Ghana v Panama, Wednesday 17th June 2026, 7pm

July 13, 2026

Paul and I have been going to the World Cup ever since we discovered how enjoyable it was in Germany twenty years ago. Neither of us had much desire to visit the US at this time and so our options were Mexico or Canada. Whilst Mexico would have been good, and remains on the list for the future, we opted for Canada. It was a good choice.

We had tickets for two games in Toronto and headed out a few days before the first one for a short stay in nearby Kingston. It’s a very pleasant town with sufficient bars for us to mix things up as we watched around three games each day on the telly. Some were packed with football fans, others less so.

We went for a couple of walks whilst we were at Kingston including a wander around the Little Cataraqui Creek Conservation Area. Paul spotted a snake which made its escape into the undergrowth before I noticed it. I’d been hoping for a bear or two, but the best we saw was a chipmunk that filled its face with seeds intended for birds and a turtle that was crossing the road. I helped it on its way.

I managed to pick up a tick, which I discovered embedded in the back of my leg three days later in Toronto. I think it was probably dead by then due to the amount of alcohol that I’d been putting away. I bought some tweezers and removed most of it, but I think that some of its head remains lodged in my left calf.

Our first live game in Toronto was Ghana against Panama. BMO Field was easy enough to get to from where we were staying, but we had the added complication of wanting to watch the England game that kicked off three hours earlier. Fortunately, the Fan Park was only fifteen minutes away from the ground and so we watched the England match from there.

Usually, the Fan Parks are free to get into. This one did have a free section, but those tickets were long gone. That meant paying sixty-five quid each to watch the win over Croatia on the big screen in a different section of the park. The admission charge meant that it was a quieter than usual atmosphere, at least in our section anyway. It was well organized though, with clean toilets and no queues at the bar. I can live with that.

After the England game we followed the crowds to the stadium. We arrived at one of the corners and could see the behind the goal seating that had been added to increase the ground capacity to around forty-five thousand. The additional seventeen thousand seats are only temporary and will be removed after the World Cup, but they looked solid enough to me.

Our tickets were in hospitality and that meant we got beer and snacks included. The official beer was Michelob Ultra, which is drinkable if cold enough. I collected plenty of aluminium souvenir cups. Our seats were just to the right of the half-way line and gave us a decent view. I chatted to the woman on my left who had bought a package of tickets for all six Toronto games. She didn’t really seem to know much about football but was clearly enjoying the World Cup being in her home city.

The game featured the other two teams in England’s group, Ghana and Panama. Both teams had good representation in the crowd, but with a lot of the game played in the rain those in the uncovered temporary stands behind the goal probably didn’t enjoy it as much as they might have done.

There weren’t many real chances in a close contest, but Ghana nicked the points late in added time from a close-range tap in. We headed back inside to take advantage of the beer and snacks until the crowd thinned out.

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Filey Town Veterans v Madly United, Friday 5th June 2026, 6.30pm

June 24, 2026

On the back of the previous weekend’s triple crown of a gig, a walk and a match, I managed to do it again. It’s hard in June as the FA isn’t keen on football taking place, so, World Cup apart, it tends to be games organized for some charitable purpose, or veteran fixtures. Gigs are easy enough this time of year though and June is ideal for going for a walk.

The hike was another section of the Yorkshire Wolds Way. We picked up the trail at Towthorpe Corner, which is ideal for parking the car. It looks like the sort of place that would be frequented by doggers after dark but is peaceful enough mid-morning.

We had Henry with us and he managed the nine mile out and back route to Newburnholme pretty well. Most of the path was through fields occupied by sheep and cows, so he was on the lead most of the time, but he still managed to roll in some cow shit to earn himself a bath.

The gig was Stanley Brinks and Freschard at The Waiting Room in Eaglescliffe. They are French, lo-fi and anti-folk. It may be a combination that isn’t overly popular as they began their set with only around a dozen people in the room. The attendance grew as the evening went on, peaking, I think, at twenty-three.

I enjoyed it. They are pretty prolific with more than one hundred albums between them. We bought the two latest ones that they had with them and there’s another imminent release.

The football game was the first of the weekend activities. It was at Filey Town’s Clarence Drive ground on the Friday evening. We’d decided to stay over so that we could have an easy start the next morning to our Yorkshire Wold Way walk. It took only twenty minutes or so for me to wander over from our Airbnb to the ground.

It was free to get in and there was a clubhouse selling food and drink. I didn’t bother with either as we were planning on heading out after the game.

I had a chat with the manager of the visiting team. The team had grown out of social meetings for men with mental health or addiction issues. They had started playing five-a-side games and that had led to this fixture, their first ever eleven-a-side game.

There was a real mix of ability and age in the Madly United side. The manager, who was kitted out in case he was needed, was sixty-two. Some of the players on the pitch looked to be close to his age. A couple of his team might well have played at a decent level and had a good touch.

Filey were understandably more organized and were clearly used to playing with each other. Most of their players looked like they had achieved veteran status fairly recently.

Filey quickly went four up but Madly pulled a couple back before half time. The second half was tighter until Filey rattled in three late goals for a seven-two victory. I doubt the result mattered too much to Madly and hopefully meeting up and playing football will continue to make the lives of their players that little bit easier.

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Manchester Corinthians v Tintwhistle Athletic, Saturday 30th May 2026, 3pm

June 15, 2026

Some weekends are better than others. I think that any weekend where I can fit in a gig, a walk and a sporting event has to be one of the better ones. Sort of a triple crown, I suppose. This was one of those weekends with a gig in Sheffield, another stretch of the Yorkshire Wolds Way and then a cup final over near Manchester, albeit not in that order.

The gig was at Mary Street Live in Sheffield. It’s a small venue that holds around fifty people and seems more like a storeroom than a concert venue. In fact, I wouldn’t have been surprised if it might be used for stabling horses when there isn’t a music event on. It had a can bar, which was very welcome, but no air-con, which was less so. Other than Jen and I, the crowd seemed to be mostly friends and family of the bands. Everyone nipped outside to cool down at any lull in proceedings.

We were there to see the headliners, David Cronenberg’s Wife, who were very good and somehow had managed to get a grand piano on stage. The support acts were ok too, despite it being the first ever show for one of them.

The walk was the following day, six miles along the Yorkshire Wolds Way between North Newbald and Arass, then back again to fill in a gap between sections we had already done. There wasn’t much in the way of wildlife other than a decomposing rat and a grounded bird too young to fly.

We’d recently had a young crow in the back garden that couldn’t get more than two feet off the ground. I put a few worms out for it, but its parents were watching and I think it took its food from them instead. Two days later it was gone, either by flying well enough to clear the wall or by being carried away by a fox or hawk. There were no feathers left behind, so hopefully it was under its own steam.

And the other part of the triple crown? That was the Gilgryst Cup Final featuring Manchester Corinthians and Tintwhistle United of the eleventh tier Manchester League Premier Division. It was played at Ewan Fields which is currently the home ground of Hyde United and in the past one hundred and forty years since it opened has hosted the reserve teams on both Man City and United, as well as the American Football team, Manchester Falcons.

It was five quid admission and with few other football options available at this time of year I wasn’t surprised to see that the almost three hundred and fifty strong crowd included a fair representation from the groundhopping community. I started off in the main stand. Others were drinking in the standing terraced area to my right, whilst many stood behind the dugouts on the far side.

Corinthians were the stronger team in the first half and they opened the scoring as we approached the quarter of the hour mark. A ball was threaded through into the box and the striker controlled it well before cutting it back across the keeper into the far corner.

At half-time I queued for some food. Hot dogs were popular, but I went for a cheeseburger. I’ve been asked to give a little more detail about the matchday food so I can reveal that it was ok. It was initially handed over without onions, but when I pointed this out, they added them. Other than that, I remember little about it, so the best I can say is that it was unremarkable and edible. They should put that on their posters.

Corinthians continued to dominate in the second half. I switched to the opposite side of the stadium where I was able to listen to their manager constantly berating his players about their need to “switch on”. Maybe it worked as twenty minutes into the second half they switched on long enough to add a second with an unchallenged header from a cross swung in from deep on the right.

As we entered added time and with the game effectively over, the Tintwhistle keeper flattened an attacker chasing a through ball. After some consultation with the lino, the ref sent him off, maybe it was DOGSO, perhaps serious foul play. Either way, both the challenge and the subsequent decision all seemed a bit unnecessary to me at that stage.

The keeper didn’t join the queue for a medal at the end. I didn’t realise that punishing red carded miscreants by denying them a role in the post-match ceremony was still a thing. Perhaps it isn’t and he just didn’t care with it being a loser’s medal anyway. Regardless, it was a decent final and a good weekend.

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Middlesbrough v Hull City, Saturday 23rd May 2026, 3.30pm

June 2, 2026

This was a game that I wasn’t expecting to happen. I thought that it should, without a doubt, as the only real sanction for cheating in a knockout scenario has to be that the cheating club is disqualified and the other side progresses. Nobody questions expulsion if, say, a team fields an ineligible player, even if it is only for a few seconds. What’s the difference? Other than this was the more serious breach by pre-meditated rule-breaking rather than an unfortunate administrative oversight?

Nevertheless, something being the right course of action is no guarantee that it will happen. We saw West Ham spared a relegation-triggering points deduction a few years ago over fielding Tevez and his mate as it was deemed unfair to their fans. With Southampton having sold their allocation of tickets and with such a short time between the hearing and the final, I expected similar weasel words.

But no. The Disciplinary Committee came up trumps and then held their nerve in the appeal three days before the game. With such short notice and a need to get Tom, Harry and Amelia there, I decided just to drive there and back in the day. It was easy enough, despite an aircon failure that meant we had to travel some of the way with all four windows down. We paid nine quid to park on someone’s drive near Canon Park tube, although with no street restrictions in place, we could just have easily left the car on the road outside of their house for free.

The tube journey in and the walk down Wembley Way was all friendly enough. There’s no real rivalry between the Boro and Hull and, if we weren’t to prevail, most Boro fans would be happy to see former players Matt Crooks, Paddy McNair and Ryan Giles make the Premier League.

We spent an hour or so in the Fanzone outside in the sunshine before making our way around to the Boro end of the ground. Whilst we were all in the lower tier, I hadn’t been able to get all four seats together.  I took the one further towards the centre, whilst the other three were slightly higher up in the corner. It was an impressive turnout. All thirty-six thousand tickets in our allocation sold in the two days available.

The performance on the pitch wasn’t quite as impressive. We dominated in terms of territory and possession, but as so often happens we failed to take our chances. Or rather we failed to create many chances. On a day when the heat slowed the tempo down to walking pace, a single goal was always likely to be sufficient. Unfortunately, it went to Hull late in added time.

Despite the disappointment, it has been an enjoyable season, with some of the best football I’ve seen us play. I’m hoping that Hellberg can get the players in that suit the way he wants to set the team up and give it another real go after the summer.

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Ripon City Reserves v Cliffe, Saturday 16th May 2026, 2pm

June 1, 2026

This game came about because I needed to pick Jen up from York and Ripon is pretty much on the way. We had plans to walk some more of the Yorkshire Wolds Way the following day, so the logical thing would have been to have stayed over somewhere. That idea was thwarted though by us having Saturday night tickets for Stewart Lee for The Globe. He was very good, as ever.

Next day we drove down to North Newbald for a section of the trail notable only for sheep. Just as well that we didn’t take the dog.

The match was at Mallorie Park, which I understand might be scheduled for demolition. It was the final fixture of the season in Second Division of the York Football League, so that’s tier 13. Ripon City Reserves were at home to Cliffe.

It was free to get in and when I called into the clubhouse for a pre-match snack, they sold me a pork pie for a quid that I think might have been left over from a function earlier in the day. They had the Hearts v Celtic clash on the telly and whilst I’d hoped that Hearts would get over the line, I think we all knew how it would pan out.

I took a seat in the wooden four row covered stand. Most of the people around me were players from Ripon’s first team who had played their match that morning and were celebrating their own end of season. There were a couple of wags and a dog that might have been wearing a Cliffe kit. Other than that, it was the usual mix of family, friends and one or two groundhoppers suffering from the reduction in choice of fixtures.

Cliffe were the better side and rattled in four goals without reply in the first half. They added another soon after the restart. There was some excitement on the hour when Ripon pulled one back with a low shot into the corner that prompted a cry of “Come on boys, we can win this”. It wasn’t to be though as Cliffe added another three for a seven-one away win.

In the final throes of the game, Cliffe sent their keeper up for a corner in the hope of adding an eighth. Their ambition was neither rewarded nor punished with the corner sailing out on the full as the ref blew to bring the season to an end.

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Middlesbrough v Southampton, Saturday 9th May 2026, 12.30pm

May 11, 2026

So, the play-offs. I had a bit of arseing about to do beforehand with the car, so Harry and I didn’t get down to the Riverside until about half an hour before kick-off. That meant that we missed the dramatic arrival of the Boro team bus where our fans greeted the team with flares. There were still kids setting them off when we got there, presumably to avoid being arrested for taking them into the ground.

We met up with Tom and Jordan in the fan zone. Tom had averted the need to queue for beer by bringing his own, so we had a pre-match tin of Madri out of his carrier bag. There had been a bit of a mix up with Jordan’s ticket, but as I still had access to an extra one from the third ticket that we’d had last season, Jordan used mine and I went into the West Stand.

Most of the pre-match chat was over the likely consequences of Southampton cheating by sneaking into our training session. Potential punishments suggested ranged from kicking them out of the play-offs to levelling their stadium for car parking. It really was an outrageous thing to do and all I can assume is that the EFL are waiting to see if we eliminate them on the pitch before imposing their sanction.

What is certain is that Gibbo won’t let this go until he considers that justice has been done. Just ask Liverpool about their pursuit of Zeige, or Derby about pipping us to the play-offs with their financial cheating.

First half was all Boro. Despite their illegal advance knowledge of our set up and tactics, Southampton were on the ropes. We came close to breaking the deadlock a few times, with Tommy Conway’s shot against the inside of the post providing the best opportunity.  We don’t really have the strength in depth though and as our first eleven tired, they came more into it.

It finished goalless. I’m ok with that as we generally do better away from home. Presumably there will be no more cheating from Southampton, so we should go into the return leg at St Mary’s without the disadvantage of them knowing our plans. That’s if their stadium hasn’t been levelled by then.

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Kirkbymoorside v Tadcaster Magnets, Saturday 2nd May 2026, 2pm

May 4, 2026

One of my aims for this year is to complete the Yorkshire Wolds Way. That doesn’t sound too ambitious, given that the trail is only seventy-nine miles long, but it took us twelve years to do the Cleveland Way, albeit in both directions.

With the plan in mind, Jen and I spent a couple of nights just outside of Market Weighton and ticked off fourteen miles between there and South Cave. We’d have done more if we hadn’t taken the dog with us, due to his age, knee op and tendency to stop and smell everything.

There wasn’t much in the way of wildlife. The odd hare and a couple of birds of prey that I’m not knowledgeable enough to identify. The highlight was probably a white pheasant. I’d assumed that these birds were rare, but on reading up about them it turns out that that they are bred to act as ‘markers’ for the birds during the hunting season.

I had hoped to have been at Wrexham to watch the Boro in their final game of the regular season. I didn’t have enough priority points for a ticket though and so was limited to following our push for promotion on my phone. Our slim prospect of automatic were over early on once Ipswich had gone two goals up in their game. That left me free to focus on the match that I had been able to get into at the New Earswick Sports ground, just outside of York.

I was there to watch the York City and District Saturday Senior Cup Final, a fixture contested by Kirkbymoorside and Tadcaster Magnets, both of the eleventh-tier York League Premier Division. Tadcaster had already clinched the league title, so were going for the double. Kirkbymoorside were in fifth place in the table and so potentially capable of providing decent opposition.

It was free to get in and, if I’d chosen to, I could have watched a cricket or rugby game on the nearby pitches instead. There were around eighty other people there and I think I might well have been the only one who wasn’t a friend or family member of the players. League Champions Tadcaster were a class above. They went ahead in the opening minutes and then added a second just before half-time when their left-back rifled one home from about thirty yards.

Tadcaster were content to sit back after the break and going into the final ten minutes there were still just the two goals in it. The Kirkbymoorside keeper then booted a Magnets striker for trying to block his clearance and was given a red. The Casper-like outfield replacement for the goalie seemed to be trying to avoid being hit by the ball at the resulting penalty. Tadcaster then made it four when Casper got his fingers to a shot that was going wide and deflected it into his own net.

The winners were presented with both their League and Cup trophies at the end and celebrated with the obligatory jumping up and down whilst spraying ‘bubbly’ over each other. Hopefully I’ll watch the Boro doing the same in three week’s time at Wembley.

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Middlesbrough v Watford, Saturday 25th April 2026, 12.30pm

April 29, 2026

It was difficult to predict how we might approach this game as our place in the play-offs is secured, with automatic promotion still a theoretical possibility. Should Hellberg rest some of the better players or should he play his strongest side? What even is his strongest side?

He made four changes, leaving out Targett, Fry, Brown and Conway, bringing in Bangura, Gilbert, Sarmiento and Hansen. I could see the benefit in giving Fry a rest and as Targett had limped off against Sheff Wed, it made sense not to start him either. Sarmiento and Hansen were novel choices though, neither of whom would usually be in line for a start.

The atmosphere inside the ground was better than the Sheff Wed game. It was probably helped by Watford not bringing many fans and by us scoring an early goal. What a goal it was, with Whittaker striking a direct free-kick from distance into the top corner.

We played better too, with both Hansen and Sarmiento fitting in well. Whittaker was the star man, but Strelec looked good as did Conway when he came on for the last half-hour. The five-one scoreline was a fair reflection of our dominance over a Watford side that were clearly gearing up for their holidays.

The win left us behind Ipswich and Millwall going into the final game. I couldn’t help but think of all the points dropped during that recent seven-game winless run and how if Ipswich hadn’t equalized with that last-gasp spawny penalty, we would have been going to Wrexham in second place with promotion entirely in our own hands. It’s unlikely that results on Saturday will go our way for automatic, but maybe we are hitting form again at the right time for the play-offs.

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Middlesbrough v Sheffield Wednesday, Wednesday 22nd April 2026, 7.45pm

April 23, 2026

After our draw at Ipswich on Sunday, other results meant that a win against Sheff Wed would almost certainly confirm that we would, as a minimum, make the play-offs. That sounds ok, but after being in the top two for most of the season, it doesn’t currently feel like much of an achievement.

Harry was making his way to the game with his mates, which is exactly what fifteen-year-olds should be doing. He joined Tom and I in our regular seats, but I don’t expect it to be long before he looks to relocate to join his friends for the match as well.

There was a fairly flat atmosphere as people adjusted their expectations. That resulted in us being out sung by the away fans who had brought a couple of thousand despite having only won one game all season. They were determined to enjoy themselves regardless of what happened on the pitch and seemed to do so.

The Boro’s injury situation is finally easing.  Whittaker started, Bangura made an appearance from the bench and Castledine was in the matchday squad. That just leaves Hackney and McGree, who are probably our best two players. Hopefully they will be back in time for the play-offs.

Whittaker capped his return with an early goal that was enough to take the points. The performance was poor, but sometimes you have to just grind out a win. Listening to the phone in on the drive home, you’d think we were in Sheff Wed’s position rather than going into the last two games of the season with automatic promotion still an, albeit unlikely, possibility. Sometimes a little perspective is needed.

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Ipswich Town v Middlesbrough, Sunday 19th April 2026, 12 noon

April 22, 2026

I hadn’t intended to take in the Boro’s game at Portman Road, as it clashed with a weekend in London based around a Saturday night Booker T Jones gig at Koko in Camden. However, and in a rare pleasant surprise, SKY’s tampering with the fixtures worked in my favour and the switch to a Sunday lunchtime kick-off meant that by rearranging my train ticket home, I was able to attend both events.

Booker T was really good. He sat at the organ for most of the gig but had a couple of stints front and central with a guitar. All I really wanted to hear was Green Onions and he didn’t disappoint. It’s a song that can instantly transport me back to Bentley’s night club in 81/82. The rest of the set was excellent too and went down well with a near capacity crowd in what really is a very good venue.

I watched most of the set from the floor, but later on Jen and I listened to a track or two from the rooftop terrace. It was warm enough to enjoy the outdoor air whilst still being within listening distance of the band.

Next morning I took the train to Ipswich and  strolled downhill from the station to Portman Road. It’s forty-five years since I’d been to a game there. On the last occasion, it was half-term in my final year at school. My mate Nico and I went on the official supporter’s bus for a night game. As was normal in those days, we got beat, although with Ipswich chasing the league title that should have been expected. I assume that we won’t have got home until around four the next morning.

There wasn’t a lot of optimism ahead of this game either. It’s a month since I last saw us, in the goalless draw at Ewood Park, and in that time we’ve taken only two points from a possible nine and slipped from second to fifth place in the table. Just about all of those games will have been considered ‘must win’ fixtures by most, but three points really were needed from this match if we were to have any hopes of automatic promotion.

I had a seat in Row A of the lower tier. It meant that I didn’t really have much perspective of the play, but it made a change to see things from close up and, with only stewards in front of me, it was nice to be able to sit down at an away game.

Ipswich might have been the better side in the first half, but we shaded the second. It looked as if we might leave with the three points necessary to keep our hopes of automatic alive as we went into the final two minutes a goal up. It wasn’t to be though, and another soft penalty of the kind that never seems to be awarded in our favour allowed Ipswich to claim a spawny two-all draw.

The result leaves us in fifth, three points behind Ipswich who have a game in hand but also trailing Southampton and Millwall. If we get our injured players back on the pitch, I’d fancy our chances against any of those teams in the play-offs, which is just as well, as that looks like the only route available now.

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