Boro and Derby have a sort of rivalry these days, stemming back to when they cheated their way to the play-offs a few years ago and Gibbo sued them for exceeding the FFP limits and stealing our spot. They settled out of court, but their fans still whine about it.
They like to sing about how they will party when Gibbo passes away and in response the Boro sing about the equivalent celebrations should Derby cease to exist. It’s all a bit childish, but that’s football for you.
It was raining on the way to the ground, so we didn’t stop at the fan zone. Instead, we took our places early for the tifo display where we were required to wave flags whilst a large banner was raised behind the goal. A lot of work must have gone into it all.
Big news was that it was the first game under our new Swedish coach, Kim Hellberg. He is reputed to like playing out from the back, so we might see the return of some of the comedy defending of the Carrick era. There was also in first appearance in almost two years for right-back Alex Bangura. He did well, despite getting a whack in the face, and unexpectedly played from start to finish.
We began badly and were a goal down after a minute. Derby probably had the best of the first half, but once we started making changes, we gradually took control. Riley McGree did well, despite playing deeper than usual. He may well be the best footballer at the club and would likely make a decent go of slotting into any position if required.
The Derby fans were enjoying their day out for the first seventy-five minutes, but late goals from Matt Targett and Morgan Whittaker turned it around and doomed them to a joyless journey home. What a pity. They might be having a party one day, but not just yet.
I wasn’t very confident about taking anything from this game. Neither were Tom or Harry. It’s not just that Coventry are running away with the division and already have a goal difference beyond anything that we would likely achieve even if we won promotion. It’s just that it’s, well, Coventry. We rarely beat them.
Injuries don’t help and for the first time in a while we had a fairly weak bench. Adi went with wing backs but was forced to slot Alan Browne into the back three in the absence of most of our centre-backs.
We started well and I imagine that the new Swedish boss who was watching on will have been impressed with our attacking play and with the vigorous pressing. However, I doubt he will have been too happy with the defending that left us two down before we were a quarter of an hour into the game.
The momentum shifted when we pulled one back through Morgan Whittaker and then stayed with us when an own goal brought us level.
A cross from the right with fifteen minutes remaining could have led to one of those great comeback nights, but Tommy Conway skied it when it really would have been easier to score than put it in the stand. The miss affected us more than it should have done and a relieved Coventry made the most of their reprieve with two strikes in the last five minutes. Of course they did, it’s what they do. Overall, though, I thought that we did well. There’s definitely something for the new guy to work on.
I’d had an eye on this fixture for a couple of years as I’ve not yet seen a game at the Kassam Stadium. I always think of it as a new ground, but Oxford have played there since 2001. In fact, they are planning to move again before long, so time was running out for me to tick it off.
I wasn’t sure whether I’d have enough priority points for a ticket in the Boro section, so took the precaution back in August of buying a cheap ticket from Oxford for an early round of the League Cup. I later got a free ticket from Oxford for an open training day that they held. Whilst I didn’t attend on either occasion, that buying history was sufficient from me to purchase a home ticket for the Boro game without fear of having it cancelled.
Oxford is a decent drive from Teesside so Jen and I made a weekend of it. My plan had been to walk some more of the Thames Path, but it rained all weekend. That meant indoor activities only and we visited a couple of museums, the Natural History Museum and the Pitt Rivers Museum.
I was disappointed to see that the shrunken heads had been removed from public view. Maybe I need to hurry up and finish the doctorate so I can pass myself off as a legitimate researcher and have a peek in the off-limits areas. Oddly, they still had old photos on display of twelve-year-old African girls without their shirts on. I’d have expected more of a backlash about those than the trophy heads. On the plus side there were some good Captain Cook artifacts including clubs similar to those that may well have been involved in his demise.
I’d selected our hotel as it was close enough to the stadium for me to walk to the game. It’s no fun in the rain though and so I took a taxi instead. The Kassam Stadium only has three sides and on arrival I headed around to the right for the lower section of the South Stand.
I’d arrived in sufficient time to catch the end of the Coventry game on the concourse telly and got myself a steak and ale pie and a coffee. By chance I was wearing a yellowish jumper, which helped me blend in with the home fans, but as an old bloke who says little anyway, I wasn’t worried about being outed as a Boro fan.
I took my seat and watched some of the pre-match entertainment on the screen at the car park end. There wasn’t any footage of either of the four-one defeats for Oxford that secured promotion for the Boro in 1967 and 1998, but they did show one of the goals from the 1986 Milk Cup Final against QPR. I attended that game at Wembley with Blainey who had somehow obtained tickets and joined me in London for it.
The Boro fans were opposite me in the end section of the North Stand. It looked as if those in the first few rows or right at the end of the stand were getting wet. I was quite happy with my seat far enough under cover to stay dry and also the luxury of being able to sit down at a Boro game for a change.
Strelec and Nypan weren’t available after international duty and as we were well stocked with central midfielders, caretaker boss Adi Viveash pushed Hayden Hackney forward into the number ten role. This always seems a bit of a waste to me as he gets forward anyway, and I’d like to see another attacking player within the line-up.
We had the majority of the possession, as we usually do, but didn’t really have many shots on target. Oxford went in at half-time a goal up, but Morgan Whittaker bailed us out in the second half with a goal that I managed to photograph.
It was still raining when the game finished and in the absence of any taxis or buses I walked back to the hotel. That’s twenty-three of the twenty-four Championship grounds visited, with just Wrexham still to do.
Two days after the Champions League game I returned to the Norrbotten Arena for a domestic hockey fixture. Lulea won the league last season but have struggled this year and whilst they probably won’t get relegated, they are much closer to the bottom of the table than the top.
I went to this one on my own as everyone else had flown out that afternoon. Tickets for the domestic games are harder to come by than for the Champions League and the only availability was in the standing section behind the goal.
It was packed and I regretted wearing such a warm coat. There was plenty of pre-game flag waving and the chanting was orchestrated by a pair of capos on platforms. The atmosphere was the nearest that you’ll get to the old days on the football terraces.
It was a niggly game with nine players spending time in the cooler for a variety of offences. One fella got a red right at the end but with only a minute remaining it didn’t seem much more of a sanction than a two-minute yellow. Perhaps he’ll pick up a suspension as well.
The game was all-square at one-each going into the final two minutes of the third period. Djurgarden then scored and looked likely to have nicked the win. However, Lulea switched to fly-goalie and managed to snatch an equalizer with just eight seconds left.
As you might expect, everyone around me had a smile on their faces. The smiles turned to grins in next goal the winner overtime when Lulea made it three-two to take the points.
I’d barely returned from Budapest before it was time to head off to Sweden for work. Lulea had a couple of hockey games in the week that I was there and the first was a Champions League game against Czech team Kometa Brno.
It had been snowing heavily on the day of the game and it was a slippery walk from our hotel to the Norrbotten Arena. We had time for some pre-match food at a Thai place across the road before heading inside for a pint.
I’d selected seats low down this time and we were two rows from the action. Directly behind the wags. The Czech side took the lead a couple of minutes in and held it until the end of the first period. That was the cue for us to head for the bar and a second beer. I like the flow of a hockey game which is beer, hockey, beer, hockey, beer, hockey and then an optional post-game pint.
The eighteen minute breaks between play work well, especially since the fellas working the bar are on the ball. It’s a world apart from trying to get a quick pint at the Riverside.
Lulea equalized early in the second period and then rattled in a further five goals in the third. The Czech keeper had done well, but once the second goal went in he got hooked and the away defence fell apart. I didn’t realise at the time, but it was a two-legged tie and I was baffled as to why Brno didn’t keep it tight and settle for a one or two goal deficit going into the return leg at their place.
On the way out I picked up a woollen bobble hat for the walk back to the hotel and a tiny Lulea shirt for the youngest grandson.
I hadn’t originally selected this match as my game for the day, but we’d visited a flea market beforehand that didn’t require us to hang around long. When I realized that we could get to the nearby Budafoki stadium in time for the early kick-off, it seemed a much better option than filling in the time before other potential games later in the day.
The flea market wasn’t as good as the one we had been to the week before. There were too many stalls selling new stuff that would have been more at home in a pound shop. I’d been looking for for a vintage Hungarian horse racing print but was out of luck again. I did manage to get an old wooden box to transport the cigars I’d bought in town earlier in the week. Jen picked up another stole, possibly fox, and with a full complement of legs.
When we got to the ground, we could see the players warming up but struggled to find the entrance. It was a second team fixture and was being played on the 4G pitch behind the main stadium. We managed to get in via the front entrance and passed through the stadium proper, where the first team were training on the regular pitch.
The game was in the sixth tier and free to get into. There were about eighty people watching, most of them from the three rows of uncovered seats along one side of the pitch.
I’d hoped for a coffee, but there weren’t any refreshments available. The rain just about held off throughout a bad-tempered first half where scoring opportunities were at a premium. It was goalless at the break and the players stayed out rather than returning to the dressing rooms. A couple of them took the opportunity to have a piss against the perimeter fence before the restart.
Budafoki opened the scoring close to the hour with a shot from the corner of the box into the opposite corner of the net. It was a great goal. The kind where you spontaneously make a noise of some sort in response, whether it’s an exclamation or a laugh. If I were a cat I’d have been purring. Kelen hit back a few minutes later on the break and their equalizer was enough to eventually take a point. We flew back to the UK that evening having seen five games in Hungary and another in Slovakia. It was a worthwhile couple of weeks.
As we were staying so close to the river in Budapest, it seemed almost compulsory to go for a boat ride. The dinner cruises were expensive and went on for too long, so we limited ourselves to an hour’s trip past some of Budapest’s more famous sights.
Everything was lit up, and we saw the castle and the parliament building as we drank our beer and wine.
Ok, culture done so back to the football. The final game of the weekend was in the third-tier and at the ESTMK Sportelep, which was about twenty minutes to the south-east of where we were staying in the city.
We parked right by the entrance and were asked whether we were home or away supporters. When I replied that we were neither it was decided that we would go in with the away fans. The fella on the gate sold us tickets for 1500 Hungarian forints a pop. That’s a little under three and a half quid.
As away fans we had been given half of the five thousand capacity ground. We could have watched from the hard standing behind the goal at the scoreboard end. Instead, we opted to sit in a two-row covered stand that ran along one side, but was only opened to just past half-way.
Home fans could choose between the main stand opposite us or a raised terraced area that extended outwards from the corner flag both behind the goal and along towards the main stand.
There was a decent turnout from Keruleti, with a couple of hundred fans sharing our stand. Unfortunately, we found ourselves next to the drummer. Jen had brought her earplugs, but I just had to put up with the racket.
Neither side looked like scoring in the first half, and the teams went in level at the break. ESTMK broke the deadlock on the hour when they scrambled the ball home after a corner. The fans around us seemed stoical about it. I hadn’t checked the respective positions in the table of the teams, so maybe they had been expecting a difficult game.
ESTMK could have secured the points ten minutes from time when they were awarded a penalty. The Kerulti goalie made a great save though, diving to his right to keep his team in it.
There were chances at both ends before the final whistle, but no more goals and ESTMK held on for the win.
My second game of the day was in the top tier of the Hungarian League and required a lot more effort to gain admission than the division six match I’d watched that afternoon. So much so that I’d had to visit the stadium in the morning to obtain a Fan ID that then allowed me to purchase a ticket.
I’d learned from that experience that parking around the ground was virtually non-existent and so when it was time to return for the match I walked for three-quarters of an hour to reach the stadium. Part of the route covered some of the ground that I’d covered early that morning when I’d walked along the river just as the sun was coming up.
The fan ID was a chew on. I’d initially thought that it was a league or a legislative requirement. It isn’t though, it’s just a Ferencvaros thing. You had to rock up at their offices, fill in a form, show your passport and then have your palms scanned.
This latter requirement posed difficulties for me as I’ve got the claw hand issue that Bill Nighy has and so can’t stretch out my right hand sufficiently flat for a scanner to read it. As I entered the stadium, I had to cross my arms across my body to put my left palm on the scanner whilst reaching up to tap my ID card with my right hand. It was like a game of twister.
Once inside the ground the arseing on continued. Cash, bank cards and phone payment apps weren’t accepted. If I wanted any food or drink, I’d have to load money on to my Fan ID card at a kiosk. As the costs of everything weren’t clearly displayed it meant I’d have to add more money than I’d likely spend. That’s fine if you are coming back, but this was always going to be a one-off game for me. I added enough for a coffee and a chicken burger that came with a large gherkin.
The concourse was busy with activities other than food. There was a autograph and selfie opportunity with the Ferencvaros water polo team who were showing off their trophies. You could take penalties or test the speed at which you could strike a ball. There was even a photographer who would snap your picture and then have it printed as a caricature.
The twenty-two thousand capacity Groupama stadium was only half-full at best. No surprise really, considering the hoops you had to jump through to attend. I had a very good seat near the half-way line, but was surrounded by old blokes who all knew each other. I felt I was intruding on their private space for socialising.
Both sides were mid-table and a win for Ferencvaros would take them above MTK. They were the better side and went a goal up twenty minutes into the game. At half-time I didn’t get anything to eat or drink as I didn’t want to join the queue for adding money to my Fan ID. Instead, I got a caricature done and then picked a seat high in one of the sparsely populated corner sections to watch the second half.
Ferencvaros continued to dominate and added three more goals in a ten minute period towards the end. MTK pulled one back just before full-time but I doubt it provided much consolation at all.
As I’d been working during the week, the weekend meant that I could get out and see a bit more of Budapest and the surrounding areas. The first game that I’d identified was a twenty-five-minute drive north of the city. On the way we called into a flea market to see what treasures we could find.
If we’d had a van and were driving back to England, I might very well have bought a woodburning stove. It would have needed to be a heavily reinforced van as I’d estimate the stove probably weighed twice as much as I do.
As we were flying Ryanair, I thought it best not to test their luggage limits and so we settled for some Hungarian LPs from the sixties and a fur stole. It might have been mink, but more likely was ferret. We got it at a bargain price, possibly because it was missing a back leg.
The first game of the day was at the Ujpesti Haladas Sportpalys and in the sixth-tier of the Hungarian pyramid. The ground was in a residential area, with a playground alongside it. The only seats were a couple of benches, but as it was possible to drive your car to some elevated parking alongside the pitch it wouldn’t have been difficult to watch in comfort.
The crowd peaked at twelve, although few people stayed for the whole game. A couple on a bike ride paused for a while before resuming their journey. There were two wags and a girl in an orange tabard who seemed to have some sort of official role. A mouthy bloke stood behind one of the dugouts shouting instructions to anyone within earshot and there was a fella who looked hungover eating sunflower seeds and swigging knock-off Fanta.
A grandad was supervising two small kids who would much rather have been playing on the swings. They stuck it out for twenty minutes or so before moving on.
Kerulet had the best of the first half in any stat you might think of other than goals. The closest they came to scoring was after half an hour when the home keeper turned a shot over the bar. It was goalless at the break and neither side went to the dressing rooms, remaining on the pitch for a ten-minute interval.
Kerulet might have gone in front just after the restart, but the shot bounced back off the bar. They eventually took the lead on the hour when a loose ball in the box was neatly tucked away. Ujpesti were never out of it at one-nil though and the game was in the balance until three minutes from time when a low shot into the corner of the net from the edge of box clinched the points for the visitors.
Budapest is a decent place to stay, even in late October. We were in an old part of town, about ten minutes from the river. That meant that I could go for a stroll along the embankment before starting work or when I had a gap between meetings. I checked out the steelwork on the bridges to see if it was stamped with anything like ‘Dorman Long’ but didn’t see anything that denoted a Teesside connection.
For my first ever Hungarian fixture I selected a game in the Hungarian Cup between second-tier Vasas and fourth-tier Mezoors. It was at the Illovszky Rudolf Stadium, which is fairly new, having opened in 2019 and with a capacity of just five thousand.
I had no idea how popular an early cup round would be and so bought tickets online in advance. Jen and I travelled there on the Metro, which was easy enough, and then walked the last ten minutes.
I’d been a little worried that I might need some sort of fan ID card, as I’d read about them when looking at a possible game later in the week. When we reached the turnstiles, a steward scanned a card of her own for everyone in addition to our digital phone tickets. Perhaps there was a requirement, but it was waived for cup games? Who knows?
I needn’t have worried about getting tickets in advance as, despite the small capacity, there were plenty of empty seats. We were along the side of the pitch in regular seats and there were rail seats behind each goal. Each team had around thirty ultras supporting them from their respective ends with flags and drums.
There were a few options for food. Jen got a giant pretzel thing that had cheese on it. I tried a bit but wasn’t too impressed with the bread to cheese ratio. It would have been better reversed. A fella in front of us had a more interesting selection of a slice of bread with onions and what might have been some kind of paprika spread. You were allowed to drink in the seats, but I didn’t bother.
This was a round of thirty-two tie and so the fourth-tier side had already done well to progress as far as they had. I noticed that Vasas were fielding a lot of players with high shirt numbers, so it’s possible that they might not have been at full strength.
The home side had most of the early possession and went ahead mid-way through the first half with a header from a floaty free-kick.
Mezoors made a game of it and kept the deficit to a single goal until the last quarter of an hour. Some sustained pressure from Vasas brought about a second goal much to the relief of their fans around us. A curled injury time third goal seemed harsh on the fourth-tier side.
That’s now sixty-seven countries where I’ve watched football, two thirds of the way towards my target of a ton.
Trail of the Lion King 