Archive for May, 2025

De La Salle Devils v North Manchester Kaizers, Sunday 25th May 2025, 11am

May 30, 2025

Our third gig in three nights was From The Jam at Manchester Ritz. It was supposed to be Bruce Foxton’s final appearance before a health-driven retirement but unfortunately he wasn’t well enough to attend. That meant that there wasn’t actually anyone on stage that was ‘From The Jam’, but it wasn’t a big deal. Hastings is pretty good as a tribute act and has played with all three past members of The Jam at different times. It was a beery singalong with a crowd of predominantly sixty-odd year old blokes wearing Fred Perry polos.

Next morning Jen and I headed out into the Manchester suburbs to Whalley Range’s ground in Chorlton-cum-Hardy. It was hosting the final of the JA Kennedy Cup, a competition for teams in the Manchester Amateur Sunday League. It’s a league that claims to be the oldest Sunday League in the world.

It was three quid admission, which surprised me, as it’s rare that Sunday League footballers play in front of a paying audience. There weren’t any stands, but there were a few picnic tables with benches. We found a padded bench at a table in front of the bar.

The finalists were De La Salle Devils and North Manchester Kaizers. There was an online programme available via one of those QR codes that gave some of the history of the teams. All I can remember is that the Kaizers were formed quite recently. Both sides had support there, mainly family by the look of it. I’d been expecting there to be parties of lads on a Bank Holiday weekend sesh, but it was all fairly subdued.

Most of the action was in the first-half. Devils went a goal up early on, only for Kaizers to equalise twenty-five minutes in. It was a short-lived parity as within two minutes Devils were back in front. They held the advantage until shortly before the break when Kaizers levelled again.

The winning goal came a few minutes into the second half. It looked offside to me, with a Kaizers player tapping in an effort that would have gone in anyway. The Devil’s protests went unanswered and it was enough to clinch the cup.

We hung around for the presentations which went on longer than they do at a World Cup.  I suspect the subsequent celebrations will gave gone on well into the afternoon.

Littletown v Wyke Wanderers, Saturday 24th May 2025, 2.30pm

May 29, 2025

The football season is just about over in England but there are still odd games remaining, usually where one of the sides has ran up a fixture backlog due to extensive cup runs or trouble with their pitch. Jen and I were heading over to Manchester for a gig and so we broke our journey by calling in at the final game of the season in the West Yorkshire League Premier Division.

We were doing pretty well for gigs. Two nights ago we’d gone up to Newcastle to meet up with Paul to see Michael Monroe. He’s the former frontman from Hanoi Rocks, a band that Paul and I first saw over forty years ago. This one was in the Newcastle University Student Union and was very little different to the Hanoi Rocks performances that we saw in the mid-eighties. At one point he came down off the stage and ended up jumping onto the bar. Monroe is a couple of years older than us but I doubt I’d be able to clamber around with such ease.

The next night, Jen and I saw The Snuts at Middlesbrough Town Hall. We’ve seen them a couple of times before including their gig at the same venue three years ago when it seemed likely that they might be the next big thing. I’m not sure that they’ve progressed as much as I’d expected but there was a decent youngish crowd, most of whom appeared word perfect on all the songs. It was a good show, with it all over in an hour and without an encore. That’s as it should be. Play your best stuff for sixty minutes and then clear off.

The Saturday afternoon game was between Littletown and Wyke Wanderers at Beck Lane, Heckmondwike. I suspect that Littletown were the cause of the fixture pile up as they’d won three trophies, including the league. They posed behind their cups before kick-off.

The crowd of around one hundred and twenty was likely bigger than Littletown’s usual attendance as it was boosted by at least forty groundhoppers. We are easily spotted, with cameras, notebooks and backpacks, although I can often pass for a normal person simply by taking Jen along.

Littletown missed an opportunity to cash in on the groundhopper influx as it was free admission. They probably dipped out on catering profits too as we only paid a couple of quid in total for two coffees and a bag of crisps.

There weren’t any seats anywhere, other than the camping chairs that people had brought themselves. There was a covered standing area, although it just had a dirt floor. As there wasn’t any prospect of rain, Jen and I were content to lean on the rail behind one of the goals.

Not a great deal went on in the opening half-hour. It all got interesting though when some handbags led to two red cards. What made it notable was that both of the players sent off were from Littletown. A Wanderers player picked up a yellow for his part in it all and I imagine that he couldn’t stop smirking at how it all played out.

The two man advantage was enough for Wanderers to take the lead before the break when a corner from the left was volleyed home.

Littletown regrouped after the restart and defended deep for most of the second half. As full-time approached, they threw off the shackles and pushed forward, putting one chance just wide of the post and then hitting the bar in added time.

Wanderers held on for the single goal victory, but with three trophies to parade it was still Littletown’s afternoon.

Howden JDB Wanderers v Roseberry Park, Sunday 18th May 2025, 10.30am

May 19, 2025

The night before this game Jen and I had been at the Georgian for a Glen Matlock gig. I’d seen him before as a support act at one of the 2009 Mott the Hoople Hammersmith gigs and wasn’t overly impressed on that occasion. However I quite liked the album he put out a couple of years ago, the one with Head on a Stick on it and so we thought we’d go along.

It was fine. He and his band rattled though about fifteen songs in an hour to a crowd of a hundred and fifty or so, most of them older than me and a lot of them sporting mohawks impaired by receding hairlines.

The game I’d selected for the following morning was the final remaining fixture in the Peterlee and District Sunday League. Presumably it had been carried over into mid-May because of a previous postponement. It was between Horden JDB Wanderers and Roseberry Park in the second-tier Division One of the league. Horden is just twenty minutes or so up the A19 and full of football fields with this game taking place at the Crossroads pitch.

I arrived and parked up just before kick-off to be greeted by a small staffy that liked having his ears rubbed. Presumably he was with someone, but he spent the whole game making his way around the crowd soliciting scritches, even wandering onto the pitch at one point for some attention.

Due to the dog distraction, the game had been going on for five minutes before I realised that neither side had a full complement of players. JDB were one man short, with Roseberry only managing to field nine players. Perhaps people had holidays booked, or maybe they had just lost interest. The result didn’t matter too much as the home side couldn’t finish anywhere other than their current second place in the league, whilst the visitors were stuck in fourth position.

You’d think that it wouldn’t have been too difficult to field a full eleven, particularly as each side had a few coaches on the touchline. There were some young lads supporting each side too, although as they had already started on the cans before kick-off, perhaps they wouldn’t have been in peak condition. Maybe it’s a registration thing, although when I played Sunday League, it was quite common for non-registered players to use a false name.

JDB’s numerical advantage was tempered when one of their outfield players was injured early on, he swapped positions with his goalie and then limped around in the goalmouth for the rest of the game. At half time it took him so long to make his way to the touchline that by the time he got there, his teammates were just about ready to head back onto the pitch for the second half.

For all the extra space that the missing players created, it was a cagey game. Both sides had opportunities but invariably the shot would be screwed wide or blazed over the bar. As we approached half-time JDB opened the scoring with a impressive shot that was accurately placed right into the top corner. They added a second after the break to take the points and bring their season to a close.

Horsham v Littlehampton Town, Thursday 8th May 2025, 7.30pm

May 10, 2025

Jen and I have some odd stuff in our house. Possibly because we’ve furnished it mainly from eBay. Whilst we do have central heating, we’ve supplemented it with some antique French stoves. They originally burned coal but have since been converted to use ethanol. I recently bought another one, which required collecting from the south coast and since I like to squeeze the most out of how I spend my time I decided to schedule our pickup trip to tie-in with a match.

The best option was a cup final, the Sussex Senior Challenge Cup final. Not only was it a meaningful game, but it was played at Brighton’s ground, the Amex Stadium. I’ve not really made much of an effort to-date to complete the ‘92’ but recently have decided that I should try and tick more of them off. I’d been holding back on the missing stadiums in the top two tiers, just in case I could go there with the Boro, but our current aversion to promotion means that somewhere like Brighton would require a cup fixture.

Jen and I travelled down on the day of the game and checked into a seaside hotel at Hove. That gave us the opportunity of walking along the seafront for a couple of miles each way. We called into the pier where we tried the penny falls machines, although most are ten pence these days. I thought about having a go on the ghost train but couldn’t be arsed to find the ticket booth.

On the way back, we stopped at a beach stall for some seafood. I had whelks and cockles, neither of which I’d ever eaten before. Both were fine, one was a kind of sea snail and the other tiny clams, although I forget which was which. The clams just tasted of seawater, which I understand is a good thing. In a nod to her Deep South roots, Jen had crawfish tails but was bemused by the lack of seasoning.

We had a parking ticket for the Amex but initially went to the wrong car park and then had to drive to the other side of the ground. It’s a stadium in the middle of nowhere but has a handy rail link. I doubt anybody gets there solely on foot.

Tickets were thirteen quid a pop and I’d bought them online in advance. I didn’t pay much attention at the time to which team I’d be supporting but we found ourselves in the Littlehampton section of the only stand open. The crowd eventually numbered around three thousand, many of whom had been on the beer for a few hours. The stewards had their work cut out stopping people drinking in their seats, vaping or just generally making a tit of themselves.

Horsham were the better side. Not surprisingly really as they had just won their tier seven league to gain promotion to the National League South. Littlehampton managed to avoid relegation from the eighth tier, so will be two steps behind Horsham next season.

Whilst Horsham had plenty of chances, they couldn’t finish them, and the game looked destined to go straight to penalties at full-time. However, in the sixth and final minute of added time, a curled Horsham free-kick was enough to break the deadlock and earn them the trophy.

CD Utrera v Atletico Espeleno, Sunday 4th May 2025, 12 noon

May 8, 2025

Our final stop of this Spanish trip was a couple of nights in Olvera. It’s one of those picturesque towns full of white buildings and topped with a castle on a hill. It’s only around an hour and a half from Seville and so we had some time to fill between the respective check-out and check-in times.

There was a fifth-tier game in Utrera, which is around twenty kilometres outside of Seville, that fitted our timetable perfectly.

We arrived early to discover that Utrera is a town full of storks. There was a nest on the chimney behind the olive oil factory and then two or three more on top of the bell tower of the nearby church. As we approached the Estadio Municipal San Juan Bosco, we spotted another nest in what looked like some kind of stadium communication mast.

Jen rarely pays much attention to the action at these games, but when there are storks going backwards and forwards to their nest every few minutes, it’s understandable.

Outside of the stadium was a statue of former Utrera resident, Jose Antonio Reyes. You might remember him playing for Arsenal and Real Madrid. He died in a car crash a few years ago driving between Utrera and Seville, which had been another of his clubs.

We paid our ten euros admission and called at the food hut behind the main stand. We had a coffee each, from a proper espresso machine, and a baguette each with some sobrasada on it. That’s a kind of chorizo paste. With a bottle of coke to take to our seats, it came to eight euros altogether. It’s a far cry from the poor-quality options at the Riverside, where a similar quantity of food and drink would be well over twenty quid. They even gave us a real knife each to spread the paste.

There were presentations before kick-off for where one player got a trophy that looked a bit like the World Cup whilst another was presented with a shirt with 200 on the back. I think the former was Utrera’s player of the season and the other was being celebrated for either having played two hundred games for the club or alternatively, having reached that age.

There was a good atmosphere with fans enjoying the sunshine and a season that had gone well. Victory today would likely clinch a play-off spot for the home side. I’m not sure if there were any away fans, but they probably wouldn’t have felt so happy as they had already been relegated from their fifth-tier Tercera division.

There were lots of kids watching, although most of them were sporting shirts from bigger clubs. Mbappe and Ronaldo were sat just in front of me, with Haaland a couple of places further along. Messi must have been off sick. One young lad had brought a loudhailer which he chanted into whilst encouraging the folks in the stand to clap along.

Tensions rose in the crowd when Espeleno took an early lead. It stayed that way until Utrera equalised bang on half-time. Two more second-half goals started the play-off party and Utrera even brought the old bloke on for a run out.

Sevilla FC Femenino v Levante UD Femenino, Saturday 3rd May 2025, 4pm

May 7, 2025

It wasn’t the best of weather in Seville, but Jen and I had dodged the rain in the morning to call into a record shop and pick up some old Spanish vinyl. We then found a Korean restaurant for lunch. I had dolsot bibimbap, which was something that I’d generally enjoyed when we lived out there. This one was ok but would have benefitted from being spicier. I wondered whether they had replaced the gochujang sauce with ketchup.

I finished my lunch in time to watch the Boro’s season conclude in a similarly unsatisfactory fashion as once again we failed to create anything worthwhile, going down to a Coventry side that weren’t really any more impressive. Let’s hope that whatever we receive when Hackney moves on is spent on someone who can move the ball forwards rather than sideways.

Once the second Coventry goal went in, I got the car out of the underground hotel parking and drove to the only game in town, the top-tier women’s game between Seville and Levante. It was at the Estadio Jesus Navas, which is part of a larger complex with a few pitches. I’d seen Seville’s C team play on one of the smaller pitches a few years ago.

It was easy to park and the ticket office was right next to the entrance gate. I paid my ten euros and took a seat about half-way up the covered main stand. The rain had returned and if I’d sat any lower down, I’d have got wet.

The current focus on sunflower seeds at football games seems to be changing behaviour. Two blokes nearby had brought some and each was using an empty cup to store the husks. Maybe the next campaign in Spain should be to encourage people to pick up their dog’s turds. I’d much rather walk on discarded sunflower husks then stand in spaniel shite.

Seville went into the game ninth in the table, with little to play for. Levante, however, were only a point above the relegation zone. Seville were the better side and went ahead on the half hour when a ball played between the central defenders created a chance that was neatly tucked away.

Whilst Seville dominated, they had to wait until five minutes from time to seal the points with a second goal and spark the scarf twirling from those fans that had stayed until the end.

I drove back to the centre of town, parking the car before some parade made its way down our street. I’m not really sure why they bother, dressing up and marching around all seems a lot of effort to go to on a holiday weekend.

 UD Tomares v La Palma, Thursday 1st May 2025, 12 noon

May 6, 2025

My second game of this trip to Seville was a similar distance away from where we were staying as the first game, only this time it was on the other side of the river. There looked to be some motorway walking in the route suggested and so I tried taking a bus to the Tomares district instead.

I wasn’t very successful. A combination of a reduced public holiday service and me misunderstanding which part of the bus station it would depart from meant that I had to resort to taking a taxi to get there in time for kick-off.

A better form of transport would have been the VW Beetle that we’d seen waiting outside a church for the bride and groom to emerge. It was similar to the one that was my first car, forty-three years ago, with a 1300cc engine and the squarish ‘Europa’ bumpers. This one was a cabriolet, which wouldn’t really have worked too well in Teesside.

The Beetle was accompanied by a bloke with bagpipes and, as with most churches in Spain, there was someone down on their luck asking for money sat on one side of the doors and a lottery seller on the other. A lot of churchgoers seemed to hand over some cash to the person in need, before then buying a lottery ticket. Buena Suerte!

It was ten euros to get into the Campo De Futbol Municipal San Sebastian for a second successive fixture in the fifth-tier Tercera division. Both sides has something to play for with Tomares still within reach of a play-off spot and La Palma four points adrift of safety but still not without hope of avoiding relegation.

There were around four hundred people inside, many of them already sipping at their tiny beers and with a definite public holiday weekend vibe.

I was happy to get a Coke Zero and save my partying for later in the day. If I’d wanted some food a café was selling enormous sausage rolls and there was a three-foot-long empanada that I couldn’t work out if it was going to be sliced up for sale or raffled off whole.

There was also a sign barring people from eating sunflower seeds in the main stand. I’d recently read about a la liga club doing this on the basis of the mess that it causes. Perhaps all they need to do is sell them with an extra bag for collecting the husks.

As I had no illicit snacks I took a seat in the right side of the main stand, only to move a few minutes later when I realised that I was surrounded by home fans using the occasion as a chance to fill each other in on what they’d been up to since the previous match. I moved to the other side where the away fans around me didn’t always feel the need to incessantly yap away.

La Palma went ahead within three minutes when, after a neat reverse pass, the resulting shot was tucked just inside the near post. The teams were level at the break though after a Tomares equaliser from a glancing header.

Tomares gradually gained control and then took the lead on fifty-five minutes when an attempt to play offside at a freekick left four home players stood by themselves, just a few yards out. As the visiting defenders waved their arms and frantically appealed from a distance, the home strikers managed not to mess it up and went two-one ahead.

It was one-way traffic for the rest of the game. The La Palma keeper pulled off a couple of decent saves and Tomares hit the underside of the bar. With twenty minutes to go they added a third to keep their play-off hopes alive.

I got luckier with the buses on the way out and, despite a reduced service, found myself back at the bus station in half the time that it would have taken me to walk it.

Inter Sevilla v AD Ceuta B, Wednesday 30th April 2025, 5pm

May 5, 2025

After staying in Ronda, Jen and I moved on to Seville. I’m familiar with the layout after visiting last year and we stayed on the old town side of the river. It’s a busy time of the year in Seville as it leads up to the Feria. The festivities don’t seem to slack off from the Easter celebrations and, if any excuse were needed, bring people out onto the streets for strolling, eating and drinking.

One of the things that Soph’s beagle Henry does is remember where he once found food on the pavement. He’ll always try to return to that spot confident that if there were food there once, then there’s likely to be food there again. I was a bit like that in Seville. Last year I saw a poster for a record fair and ended up going and buying a load of Spanish vinyl. This year, I couldn’t walk past a lamp post without checking for a record fair poster. At least I didn’t cock my leg.

I also thought about the dog when I saw a whole skinned rabbit in the supermarket. It still had its ears on. One of the treats that we give Henry are dried rabbit ears. I’d never wondered what they tasted like until I realised that I had the chance to find out. Sadly, we were in a hotel room, rather than an apartment, so if I’d wanted to sample a rabbit ear it would have had to have been raw. I can wait.

My first game in Seville was at the Complejo Deportivo Demitrio Pichel which was an hour and forty minute’s walk to the outskirts of the city. I could have driven but having secured a spot in the underground hotel car park, I was loathe to risk losing it. The weather wasn’t too good though and I had to nip into a convenience store to buy an umbrella.

The route took me away from touristy Seville and into areas that won’t ever feature on the city bus tours. I made good time and arrived at the ground with twenty minutes to go to kick off. It was still raining and the uncovered plastic bench seats along the side of the pitch had puddles in then. I had a couple of paper napkins, but a woman who arrived after me resorted to reviewing the receipts in her purse and using the ones she could risk disposing of to dry her seat.

The game was in the fifth-tier Tercera division with Inter Sevilla taking on Ceuta’s B team. The home side were rock bottom of the table and already relegated whilst the visitors, who are based in a Spanish territory at the tip of Morocco, were safely in mid-table. They are a B team, so perhaps promotion isn’t necessarily overly important to them.

Ceuta looked the more professional outfit, particularly in respect of their kit, which was just as you would have expected it to be. Inter’s green shirts were less consistent, with some of them having names and numbers, whilst others had numbers only. There wasn’t even any uniformity between the fonts used for the names, suggesting that players had taken their kit home and got their Mams to customise them.

The highpoint of the first half was the rain easing up after twenty minutes, although a train going past on an adjacent line ran it close. Many people turned away from the lack of action to keep an eye on the high scoring game behind us between six year olds.

Ceuta took the lead from the penalty spot soon after the restart and then added a second on the hour with a cracking half-volley from an acute angle.

Inter got back into it soon afterwards with a goal that went in off the underside of the bar. That always makes a finish look spectacular. It was all in vain though as two away goals in the last ten minutes sealed the win for the visitors. They got on their bus back to Africa and with my umbrella furled I retraced my steps into the city centre.

CD Campillos v CD Cartama, Sunday 27th April 2025, 11.30am

May 4, 2025

Once I’d discovered the fixture list for the Andalusian First Division, it was an easy task to check out Sunday’s fixtures and select a morning game, three-quarters of an hour’s drive up the road at Campillos. It’s a small quiet town and I doubt that it gets many visitors other than a handful of travelling fans supporting away teams.

After wandering around for a while we called into a café for some coffee and carrot cake and then made our way towards the Campo De Futbol Andres Padilla. There are two stadiums, back-to-back, and our game was on the one with the artificial pitch. A few people were congregated outside the ticket window and we joined them to pay our five-euro admission.

The seventh tier is coming to a conclusion, and this was the penultimate game for each club. Hosts Campillos went into the game a point above the relegation zone, whilst visitors Cartama were in third place and looking to preserve their position in the play-offs. Perhaps the importance of the result contributed to the turnout. I’d have estimated that there were probably around two hundred or so spectators, including a few near us from Cartama.

It didn’t start well for Campillos. They were a goal down inside two minutes, with a second coming after a quarter of an hour. They took it badly and spent much of the first half berating the officials. By the time Cartama added a third just before half-time, the home fans, players and bench had worked themselves into a fury over every perceived injustice. It took the ref a good three or four minutes to reach the dressing room as every man and his perro wanted a word with him and his assistants.

The match became a lot more interesting when Campillos pulled a goal back soon after the restart. They should really have reduced the deficit further, but they missed a couple of easy chances. Cartama went from coasting to timewasting with players dropping to the floor for treatment at every opportunity.

With thirteen minutes remaining, Cartama broke free, and their striker resisted the urge to throw himself to the floor or take the ball to the corner. Instead, he finished well to put his side four one up. At that stage some of the home fans made their way to the exit.

They really should have stayed as Campillos responded with two goals in a minute to get within a goal of their opponents and then spent the remaining fifteen minutes (including added time) pressing for a equaliser. Cartama’s keeper went to ground every time he caught the ball and they regularly delayed goal kicks by a player lining up to take it before trotting away to allow someone else to welly it upfield. I’d have issued far more cards than the ref actually did.

The timewasting worked and the visitors held on to retain their third position in the table. Campillos slipped into the bottom four with just the one game remaining to avoid the drop.

CD Ronda v Atletico Benamiel CD, Saturday 26th April 2025, 6.15pm

May 3, 2025

Ronda is a pleasant place to stay. It’s busy with busloads of tourists coming in each day from Malaga, but if you can avoid getting caught up in the middle of thirty Germans all following a lady holding a flag on a stick, it’s fine for a stroll about.

Fine that is until the power all goes off. At the time, we’d assumed that it was a local issue, probably caused by high winds. Eight hours later when the first brief restoration of the phone signal occurred, we learned that it was an international issue covering all of Spain and Portugal, plus a bit of France.

I think we take connectivity for granted these days, but twenty hours without electricity where all you could buy was whatever a darkened corner shop might sell you for cash and a complete lack of online updates or even the ability to make an old school telephone call, soon gave an insight into how quickly society might break down if a power outage went on for a few days.

We had limited food in the dead fridge and forty euros in my wallet. I’d let the car get low in fuel though and there wouldn’t have been enough in the tank to get us to our next destination of Seville if we’d been travelling that day. Whilst I’m not going to turn into one of those ‘prepper’ folks, I’m mindful of the possibility of a repeat occurrence and will try to be better prepared. Or at least until it’s all forgotten.

The game that we went to in Ronda, was a couple of days before the outage. It was only a twenty-five-minute walk from where we were staying and so Jen and I didn’t need to use the car. That’s a real benefit when street parking is at a premium and you’ve bagged a handy spot.

The game was Ronda’s final home game of the season, and they were hoping for a big crowd. A van with loudspeakers had been driving around town all morning, advertising free admission. A few hundred people turned up, but I’ve no idea how many spectators usually attend. Some of them looked unfamiliar with their surroundings and what they should be doing, so maybe the marketing worked.

It was a critical game for Ronda, who were sat in the fourth and final play-off spot of the seventh-tier Andalusian First Division. Atletico Benemiel had nothing to play for, sitting in the middle of that eight team section in the table, sandwiched between the four play-off spots and the four relegation positions.

Ronda went a goal up midway through the first half, before Benamiel equalised ten minutes later. It seemed to matter more to the visitors, who picked up multiple bookings and had a fella sent off for instigating a hullabaloo just before the final whistle. For the record, a hullabaloo ranks higher than argy-bargy, which itself is a step up from hand-bags.

The home players slumped to the floor at the end, with the two dropped points meaning that with just one game remaining, their play-off ambitions were no longer in their own hands. Pretty much as I imagined that the Boro players might have done after their similar home draw with Norwich earlier that afternoon. Still, we go again, as the coaches say, and for both Ronda and Boro, there’s hope that it might all work out fine in their respective final fixtures.