The last sporting event of the American trip was some more basketball, although at college level rather than NBA. Arnaudville wasn’t too far from Lafayette where the Ragin’ Cajuns play their home fixtures and so I skipped a barbecue for the visit of the Youngstown Penguins.
I paid thirty dollars a pop for tickets, which is more than I paid for the Pelicans NBA game. It seemed as if we were the only people who had paid to get into the Cajun Dome as students got in free. I’ve had a student card for the last ten years, but it was no use as they limit their concession to their own students, a policy that seems a particularly harsh on any travelling Penguins fans.
Despite free admission the attendance was low. Sparse enough to hear every waggish comment from the comedians around me. Youngstown had a tatty set of vests and one fella to my right spent the game shouting for “more glue” every time a number or the lettering began to peel off. The game ran for two twenty-minute halves rather than four quarters. I liked that, although I suppose it cuts down the opportunity for ad revenue.
The Ragin’ Cajuns were unbeaten at home for nearly two years but fell behind early on. They pulled it around though and finished comfortably in front to keep the run going.
I like to go along to the horse racing when I get the opportunity and after our stay in New Orleans Jen and I had moved out of town to Arnaudville. It’s a small town that’s only around twenty minutes drive from the Evangeline track. As there was a meeting going on during our stay we called in one evening.
The track seems to be secondary to the casino, which was far busier than the racing. It was free to get in although few of the people present had much of an interest in the live racing and spent their time on the big betting hall that had races on the telly from other locations around the country.
It was a strange atmosphere indoors as smoking was allowed. It felt like going back in time twenty-years. Maybe it’s a casino thing, although the casino wasn’t what I consider a casino. I always expect to see Bond in a tuxedo playing Baccarat, but instead we got Bart Simpson’s aunts feeding the fruities.
The racing was probably the most unusual that I’ve seen, bar the races for midget horses in Jeju where the jockeys could bring them to a halt by putting their boots to the ground. Each race was no longer than 350 yards, with some of them just 250 yards. It meant that only those horses that could make a lightning start were in with a chance.
Something else that was unusual was that there were always exactly six horses in each race, like going to the dogs. There were only six jockeys in total as well, each of them riding in every race.
Our betting strategy of Jen selecting a horse on the basis of its name paid off and we finished up well ahead. I resisted the urge to play the slots on the way out and we headed back to Arnaudville quids in.
Staying out in the sticks was all very well, but every now and then you want a little more action going on and so Jen and I booked three nights in New Orleans, staying in an Airbnb about forty-minutes walk from the busy part of town. Each day we had a wander into the touristy bit for a mooch around.
On one of the days, we got caught up in a jazz funeral that went past our house. You can’t miss an opportunity like that and so we followed it along to the church next to the underpass where the rough sleepers congregate. I’m not really sure who benefits from a jazz funeral, certainly not the dead and probably not those grieving. Maybe it’s just for bystanders like me.
One of the events that we’d planned was seeing Jonathan Richman at some old French theatre. I’m not that familiar with his music, but I’ve seen the tribute band, The Modern Ovens, that some of the Sea Power members play in, a few times. If it’s good enough for them then that will do.
We met up with Luke, one of Jen’s brothers who lives in New Orleans, and had an enjoyable evening.
Next night was the Pelicans in the NBA. Another of Jen’s brothers, Jeff, picked us up and commenting on the place we were staying asked “Were the projects too expensive?”.
I don’t think Jeff was too impressed with the seats I’d bought either. He used to be a marketing guy for a minor league baseball team and has the contacts to always sit somewhere good. We were quite high up, but I thought it was a decent view. The venue hadn’t sold out and Jeff let me know that if we’d waited until the day of the game we’d have picked up seats for buttons on the resale sites.
The Pelicans had only arrived back in town that day, having been stranded overnight after an away game. With sixteen games scheduled for November they chose to rest both of their star players which may have impacted on the crowd. On the plus side it meant we didn’t ever have to queue to get another ten dollar can of beer.
The lack of stars didn’t seem to hinder the home side and after a sluggish start they found themselves twenty-five points up at one stage. Thunder pegged it back towards the end, but the result was never in doubt in what turned out to be a good evening for the Pelican’s fringe players.
As the US trip went on I found that the options for seeing another football game opened up a bit with the MSL play-offs. Houston had qualified and had a home game in Texas, which is just a five-hour drive from Baton Rouge. It’s the sort of distance that Americans will drive to pick up a Gazette and a pint of milk and so it seemed far less weird than travelling that far would in the UK to attend a game in say, Cornwall, between two teams I had no affinity with.
A benefit of travelling long distance in the States is the variety of service stations. I’ve previously broken a journey to fire an AK47. This time I got to manhandle an alligator. Despite me telling the lady in charge that alligators generally like me, she still wouldn’t remove the band from around its mouth in case it ripped my arm off. Nevertheless, it beats the services in the UK and perked me up far more than a coffee would, although perhaps not as much as blasting away with a machine gun did.
As the game was on a Sunday Houston was pretty quiet and we stayed at a hotel next to the baseball stadium and about a twenty-minute walk from Houston Dynamos Shell Energy Stadium. Somewhat surprisingly (to me) the game hadn’t sold out. Maybe Houston isn’t really a soccer town.
As we went in we were given a tea towel and a voucher for a bottle of Bud Lite. I doubt I’d ever buy American Bud unless there were very limited options but as it was free, I was happy to save the tenner that I’d have needed to spend on a stadium beer. Jen very kindly gave me hers as well, although the savings then became moot as she switched to twenty-dollar Margaritas.
Our seats were in one of the corners, so we watched the warm-ups from a bar. If you got there early enough you could watch the whole game from tables there and that might have been a decent option, particularly if you were more interested in a chat and a drink than the action on the pitch.
The play-off structure has been expanded so that half the league seems to qualify. What is odder is that the format provides for a best of three scenario. That seems like overkill to me, surely a two-legged affair is enough for anyone.
Anyway, Dynamo went a goal up and Salt Lake equalised. With the rain coming down and Jen and I having relocated to the bar to take advantage of their roof, Houston nicked a late winner to go a game up with two to play.
After the Mississippi stay, Jen and I moved on to Denham Springs in Louisiana for the dog-sitting. Even though Halloween was quite a way off, the neighbourhood was full of decorations. There was a residents competition to see who could put the most effort in and if you didn’t have a couple of twenty-feet high inflatables in your front yard then you didn’t really stand a chance.
It’s also a big football area, or specifically an LSU town. Everywhere you go people are sporting the colours. Player images adorn the drive-throughs and on game days the supermarkets are stripped of beer and snacks for house parties.
Whilst I’m all in favour of beer and snacks I like to watch my sport live and so Jen and I went along to Tiger Stadium for the fixture with the Army. Not the whole army, but presumably their version of Sandhurst.
It was a right arse-on getting parked but eventually we were directed to some free parking in a field that was only twenty minutes or so from the venue. We passed by some serious tailgating that involved gazebos and big tellies. Some of those people won’t even have bothered going inside, preferring instead to enjoy the atmosphere in the vicinity.
We did a lap of the stadium and had a gawp at Mike the Tiger. A real tiger in an enclosure that Jen assured me was much larger than the small pen that one of the earlier Mikes lived in when she was an LSU student.
Once inside we were able to take elevators to our forty-dollar seats way up high and in time for a helicopter drop of parachutists as pre-match entertainment. There was a band too, on a much bigger scale that the one at the soccer game, with perhaps a hundred or so members marching up and down.
I got myself a crawfish pie from one of the concession stands on the basis that I’m unlikely to get the option of buying one at a game anywhere else. I don’t see them catching on.
As a contest it was far too one-sided with LSU racking up the points at will. They were so dominant that they hooked their star quarterback at half-time denying him the opportunity to set whatever records he fancied. In the end, it finished up 62-0, which is a score that you wouldn’t expect to see anywhere other than at the cricket. Nevertheless, it was a decent evening out.
Jen had arranged to spend a month in the States, primarily to do some dog sitting for her sister who was going on holiday. As the work I’m doing can all be done remotely I thought I’d go along as well. We started off at her Dad’s house in Mississippi where the highlights were cutting down a couple of trees with a chainsaw and taking his dog Roscoe for a walk.
Soccer-wise, the season was drawing to an end, and I don’t think that there are any local sides in the MSL or the second-tier leagues anyway. The college season was just about done too but I was just in time for a women’s university fixture between LSU and Arkansas.
It was free to park at the LSU Soccer Stadium and free to get into the game. They even gave me a complimentary ‘fanny pack’ for turning up. Once inside I got myself an enormous coke and a sausage Po Boy, which is really just a hot dog in a bun.
I took a seat in the main stand and watched the two sides warm up. Both of them had massive squads. LSU had twenty-six outfield players and four goalies. Arkansas must have had an injury crisis as they’d only brought twenty-three players.
The home side were in their traditional purple with the visitors in white. Both sets of players wore their shorts a lot tighter than in the English game and hitched up in the style favoured mainly by teenage girls and Glen Hoddle. Sepp Blatter would no doubt have been pleased.
Another noticeable difference to English game was that the scoreboard clock counted down and was paused whenever there was a break in play for VAR checks, yellow card admin or injuries. We also got a greater involvement from the stadium announcer who, in case any of the crowd were blind, would advise the reason for a break in play with “Offside, Arkansas” or “Free-kick, Tigers”.
We were treated to a twenty-odd strong brass band that every now and then would go walkabout through the stand. I suppose if you have to practice the tuba, you might as well do it whilst watching a match.
The game was only half an hour old when we got four Razorback subs and one from LSU. Ten minutes later another Razorback was swapped as were three Tigers players. The substitutions took no time at all as the oncoming player sprinted on with a bib in hand, gave it to the subbed player who similarly sprinted off the field. I liked that.
I lost track of the total number of subs throughout, but it was more than eleven for each side with some players coming back on and some subs only getting a few minutes pitch time before returning to the bench. I’m aware of rolling subs in the over-forties leagues in England but hadn’t expected it here.
The game was goalless up until the a few minutes from time when LSU took the lead with a header. I thought that would be enough to clinch the victory but Arkansas equalised pretty much straightaway to take a share of the points.
Trail of the Lion King 