Archive for November, 2024

Al-Shabab v Al Nassr, Friday 18th October 2024, 9pm

November 29, 2024

My taxi from the Kingdom Arena dropped me outside of Al Shabab Club Stadium with twenty minutes to go to kick-off. I’d already bought my ticket online for forty riyals, which is around eight quid.

I was welcomed by just about everyone who caught my eye. Maybe I stand out as an elderly Brit. I was also asked at least twice if I was there ‘to watch Ronaldo’. Truth is, I’ve little interest in him. If anything, his presence just makes it harder for me to get tickets and clogs the pavement up with people who might only go to a game once or twice a year.

Al Shabab Club Stadium is nominally forty years old, but it was just about fully re-built a couple of years ago. The new version holds fifteen thousand, but even with Ronaldo making an appearance, the capacity wasn’t tested.

My seat was along the side, about level with the edge of the penalty area. We were all given a large plastic flag to wave and some of us also received a goody bag containing stickers and a badge. I gave mine to the very polite small kid behind me who I suspected might have appreciated them more than I would.

Al Nassr had a few hundred fans behind the goal to my left and probably a fair number dotted around the rest of the stadium. Their season has got off to a poor start, albeit unbeaten, but too many drawn games has seen them slip behind leaders Al-Hilal. Al-Shabab were still in touch at the top end, but realistically wouldn’t be challenging for the title.

For those with an interest in how Ronaldo got on, he was ok. Just ok. He didn’t move around much and left the pressing to others whilst trying to ignore the frequent and tiresome chants of ‘Messi, Messi’.

Nothing of note happened until twenty minutes from time when Laporte put Al-Nassr a goal up. The visitors thought that they had added a second six minutes from time, but with the home fans streaming out it was chalked off by a VAR check, causing a lot of those Al-Shabab fans to make an about-turn and head back to their seats.

Their return appeared justified on ninety minutes when an own goal levelled the score. It wasn’t to last though and Al-Nassr were awarded a penalty seven minutes into added time. Bizarrely, there were chants of ‘Ronaldo’ from many of the fans around me who to all intents had previously appeared to be supporting the home side.

Ronaldo made no mistake from the spot to move one nearer to his target of a thousand goals. You’d think that would have been it, but with twelve minutes of added time elapsed a VAR penalty was awarded to Al-Shabab for a challenge that had taken place a good two minutes earlier. With the home fans holding their breath, their penalty came back off the post and was hoofed away with the final kick of the game. I’m glad I didn’t leave early.

On the way out I struck up a conversation with a teenage Shabab fan. He was bemoaning the lack of investment in his team and the unfairness of only having seen his club win one league title. I pointed out that in fifty years of watching the Boro, I’d never seen my club win the top division and that even if I’d been a hundred years older it would have been no different.

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Al-Hilal v Al Feiha, Friday 18th October 2024, 6pm

November 28, 2024

There’s not a great deal goes on in Al Ula, certainly as far as sport is concerned, and so I decided to take an overnight trip to Riyadh. The attraction was the chance to see two Saudi Pro League games at grounds where I hadn’t previously watched football and which were taking place no more than a fifteen-minute taxi ride apart. Who could pass up that opportunity?

I flew in on a lunchtime flight and checked into a hotel where I was given a room without a window. If I’d been there with Jen or staying for a few nights I might have asked to move to something a bit posher, but as I only there for one night I decided that I could live with it. I slept very well in the absence of any natural light, so maybe I should specify a windowless room in future.

My hotel was within walking distance of the second game and so I took at taxi to the Kingdom Arena for the first match. It’s the venue where I watched the Tyson v Usyk fight back in May and, just like on that previous occasion, I was dropped off a long way from my entrance.

Al Hilal’s App is a nightmare to navigate. So much so that I was unable to use it to buy a ticket. Instead, I utilised the secondary market, paying one of the tout sites double the rate for a seat behind the goal that had a face value of sixteen quid.

Block 21 turned out to be the home fans section. It was free seating and as kick-off drew nearer everyone was forced to budge up and fill any empty places. Flags had been left on our seats in anticipation of a pre-match celebration of Al-Hilal’s sixty-seventh birthday.

There were a few fans from Al-Feiha behind the goal at the other end and some more sparsely populated areas along each side of the pitch.

The visitors had Chris Smalling at centre-half. Some of you, although not many I imagine, will recall that he was briefly on the Boro’s books as a teenager, before quickly having his contract cancelled due to homesickness. You’d think Saudi Arabia would be more different to adjust to than Middlesbrough was, but maybe he settles somewhere new a lot easier these days.

Smalling didn’t really look fit to me, and I’d imagine someone with a decent turn of pace would just have to run around him, although he’d no doubt be useful throwing his weight around at set pieces.

Al Hilal had most of the possession and the chances. They scored their first goal after five minutes and should really have been out of sight by half-time. Two further goals in the second half were enough to clinch the victory.

The easy win kept Al-Hilal at the top of the table and in pole position to retain their title. I skipped the post-match celebrations and legged it outside where I was able to hop into a waiting taxi and make the short journey up the road for my second game of the evening.

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Al-Shahaniya v Al-Ahli, Friday 11th October 2024, 5.45pm

November 27, 2024

Paul and I went out to Qatar for the 2022 World Cup and saw games at five of the eight tournament stadiums. I’d assumed that having ticked the country off my list, I’d be unlikely to add to my total of Qatari stadiums visited.

What I hadn’t allowed for was a missed flight connection that left me with twenty-four hours kicking my heels in Doha before my rescheduled onward flight.

A quick check on the Futbology App revealed that there were a couple of games within a manageable distance of my hotel. The fixture I selected was in the Qatari Stars Cup, which I think might be a tournament that exists to keep busy those players who hadn’t been called up by their countries during the international break.

I bought a thirty-riyal VIP ticket online and took the subway to the Suhaim bin Hamed stadium. It’s a lot smaller and older than the grounds I’d been to during the World Cup, dating back forty years and accommodating a maximum crowd of twenty thousand. 

After a quick glance at the trophy cabinet, I took my seat in the main stand. Nothing about the experience struck me as being for VIPs and I might as well have paid ten riyals for what would have been a similar view.

I got chatting to a couple of Al-Ahli fans who very kindly pointed out the German international Julian Draxler and some other guy who had played for PSG. They also told me that they’d been at the same stadium for a Diamond League athletics meeting earlier in the year that had attracted a capacity crowd. There were barely a hundred people watching this fixture.

Perhaps the low attendance was due to neither of the teams regularly playing at the ground. One of the competition quirks is that neutral venues are used. That’s great for groundhoppers, but a likely irritant to most regular supporters.

Neither side seemed to over-exert themselves. Al-Shahaniya took the lead in the first half and Al-Ahli equalised soon after the break. This stage of the competition is a mini-league and both sides looked content to avoid defeat.

On my return drive to the airport the next morning I passed the World Cup stadium that incorporated shipping containers into its design. I’d thought that it had been dismantled immediately after the tournament but from what I could see it was still intact. If I get another flight delay in the future, perhaps I’ll get the opportunity to see a game there too.

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Charlton Athletic v Sunderland, Sunday 6th October 2024, 2pm

November 25, 2024

I had some university stuff to do in Chelmsford the first weekend in October and as it’s a shortish journey by train from London I thought it an ideal opportunity for Jen and I to spend a few days in the capital and do some touristy things.

We stayed in Camden, just around the corner from KOKO, the music venue that used to be known as Camden Palace. I’ve seen a few gigs there over the years, including Bruce Foxton almost forty years ago. Our apartment overlooked some wasteland, and a highlight was watching a fox napping in the early morning sunshine.

We got up to the usual stuff like drinking in Soho and some less usual stuff such as an absinthe lecture and tasting in Hackney. It was an educational way to pass an hour or so and I came away with a better knowledge of the drink than I’d started with. I doubt I’ll change my regular nip from whisky, but I quite liked the arse on of dissolving sugar into the absinthe by dripping liquid onto a spoon and then into the glass.

We also went on a mudlarking session close to the Millenium Bridge. It’s a popular area for poking about in the mud, so I’d no real expectations of discovering anything valuable on the riverbank. I found a few sheep teeth, some clay pipe stems, various small pieces of broken pottery and an Elizabethan two-shilling coin dating back to 2017.

Best part of the trip was a Dee C Lee gig at KOKO. She was touring her new album with fellow Style-Councillor Steve White on drums. They were joined by Mick Talbot for Paris Match meaning that only Mr. Weller was missing for a full reunion. I’d initially been hopeful that he’d turn up and sit in for a couple of songs as Mick did, particularly as his daughter Leah was providing the support, but he didn’t show. It was probably better that way as it was a good gig in its own right, and his presence would likely have overshadowed everything else.

Sports-wise, we didn’t get up to very much. There was the option of visiting Crayford and Romford dog tracks, but in the end, we settled for a football game at The Valley in the Women’s second-tier Championship.  We started our match-day journey early on the Sunday morning at Westminster Pier and took a boat trip along the Thames to Greenwich. It was all very interesting, and I picked up a few snippets from the commentary about the history of the buildings that we chugged past.

After arriving at Greenwich, we visited the Cutty Sark and then Greenwich Observatory. Both were busy and provided elevated views of London along the Thames and then from the top of the hill in Greenwich Park.

It was around an hour’s walk from Greenwich Observatory to The Valley, through estates that reminded me of my year living in Plumstead in the mid-eighties. We arrived with time to spare and as I’d bought hospitality tickets in advance for twenty-one quid a pop, we were able to head inside through the main entrance and take the stairs to the 1905 lounge.

We had some Coq au Vin with mash and watched Scottish football on the telly before making our way outside to the padded seats in the Director’s Box. There wasn’t much of a crowd with virtually as many in hospitality as in the rest of the main stand.

Expectations seemed to be for a home win as Charlton were sitting at the top of the league with a perfect four wins from their opening four matches.

Sunderland clearly hadn’t read the script though and quickly went two up, before Charlton pulled one back on the half-hour.  It looked as if the Mackems had clinched the points when they added a third goal twelve minutes from time. Charlton weren’t done though and scored twice in the final stages to level the score at three-each. I thought the result fair, although as you’d expect, the home players and fans were clearly happier with their late point than the visitors were with a point that I’m sure they would have taken had it been offered beforehand.

The return trip was a little quicker as we were able to catch a bus back to Greenwich Pier from close to the ground. With minimal waiting for the penultimate boat of the day we were soon back at Westminster Pier.

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Workington v Hebburn Town, Monday 26th August 2024, 3pm

November 23, 2024

Krankenhaus was done for another year. It really is a wonderful festival and has grown from around three hundred attendees five years ago to twelve hundred or so this year, which is big enough for me. The very friendly vibe is probably enhanced by the number of dogs that come along. Plus, Sea Power aficionados tend to be some of the nicest people around. I don’t think I saw anyone being a dickhead the entire weekend.

The highlights were the Sea Power sets themselves and for their Sunday night performance we got a mellow rarities set, drawing heavily on Hamilton’s songs. All it would have needed for perfection would have been a rendition of Lovely Day Tomorrow.

I hope that the festival has started to turn a profit and that it helps to keep them going. I’d miss gigs like the two that we got from them this weekend.

As we were staying at Muncaster for the rest of the week, I had the opportunity to take in a match on the Bank Holiday Monday at Borough Park in Workington. It was a fixture in the seventh tier Premier Division of the Northern Premier League.

I can remember when Workington were a Football League club. It’s forty-seven years since they were replaced by Wimbledon in the penultimate season of the bottom four in Division Four having to apply for re-election. I don’t remember Bill Shankly managing them though, that was before my time. Visitors Hebburn Town are ex-Northern League and have done well to advance two steps since those days.

It was thirteen quid admission, which seems high for tier seven, but maybe that’s my age. Why can’t I still buy a car for a farthing? The turnstile was impressive in an old rickety way, as was almost all the ground. The dugouts seemed modern, which is a shame, as I’d hoped to have imagined Shankly sat in one of them. I still did, but had to put in the extra effort to imagine the dugout too.

The capacity of the ground was limited to three thousand, with seating for around five hundred in the old main stand. With time to spare before kick-off I got myself a programme and joined the queue for one of those curly sausages that always remind me of a particular style of dog turd. It came with mash and gravy and tasted better than it looked. It was announced before kick-off that Workington had signed Efe Ambrose who had turned out for Celtic in the past and who had more than fifty Nigerian caps. He wasn’t available for this game.

After watching from the seats for a while I toured the rest of Borough Park and had spells watching from behind each goal.

Hebburn had the best of the opening exchanges, blazing a shot over the bar early on and then taking a first half lead with a shot that the Workington goalie got a hand to and should probably have kept out. It looked as if that would be sufficient for Hebburn to see the game out but a break down the right ten minutes from time led to an equaliser. The move was repeated four minutes later and to the delight of all those around me, including a dog, Workington went ahead.

Hebburn understandably weren’t happy about the changed circumstances and their day deteriorated further when a fella picked up a second yellow soon afterwards. All Workington had to do after that was run down the clock and they managed it easily enough.

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Millom FC v Carnforth Rangers, Saturday 24th August 2024, 3pm

November 22, 2024

It’s good to do things with my grandson Harry, although he’s at that age where the day tends not to start until the afternoon.

I think the only morning activity that he managed in the time he stayed with us was a visit to Silecroft beach a couple of days earlier. It’s somewhere that we’d gone into the sea with body boards on past visits but with the sewage pollution that seems commonplace these days we limited our activities to wandering along the pebbles and skimming a few into the foam.

Fortunately, the football at Millom was a three o’çlock kick-off and so he was up and about. We’d initially watched the rugby league on the adjacent pitch, which was all very interesting, but it was the proper football that Harry and I had travelled down to Millom to see on the Hanna Field.

The fixture was in the twelfth tier Division One of the West Lancashire Football League with Millom hosting Carnforth Rangers. Millom were in red and black with Carnforth in blue. Each side provided a lino that made little contribution.

As you might expect from a game at that level, there were no seats unless you sat on the wall behind the goal that bordered the rugby pitch. Harry and I leaned on a barrier on the opposite side to the dugouts that gave us a view of the scoreboard and the allotments behind. A handful of kids, who didn’t look to be any older than six or seven years old, watched from behind the goal at the other end to the rugby terracing and did their best to start a few chants.

It was a good-natured game with very little diving. By the time the players took their on-field half-time break Millom were leading two one. Harry and I had been checking on the Boro score and at that stage we were two-one down.

The crowd of around twenty doubled mid-way through the second half as the rugby finished, just in time to see Millom add a third goal.

Carnforth kept chipping away and pulled a goal back in added time, but it was too late. Overall, the score seemed about right, although Carnforth were probably disappointed not to have come away with a point from an even game.

The win for Millom meant that they were the only side to remain unbeaten in their division.

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Millom ARLFC v Normanton Knights, Saturday 24th August 2024, 2.30pm

November 14, 2024

As we’d now reached the weekend, Krankenhaus was well under way. It’s the fourth time that the festival has been held and Jen and I have been fortunate enough to attend them all. Harry and Isla were also there two years ago and came in with us and Soph on the Friday afternoon this time.

It’s a chilled, friendly atmosphere and I’ve little inclination these days to attend any festivals that are bigger or rowdier.

Highlight of the Friday was Sea Power’s set. But it always is. Whilst the other bands were decent, I’d be happy if the three-day festival comprised of nothing more than a single Sea Power performance each day. There’s enough going on to fill my time in Muncaster Castle and on a Saturday afternoon there’s always some football on somewhere.

I popped in pre-match on the Saturday and watched a Hector Gannet lunchtime set whilst Harry was still in bed before returning to the house to pick him up and drive south to Millom.

We were there to watch a football game in the West Lancashire league, but on arrival there was already a crowd of around four hundred watching a rugby league game on an adjacent pitch. Millom Amateur Rugby League Club contends to be the oldest rugby league club in the world. I’ve no reason to doubt their claim, particularly as my knowledge of the support is so limited that this was the first ever fixture that I’d seen live.

A little research revealed that the game was in the sixth tier of English rugby which is Division Two of the National Conference. Millom were fighting to avoid the drop to Division Three and badly needed a win against visitors Normanton Knights.

Harry plays Union for Stockton and found the six-tackle League format interesting. It means you have to concentrate more when watching as you need to know how close the attacking side is to the six-tackle limit.

I’m not sure all of the crowd were counting the tackles, as a lot were focusing on their pints and the socialising that comes with a big game on a Bank Holiday weekend. Others were watching from their houses across the road, which gave a great view of the match from their front gardens and upstairs windows.

It was all very good natured on the pitch despite the relegation fears and an even first half ended with the sides level at twelve points each. Normanton went ahead in the second half before Millom took control and ran in three tries for a 30-18 win that kept their hopes of avoiding the drop alive.

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Moresby Rangers Sunday v Lowca Pirates, Thursday 22nd August 2024, 6.30pm

November 10, 2024

Jen and I didn’t do much of note in the few days leading up to the Krankenhaus festival as it rained heavily most of the time. There was a brief lull that allowed us to pop along to the Hawkshead Show, but a waterlogged field meant that it soon churned up with mud. I was pleased that we got there too late to get into the main car park as most cars subsequently needed towing out of there with a tractor.

Soph arrived with Harry and Isla midway through the week and Harry was happy to come along with me on the drive up to Whitehaven for a Thursday night game in the Premier Division of the West Cumberland Sunday League. It all sounds quite grand until you notice the ‘Sunday’ part of the title.

Initially we headed for the pitch used by Lowca Pirates, but it was soon apparent that nothing was happening there. A short drive to Moresby Rugby Club revealed that the Pirates were instead playing away to Moresby Rangers. We drove past a few elderly ladies walking their dogs and I wondered if any of them were the girl from Moresby that I briefly dated thirty odd years ago when I was working at Sellafield. None of them looked familiar.

The weather was little better in Moresby than it had been in Muncaster and so Harry and I spent most of the game inside of the car.  One fella watched from alongside the clubhouse wall but, other than the subs and coaches, everyone else remained within their vehicle lined up behind the goal. Harry remarked that it was like ‘being in an executive box’.

The standard was just as you’d expect for the level, although with it being a mid-week evening, nobody appeared hung over and I didn’t see anyone vomiting in the way you might on a Sunday morning. There was little playing out from the back, which was understandable on a pitch where the ball was likely to unexpectedly stop in the mud.

The visitors were the better side and were three goals to the good by half-time. The players didn’t bother heading for the changing rooms and we were back underway after only four minutes. As the second half went on the crowd diminished as whenever a player was subbed, he just got into his car and drove home.

To the best of my knowledge the Pirates won 8-1, but I couldn’t be certain as I was occasionally distracted by watching subs trying to retrieve lost balls in the long grass or scrutinising the dog walkers to see if I recognised them from the early nineteen-nineties. Whatever. I enjoyed Harry’s company and it’s another ground for the list.

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