As a ground hopper it’s great when you stumble across a match that you weren’t expecting. I was on my way to the second tier game between Spartak Moscow’s reserve team and Tekstilshchik Ivanovo when I heard the unmistakable sound of a referee’s whistle coming from the first pitch at the Spartak Academy complex. I’d just walked from Sokolniki Park where the snow was still on the ground but enough of the paths were clear for me to enjoy a stroll around in the fresh air.
Sokolniki is supposed to have wild boars in it but I’ve never seen any. Apparently, it was used by one of the Tzars as a place to catch rabbits with his falcons. I’ve not seen any rabbits or falcons either. Nor any Tzars for that matter. There are always some of those grey and black crows about though, generally in pairs. I spotted one that seemed to be collecting food rather than eating it.
Pitch 1 of the Spartak Academy is a small ground with seats along one side that have an obscured view through a fence. There are no seats behind either of the goals and the opposite side of the pitch houses the dugouts.
As I approached the entrance a fella in a grey kit was leaving. A quick count up revealed that his team only had ten men so I suspect that he was heading for his car in a huff after being shown a red.
A banner identified the team in blue as Burevestnik and a bit of online research revealed the visitors as Lightning. They were competing in the Under-17 Winter Championship of Moscow and had drawn a crowd of around twenty spectators, some clearly supporting the teams playing and not just killing time before the Spartak game.
I hung around for fifteen minutes or so which was long enough to see a goal for each side, including one cracker from outside of the box that clipped the bar on the way in.
April 3, 2021 at 5:11 am |
You posted within a week of being somewhere…Are you well?