At the moment I’m working part time for an hour or two a day. I’m also doing it remotely. That means Jen and I can pretty much be anywhere we like and so we headed off to Luxembourg for a few days.
We were there in 2022 but stayed out in the countryside rather than in the city. I can’t remember why, but there were no matches going on at the time, so I had always envisaged coming back to tick it off as a country where I’d watched football.
Luxembourg is a small place and easy to get around with free public transport for everyone. There’s a good tram system, including one from the airport to the city centre and we had a ride on a funicular. There are also plenty of parks and as I’m trying to do at least fifteen thousand steps a day we wandered around most of them checking out the crocus growth.
The historical part of the city is also worth mooching about. There are some castle walls with underground sections that we spent some time in. Those parts date back some four hundred years and have come in useful every time Luxembourg has got caught up in someone else’s conflict.
My first match of the trip was at the Stade Achille Hammerel and a Ligue One women’s game between Racing FC Union and Union Mertert-Wasserbillig. Racing are Luxembourg’s top women’s side and have won the league title in each of the last four seasons. They look well on course to take the honours this season too and qualify for the Champion’s League.
Union Mertert-Wasserbillig haven’t been doing so well and are bottom of the table without a win all season. It appeared to be the kind of mismatch that, with a bit of luck, might have ended up with a double-figure score line.
It was free to get in and there were probably about another thirty people watching, most of whom will have been friends or family of the players. Dogs were well represented with something really furry sat by the home dugout, what looked like a collie/husky cross a couple of rows in front of me and a pair of beagles up in the back row.
It was less interesting on the pitch. Racing played well within themselves and seemed content to keep possession rather than press for goals. I’d been hoping for something like the twenty goals that England Women put past Latvia but by half-time they’d only scored twice.
At the break I got myself a coffee and a bag of crisps. In Luxembourg the Lay’s blue bag is paprika flavour rather than cheese and onion. I wondered if that’s a standardisation across Europe or whether each country’s head office causes mayhem by creating their own crisp colour code. I’m all for consistency in this issue and would be happy to see it addressed with legislation if necessary. The coffee took a while as it was made with a proper espresso machine. It was worth the wait though and a vast improvement on the dishwater that I grudgingly drink at the Riverside.
The second half was more of the same. Racing didn’t get out of second gear but managed to add a further three goals for an underwhelming five-nil victory. They’d have to put a lot more effort in for the Champions League games against the top sides.
Tags: Beagles, Crisp colour codes, Crocuses
Trail of the Lion King 
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