Trail of the Lion King

On Wednesday I went along to Seongnam in the hope that they would get at least a draw against Seoul and help Jeju to finish top of the table. I wouldn’t normally care who finishes top but I’ve got a weekend booked to Jeju that coincides with the date of the play-off final. If Seoul overtake Jeju at the top then Seoul will be hosting the game instead whilst I’ll be three hundred miles south watching a match on telly that’s taking place about five miles from where I live.

It doesn’t take me long to get to Seongnam, in fact I even had time to nip back to my apartment after work and pick up a coat, hat and gloves. It’s pretty cold at this time of year and so my usual work attire of a short-sleeved shirt wouldn’t have been much use. I know short-sleeved shirts aren’t particularly stylish, but it was ridiculously hot in the summer. Besides, they take a lot less ironing than a normal shirt, although with winter approaching I’ll soon be able to get away with my usual approach of wearing my shirts unironed, underneath a jumper.

The north east corner

I arrived at the ground well before kick off, bought a nine thousand won ticket for the east stand and got a couple of beers, although I wasn’t wholly convinced that chilled Cass was the most appropriate drink with the temperature dropping rapidly. Seongnam’s forward from Montenegro, Dzenan Radoncic was wearing tights and gloves as if the cold was a bit of a shock to him, although I wouldn’t have thought that the winters were much milder in his home country.

The game was fairly open with both teams looking to get forward at every opportunity before Seoul opened the scoring after about ten minutes with a scrappy goal. Bollocks. It got better though when Seongnam equalised a few minutes later. I was actually out of my seat celebrating for the first time at a Korean football match. It’s so much better when you care about the result, whatever the reason. I know that I won’t ever develop the same feelings for a Korean team that I have for the Boro, so maybe what I need to do is introduce a reason to care, perhaps with a big enough bet on the result to give the match that element of tension.

First half action.

My joy at the equaliser didn’t last long though as Seoul regained their lead just before the half hour. Double bollocks. They managed to stay ahead until the interval when despite having to drink them with my gloves on, I got another couple of beers from the chiller cabinet.

With it being half time I’m going to break off from the football to tell you about my most recent haircut. The actual clipping itself was just as you might have expected it to be, but afterwards the barber produced the sort of attachment that you see at garage forecourts for vacuuming the interior of cars and he gave my freshly cropped bonce a thorough hoovering. I’ve been to this barbers two or three times before and not had this particular treat. Perhaps they save it for regular customers and I’ve now been deemed worthy of the special attention. Whatever, I’d highly recommend it as a way of getting rid of the rogue clippings that a dusting with a brush or towel might miss and I’m sure it would work pretty well at getting rid of an infestation of head lice too.

Whilst I’m away from the subject of football I’m going to get on to the Olsen twins again, so to speak. A gratuitous photo in my last match report certainly seems to have increased the traffic to the blog. So much so, that I’m going to do it again. As I’ve never met Mary-Kate and Ashley, I don’t have any photos that I’ve taken myself, so I’ll have to ’borrow’ one from the internet. Not that it will be difficult, it looks as if there are one or two of them out there.

Olsen twins in a topless car

Mind you, it isn’t people mixing up the Olsen twins with the LG Twins that brings most visitors here, no, it’s people looking for bears. I know, you would think they would just try the woods. I’d like to believe that it was people searching for the bears that live in Jirisan National Park or the bear that sometimes appears at British Sea Power gigs, but I don’t really think it is. I think its more likely that people arrive here looking for big gay beardy blokes in checky shirts, only to come across a selection of relief pitchers for the Doosan Bears instead. Make your own joke up there, I’ve given you enough permutations.

Well, it’s a broad church here so if your interest is in bears, I’m happy to oblige. We can start with a shot of the British Sea Power Bear, Ursine Ultra, that I also found on the internet. And without any clothes on.

Nude bear

We can go back to the football now. The second half was just as end to end as the first had been with Seongnam pushing for an equaliser in front of their relatively small crowd. I’d been here a couple of weeks earlier for the Champions League semi final and the east and north stands had been fairly full that night. This game was played out in front of an almost empty stadium though. There were a few hundred visiting supporters who made plenty of noise, but I reckon the total attendance was probably no more than a couple of thousand people.

FC Seoul fans.

The Seoul manager, Nelo Vingada, didn’t seem too happy, despite his team hanging onto their lead. I can’t help but look at him and think of Alf Garnett. Stick a West Ham scarf around his neck and he would be a dead ringer.

FC Seoul manager Nelo Vingada

With Alf’s exhortations ringing in their ears, Seoul managed to hang on for the victory, a win which took them a point clear of Jeju at the top of the table with just one match left to play. The defeat for Seongnam prevented them from overtaking Jeonbuk, who remained in third place despite losing to Busan. That meant that I was likely to miss the final three play-off games if the placings remained unchanged. I had been hoping that Seongnam could pip Jeonbuk to gain themselves a home midweek tie in the battle between the third to sixth placed clubs. Without that though, it’s beginning to look as if the football season could be over a little earlier than expected for me and you’ll have a quieter winter to look forward too.  Still, I’ll no doubt be able to find a picture of a couple of bears indulging in a bit of snowballing or the Olsen twins in their stockings to keep the interest levels up.

This entry was posted on November 10, 2010 at 10:13 am and is filed under Football, Haircuts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.