Trail of the Lion King

This game was the first of three that I had lined up for that day. I’m aware that might be considered a little excessive and I’d probably accept that. But when games are scheduled close to each other and the travelling fits, well, why not? One reservation that I had was that I’d have to miss around ten minutes of either the first or second game as the logistics didn’t quite work perfectly, but I’ve never been precious about having to see the entire game to tick off a ground.

The first fixture required a drive down to Murcia for a ten o’clock kick-off at the Estadio Campus Universitario for a fifth-tier game. We were there an hour early, but the car parks were already full, no doubt with cars that hadn’t moved all week whilst their owners stayed in bed. Fucking students.

It was five euros admission, but very few people were paying as they were flashing what I presumed were their Real Murcia season cards to watch the reserve side. The only viewing option was a seven-row uncovered concrete terrace down one side. We spotted a few plastic chairs dotted about in the back row and collected two of then as a perk of being there so early.

Real Murcia B were fifth in the table with CAP Ciudad de Murcia in tenth, but there were just four points between the sides. The game wasn’t up to much and my eyes were repeatedly drawn to an eight a side small kids game on the next pitch along. On the basis that the adult ref seemed twice the height of the players I’d guess that they were around six years old. Some of them looked pretty decent and you couldn’t help but smile at the joy and despair whenever a goal was scored.

There wasn’t anything like the excitement in the adult game, with not a single shot on target in the first half. I tried for a half-time drink but there was nothing available. By the time we reached the hour mark, at least each side had managed a shot on target. Nevertheless, I didn’t see much point in hanging around any longer and so we cleared off at that point to make sure that I was on time for the second game of the day.

Tags: Fifth-tier Spanish football, Murcia, Plastic garden chairs, Students staying in bed

This entry was posted on January 17, 2024 at 6:33 am and is filed under Football. 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.