been censored by the FIFA thought police. In a country that appears to pride itself on the variety of club scarves on offer, FIFA offered a choice of one, with that one being of a design so insipidly mediocre that I can only assume that in the four minutes the designer used to come up with the design he clearly must have stopped for a coffee break at some stage. And then gone to the toilet.

The food kiosks were a little better. They did at least offer a personal first of being able to eat schnitzel at a football ground, although they did warn me that it wasn’t hot. I took this to mean unintentionally, but hoped that the language barrier wasn’t failing to inform me that they were also raw. They seemed OK. I didn’t go down with food poisoning in any case. A touch of alcoholic poisoning perhaps, a bit later in the evening though as the bars at last filled up. Brazil were mauling Greece 3-0 on the TVs and Hanover was getting as wild as it seems to get on a Thursday night. Maybe Friday would be something special here. I wouldn’t know though, as I’d be in Nuremburg.

Germany - FC Köln

2009-07-28T13:42:00.002+01:00

Viva Colonia!

Sometimes things don’t quite work out to plan. With my flights, hotel, and ticket to Borussia Dortmund all booked, all I had to wait for was the tickets for Köln’s match the following day to go on sale and I’d be set. It was only then, when idly trawling through the back news pages of Köln’s website that my limited German alerted me to why tickets weren’t on sale – they’d sold out three months ago. This shouldn’t really have been a surprise. Köln were top of the league and playing 2nd placed MSV Duisburg in what was a local derby of sorts. True, their stadium, just completed ready for the world cup the following year, held 50,000 fans, but Köln were averaging 38,000 and this was turning out to be the match that would settle the title.

I had to look round for alternatives. Rot-Weiß Essen were one option. Not too far away, but not too enticing either. They were submarine deep in relegation trouble and doomed in what would be a black year for the three Rot-Weiß clubs in the division, with all three getting the opportunity to get better acquainted with their more modest regional rivals the following season.

More enticing were Alemannia Aachen, tugging grimly to the coat-tails of the promotion race and playing in a tight traditional ground, located just north of the city centre. What’s more, it was a city I’d considered visiting anyway, with cathedral that made it on to the very first list of UNESCO world heritage sites, and a small but picturesque centre. It would have been bigger, but Aachen was the point where Germany’s finger in the dyke of the western front failed, allowing the allied waters to flood in.

To be honest it was slightly disappointing. Sure it looked pretty enough, but I went on a Sunday, and pretty much everything is shut on a Sunday in Germany, so it was all a little too quiet. In some ways it’s better than having busloads of ugly tourists getting in the way and getting on your nerves, but at other times, as pleasant as the calm was, you half expected an old warden to come out and berate you for walking on the streets that he’d only cleaned that morning. To be fair, everything in England used to be shut on Sunday too not so long ago, until shops realised that the fine for opening was far less than the profits they’d make if they opened, so they all just opened anyway.

I strolled up to the ground, which was about twice as far away as it looked on the map, in an area far too posh to have a football ground on its doorstep. I was starting to have doubts that I was even on the right road as it felt that wrong. I was sure if I asked directions then the householders would just ridicule my question. “A football ground? Here? Are you mad? Look at our lawns and Audis in the driveways. Do we look like football supporters round here?”

But there it was, with the first few fans turning up. With the gates not yet open I clambered up a grass bank at the back of the south terrace, to try and get a look at the stadium. Various fences had been erected with the specific aim of stopping anyone who’d climbed the bank from peering in and getting a view, but thankfully they weren’t thorough enough. Aachen’s Tivoli is certainly a ground rather than a stadium, being only covered on two sides, and only seated on one, but it was trim and had an intimacy that made you wish you could be there when it was full, as it had more or less been for most games that season. It looked bigger than its 22,000 capacity, especially with a sizeable terrace at the opposite end, curiously divided by a wide yellow diagonal gangway, as if wearing a sash to audition for the part of Virgil Tracy in Thunderbirds. With the ground not open yet, I had a quick shufty round the portakabin club shop, purchasing a few items, and then made my way back to the station, for it was not there that I’d be watching a match today.

The internet is good for many things. Not just communication, nor the opportunity to visit eye-opening websites liable to completely wreck your computer and send your bank details to drugs cartels in Colombia, but also the ability to purchase items and services with an ease previously unimaginable. There wouldn’t, for example, have been any way of shopping around for a cheap hotel and flight to Cologne at my local travel agent, normally manned by people unable to comprehend that somebody might want to go somewhere other than Magaluf for two weeks in July, and there certainly wouldn’t have been any way of buying a ticket for Köln v Duisburg. Now, thanks to the simplicity of eBay, I was able to bid for any of the number of tickets for the game being offered for sale. I did have Aachen as a fall-back option, after a club official had kindly offered to reserve a ticket for me, but I had to guiltily make an excuse for not taking up the offer when, to my surprise, I won the second bid I went for. It wasn’t all plain sailing. It was German eBay for a start, which naturally was in German. I spoke no useful German and the seller, who’d clearly been using the same ludicrous Babelfish translator as me, spoke no English. But somehow I got him to agree to post to England and we arranged a bank transfer, and for a total of something like £50 all in, I had the “Top-spiel!” ticket as advertised in my hands. It was a comp, which was a bit annoying to tell the truth, but his selling history had him down as selling a variety of items, not tickets, so he didn’t seem like a tout. He, with Babelfish’s help no doubt, wished me “good laughter” for the match, and seemed decent enough.

Last summer, twenty one students from Kuala Lumpur set a new world record for the number of people who can fit inside an old style Mini-Cooper. One can only assume they’d been a to a big football match in Germany by public transport to pick up tips. People are crammed on to trams in a manner that would have veterans of the Tokyo Metro wilting in the crush, and as the desperately waiting fans at Rudolfplatz squeezed aboard, you felt that if everyone breathed in at once then the carriage would split at the seams. Such cosiness isn’t perhaps too bad in the depths of winter, but in the apron of summer you have to choose who you wish to be squashed against with care. A packed tram on a hot day takes on its own microclimate. Botanists could have planted tropical plants on the U-bahn, had there been room, and it only lacked the rhythmic buzzing of cicadas to complete the tropical feel. The solid mass of the tram was even less appreciated by those unfortunate enough to be trying to board at later stops. Their protestations that they clearly had to be let on were matched by what I can only assume was the German for “if you even try it, I’ll slam the doors on your genitals”. Even a naked Keira Knightley would have been turned away if she’d tried to squeeze in, but given the fondness some German fans have for badges on their denim waistcoats it’s just as well, as she’d have emerged with her skin looking like the surface of the moon.

The tram eventually disgorged its load a few hundred yards from the newly-named RheineEnergy Stadium. Fans stepped out, gasping for air as if plucked drowning from a pond, and enjoying the air’s comparative coolness to a degree that bordered on the erotic. But all was quickly forgotten as fans made their way across the field towards the stadium.

From the outside the stadium is blocky but imposing. Like a girl in a badly lit nightclub, it has the ability to look both ugly and stunning depending on the angle from which viewed, but inside it’s another stadium which is just how a stadium should be. Four covered stands, each with two tiers, with the corners of the lower tiers filled. Simple, but totally effective. What any stadium needs is good fans to fill it. It may not have been an ordinary day, but on this showing Köln had very good fans. Surprisingly, despite there being a designated away section, there were also various fans in Duisburg blue dotted about in the sea of red in the home stands. No doubt the Bundesliga’s online ticket purchasing system makes buying tickets for the “wrong” part of the ground easy, but nobody appeared to bat an eyelid.

As the stadium filled and kick-off approached, a man with a guitar took stage on the pitch and, miked-up, started to sing. Typically it’s something that makes my heart sink. Now I’ve heard this a few times before. The worst was possibly at a Spurs v Nottingham Forest match about 20 years ago when Chas ‘n’ Dave where removed from their formaldehyde preservation tank and allowed to unleash one of their terrible songs upon the public. Unlike their 1981 cup hit, blessed with Ossie Ardiles’ “in de cup for Totting-ham” line, this song had no saving graces and the applause was because it was finished, only for Chas ‘n’ Dave to misread this as an encore and start the song again – the same song. Sure enough, when that ended, they paused, and started playing it for a third time. Only the intervention of the teams coming back on the pitch, probably as an act of mercy rather than half-time being over, stopped them. One other time was at NEC Nijmegen, when a female singer sang away, and a mate I was with, without any discernable shame or embarrassment, identified it as the Netherland’s entry into the Eurovision Song Contest and named the singer. In a country famous for exporting its cheese, it was appropriate. But this singer at Cologne, to be fair, did the business. True, I won’t be out seeking his song “Viva Colonia” to download to my iPod (not least because I don’t own one) but he really got the crowd going, even if the song did sound like it was written under the influence of Guinness rather than Kölsch.

Then, as the game kicked off, with the party about to get into full swing, it was if someone had decided to get the evening going with their compilation of Morrisey B-sides. The first half was so sterile that you’d have let babies eat food off of it, and very quickly the Mexican waves started, pretty much the hallmark of a game where the fans have to make their own entertainment. I found myself looking at the distinctly German advertising hoardings, wondering just what constitutes humour in a packet of Funny-Frisch potato crisps, and just who was Jack Wolfskin? And how had someone who’d sounded like a small boy who’d jumped from the pages of a medieval fairy tale end up running his own business?

One or two members of the crowd started to get on my nerves. A few just stood unnecessarily at regular but baffling intervals, as if in the need to stretch their legs after just reading a scary report into deep-vein thrombosis. One made it easy to dislike him, not just by standing up in a similar manner, but by also wearing a baseball cap backwards – in Europe you might as well be wearing a badge saying “I’m the sort of person everything is dumbed down for” – but he insisted in tunelessly playing a small horn as well, despite lacking even the merest degree of competence at doing do. Had he been nearer I’d have been tempted to hurl small pieces of my currywurst in his general direction.

Luckily the second half was a huge improvement, unless that is, you were an MSV Duisburg supporter. A few minutes in, a through ball played in Lukas Podolski into the left of the penalty box. He fired across the keeper low into the bottom corner to put Köln 1-0 up, and there was no looking back. Seeing how to score, they repeated the exact same move three more times, each time with the same result for an emphatic 4-0 win. The title was signed, sealed and delivered, but strangely there didn’t appear to be any trophy. Instead the Köln players did a lap of honour with a glass of beer – not the usual 1/3rd of a pint Köln stange, but instead from a glass about the size of a human leg. Rather like with their football today, beer drinking is apparently very much all or nothing in Köln.

Empty spaces had appeared in what had previously been blue & white occupied seats long before the end, but remarkably hundreds of Duisburg fans stayed in the city to down their sorrows afterwards. They had been promoted after all, so it was hardly a disaster. Quite why some Duisburg fans decided to sing “Show Me the Way to Amarillo” into the small hours was less clear, but does perhaps show that thanks to TV, terrace songs can travel very rapidly. I might have been at the two biggest league crowds I’d ever seen two days in a row, but that, coupled with being offered the almost surreal sight of being able to see both England and continental Europe at the same time from my plane window on the flight home, showed how surprisingly close we were.

I envied Köln’s promotion to the top division, dreaming of Reading doing the same, and thought that I should try and get back to Germany for some football soon, without at the time imagining quite how soon both would come true.

Aachen’s Tivoli – lowering the tone of the neighbourhood in the best way.

A mass of scarves on the home terrace as 1 FC Köln prepare for kick-off. MSV Duisburg still didn’t look ready two hours later.

Germany - Borussia Dortmund

2009-07-28T13:35:00.000+01:00

Cologne’s cathedral is magnificent. Over 500 knee-grinding steps to the top high, dominating the skyline from ground level or if flying in at night like I did. It draws your eyes towards it like a beacon, which is just as well as virtually all of the surrounding area was hideously rebuilt after being flattened by the allies in the 1940s, and given how the centre was replaced, the locals must secretly fancy the RAF to come back and have another go. The only consolation is that if it had been done in England it would have been even worse, and they’d have probably knocked the cathedral down as well to make way for a Tesco.

It was but 100 metres from here that I checked, very late, into my hotel. It was the kind of get-what-you-pay-for 2/3 star city centre small hotel, the kind the gets good reviews on Tripadvisor from everyone except American women complaining that it doesn’t have the kind of facilities they’d come to expect at the Sheraton. At this particular hotel, one woman had complained that the hotel was opposite a shop selling “adult products”, and I can only assume one of the window dummies must have been wearing a night-dress, as it was an ordinary women’s clothes shop when I visited about 2 months later. My reason for choosing was a combination of price and it’s location near where the bars seemed to be. Within minutes of checking in, my sixth sense had already directed me to the door of a very decent Irish pub, right next door to that incredible rarity of a Welsh Pub, and arriving no too long before midnight, I had no time to lose.

Many in the pub were locals, and as such many were drinking the local type of beer, Kölsch. It is a fine beer, no doubt about it, but it’s served in such a tiny glass that you might as well be wearing a pink frilly shirt, wearing a cravat and calling yourself Tarquin, such is the impression it gives off. I stuck to Guinness and rapidly find myself in conversation with a group of British nurses who were out celebrating someone’s birthday, even though their birthday had passed several months since. Naturally, they were much more drunk than I was, and had trouble contemplating that I’d only been in the city 30 minutes. I don’t think there was a great deal they weren’t having trouble contemplating – judging by their departure, walking upright was enough of a mental challenge – but I was again proud of the kind of dignified conduct British people are famed for across Europe, as they sang and weaved down the streets.

My first proper game in Germany was not to be in Cologne, but in Dortmund instead. My first match in Germany of any kind was a pre-season friendly for Reading v Reutlingen. Played in a small village outside Ulm – which has a cathedral which laughs at Cologne’s Dom and calls it a midget, being 530’ high, with 768 steps to the top which turn your legs to quivering jelly – the game was a 0-0 draw of such awfulness that people’s hearts were stopping through boredom.

This proper game was to be rather different. There’d be about 80,000 more people there for a start. While other clubs might like to claim to be the biggest in the world, the fact that a club in Germany usually gets more fans in week-in week-out tends to be brushed under the carpet. While yet another sub-mediocre season may have seen Dortmund’s crowds dip down to a mere 71,000 this year with them in the relegation zone, they were comfortably ahead of all others averaging 77,000 when I was there, in a year when an outside chance of an UEFA Cup place was the best they could hope for.

Borussia Dortmund’s ground is almost the perfect football stadium. It’s completely enclosed and rectangular, with every seat as near to the pitch as probably possible in such a large stadium. Totally simple and unfussy, without ever looking boring, and free of flamboyances of an architect showing just how wonderful he is because he got a new French Curve for his birthday. And best of all, the entire of one end is a terrace. Not a little piddly one either, a giant one where those at the top are given oxygen and leaflets warning about altitude sickness. It makes the Kop look like a fourth division cowshed. So what if the inclined glass wall at the back makes the roof look, from the back at least, like the lid of a cheap 1980s record player – a bit of retro Grundig kitsch never hurt anyone.

Certainly the people of Dortmund are very proud of the place. The Dortmund tourism site, admittedly not blessed with an overflowing variety of options, names the stadium as its top tourist attraction, while the “things to do” page suggests going to a match there. The best park in the town is, surprisingly enough, the Westfalia Park that surrounds the stadium. Parks are something of a feature of German stadiums. Often planned as part of sports parks in the hyperinflation days of the 1920s, when it was thought that Germans needed alternate ways of keeping fit other than pushing their daily earnings around in a wheelbarrow, a stadium was usually the centrepiece. Naturally the designers, who would probably never go there themselves and always live in worlds where it never rains, considered a 15 minute walk through the park from the station as perfect.

The terracing had long since sold out by the time I came to buy a ticket – an internet purchase via a German speaking friend, but my ticket was opposite, one seat from an aisle, or so I thought. Certainly I was one seat from the edge of the fairly wide block, but rather than an aisle, there was just another block of seats to my left, with a handrail separating the two blocks. Not only did this handrail serve absolutely no purpose, it was just the perfect height for being directly between my eye-line and the near goal. Short of putting a spike in the middle of each seat as a tribute to Kaiser Wilhelm, it’s hard to think of a more useless and annoying fitting to add to a stadium. It’s only possibly function was to pacify the fears of some anally retentive stadium manager who fears their orderly blocks of seats might be ruined if someone was to move from their designated block into another. They demand a barrier to prevent such movement, thus allowing them to get on with ironing their socks and sharpening their pencils to exactly the same length. Naturally, the best way round the problem of having it block my view was to move to a vacant seat in the next block, so it didn’t work for that reason either. Even getting to the row was bad enough as a man and his son were in my seat due to some ambiguous row numbering. It took about 20 minutes, the help of two stewards and about 100 people around them telling them that it really was those two that were wrong, and not all of them, and that their two places were the two achingly vacant seats directly in front of them.

Exposure to German football had always been limited for me, but I first saw some when one cable channel in England covered it for a short while. I hardly knew any of the players, but I liked it a fair bit. The players just seemed much more ambitious and would routinely shoot from distances that would have fans here groaning in frustration. The obvious difference is that fans in Germany don’t mind because the shots are often on target, whereas in England a shot from 35 yards usually has more chance of finding the elixir of eternal life than finding the top corner. It must be something either taught very early of just in the genes, as a young Dortmund player, just 17 years old with a handful of games under his belt, scored one of the best goals I’ve ever seen from just about that distance. I could help but think that young Marc-Andre Kruska, if he can do that at 17, must have a bright future ahead of him, although with my eye for talent he’s probably now playing for Augsburg Reserves in the regional leagues.

Kruska’s was the equalising goal early in the second half. The already relegated Hansa Rostock had surprised everyone, including probably themselves, by taking an early lead in front of the packed south terrace. It was not what the yellow-clad hordes had wanted. It had been some kind of flag day beforehand, with nearly everyone there holding up a banner flag on two poles, as if they’d set out originally to go on a trade union march, and decided to go to the football instead. Naturally, their own strike made the brothers happy.

It was a very open game, with Hansa Rostock and their fans determined to enjoy their last afternoon of Bundesliga 1 football for at least a year, but with the probing of Rosicky pulling the strings in midfield, and Koller blundering about and looking as dangerous as an elephant in a kindergarten up front, Dortmund were always the most likely to leave happy. And that was how it turned out, with Koller thudding the ball in from close range to give Dortmund the points, and the majority of the 80,500 fans, including myself, enjoyed the glow of victory. I’d enjoyed the day. A good match. I’d got myself a good scarf as a souvenir – albeit acquired with some difficulty as despite asking for the alt-Deutsch scarf in my very best German pronunciation, the woman in the kiosk still looked at me with a look of incomprehension as if I’d asked her if her feet were made from Sauerkraut. Even the less than inspiring train journey through the limited greenery of Westphalia viewed from the train’s top deck (you just have to go on the top deck, you just do) didn’t bring me down. I pulled into Cologne station is good spirits, only to find the city swarming with Borussia Meonchengladbach fans celebrating staying up, and went off to find some good spirits of my own.

Outside the city of Dortmund's premiere tourist attraction.

The south terrace goes up and up, as do the flags.

USA - Rochester Raging Rhinos

2009-07-28T13:29:00.000+01:00

The following week I found myself in Rochester. Not a town on the usual tourist trail, and indeed it was a detour so absurdly expensive that it clearly overstepped the boundary of foolhardy, and all to see what amounted to a non-league match. Of course the local team usually drew around 11,000 so it wasn’t like going miles out of my way to watch Farnborough play Northwich Victoria, but it was non-league all the same.

Rochester is regarded as a small town team by those with clubs in MLS. Naturally, America has a rather different idea about small, with this small-market town having an urban population twice the size of the city of Liverpool, and a city centre boasting buildings which offered a skyline rather different to the one offered by Farnborough’s Kingsmead shopping centre.

After checking in to my hotel just beyond the eastern edge of the centre, I made my way to an “English pub” just a few hundred metres away. To be fair, as recreating an English ambience went, they’d done a fair better job than the majority, who appeared to have used watching Three Men and a Little Lady while under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs as a reference (where the makers of that film got their ideas from, I’ve no idea – I think they just went with the drugs) as it did actually look like an English pub. Unfortunately it looked exactly like the kind of awful sticky-carpeted pub where the landlord still clings to the belief that it’s 1973, with Cum on Feel the Noize and 20th Century Boy blaring out as drinkers supped pints of Worthington E.

To be fair I can’t recall what I had to eat in there, just that it exactly replicated the English Pub meal experience, where quality can differ to an extent that makes Russian Roulette seem mundane in comparison. And all probably served by the sort of cook who tests the warmth of the food by sticking her thumb in it, before coming out to the bar to serve and flirt with the customers, seemingly unaware that she’s put on more pounds than an apartment in Notting Hill, and her cleavage has gone further south than Amundsen. My memories aren’t all that clear, so I could be doing the place a disservice, but the fact that I chose to spend the latter part of the evening in the kind of bar that played country music instead shows that I seriously didn’t want to go back.

With a few hours to go until the match kicked off I decided to see what Rochester’s pulsating heart had to offer. And after about half an hour I was beginning to realise why Rochester’s crowds were so good. Perhaps Rochester’s other attractions are just incredibly well hidden. I’d readily admit to the fact that I wouldn’t be able to recommend a single attraction in Reading that it’d be worth getting off the train to see, but it was Saturday afternoon and I was struggling even to find a shop, let alone one that was open. I eventually found a shopping mall, whose utilitarian feel made you feel it was originally designed as a nuclear bunker, but it was nigh on empty. A few bored youths strolled around looking like they couldn’t wait until it was Monday morning again, and I emerged on the other side of the centre witnessing only shops offering the least tempting range of wares of any street since the time I cut through what was clearly the cheaper end of a certain district of Amsterdam.

Roughly between the centre and Frontier Field, my venue for the evening, was the Historic High Falls Entertainment District. I’d have to say that as entertainment districts go, it was definitely a work in progress. A sign proclaimed “Historic High Falls. Enjoy!” but as much as I tried, as did a few others, the notice still felt more like a challenge than an invitation. I find abandoned factory buildings only offered so much joy potential, and I doubted I’d be able to eke out the experience until kick-off, around two hours away. There was the High Falls waterfall itself, which was potentially impressive if you overlooked the obtrusive bridge over it and the derelict building to the right. It was a decently sized waterfall too, and I could have been impressed by it, if only I hadn’t spent the morning up the road at Niagara, which made it look but a trickle from an overflow pipe.

But then I turned the corner and saw a bar, which looked to be if not full, at least liberally sprinkled with the first people I’d seen all day who looked to be enjoying themselves. It would have been perfect for a pre-match drink, if only I hadn’t realised at that exact point that I’d left my match tickets in my suitcase on the other side of the city. I thought of staying there and just paying again, but memories of the rather tortuous process of buying the ticket without an online system, and the glowing letter of gratitude I received from the club which almost made it sound like they were so thrilled to have me going that they greet me personally outside the stadium, made me feel that I had to go back. The free bus which stopped right outside my hotel helped too.

If I’ve been unkind about the rest of Rochester, Frontier Field itself was pleasant enough. Whereas most new small stadiums in England look, from the outside at least, like they host shoppers of Furniture Warehouse or PC World on Saturdays, Frontier Field was tastefully adorned in brick and looked homely in the British sense, rather than the American one. It was, unfortunately, actually a baseball stadium, and as such only had two sides, although temporary seating had been installed down most of the opposite touchline. The remaining space was occupied by a scoreboard and a large number of advertising hoardings, which filled this gap far more than it really had a right to do.

I was in the expensive seats and those around me looked if not affluent, at very least suburban. They all seemed keenly enthusiastic, if not exactly boisterous to any degree, and keenly anticipating the start. This was still strange to me, as I was still finding hearing Americans talking about football akin to hearing Victoria and David Beckham discussing Nietzsche, but at least it was a pleasant surprise, unlike how the Beckham's conversation would be, no doubt. A small band of more vocal fans opposite did their bit on the far side, even if Rochester isn’t a name that lends itself well to many songs. Singing the club’s whole name was all but impossible, but it did mean I was about to watch perhaps the best named match I’ve ever been to, with the Rochester Raging Rhinos taking on the Long Island Rough Riders. It had a big billing to live up to, and live up to it it did. It was everything the previous week’s MLS game wasn’t. It was fast, flowing, end to end stuff played by players who looked like they enjoyed playing rather than it just being a job. The standard certainly wasn’t non-league either. I was used to watching Reading in England’s third tier at the time, and Rochester didn’t look a step down. Long Island clearly weren’t as good, but they were game and played with the kind of spirit unmatched African teams used to show in the world cup in the 1980s, before they hired European coaches to teach them how to be defensive and grind out results.

Exact details I’m not so sure about – it was 6 years ago – but Long Island missed a penalty at 1-0 down, and they kept up their spirit of being sportingly entertaining by applying a self inflicted coup de grâce in the final minute. 2-1 down and desperately hunting an equaliser, Long Island’s keeper decided to show just what he could do by dribbling down the field a good 45 yards out from goal, only to suffer a René Higuita moment, allowing a Rochester forward to score into an empty net from the centre circle. A fine way to end a fine game.

The crowd filtered away and I considered following them, just to see where people went on a Saturday night in Rochester, but I left them to it. Besides, the free bus went right back to my hotel, while I found the sort of bar where an imported beer is one from outside the state. Drinking in a similar establishment previously I’d made the mistake of enquiring about foreign beers, resulting in a beer-based parody of monty python’s cheese shop sketch, so this time I bought an American beer and sat and read the programme. The following morning Boston awaited. No chance of any sport there sadly, but perhaps one or two more bars I’d imagine.

USA - Chicago Fire

2009-07-28T13:23:00.000+01:00

If you are fan of the film The Blues Brothers then you shouldn’t go to Chicago. Yes, it’s good in that you recognise so many locations from the film, but once you know just how bafflingly illogical the car chase routes are, it does spoil the ending somewhat. You start to wonder out loud if Jake & Elwood need a map, as if they are trying to get to the cook county assessors office as quickly as possible, then they really shouldn’t be doubling back in completely the wrong direction.

My own introduction to the city was rather slower. Having checked in to my hotel in early evening, I was pleased to find the hotel had acquired the good sense to have a pub connected to the lobby. It was a very good pub, and I took the opportunity to have a swift one before hitting the town. The effects of dehydration from the 8 hour flight made the first Guinness rather swifter than I’d imagined, to the extent that I’d finished it before I’d received my change. Well perhaps I’ll have a couple then. If fact so welcoming was the pub that I found myself still there, 8 1/2 pints and two meals later, circa midnight trying to add my tip to the bar bill. The tipping concept I was fine with, but mathematics were becoming a problem.

It was an English themed pub with the obligatory red phone box. Unlike the few that remain in England (presumably they’ve all been sold off to English theme pubs worldwide), they hadn’t added the genuine authentic London touch of having every one of the windows filled with adverts for women offering a variety of personal services across town. It didn’t attract just local and British tourists either. One group of Germans trouped in, single file, in a very Teutonic and orderly manner. I even bet the barman that they were German and they’d all order the same thing, and they were and did, with a round of nine Budweisers. I have my suspicions, coming from the home of excellent beer as they did, that they actually said “Nein Budweiser!” and the waitress misunderstood, but you never know. It was overall a fine a convivial evening, what I can remember of it anyway, never more so than when someone on the table behind announced “…and suddenly there were lesbians everywhere”, and invited me to join them (the group at the table, not the lesbians) after witnessing my head swivel round in surprise in a fashion Linda Blair would have been proud of.

When I got my first sight of Soldier Field from the top of Sears Tower the following day, there were Germans about there too. Again they were embracing the local culture, talking in English and discussing the unparalleled attractions of Navy Pier – “we must go there. It has McDonalds…..everything!”

They didn’t show much interest in Soldier Field, it has to be said. An all-American dad with his son were far more animated though. “Look Son” he said, “there’s Wrigley Field, home of the Cubs!” as his kid looked on in awe. Perhaps it would have been kinder to keep quiet, but I felt obliged to point what the stadium was, and that Wrigley was but a hazy speck on the horizon to the left. Clearly pleased that some foreign upstart had made him look dumb in front of his child, he thanked me with the same warmth and sincerity as a group of American tourists on a train in Italy did the previous year when I ended their curious excitement about the train stopping in Geneva, by letting them know that Genova is the Italian name for Genoa. I should have just let them be amazed about how wide the lake was instead.

I would actually pay my own visit to Wrigley Field the following day, when I’d take part in a time-honoured traditional slice of American life by watching the Cubs lose at baseball. I don’t even like baseball, but it was still a very pleasant leisurely afternoon in front of a full house who seemed happy to be there, and if the Cubs won then that was a bonus. Which was just as well really.

First up was Soldier Field though, later that evening. I made my way there on the ‘L’, the rickety elevated railway that served Chicago. While to some, more obvious Chicago landmarks, such as the Sears Tower, or even the Lake Michagan waterfront mind spring to mind faster, the ‘L’ is perhaps the one that lets you feel you are in Chicago, rather than any other American city full of tall buildings. It’s distinctively Chicago. Whereas other cities opt for an underground metro system, offering you the chance to stare at the insides of dark tunnels for most of your trip, Chicago built an oversized toy train set over the roads, giving you the hope that you can peer into a first floor window and watch somebody doing something that should have necessitated them shutting the curtains first. Although saying that, taking a photograph to capture the character it gives the city is difficult as you have to step out into the road to do so. Not only does this present the not always appreciated opportunity of being knocked down by two tons of speeding metal, but it can expose you to a lingering vestige of the USA’s German heritage – the insistence that pedestrians only cross the road at specifically designated points, lest your jaywalking result in untimely death and a slightly scuffed fender on somebody’s 4x4. I actually got warned by a member of the public. I’m sorry, but I’ve been crossing the road unaided for years now. We had public service adverts on TV in the 1970s telling us kids how to do it, and it really was OK to cross anywhere if nothing’s coming. OK, the guy doing the adverts was a man in green tights who encouraged children he didn’t know to come with him across the road, but the same actor went on to play Darth Vader in Star Wars, and you don’t become leader of a galactic empire without knowing how to cross a road or two.

The ‘L’ stopped a short walk from the stadium, but the approach was a fine one. From the outside the (now rebuilt) stadium was something of a neo-classical masterpiece, looking more like a historical monument than a sports stadium. You expected to see a plaque slating at least one prominent president was buried there, and perhaps a group of schoolchildren on a tour – visiting the site, not buried there I hasten to add, regardless of how annoying they may be.

Inside it wasn’t quite the same. Rather like Wembley Stadium, the place did show its age somewhat up close, and the seats had been arranged in a colour scheme that made you glad that the person who designed it didn’t decorate your house, but the worst was at the sides. Only a man with his heart replaced by a lump of lead could have thought building a double tier of executive boxes obliterating the stadium’s Doric columns was a good idea, like fitting a logo-covered sports bodykit to an Aston Martin, it was like having you eyes jabbed with pencils.

But then again you could almost forget it all when you took your seat, and saw the Chicago skyline peering over the stadium’s north end.

Around 20,000 would eventually turn up, some well into the first half, but most went to the sides. The end I was in – the other was closed – was rather more sparse. The exception being one section of fans to my right, in the corner, who probably had as many fans in their section as the rest of the end combined. A guy at the front of this section deserved huge credit, for he spent virtually the entire game trying to get chants going. He deserves to be sponsored, possibly by a throat lozenge company, for his sterling efforts. It was just a shame that the completely open stadium resulted in his best efforts getting lost in the breeze. In a more intimate ground, perhaps with cover, the atmosphere would have been so much better.

The lazy summer’s evening, with the sun shuffling slowly over the horizon, seemed to take effect on the game itself. Maybe it was that with the stadium being 2/3rds empty it kicked off with it feeling like kick-off was still about an hour away, but it just had the feel of a pre-season friendly. Not that the play was bad in any way, just that there was no sense of urgency. It felt like while the players no doubt agreed that scoring would be a good thing to do, there wasn’t any particular need to do it just yet. Other than the guys in the singing section, it felt very much like the baseball I saw the following day, just emptier. A pleasant enough evening, but the sort of game that doesn’t just give the natives who hate the game ammunition, but takes aim and fires the gun for them as well. Eventually it did pick up. With about 20 minutes to go New England were awarded a penalty, which they duly converted. Many teams these days play a burst of music after a goal, but Simon & Garfunkel’s Sound of Silence would have been apt for what was for me a unique experience of seeing a goal scored where there’d been no away fans at all. Even in the old days at Reading, when Hartlepool might bring 30 down on a Tuesday night, a goal provoked some kind of reaction.

On the other hand it did provoke a reaction in the previously soporific Chicago team, and the remaining spell of the game was much better as both teams remembered why they had gathered here for the evening. This spell also included an equaliser for Chicago, which was the least their fans deserved, if perhaps more than the team did. A 10 minute overtime spell, surprising used by many as the perfect opportunity to head for the exits, failed to produce a winner. For much of the game a 10 hour overtime spell looked insufficient to do so, but I’d been hoping for a Chicago winner, and wasn’t sure if I was pleased for the extra 10 minutes, or disappointed that I’d seen my hopes dashed twice.

Overall an interesting if not totally exciting evening, although I was pleased that the game picked up and gave me something to warm my soul, for when the sun went down the air cooled from a balmy day to a degree that made every exposed hair stand on end as if I’d been statically charged. Time to get indoors I felt, and the doors of the Elephant & Castle would no doubt be open and waiting.

Turkey - Besiktas

2009-07-28T13:05:00.000+01:00

I don’t think too many Turks would argue that Istanbul isn’t the most attractive city in the world. Certainly Prague isn’t going to worry too much about tourists being lured off into the charming streets of Beyoğlu, where a string of greying underpants drying on a washing line tied to a tower block apartment’s balcony could often actually add aesthetic value. It wasn’t all bad. The main street through the district, İstiklal Caddesi, is more scrubbed up than most places, with more than enough bars and eye-catchingly dressed women to hammer home that despite this being a Muslim country, it’s certainly no Iran.

Without doubt though, it’s the Muslim influence that gives the city its most stunning buildings. Four huge mosques, one of which is now a museum, dominate the southern skyline and give it an air of the exotic unequalled anywhere in the western world, even if they do occupy the last few hundred yards of land that could be described as such with Asia starting just half a mile away across the Bosphorus. The Haghia Sophia and the Blue Mosque square up to each other across the park of Sultanahmet like two giant sumo wrestlers ready to battle it out to be declared best in the city, while the mosque of Süleyman the magnificent watches from a distance. All are magnificent, even if a penchant for blue on white decorative tiles made them at times curiously reminiscent of fantastically grandiose Victorian public lavatories.

And the first time you hear the call to prayer, the transportation to a different world is complete, although the grounding in the western world somehow conjures up images of an atmospheric sequence from a Bond movie than genuine eastern experience. The fact that it’s blasted out of a PA system rather than being chanted from a minaret makes it rather louder than you expect, and I can vouch from personal experience, after being moved to a normal, less sound-proofed room after two days in the suite, that the 5am call to prayer can be quite a startling experience. The other problem is there are mosques everywhere, and you hear it time and time again. After a while it just end up sounding like someone singing a slow Sting B-Side track while have a rubik’s cube pulled out of their arse. To be fair, I think having three small mosques near my hotel clouded my thinking. After all, being woken at 5am by the two quieter calls, only to be waiting for the window-shatteringly loud one to crank up like an air-raid siren isn’t the best way to recover from a slight hangover.

Despite that, I was actually quite pleased that one of the features of the Besiktas stadium, apart from overlooking the Bosphorus with views to the Asian shore, was that it had a mosque behind the away end, with minarets and a domed roof peeking over the stands. I deliberately chose my ticket with a view in that direction.

Tickets for both game were purchased from the same ticket shop on İstiklal Caddesi, found on the second day of trying after assistance from the Galatasaray club shop, at the top end of the street. It wasn’t the easiest exchange of communication, with neither of us having much fluency in languages other than our own, but although an actual address couldn’t be offered, I was given a slip of paper bearing the name “Ada Misik”. It was either the name of the shop that sold tickets, or my partially understood requests had been misinterpreted as a request for a geriatric hooker. Thankfully, after a very slow walk down the street, I was faced by Ada, a record shop, which sold tickets from the basement. Judging by the look of surprise on the face of the guy working there, he didn’t appear to know he sold football tickets there either.

Besiktas was a lot less hassle than Galatasary. For a start I could stroll to the game from my hotel, just 10 minutes away. I found a decent souvenir stand en route and the surrounding area, with it Bosphorus view, lack of flyover or murky tower blocks, and the mini-mosque on the corner made it seem a rather more genteel and orderly place. Even the Muezzin’s call to prayer over the mosque’s PA system, which cranked up as I stood outside the ground, avoided the usual Spinal Tap style urge to turn the volume to 11, for which I was very grateful. It also gave the impression of sounding like a beckoning to the Besiktas faithful to come to their altar, which they did in their thousands.

I again had a ticket for an end that was unreserved, in both senses, and made my way to a decent vantage point on the middle tier. The ground was somewhat tidier than Galatasaray, but while this can sometimes have a quietening effect on the crowd, the Besiktas more than made up for the earthiness that it lacks in comparison to the Ali Sami Yen with some very enthusiastic fans. As at Galatasaray, there was the familiar exchange of chants from different sections of the stadium, delivered with a forcefulness that made you feel they were having an argument rather than combining support. Perhaps about whether being at the side or end is better, or at the front or back of the side, all delivered in the same curiously awkward sounding tune, like an overblown bad angry line from an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical.

If there was one thing everyone could agree on, it would be that getting in late is a very bad idea as although every seat in the end was probably sold, many towards the sides, next to the stands, offered views that could be described as challenging. Ideal for those who like to stare at a sliver of grass as an accompaniment to an afternoon of staring at a large white wall, but not much else.

It was all looking very promising, but then the game started. On my way up to the middle tier seats, I’d passed a fan kneeling on his prayer mat in the corridor, and it was a day when divine intervention was required. If there is only one god whose name is Allah, then it’s a shame as Besiktas needed the help of all the deities they could muster to find a way of scoring that afternoon. I’m sure they can play better, as the faces on the crowd showed the familiar look of fans not exactly regarding it as the best performance of the season. To be fair Sakaryaspor did play in a fashion which made you suspect they’d sack Sven Goran Eriksson for being wildly cavalier tactically, but as times it felt like Besiktas were collectively filming a training video for the Turkish FA and would be filming the “now, how you should be doing it” scenes the following week.

The game dragged out like lingering chest infection to its inevitable 0-0 conclusion. The crowd, the best performers on the night by a mile, sarcastically applauded Sakaryaspor off the pitch to show their displeasure with the home side’s performance. The crowd drifted away into the night, no doubt with the Turkish for “well at least we didn’t lose” being said by those determined to salvage something from the evening.

Taksim, just up the road, was again packed with people, but this time they were gathered for free concert in the square as part of the Republic Day celebrations. That or I misjudged, with a 0-0 home draw with Sakaryaspor being a really massive achievement. I had other plans for much of the evening, but dipped back into the square later when I imagined the acts would be better and be demonstrating why they are so popular in Turkey as opposed to why they aren’t elsewhere. There was a good sense of occasion, and I got as near as I could (which was still a long way off) even though I couldn’t quite see why I wanted to be able to see performers I wouldn’t recognise anyway. Sadly I seemed to arrive for the finale – they finished their song and it all abruptly ended. No encore or anything. Kind of a let down, but still rather better than the match earlier.

I did have the option of going to a Trabzonspor match the following day, despite the lure of a “day trip” to Asia, but I saw some of it on TV, and an evening in the pub was a better option. Actually, an evening stuck in a lift with a time-share salesman looked a better option that the football I saw from that one, but I clearly wasn’t in luck as far as football was concerned. I could have got lucky if I followed those kind people offering to take me to bars full of pretty girls, or maybe just followed my good fortune that I was in Istanbul when they were having a sale on in the shops I was invited in to, but I let it pass. So two games, only one goal, and not much else in them to cheer about, but I could probably have got a very good deal on a belly dancing costume in the Grand Bazaar, had I wanted one, so it all balances out I suppose.

The very large Blue Mosque

..and the little one at Besiktas

On the banks of the Bosphorus, with Asia just a few goal kicks away. And a few flags, just in case anyone forgets what country they are in for a second.

Smoke over the north stand, albeit from flares rather than cigarettes

Taksim Square, with a stage replacing the bus station, and crowds celebrating Republic Day.

And in the Grand Bazaar, as one stall-holder bids for the Guinness Book of Records title for the world’s most overloaded extension lead.

Turkey - Galatasaray

2009-07-28T13:00:00.000+01:00

It was with deep regret that I didn’t make more of an effort to learn a bit of Turkish before coming to Istanbul. For starters it would have been more polite to be able to exchange the odd social pleasantry with the locals in their own language, but mainly so I could have had a t-shirt printed bearing the Turkish for “No I don’t want to buy a ***ing carpet.” Rather like the mafia are supposed to, the touts and sellers of Istanbul attack as your friend, and like the former, they all do their best to make you offers you can’t refuse. In some respects you have to admire their persistence. One shoe-shiner was literally on his hands and knees begging for my custom. Even the fact that I was wearing trainers didn’t deter him, with him seemingly convinced giving them a quick buffing with his tin of Kiwi black would enhance their appearance.

Of course it didn’t matter how you deterred one, be it polite insistence or an expression of a desire to shove his brushes into an alternate storage space if he won’t let go of your foot, no further than 20 yards up the road you’ll be approached by someone else saying “ah, he’s a very bad man. Gives Turkish people a bad name. Turkish people are very hospitable. Come back to my carpet shop and have a mint tea, and I’ll show you real Turkish hospitality….”

Not that I want to tar all Turks with the same brush. Some, such as the reception staff at the 4-star Marble Hotel who decided that for some reason I should be allowed to stay in the penthouse suite rather than the single room I’m paid for, I couldn’t praise enough. And taxis drivers, for driving me through the streets of Istanbul with killing or injuring me even once (although one did hit and old man crossing the road, but as he bounced off it was apparently OK) which is quite remarkable given Istanbul’s traffic. Many cities have very heavy traffic. Many have maniac drivers. Istanbul offered a possibly unique distillation of both – the only place I’ve been to that has high speed traffic jams. Stockbrokers must live in envy of people in Istanbul who own panel-beating franchises, as cars filter in at packed junctions at high speed as if the owners smeared their cars in butter before setting off.

Seatbelts were also regarded as a frivolous waste of energy, but a worrying number of taxis had cracked windscreens on the passenger side, as if an unbelted passenger had been caught unawares by the driver using his brakes for the first time that month. Once such taxi took me to Galatasaray, speeding through Taksim Square, usually avoiding the pavement, as if taking part in qualifying for the Turkish Grand Prix. The spectacle of the decorations of Turkish Republic Day whizzed by, with the city decked out in enough red flags to have Chairman Mao regarding it a bit excessive and cultish.

I was deposited underneath the flyover which runs right next to the south end of Galatasaray’s Ali Sami Yen Stadium. It’s not the most picturesque setting in world sports, but if the area really is a “Welcome to Hell”, then it makes sense that the neighbourhoods of Hell wouldn’t be leafy suburbia. The area was a homage to the god of pre-stressed concrete from the “I don’t give a shit how it looks” school of architecture. At least the stadium did its bit, being slapped in red and yellow paint, even if the flakiness of the paint was like the ineffective make-up of an ageing woman who ceased to be attractive long ago, and similarly looking very much like it hadn’t been touched up in 20 years.

I fought through the crowds to get to the new and fair-sized club shop to try and buy a scarf. The Galatasaray club shop in the city offered a very poor selection of them, and this shop was disappointingly no different, with a small range of insipid designs looking more like they were designed with an 80s new romantic band in mind, rather than a distinctly blue collar football team. It’s fair to say they were flying off the shelves at the same rate as pork chops at a Tel Aviv supermarket.

I set off instead hoping to find a seller or two outside the ground, and also to try and find where to get in – my ticketmaster style ticket decreed inviting me to try a well-known brand of poor instant coffee as more important than marking my entry point to the stadium. I only found one seller outside, offering a better-than-nothing selection of merchandise which I bought on that basis. The dubious nature of the design matched the seller’s clearly dubious nature of his business, with one guy selling, and one guy keeping a sharp lookout for the police.

Although I wasn’t genuinely concerned, given the less than cordial relations between Turkish and English supporters in the past, I had felt a degree of prudence in buying this scarf that I hadn’t felt at other grounds. Wearing it did allay a slight pang of unease, but at least now I was showing “my” colours as I walked round to where my ticket seemed to be indicating that I enter. I was therefore somewhat surprised to hear the sound of breaking glass as I turned the corner of a street on the north east side towards the entrance, as shards of glass from a broken bottle scattered across the road in my general direction. A few shouts came from the bar across the street from where the bottle had clearly resided previously, but the bottle, despite being in my direction, fell a long way short, so I put it down to bad timing. Why, after all, would Galatasaray fans throw a bottle at someone in a Galatasaray scarf?

That I’d misread my ticket, as I found out 100 yards down the road at the barrier, and had been going to the away entrance, explained it a bit. As did the way I wore the scarf under my coat which possibly only left the black and red stripes showing, coupled with the fact that today’s visitor’s, Genclerbirligi, play in red & black. My efforts at blending in had left me looking like an Englishman going to the Ali Sami Yen to support the away team. Perhaps only a “Greece – Champions 2004” t-shirt could have topped it off.

It took another half-tour of the surrounding streets to find the correct entrance, and even then, getting down to the entrance seemed problematic, unless I fancied jumping down a 6 foot drop to get to the correct level. Luckily several fans outside spotted a possibly common dilemma, and pointed the way through the gathered fans. Clearly not all the natives listed “throwing bottles at tourists” as a hobby.

My 11 Turkish Lira ticket got me a seat on a large, very weathered open end (which has since been demolished to make way for the first stage of the ground’s rebuild) with a large cigarette kiosk being the first concession stand inside the stadium, being a stark contrast to the UK, where smoking is banned in many grounds. This is Turkey though, and like much of the far east of Europe an admission of not smoking elicits the surprised response of “why not?” as if the health warnings on Turkish cigarettes read “Warning – there are rumours that smoking may not be all that good for you.”

I got the impression that seat and row numbers seemed to be taken on board with the same degree of enthusiasm that the warnings on cigarette packets clearly are, and so I found myself a decent seat, and settled down wondering how Reading were doing at Portsmouth that very moment, where it’d be the second half.

I can only imagine that Genclerbirligi don’t exactly stir the passions among Galatasary fans, as the place was hardly the seething cauldron of hate that made the place famous. It certainly didn’t seem any more heated than what I’m used to at Reading, and Reading’s fans are not exactly known for being the wild bunch. Indeed, when a few spoke to me, mainly to say excuse me as they walked past me seat, they always did so in English and were very polite. Very hospitable, and without once asking me back to their carpet shops.

Things perked up nearer kick-off. The gradual build up of atmosphere, once normal at English grounds, but now almost gone, is still alive in Turkey. Each section of the stadium would take it in turns to chant at those opposite, to be returned with appreciative applause. The songs were sung with much enthusiasm, but remarkably little tune, but got the message across in a very energetic way, and with a quarter of an hour to go any hint of prawn sandwiches in the crowd had been swept away.

Pretty much every single person was standing, despite the seats, but having been walking around the city all day I decided to take a break and try to find out about events at Fratton Park. As I texted a mate in the seemingly different world of Portsmouth, I noticed the fans were singing along with a fair degree of gusto to some awful dirge which I took to be the club song or similar. As I clearly wasn’t Turkish I’m they’d have understood my reluctance to join in, but at the rousing finale it occurred to me I’d probably just sat down and sent a long text during the Turkish national anthem. I got the text reply, which in its entirety read “Lost 3-1”. Its brevity telling me exactly everything I needed to know about the kind of performance it was. I just hoped this game would be better.

It was an eventful game, but mainly a frustrating one. Galatasaray were clearly a far better side, with Genclerbirligi offering little beyond the occasional breakaway, but the final ball was constantly one to bring about premature baldness, with tearing your hair out in annoyance the most likely outcome. They couldn’t even blame the ref for their troubles as he couldn’t have been more of a homer if he’d been yellow and starring in the Simpsons. Naturally, on the rare occasions that he decided to give Genclerbirligi a free kick, perhaps for the sheer novelty of doing do, howls of outrage spilled down from every stand, and very nearly more too – dozens of fans in one stands upper tier took such opportunities to walk right out to the edge of a flimsy looking roof extension over the lower tier. It’s only going to take a bit of light rain to have some fan being able to berate a linesman from rather closer than he imagined.

The breakthrough eventually came with 20 minutes left, Sukur for once proving that it is possible for a Galatasaray player to shoot without looking like he has ankles made of rubber, and provoking the kind of cheer that only a goal in a frustrating game can produce. The 200 or so away fans, in contrast, looked very quiet and lonely in their little corner. It’s not as if they could slip out to a welcoming bar in the vicinity either.

At least I knew with a game like this, that I was unlikely to miss another goal if I slipped away early to try and get a head start on the crowds, as the ground was well off the metro line and I was bargaining on finding a taxi. Or having a very long walk. It seemed that everyone else had the same idea though and I was fighting through a flood of human traffic rather than the trickle I’d presumed, but luckily there were cabs lining the street. I chose one, yet another with a cracked passenger side windscreen, and we shot off as fast as the traffic would allow towards Taksim, where crowds were surprisingly milling about. Given that on the square itself, the most interesting features are a bus station and some pedestrian crossings (where a countdown to how long before the “walk” sign turns red again produces “beat the clock” feats of road-crossing recklessness and derring-do that Evel Knievel in his prime would have dismissed as too dangerous) it’s hardly an obvious place for anyone to gather, but at least it made avoiding the clip-joint touts a bit easier. I might have been in need of a beer and a bit of a chat, but not in a place that’d probably charge me 1000 Turkish Lira for the privilege.

Russia - Torpedo Moscow

2009-07-28T12:46:00.000+01:00

The Luzniky Stadium pre-match, or perhaps during it – it’s hard to tell at Torpedo's matches.

With the problems I’d experienced at the previous two games I decided to make my way to Torpedo Moscow’s home ground a day early to buy a ticket in advance. With Russian football politics just as messy as its normal kind, Torpedo’s own stadium is now home to the little-supported FC Moskva, while they have decamped to the national stadium, the 85,000 seat Luzhniky.

On arrival I found the grounds leading to the stadium filled with a large market crammed with stalls selling all manner of goods that I didn’t really want. It was real “Russia according to the school textbooks” stuff, even if seeing grandmothers having their shopping bags searched with a metal detector was a product of more modern times, and all so very different to what I’d found back in the centre of Moscow. Perhaps 15 years ago, GUM, the state shopping mall that lines one side of Red Square, sold goods like this. Now it was like any other high-class shopping mall, with the usual brands on display, and a few more exclusive ones too. And all in a three lane Victorian-era galleria setting, just like so many modern shopping malls try to copy, and full of people looking to spend their money, and show off just how much they’ve spent too. If that wasn’t enough to send Lenin, deeply embalmed 100 yards away across Red Square, spinning in his grave (or presentation casket, as it turns out) then the addition of a second shopping mall, just out the back of Red Square might. Four floors of illicit western decadence right up against the wall of the Kremlin, where the pretty young things hang out and flaunt their new wealth and frequent the bars which line the malls edge. Just yards away is Kilometre Zero, where all distances in Russia are measured from, and where tourists (mainly Russian) stand and throw a coin over their shoulder for good luck. A small collection of Babushka’s, who’ve clearly seen none of the new money on show just 50 yards away, wait on the edge and rush in to scrabble for each coin. Just a few yards south, the metro tunnels fill with unofficial street markets, where sights such as an old woman trying to sell one small child’s T-shirt hammers home that the free market hasn’t helped everyone.

At least if Lenin were to look the other way he’d see his view improved. St Basil’s has received a very colourful new paintjob (although the inside is still gloomier than a wet Sunday evening in Grimsby), but better still, the Rossiya Hotel, once just past Red Square’s southern end, has gone. It was as if when Russia decided to build the biggest hotel in Europe they’d scoured the earth for the very worst architects the planet could offer, got them drunk, then gave them ten minutes to come up with a design that would fit in three thousand rooms. It was huge. Had it been made any bigger then parts of it would probably have ended up in Belarus, and you’d have had to set your watch to a different time zone to reach the higher numbered rooms. As it was they saved that by making it as a twelve storey high oblong, a quarter of a mile long and two hundred yards wide. As you looked towards the beautifully crafted domes of St Basil’s, The Rossiya all but blotted out the sun, ruining the backdrop with the subtlety of a rugby team mooning in somebody’s wedding photographs. It was my hotel. In truth many of the horror stories were exaggerated. The female receptionists were the only women in the lobby in a professional capacity as far as I could tell, and regardless of legend, the shower in my room didn’t offer the opportunity to observe small examples of Russian flora & fauna at close quarters. In fact other than an incredibly painful checking in process - caused by them first allocating me a room in a section closed for renovation, which alarmed one receptionist so much that she lost the ability to speak English as I complained, insisting “Niet Anglisky, niet Anglisky” despite her reasonable fluency not half an hour earlier – I thought it, from the inside at least, a pretty decent hotel. Mind you, I’m not the sort of traveller who has a loyalty card for the Sheraton. But now it’s gone, to be replaced by a Sir Normal Foster designed entertainment complex. Here’s hoping old Vladimir Ilyich likes his steel & glass.

Poor Lenin, despite the long queues to shuffle past his suspiciously waxworkish looking body in his mausoleum, he seems to have suffered a rather large downturn in popularity. Among the multitude of places to have lost his name is the Luzhniky Stadium, once the Lenin Stadium, although they have kept his statue outside. The stadium has also been redesigned, albeit not by Sir Norman Foster, and the once uncovered bowl is now fully covered and upgraded to UEFA’s top five star status for stadiums. And if there’s one stadium anywhere that needs to be remodeled with some aesthetic appeal, it’s the Luzhniky, for it is smack right in the middle of the foreground of the most popular vantage point in the whole of Moscow. The Sparrow Hills, on the other side of the bend of the Moskva River that snakes around the stadium, is part of the grounds of Moscow State University. Home to easily the most impressive of Stalin’s seven “wedding cake” skyscrapers, and also a lookout point, where newly-wed couple go to have their picture taken against the Moscow skyline. There also the start of a ski-jump, presumably for any new couples pondering an alternative way of working off the calories from the wedding cake and reception.

For once the idyllic setting wasn’t ruined by an excessive military presence (that was left to a severely neglected Olympic swimming stadium and a truly frightening toilet block) and unlike the previous two games I could have easily bought a ticket on the day. Very easily in fact. The problem is that while the Torpedo Stadium wasn’t a thing of beauty, and won’t, unlike the Luzhniky, be hosting a major European final any day soon, it was, unlike the Luzhniky, of a size befitting Torpedo’s support. This meant as kick off approached, it was clear that of the 85,000 tickets available, perhaps 80,000 wouldn’t be taken up, barring an incredibly late rush.

In truth less were available as the stadium organisers took the wise step of only opening one stand. This may have, potentially at least, helped the atmosphere, but it also mean that from my vantage point, if I looked forwards I couldn’t see a single other spectator. In that respect it was the strangest, and loneliest match I’ve ever been to. Not that there was no atmosphere at all. A group of Torpedo fans did their best, but they were outsung by a tiny knot of perhaps 30 fans of Rotor Volgograd. From Volgograd, way down by the Kazakhstan border, it’s over 20 hours on the train to Moscow. Their team were bottom of the league and weren’t going to get any joy this afternoon either, going down 1-0 to the surprising league leaders.

It was easy to believe Rotor were bottom, but very hard to believe Torpedo were top as they played as if they had no interest in life itself, let alone the match. It must be hard to get motivated in a stadium that has the atmosphere of a nightclub at 9pm, but at times you got the feeling both teams had been bribed to lose. Maybe I caught them on a bad day. They must have appeal to some people, claustrophobics perhaps, as the move to the less than suitable surroundings doesn’t seem to have cost them any support. It was just a shame that the last of my three games was something of a let down. I didn’t even get to buy a nice scarf. It was my last night in Russia. My trip was almost over, and even if today’s game wasn’t the highlight of the day it was supposed to be, I at least felt compensated by my highlight being having seen the truly stupendous kitsch fountain hailing the female farm collective labourer at the All-Russian Exhibition Grounds earlier on that day. They just don’t make ‘em like that any more, more’s the pity. For Torpedo fans, I guess they just wish someone would make them a new ground, or at least let them play at their old one. It did seem a ridiculous state of affairs. On my first night in Moscow I got chatting to a guy from Vladivostock in one of the many bars in the Rossiya, and his stock answer to why anything in Russia seemed complicated was to reply “Reechard, eet ees Russia!” as if that would explain all. Any you know what? I think it did.

Looking towards the Sparrow Hills lookout point and Moscow State University from outside the Luzhniky. Posing by newly-wed couples obligatory. Ski-jumping optional.

All hail the female farm labourer, especially those with wonderbras.

Russia - Lokomotiv Moscow

2009-07-28T12:43:00.000+01:00

Lokomotiv Stadium

Half time at Lokomotiv. Many Russian Railways adverts in English, presumably for those commuters from Surrey pondering getting into Central London on the Trans-Siberian Express.

By the time I came to leave St Petersburg, the rain had actually stopped and it even threatened to pretend to be spring on occasions. I was booked on the 4pm Aurora Express to Moscow, but arrived with well over half and hour to kill. After staring in awe at the huge (and I mean huge) map of the Soviet era rail network that adorned about 30 metres of wall at the station (still including a branch to Chernobyl, I noted – the end of the line in every sense), having a quick snack in a plasma-screened snack bar, I decided it would be worthwhile to make use of the facilities to “freshen up”, assumingly they’d be of the same standard.

I was fast learning that there are two kinds of WC in Russia. There are unmanned ones, which tend to be spotless and fine, and there are the manned kind, with a permanent attendant or two, which are the stuff nightmares are made of. The WC at St Petersburg was the latter type. Alarm bells should have rung even before I pulled open that cubicle door. Sure enough it was a hole in the ground type, which I’ve never used anyway on account that I’ve never worked what one’s stance should be in such places, but this one looked like some political prisoners had been incarcerated in there and had staged a dirty protest. Even if I had been desperate to go, with thankfully I wasn’t, I still think taking a dump in my trousers would have been more hygienic.

Luckily the Aurora Express was much more civilised, being a high speed link pretty much laid on for businessmen and tourists who don’t wish to squeeze aboard the 8 hour+ cattle truck trains which most Russians who make the journey make do with. Unless evergreen trees are particularly your thing, it’s not a very scenic route. The only real excitement was passing through the town of Tver. A town which, from the view of it from the train, could win awards for its outstanding unnatural ugliness. Pulling out of the station, two boys waited at the top of an embankment. As one, they drew their arms back and watched in fascination as two lumps of concrete arced beautifully until they hit the train with a crack. I couldn’t condemn them too much. After all, that was probably the only excitement those boys would have that evening, as it was for me until an endless stretch of tower blocks came towards me like tidal wave as the train entered Moscow.

Lokomotiv v Zenit was the very next day, which didn’t give me much of a chance to purchase a ticket in advance. With the very modern Lokomotiv Stadium holding 30,000 people, I didn’t see it being much of a problem and went about introducing myself to Moscow without due cause for concern. It was nearly a fatal mistake in terms of getting in. I can only presume the presence of several thousand Zenit fans at the match had made it a high risk game, and this one was policed by a number of police and/or army personnel that made the match in St Petersburg look understaffed. Again, the entrance to the stadium was barricaded by a line of armed guards, looking just as cheerful and cooperative as the ones I’d seen in St Petersburg. This time though, I saw no touts. Tricky. I adopted the time-honoured approach of holding some roubles in my hand down by my side, just subtle enough to not scare touts off (or to let some little scrote dive in and snatch them), but just showing enough to be obvious. The fact was though that there were dozens of people milling about near the cordon, all obviously trying to do the same thing, all of whom had the considerable advantage of being able to speak the same language as any possible ticket seller.

There were a few touts about, but you had to be damn quick to stop them. All too often you’d see nothing, then there be a flash of tickets and the guy would be swooped on like pigeons going for breadcrumbs. You had to be really lucky, and I wasn’t being. The game was kicking off and I’d just been too slow to swoop as one seller sold his small batch. I turned and heard a voice. “Bilyet?” it asked, one of few Russian words I knew, and it meant ticket. I arbitrarily offered 3 (hundred) but he asked 4, sticking up 4 fingers after rightly guessing I wouldn’t understand the Russian for four. I didn’t argue and handed over 400 Rubles and the tout ran off into the crowd. He was about nine. I looked down at my ticket, still folded in half, and realised I didn’t actually know for certain what I’d just paid £8 for. A few others who’d seen this transaction immediately picked up my uncertainty, and I wondered what the Russian for “I am a mug” is, as I suddenly felt it had been tattooed across my forehead. I slowly unfolded the ticket and checked the date – 19.05.2004 – today’s date. I was in!

I dashed to my seat, only slowed by finding somebody was sitting there already, before giving the officially sanctioned hand gesture for “no, don’t worry about it – you stay there and I just sit here” to sort the situation. I had been raining in Moscow too, but the impressive Lokomotiv Stadium is fully covered, and the roof had almost kept my seat dry. The stadium itself was modern, light and airy, and exactly the kind of stadium you don’t expect to find in Eastern Europe. Looking much bigger on the outside than on the inside, but still very decent with two tiers all round, and executive boxes added in the middle, the stadium was apparently financed by investors including the Russian Railways, who naturally have strong links with Lokomotiv. They certainly advertise in abundance in the ground, although you have to ask why? It’s not as if train users exactly have a choice about which train company they are going to use.

One thing very noticeable was the large splash of blue & white away to my right, where 3000 or so Zenit fans who’d no doubt taken the slow train(s) from their home city, were making their presence felt. It certainly added to the atmosphere – much more than the curious Russian horn that many fans have. The horn itself is blown into from the side, and makes a noise like somebody blowing their nose down a drainpipe, but they seemed to be very popular.

Lokomotiv started very impressively and I was very taken with their attacking style. One player who caught my eye was one-time Russian wonderkid Dmitri Sychev, who turned in a display of attacking midfield football that should have been enough to win the game single handed. I immediately pencilled him in as a potential star of Euro 2004, and for a place on my Euro 2004 fantasy league team. Of course history tells us that in Euro 2004, Dmitri sank like a junk-food addict’s bowel movements, and stank the place up just as badly, but even today his good form was enough to earn Lokomotiv a win. Or even a draw for that matter, as just as I was contemplating my first ever overseas 0-0, Zenit broke from character, launched a foray down the right, towards their supporters who were probably forgetting what their players looked like with it being so long since they been close enough to see them clearly, and a 92nd minute cross was powerfully turned in at the near post to gleeful celebration.

Only the perky willingness of a young girl to walk into the foreground of my photo of the stadium’s exterior lifted the gloom of the walk back to the station, although the army’s decision to line the route with several platoons of men stood shoulder to shoulder, like an attempt to break the world record for the world’s widest defensive wall, at least meant I wouldn’t get lost. Over-manning is a common problem here. Moscow is full of traffic cops doing their best to intervene in traffic movements even when completely unnecessary. And when there are no cars to direct, they stand around awkwardly, swinging their batons like paramilitary Charlie Chaplins. And if you dare cross the roads around the Kremlin not exactly on the pedestrian crossing they get very irate, until they find you don’t speak English and realise the impact of their rebuke would diminished if delivered in the form of mime. If only they’d overstaff football ground ticket booths, then things would be a lot easier.

Outside. A girl spots her chance of fame, while the police in the background try to think of something that might be illegal.

Russia - Zenit St. Petersburg

2009-07-28T12:27:00.000+01:00

Petrovsky Stadium

The Petrovsky Stadium, in all its dampened glory. Plenty of scarves and enough light bulbs in the floodlights to buy the chairman of Philips a new Bentley come dividend time.

It was kind of miserable when I arrived at St Petersburg. The warmth of the weather was reflected by the warmth of the welcome at immigration, were a middle aged woman who looked like she juggled cows in her spare time, disdainfully demanded my immigration forms in a tone which implied she’d had just about enough on doing body cavity searches for one day, and the next one would be done without the lubricant.

The drive in to the city wasn’t much more cheerful. The time difference between London and St Petersburg is +3 hours, but the city appeared to be about 3 months behind in its seasons, looking more like February than pleasant May I’d left behind. Rain lashed the windows of the taxi that I’d hired for a price probably enough to purchase it outright rather than hire it for the 20 minute trip into town. I can’t recall the make, but the interior reminded me of a car that had been abandoned and stripped by thieves, who’d understandably left the drivers’ tape collection. We glided spongily down the main road into St Petersburg with the taxi’s lively suspension giving you a feeling that somewhere in the city, there’s a pram missing its springs. The rain continued to fall, with the movements of the car’s windscreen-wipers being more of gesture, as if seeing clearly ahead would be an unnecessary extravagance, barely worth the effort. Maybe that was right, as the street’s lane markings were little more than a suggestion in the eyes if the city’s drivers, all of who drove cars which looked like they’d been stuck in door-handle high floodwater for the last four weeks. With the streets covered in dirty melting slush for several months on the year, it seems that drivers here don’t bother cleaning their cars until it’s really necessary, such as finding that families of badgers are living in the door sills.

For the size of the city’s population, nearly 5 million, the city’s football team are possibly the least successful team in Europe, with only one championship to their name. They are one of Russia’s better supported teams though, particularly after moving to the central Petrovsky Stadium, after previously playing at the soul-sapping Kirov. Seemingly built on the old soviet principal of creating a design that’s too big, the doubling it in size, then removing everything that adds a modicum of verve, somebody came up with the Kirov stadium – a 75,000 seat exposed monolith with the charm of an insurance salesman, handily placed near the sea to pick up the invigorating breezes, but not really near where anyone lives.

The Petrovsky on the other hand is right in the heart of the city and on a much more human scale, and I was able to walk there after a day of rain-interrupted sightseeing, where I’d come to learn, among other things, that tourists in Russia aren’t really ripped off at all – oh no – it’s just that Russians get a discount. Luckily such pricing policies don’t apply to football souvenirs, where I purchased my first foreign scarf for a price of 200 roubles (£4), although having to buy a ticket from a tout outside probably made up for that, paying 400 roubles for a 150 rouble ticket. A tout who spoke English was a clear help, as there didn’t appear to be anywhere actually selling tickets. There may have been a ticket booth somewhere at the stadium, but the stadium is on a small island, the only bridge to which was guarded by the army. If anyone has ever wondered what the Red Army do now that the cold war is over, the answer is simple – they police football matches. What actual purpose they serve, particularly when there don’t seem to be any away fans about, is less obvious, but troop movements of a number that would cause small neighbouring countries to panic if they detected them massing near the border are clearly arranged for every Russian League match.

Not wishing to risk being picked out by some incredibly bored looking soldiers manning the bridge, I made my way for the only four people who looked cheerful – and attractive female cadet and three soldiers who got to chat to her while checking tickets. They waved me through and upon realising I was English, one wished me good luck. Whether he just thought it was a cheery greeting, or whether he thought I’d need it, was less clear.

If there was one bit of luck I did need it was with the weather. The Petrovsky was also completely uncovered, and the rainfall was stopping and starting like a dodgy Ford Fiesta I owned in my youth. Sheltering under the stands from another shower pre-match, two soldiers had the same idea until their commander saw them and told them quite clearly (even without Speaking Russian, I understood every word) that even though they had nothing to do, they couldn’t actually do nothing, and they had to walk out into the rain and walk around stadium for no apparent reason instead. Every five minutes the same two miserable damp faces would trudge past as they completed another pointless lap.

Eventually the rain did ease and I took my seat, two rows from the back, reached via literally crumbling steps, only to realise why every fan appeared to have a newspaper with them. They weren’t so intent on catching up with the events of the day after all. The stadium was fitted with bolted on bucket seats whose ergonomic design meant a small pool of water would gather in the middle of the seat should something as unlikely as, say, a rain shower happen. These newspapers then got used as blotting pads to dry the seats. Not having taken the precaution of acquiring a copy of Pravda from the shops beforehand, I had to improvise. My habit of stuffing old receipts etc in my coat pockets and forgetting about them, for once in my life, stopped being a bad habit and became a virtue. With pretty much the last receipt I’d got the seat bone dry. True, I’d never be able to read exactly how many litres of unleaded I’d bought on the 3rd of April 2004, or how much they cost, ever again, but I could live with that, I thought, as I sat and admired the dryness of my handiwork. I’d done an exceptional job, perfect in every respect, apart from one. Seat 58, of Row 23 Sector 3 was perfectly dry, no doubt about that, but my seat was seat 57. Luckily further mining of my coat found the rich seam of a multi-page receipt from a Kwik-Fit Tyre and Exhaust Centre, so the day was saved, as were my trousers.

Pre-match entertainment consisted of a troupe of drummer girls. Given that their drumming routine had the complexity of the opening beat of “We Will Rock You”, there is a possibility that they were selected for their looks, rather than their ability to emulate a Keith Moon solo. Leading them was a majorette, the most attractive of the bunch, whose baton remained resolutely untwirled throughout their parade. Instead she held her baton upright in from of her and bounced it up and down a bit to the beat, as if playing a fancy version of one-potato two-potato. As all of them possessed the kind of looks that can melt virtues at 50 paces, I, along with most of the crowd, looked upon them with nothing but admiration.

Eventually the stadium filled, or overfilled as the capacity of the Petrovsky seems to be taken as little more than a suggestion with extra fans lined up standing behind the back row of seats, and a very soggy afternoon’s entertainment got underway. A bright open game with both teams near the top was promising enough, but as great as both teams were on the break, neither seemed to have much idea what to do on the edge of the box. Crosses were overhit to such a degree that they were in more danger of crossing the Neva River than finding a teammate, while passes over the top were being hit at a speed that would have left greyhounds trailing. The talent on display was unquestionable, but sometimes you got the feeling that the players were trying to put together clips for a “best of” video for their agents to tout around Europe, than actually paying any attention to teamwork, such was the over-ambition shown on several moves.

Zenit, backed by vociferous support, started much better and deservedly took the lead. Krylia Sovetov’s equaliser was almost a surprise, as were the small pockets of cheering around the stadium from their fans, who’d kept themselves remarkably well hidden up to that point. Their winner was even more surprising. After being awarded a free kick so distant from goal that the taker practically needed to pay admission to start his run up, everyone waited for the inevitable threat to low-flying planes the kick would produce. Sadly for Zenit, among this number was their goalkeeper, who thought he’d show just how flash he could be by only bothering to go for the ball, hit directly at him, with just one arm. “Oops” probably doesn’t really cover it, and he no doubt spent the next week in training being the one who has to pick up all the cones at the end of the day. The game was up for Zenit in match they probably should have won, but by a quirk of the fixture list, I would be seeing them again just three days later in Moscow.

The Drummer Girls

The drummer girls display their talents, and one army member photographs the majorette girl’s arse in case it needs taking in for interrogation later. Such is the hardship of army cut-backs these days, that the other army personnel are disappointed to find they have only been supplied with one comedy breast each.

Japan - Kyoto Purple Sanga

2009-07-28T10:59:00.000+01:00

It has to be said there’s something quite unsettling about going up to the young girl behind the information desk next to the ladieswear section of a department store, and asking her where the train platforms are. That she doesn’t stare at you quizzically as if you are a total imbecile is something of a relief, as is the information that tickets can be bought at the end of the floor above the deli counter, while the platforms themselves are upstairs, but not as far as luggage and leather goods.

Japan does things differently, as if made by people who had the parts to build the western world but had lost the instructions, and if that means having a rail terminus completely enclosed within a department store, then so be it. It works for them, so who am I to argue?

Perhaps less successful was Japan’s football league. While the ethic of company loyalty may be very strong in Japan, it wasn’t strong enough to make employees of Mitsubishi forsake an evening at the karaoke bar to cheer on the Mitsubishi team, in a league comprised mainly of teams from corporations. The formation of the J-League changed all that. While technically Kashima Antlers may be the secret love-child of the Sumitomo Metal Industries corporation and the Japanese equivalent of a man called Nigel who works in advertising, the newly independent teams went from strength to strength.

An exception to both of those rules is the wonderfully named Kyoto Purple Sanga, who were always an independent club, being founded as a university team, while also managing to buck the trend and struggling to get the support from the large city. When I went, Kyoto were stomping on the opposition with ease on an unstoppable march to J1, yet only around 6000 were present. There looked to even less when I set off, taking the train the short distance to the ground from the centre, with barely a flash of purple about. The club flags that had line Kyoto’s main street towards the Geisha district of Gion didn’t seem to have inspired the locals to support, until that is the train arrived and a purple sea spilled from the carriages ahead.

Most seemed very young, as does everyone in Japan – a place where the female accent sounds like a seven year old talking to her My Little Pony. As I left the station, a pretty young girl in a kimono walked passed, looking the picture of innocence, except that she was drawing heavily on a cigarette – a curiously alluring sight that made me wonder if the was a niche in the adult website industry that had yet to be exploited – but given that an alarming bulk of the young girls in Japan dress as if they have stepped out of a 40 year old virgin’s fantasy, it seems nearly impossible. It’s hard enough to understand why so many young women who clearly didn’t appear to be at school any more dressed as if they were, but the actual mental process that makes some teenage girls dress like Little Bo Peep isn’t within my capacity to fathom.

Although there were one or two Kimonos in evidence at the game, neither of the latter ensemble were spotted. I had more own sartorial query though. The previous night, under the slight influence of drink, and due to a hideous miscalculation of the exchange rate, I’d expensively acquired an otherwise fine Kyoto Purple Sanga away shirt on one of the main streets of Kyoto. Now, as I walked round wearing this shirt, I noticed that nobody, nobody at all other than me, was wearing the away top. Was this bad? Had I committed some hideous Japanese etiquette faux pas? Was wearing an away shirt to a home game the equivalent of blowing your nose in public or leaving chopsticks upright in your rice? Had I bought shame on the home support, decked out almost to a man in home shirts – and also one girl in a purple kimono – now there’s one line of potential merchandise that even Manchester United haven’t thought of.

Nobody sat next to me – that’s all I know, although maybe that fact that my body had reacted to Kyoto’s heat & humidity by engaging in it’s only personal sweat-a-thon – had I been sponsored I could probably have raised enough to build a small school in The Congo – and maybe that had a small part in the matter. The crowd was rather thin though. Perhaps the ground didn’t help. Japan has some terrific stadiums, most of which were showcased in the 2002 world cup, and a few others that weren’t. Kyoto’s Nishikyogoku stadium sadly isn’t among them, being straight out of the soviet provincial-stadiums-for-provinces-the-Russians-don’t-really-like book of rather nasty 1970s architecture. Just a single tier of uncovered seats surrounding an absurdly wide running track, with the seats not even making a full circuit of the track, seemingly losing the will to live and dropping away to nothing before entering the home straight.

Just finding my seat was something of an achievement, with the ticket being printed entirely in Japanese. That wasn’t a total surprise as sports events are one of the most authentic experiences you can get, with them being so completely not tailored towards tourists, but Japan is almost absurdly convenient. English is written in so many places it’s almost embarrassing and people will almost fall over themselves to be helpful. In hotels, they not only provide you with night attire and slippers, but also provide you with information as to why you might want to wear them – “these slippers are really warm and comfy for feet”, just in case you were considering wearing them as mittens or on your ears, perhaps. And to top it off, the absolutely fantastic sandwiches you can buy in any convenience store come with the crusts cut off, which saves the enormous expense of having your mother flown over to do it for you. They also provided an important lesson in the value of punctuation. The packaging bore a message imploring you to give the sandwiches a try, and hoped you enjoy them, but the translation let them down to the extent that “we want you to try and enjoy this sandwich” sounded more like a challenge.

I’m not sure if it’s a love of convenience or gadgets that inspired someone in Japan to invent the multi-functional electronic toilet, but such appliances elsewhere in the world don’t usually come with instructions. In Japan you get the option of a built in bidet option, with adjustable spray strength and temperature, with a further blow dry option. You can also set the seat temperature if you so desire, but that can lead to the rather unsettling feeling of sitting on a seat which has just been vacated by someone else.

But this ticket did, for almost the only time, allow me to make use of my efforts of going to the trouble of learning Katakana, even if any steward could have told me I needed gate five, rather than me having to struggle to read each part of the ticket until I found something resembling a gate or section. I think I still got it wrong though. Once inside I helped myself to a program and purchased a scarf. Rather than being woollen, it was actually made of terry towelling. Given the summer climate of Kyoto, when every step feels like you are being breathed on by Digby the Giant Dog, it actually made a lot of sense. Not that it bothered the commendable Kyoto fans behind the goal, who kept up a barrage of singing and bouncing up and down for the full duration of the game, although you perhaps wouldn’t want to be sharing a train carriage with them after the game.

Many flag were waved, and banners draped over the walls added to the occasion, even if the wording on the banners was rather obscure. “Go Kimono” sounded almost like an appeal to the female populace to wear the traditional dress. “Massive Kyoto” made you feel the club were twinned with Manchester City. “Real Naked”, on the other hand, defied any sort of explanation. Mind you, as Japanese youths often wore t-shirts bearing slogans which looked like they’d picked words at random from a dictionary, it isn’t surprising. The game itself was as energetic as the fans, with the players sprinting about as if on a crisp spring morning in Hampshire. Personally I was still finding that merest physical task would leave me perspiring to a degree that would make passers-by probably wonder if I was in the advanced stages of Malaria, so I had nothing but admiration.

The match program contained the slogan “One for Win!” It was hard to know whether this was a call for unity, or if it meant they’d based their playing style on George Graham’s Arsenal of the late 80s, but as they struggled to break down a clearly inferior Tokushima Vortis, whose polite supporters were segregated away to my right – a measure about as necessary as disabled parking spaces at an ice rink – the latter reason looked more likely. Not that they were boring, boring, in any way. The renowned Brazilian influence had given the teams a freedom of expression not found in certain leagues highly popular around the world, although if players in England did try as many speculative long range shots and threading the eye of a needle passes then the freedom of expression would have been a reference to the range of Anglo-Saxon phrases such unlikely ventures would bring about.

It took a rather clumsy penalty to edge beyond George Graham country and give Kyoto a 2-0 lead, and like for the first goal, the Kyoto fans cheered and applauded with their right hands against the hand-held fans they held in their left, creating a sound like it was raining Tupperware. But if nothing else, it meant that I had come to Japan, the home of Zen Buddhism, and heard the sound of one hand clapping. Such is the mystique of the Orient. If only a visit Leyton Orient could offer such enlightenment.