Trail of the Lion King

I hadn’t intended to be away from home this week, but we had Soph and the kids staying with us between house moves and it was clear that they would appreciate a bit of space. That’s fine, especially if it means a couple of weeks just outside of Malaga in the coastal town of Victoria de La Rincon.

I still had to work during the week but come Saturday we were free to drive to nearby Cartama. It’s a town where I’ve watched a game before, at the stadium just off the motorway.

This fixture was at the Campo de Futbol Antonio Jesus Mayo Canamero. We parked outside and went for a pre-match wander around town and some lunch. There was a street market opening up that sold nothing of interest to me. We briefly looked at the outside of a church but decided that we might as well return to the stadium, pay our five euros admission, and sit down for an hour before the game started.

The ground dates back to the late seventies and holds around a thousand. There are three rows of covered seating along one side and a standing area behind the goal nearest the entrance. The game between Atletico Estacion and Atletico Benamiel was in the seventh tier First Andalucia (Malaga) division. That sounds relatively high-level, but the Spanish Pyramid is so flat that it equates to tier ten or eleven in England, so Northern League Division Two, or even Wearside League.

The hosts began the game in fifth place, with the visitors in eleventh in a sixteen-team division. Estacion were supported by about two hundred fans, including a few ultras with a drum and some parents who had hung around after the earlier kids game on the same pitch.

Midway through the first half there was some fake crowd noise played over the loudspeakers. I remember Me Mark Page doing that during one of the Boro’s European games. Embarrassing really, although as we now know, that was the least of his noncesense.

I could describe some of the action but there were a lot of goals and, let’s face it, nobody reads these to find out who won. If by some chance you do, it was the Estacion by five goals to two.

Tags: Fake crowd news

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