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.
I’m currently working remotely for three weeks each month. That means I can indulge myself every now and then by travelling to see some football outside of the UK. This trip centred around a fortnight in Budapest. It’s a place that may more usually be the subject of a weekend break, but I quite like the idea of spending a bit more time in one location. My plan was to tick off another couple of countries where I’ve seen a game and so the day after we arrived in Hungary, Jen and I drove north to Slovakia.
I’d earmarked a game in Velke Ludince, a small town that, due to my concerns about being able to work out how to pay for toll roads online, was around two hours away. Once we were out of Budapest we travelled mainly through countryside on minor roads.
There were a lot of roadside memorials and a lot of cyclists. I’ve no idea if there was any correlation between those two observations. We arrived at the ground in good time, only to discover that the grass was four inches long and there was no sign of life. Oh well. It’s not the first time that I’ve found myself in that kind of situation.
Plan B was a third tier fixture half an hour away from Velke Ludince on the outskirts of Komarno. I wasn’t particularly confident of that game being on either as I hadn’t been able to find any conclusive confirmation on the social media of either team. Nevertheless, it was a better option than simply heading back to Budapest.
As we approached the ground, I found myself stuck behind a fire engine that I eventually realized was also heading for the game. I’m not sure how often a blaze breaks out at football these days but maybe there’s a pyro culture in the Slovakian lower leagues.
There were a couple of women stood behind a table at the entrance gate and, despite my lack of Slovak vocabulary, we were eventually able to establish that whatever they were selling wasn’t admission tickets and that it was free to both watch the game and park the car. We parked up and took seats in the main stand.
Hurbanavo Stadium is a picturesque ground, with trees on two sides and a church just behind. The woodland had resulted in a generous covering of leaves on the pitch. There was a smaller stand on the opposite side to us that was designated for visiting fans and some curved raised standing behind the goal to our left. It looked as if there had once been a running track around the playing area. A few picnic tables and some small sections of banked seating filled the space between our stand and the pitch. There was even a scoreboard to our right.
There was plenty of action in the first half with Komarno taking the lead after around twenty minutes or so from a stooped glancing header. It may very well have taken a deflection on the way in. Slovan Duslo drew level on the half-hour after Komarno failed to clear a floated free-kick into the box. The equalizer revealed that quite a few of the people sitting around us were away fans.
Komarno stepped up the pace a little in the remainder of the first half and added a couple more goals before the break. The first came from a shot from outside of the box that I felt the visiting keeper should have done better with. There wasn’t much that he could have done about Komarno’s third goal though. A diagonal run that ended with a shot cut back to the opposite corner left him wrong footed and gesturing at his defenders for not getting a tackle in earlier.
I’d noticed that food and drink were available from somewhere around the main stand as people kept returning to their seats with beer, coffee and snacks. At half-time Jen and I headed downstairs to a small café that had a selection of hot and cold food.
We didn’t really know what anything was, so just pointed. We ended up with some warm bread balls, the sort of thing that might have been garlic bread but turned out to be cheese flavoured. We also got some sort of pastry with, I think, jam in it.
I joined the away fans on the far side for a while in the second half. They seemed friendly enough and most had brought their own beer. None of them looked to have any pyro with them so it ended up as a quiet afternoon for the fire brigade.
The weather took a turn for the worse whilst I was on that side of the ground and in order to avoid the rain I spent longer over there than I’d planned. It meant that I was able to celebrate a Slovan Duslo goal with their fans when a low shot into the corner reduced the deficit to a single goal.
There were a few chances at either end in the final few minutes but none were taken and Komarno claimed the points with their three-two victory. It had been an enjoyable day out with Slovakia becoming the sixty-sixth country where I’ve watched a game of football.
I probably wouldn’t have bothered going to Sheff Wed, but I was keen to pick up the two priority points needed to move me to a higher band before the tickets for Oxford away went on sale. That said, it’s a simple enough drive and motivation is always easier when we are regularly winning games.
Sadly, Coventry had picked up six points in the days since we last played and they had replaced us at the top of the table. A win in this game would consolidate our top two position though and create a four-point gap to third placed Millwall.
The Boro end had sold out, albeit with plenty of upper tier seats with obscured views left unsold. I’d have released them for reduced prices as it would have enabled more Boro fans to see the game and perhaps allowed some of those priced out to attend.
There were lots of empty seats in the other three stands as well as the Wednesday fans were boycotting the game in protest at their owner. The official attendance was just over seven thousand, with the Boro making up more than half of that total. I doubted that there were three thousand Wednesday fans in the ground, I’d have thought about half of that, but fair play to the fans that stayed away, hopefully their stance will help things to change.
The Boro were unchanged and went a goal up in the opening minutes. We should have had a pen when Joe Lumley wiped out Tommy Conway, but somehow the ref didn’t see it. Ex-Boro keeper Lumley went on to perform as well as I’ve ever seen him do, but we had enough quality to control the game and eventually pick up the points.
As I walked back to the car I chatted to a Wednesday fan. He was resigned to relegation but didn’t care. He was speculating that a pending tax bill might put them into administration and force the change of ownership that the fans wanted. It’s an extreme solution but I hope it works out for them one way or another.
Trail of the Lion King 