As good as an evening at the baseball is, what I really wanted to see whilst in Taipei was a football game. One of my current ‘collectables’ is ‘countries where I’ve seen a football match’ and I still hadn’t added Taiwan to my list despite this being our third visit.
Last time around, I’d planned to see Taiwan Football Premier League team Royal Blues at the Taipei Stadium. However, in an ever more familiar tale of ground hopping woe, they switched the fixture to the other end of the island at short notice. We spent that afternoon jumping from one taxi to another or staring forlornly at empty pitches.
It initially seemed that my luck would be little better this trip as for some reason it was a blank weekend for the top-tier Football Premier League. My mood brightened though when I discovered what appeared to be the next league down, the On Tap Premier League. Even better, there was a fixture scheduled for the Sunday morning at the Fu Jen University Stadium.
It wasn’t the busiest of events and by the time the game kicked off there were just the six of us watching. Jen and I had the main (and only) stand to ourselves, whilst a couple sat picnicking with their young son who had just finished his football training. The crowd was completed by a bloke who may or may not have been sleeping rough and who was resting in the shade under a tree.
The Mighty Shane seemed like a bunch of English blokes. I’m going to guess ESL teachers. They had a classic Sunday league approach, getting changed by the side of the pitch and then rather impressively putting in a lap of the pitch for a warm up. To their credit, I didn’t see any of them throwing up the previous night’s excesses in the way that I remember from my George and Dragon days.
Japanese FC might well have been mainly Japanese. They warmed up by having a chat and in at least one case, a pre-match fag.
The game started a few minutes later than planned due to the last-minute arrival of a linesman. There wasn’t a lot of scheduling leeway though as the plastic pitch was being used again at 1pm and 3pm. One of the Mighty Shane subs strolled up just as the teams were lining up and bellowed instructions at everyone. Presumably “Set your alarm clock” wasn’t one of them. When the action got underway his favorite admonishment was that “We are too fucking quiet”.
I thought that the Mighty Shane were not nearly quiet enough, especially when some of them gave the ref a load of abuse. The Japanese players on the other hand were much quieter. I like that. They weren’t any more punctual though with one of their subs turning up a good ten minutes after kick-off. Not only was he late, but he’d brought a dog with him. Hopefully it knew the pitch was just for football.
The overall standard was generally pretty poor with most players looking like they were running in quicksand. If a player ever did manage to control the ball then he would invariably find the opposition with this next touch rather than a team-mate. It was a while before the Japanese team strung three consecutive passes together. I’m not sure that Mighty Shane ever did.
Much to the fury of the shouty bloke on the Mighty Shane bench, Japanese FC took the lead after about ten minutes with a neat finish from a cut-back. The quieter lads went on to double their lead with an unchallenged tap-in from a corner after twenty minutes.
“Come on!” the beaten keeper shouted at no-one in particular. “We are better than this”. I don’t think anyone really believed him though and it was no surprise when the not so Mighty Shane eventually succumbed to a four-one defeat.
Tags: Fu Jen University, Japanese FC, Mighty Shane, Taipei football
Trail of the Lion King 
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