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Oxford United v Middlesbrough, Saturday 22nd November 2025, 3pm

December 17, 2025

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.

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B 1908 Amager v Greve Fodbold, Saturday 7th June 2025, 12 noon

June 16, 2025

The second gig of the Duran Duran tour was in Copenhagen and Jen and I flew in from Finland a couple of days in advance. I’d not been to Copenhagen for forty years but recalled that the only places we could afford to drink on that occasion were the free brewery tours that included three bottles of their product. Whilst I was grateful for the past generosity, or marketing tactics, of the breweries, forty years of saving up had allowed me to look forward to trying something other than Carlsberg or Tuborg on this occasion.

I may have been a little harsh with Duran Duran as they’ve actually got three songs that are listenable, which is three more than a lot of bands.

Jen wanted to buy some wool from a shop in nearby Roskilde that is well-known in world knitting circles. Roskilde is a short train ride outside of Copenhagen and also boasts a record shop and a church full of dead kings. We picked up an early seventies album from The Trammps which was selected primarily for its double denim with afros band photo on the sleeve.

Sadly, the dead kings weren’t on display, but the tombs that they were in were ok for a short visit, particularly the ones with stone skull carvings.

We were staying in the south of Copenhagen and so could walk to the first game that I’d identified. It was a fifth-tier game described as a relegation group, which is presumably that thing that they have in Scotland, where the league splits into two at a certain point in the season and you play only those teams in your half of the table.

It took us an hour to get there and on arrival we handed over fifty Krones each, which is around six quid. For that we also got a programme included.

The Sundby Idraetspark ground is a century old, but from what I read, the main stand only dates back half that time. There was a small open stand on a grassy bank behind the goal to our right and an athletics track lapped the pitch, although with only three lanes on all but the home straight.

We got hot dogs before kick-off, with the buns an optional extra. They were also serving beer from the same counter, but it felt a little early in the day to start a session.

1908 went into the game bottom of their group, with Greve a little higher and possibly safe from relegation. 1908 dressed up as Fulham with Greve rocking an Everton vibe. The match started five minutes before scheduled and an early goal for the visitors meant that 1908 were trailing even before they were due to have kicked off.

The home team’s day got worse as we approached the half-hour when a defensive mix up left a visiting striker unchallenged and all he had to do was take the ball around the prone keeper and roll it into the net.

For a long time, it just looked to be a matter of how many Greve would score, but with a quarter of an hour remaining, 1908 intercepted a back pass and tucked it away to halve the deficit.

Both sides stepped up their efforts in the final minutes. There were some late tackles and yellow cards. 1908 pushed hard for an equalizer but it didn’t come. The way that the home players slumped to the ground suggested that the result must have mattered to them. Perhaps it confirmed relegation.

Of more importance though was that I’d ticked off a game in Denmark, taking the total number of countries where I’d seen a game to sixty-five. Well done me.

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Al Sareeh v Al-Faisaly, Saturday 9th November 2024, 8.30pm

December 11, 2024

One of things that that I try to do whenever I’m working away from the UK is to visit the countries near to where I’m staying. It worked especially well when we lived near Kuala Lumpur, and we spent a lot of time exploring the region with a mix of iconic sights and low-level sport.

Nobody would ever think of describing Al Ula as a ’hub’. There are usually around four flights a day, mainly internal and so it takes a bit of planning, and some time off work, to visit just about anywhere. Jordan is one of the places that I’d been lining up for a while. Petra, of course, is a well-known tourist destination and equally importantly, it’s a country where I’d not yet seen a football game.

The trip didn’t get off to the best of starts. I’d booked a hire car from the only agency that claimed to be at the airport, rather than off-site. They lied. After some difficulty tracking the guy that had arranged to meet us, we were taken to the middle of nowhere. I began to wonder if they had a side gig in organ harvesting. When we arrived we were offered a car that not only had more than a hundred thousand miles on the clock, but it looked as if it had spent most of those miles competing in demolition derbies or delivering coal. I couldn’t be arsed to go back to the airport and start the whole process again though and so we took it.

Our first couple of nights were in Amman and we made the obligatory visits to the Citadel and Roman Amphitheatre. They were fine. Of more interest were the pavement pet shops that we saw whilst walking back in the direction of our hotel. I quite like the idea of someone passing by and, on a whim, buying half a dozen week old ducklings.

The next stop was Wadi Rum for a couple of nights in the desert. It’s a four hour drive south from Amman and, as it’s close to the Saudi Arabian border, it’s probably not much further away from Amman as it is from Al Ula. The rock formations at Wadi Rum were spectacular and we spent time riding camels and hiking early in the morning whilst there was still some shade.

Jen and I were also driven around in the back of a pick-up to see rock carvings and places of interest. Lawrence of Arabia featured heavily with stops at his house, a spring that he drank from and a secluded corner where he had a piss.

The camp that we stayed in was virtually empty. On the first night a Dutch couple were there but on the second night we had the entire twelve tent set up to ourselves. Apparently, tourism virtually halted a year ago with the escalation of hostilities in the region. We passed other camps that also seemed deserted and at some of the destinations on the pick-up drive around, we were the only people there.

I felt sorry for the camp owner, who was just a young lad and had clearly made a big investment in his business. He seemed upbeat about prospects, but how do you absorb a year’s worth of bookings just vanishing?

The final part of our trip was three nights in Petra. It was about an hour or so’s drive back in the direction of Amman. Whilst hammering along the motorway I noticed something unusual in the middle lane. I slammed on the brakes and realised just in time that it was a puppy. Fortunately, there were no cars immediately behind me, so I was able to leap out and grab him. He can’t have been more than about six weeks old.

We tried googling animal shelters but that doesn’t seem to be a thing in Jordan. If I’d been in England I’d have kept him, but we eventually decided that his best chances of survival were to be dropped off where there were plenty of people and few cars. We found a spot in the next town and got a few strange looks as we abandoned him, but it gave him a better chance of surviving than he’d had twenty minutes earlier.

Petra was virtually as quiet as Wadi Rum. We stayed in a five-storey hotel right by the main gate which had only five guests. The Petra site was similarly deserted, which was great. Quite often we found ourselves with no other people in sight. On the third day we hiked in from a back gate to the tomb known as The Cathedral and it felt like we had the hiking trail to ourselves.

At times, there were more stray cats and dogs than people. Cats seemed appropriate to be wandering ancient tombs, but the dogs looked out of place. I always think a dog should have a human of its own.

Good as all the tourist stuff was, I needed to tick off a football ground to make the visit complete. There weren’t many options, and the only match of the trip took place on our first night in Jordan. Getting there required a forty-minute drive north from our hotel in Amman to the Prince Mohammed stadium at Zarqa. The roads were poor, as they were in most of Jordan, and I seemed to hit a pothole every few hundred yards.

The fixture was in the Shield Cup and from what I could gather, was being played at a neutral ground. It’s a pity that we hadn’t arrived in Jordan a few hours earlier as there had already been a game in the same competition at the ground that afternoon.

We were able to park at the stadium and had a chat with a lad hoping to pick up some of the passing shisha trade. He mentioned that he was a Liverpool fan then directed us further along the stand to the nearest entrance gate.

There wasn’t a ticket office, or at least not one that I could see and a guy scanning tickets pointed us in the direction of a young lad who he reckoned would sort us out. It seemed that the section we were trying to get into was for the Al-Faisaly fans and one of their ultras had been tasked with buying tickets online for anyone who turned up without having made prior arrangements.

We gave him four Jordanian Dinars each and once he’d downloaded the tickets, he accompanied us to the entrance and the first fella scanned them from his phone. It all seemed a lot more complicated than just handing cash over without involving the middleman, but that’s modern life.

We were then searched, and Jen had two cans of fake coke that we’d bought ten minutes earlier confiscated. When I asked if we could drink them there and then, someone intervened to point out that elderly visitors from abroad would be unlikely to misbehave and we ended up having our drinks returned to us to take into the stand.

We had seats along the side of the pitch, facing the main stand. Prince Mohammed Stadium was built in 1998 and has a current capacity of 11,400. It’s an artificial surface with a running track between the pitch and the stands.

Every now and then a group of Al-Faisaly fans would wander over to chat, checking out who we were, why we were there or explaining to us the difference between ultras and hooligans. One group of young lads even offered to take us out to a restaurant to sample the Jordanian national dish of mansaf.

I think Al-Faisaly were expected to win but unfortunately for the fans around us that’s not how it worked out. Al-Sareer had the better of the chances, but the game didn’t really take off until the final ten minutes when Al-Faisaly had a man sent off and then Al-Sareer took advantage of their numerical advantage to nick a late winner.

More importantly, I’d ticked off a football ground in my sixty-second different country.

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New Orleans Pelicans v Oklahoma City Thunder, Thursday 2nd November 2023, 7pm

January 15, 2024

Staying out in the sticks was all very well, but every now and then you want a little more action going on and so Jen and I booked three nights in New Orleans, staying in an Airbnb about forty-minutes walk from the busy part of town. Each day we had a wander into the touristy bit for a mooch around.

On one of the days, we got caught up in a jazz funeral that went past our house. You can’t miss an opportunity like that and so we followed it along to the church next to the underpass where the rough sleepers congregate. I’m not really sure who benefits from a jazz funeral, certainly not the dead and probably not those grieving. Maybe it’s just for bystanders like me.

One of the events that we’d planned was seeing Jonathan Richman at some old French theatre. I’m not that familiar with his music, but I’ve seen the tribute band, The Modern Ovens, that some of the Sea Power members play in, a few times. If it’s good enough for them then that will do.

We met up with Luke, one of Jen’s brothers who lives in New Orleans, and had an enjoyable evening.

Next night was the Pelicans in the NBA. Another of Jen’s brothers, Jeff, picked us up and commenting on the place we were staying asked “Were the projects too expensive?”.

I don’t think Jeff was too impressed with the seats I’d bought either. He used to be a marketing guy for a minor league baseball team and has the contacts to always sit somewhere good. We were quite high up, but I thought it was a decent view. The venue hadn’t sold out and Jeff let me know that if we’d waited until the day of the game we’d have picked up seats for buttons on the resale sites.

The Pelicans had only arrived back in town that day, having been stranded overnight after an away game. With sixteen games scheduled for November they chose to rest both of their star players which may have impacted on the crowd. On the plus side it meant we didn’t ever have to queue to get another ten dollar can of beer.

The lack of stars didn’t seem to hinder the home side and after a sluggish start they found themselves twenty-five points up at one stage. Thunder pegged it back towards the end, but the result was never in doubt in what turned out to be a good evening for the Pelican’s fringe players.

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Middlesbrough v Queens Park Rangers, Saturday 2nd September 2023, 3pm

October 15, 2023

I’d had an interesting couple of days leading up to this game with a visit from one of Jen’s American brothers and his wife. We met them in York, showed them the delights of Norton and then spent a couple of days up at Hadrian’s Wall.

We walked a section at Cawfields and called into the Museums at Vindolanda and Birdoswald. If I’d been to Vindolanda when we walked the wall a few years ago I’d forgotten it, but both were well worth a visit.

With David and Jackie having left us for the Scotland leg of their holiday I was free to turn my attention to the Boro game. It had been a poor start to the season for us with just the point against Huddersfield from our opening four games.

I was reasonably confident that we could turn things around though. There’s been a lot of change in personnel and whilst we’ve lost some quality players from last season’s team, once the new fellas gel I’d expect us to start picking up points.

Harry’s cousin Alistair was free for this one and so we were treated to his parkour skills as he scaled every wall and jumped every bollard on the way to the Riverside.

One of the reasons I was hoping for a good performance is to try and convert Alistair. He claims to be a Man City fan, although I view it as a good sign that he’s happy to wear the various Boro tops that one of his Grandads gets him.

My hopes weren’t to be fulfilled though. QPR took the lead just before half time with a shot that could either have been a ‘worldie’ or, more likely to my mind, an outrageous fluke. We had our share of the chances, more than our share in fact, but with a second goal for QPR coming twenty minutes from time, we slipped to another defeat.

I doubt a position at the foot of the table with just a single point from five games will encourage Alistair to switch allegiance but with an international break coming up there’s an opportunity for Carrick to try and sort things out.

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Spain U21 v Ukraine U21, Tuesday 27th June 2023, 9.45pm

June 29, 2023

Bucharest was hosting games in the U21 European Championships at two stadiums and fortunately I had time to see one at each. This one was at Rapid’s ground, the fourteen thousand capacity Giulesti Stadium that opened just a year ago,

Earlier in the day Jen and I had sought out the Ministry of Interior building. It’s the place where Ceausescu made his final speech in December 1989. That’s the one where the crowd turned against him and despite him offering rises to pensions and social security, seemingly on the hoof, the boos got louder, and he ended up legging it up to the roof before being helicoptered away. Four days later he and his missus were tied to chairs and shot. Sometimes, merely removing your pass to the parliament building just isn’t enough.

We arrived for the game between Spain and Ukraine a good hour in advance, mainly because we couldn’t find somewhere to have our tea on the way. In the end we had to settle for shawarmas from a little takeaway place. They were fine, but with time to spare I’d have preferred something a bit more leisurely.

The fixture didn’t have a lot riding on it other than the chance of avoiding a move to Cluj for the quarterfinals. Both teams had already qualified from the four-team group with maximum points and Spain, with the better goal difference, were in pole position to remain in Bucharest with a draw.

Our seats were down the side, in an area that filled up as kick-off approached. All four stands were open for the fixture, which seemed unnecessary considering that the crowd only just reached the two-thousand mark. There was a smattering of Spaniards, but most of the people in attendance were cheering on Ukraine. I’ve no idea how many of them actually were Ukrainians, perhaps temporarily displaced, but a lot of people knew all the words to the national anthem, which suggests closer ties than simply supporting them on the basis of the political situation.

Both sides had made multiple changes which allowed them to give their first choices a break and some game time to squad members. Spain even played both of their reserve keepers for a half each. The lack of familiarity with each other was apparent early on, particularly at the back for Ukraine, and Spain should really have gone in at the break a goal or two up. As it was, it was Ukraine who took a first half lead with a header as the interval approached.

The right to avoid checking out of their hotel swung back to Spain with an equalizer early in the second half, before Ukraine went back in front with a penalty ten minutes from time. However, with their bags almost packed, Spain nicked a draw on ninety minutes to top the group. The Ukrainian players seemed a lot more devastated than I’d have been as Cluj looks an interesting place for a visit. Although maybe they are travelling there by bus. Either way, both teams are into the last eight.

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Middlesbrough v Rotherham United, Saturday 17th September 2022, 7.45pm

October 4, 2022

Apparently this one was moved to an evening kick-off by Sky Sports as they hadn’t been able to schedule a televised fixture for Rotherham at any other date. It didn’t inconvenience me, but for those intending to travel by train it will have been another game missed. I doubt the away fans will have been too enthused by not getting home until midnight either.

In addition to having a game postponed after the Queen’s death and a minute’s silence and the singing of the National Anthem at the next one, this game featured a minute’s applause on the seventieth minute. It seemed over the top to me to have to pay our respects three times. I stood and half-heartedly clapped on the basis that I didn’t want any cap-doffers nearby getting angry that I didn’t share their royalist sympathies.

A much more worthwhile tribute came from Red Faction and their banner for Chris Kamara. He has been having a bad time of it lately and I hope the show of support from his hometown team gave him a boost.

We had finally reverted to two strikers, with Muniz and Watmore starting up front, but it made little difference to the performance. Once again it was as if the Boro players had met for the first time that day with passes frequently going astray. It finished nil-nil and the point wasn’t enough to lift us out of the relegation zone. October is when Gibson often fires his managers and with just ten points from ten games I wonder if he is already eyeing up Wilder’s replacement.

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Morecambe v Middlesbrough, Tuesday 19th July 2022, 7pm

July 25, 2022

I’d not been to the Mazuma stadium before and so I was pleased when the Boro announced a pre-season friendly at Morecambe. With nothing going on in the afternoon of the game I had plenty of time to drive across, taking a scenic route via Askrigg, Hawes, Ribblehead and Ingleton. I should have left even earlier and had a wander around at the viaduct as it looked magnificent in the early evening light.

My knowledge of Morecambe is limited. If I’ve given it any thought whatsoever, I suppose I’ve considered it a sort of Blackpool-lite. I arrived early enough to head for the seafront and have fish and chips for tea, near to the statue of Eric Morecambe. Whilst a lot of the country had been staying indoors to mitigate the impact of the forty degree heat, Morecambe residents were out on the beach.

I still tend to think of Morecambe FC as a non-league side, despite it being fifteen years since they reached the Football League. It turns out that they are actually in League One these days, just one step below the Boro.

I did a lap of the ground before finding the correct turnstile and took a seat towards the back of the Boro section. Around six hundred fans had made the trip and after a while the majority took the rare opportunity of sitting at an away game.

Boro had Ryan Giles at left-wing back, and he picked out a player in the box to gain an assist for each of our three first half goals. If we can attack effectively down both flanks this season, then it will hopefully deter teams from doubling up on Isaiah Jones.

There was some neat, quick passing through the midfield as we built from the back with Tav involved in most of the moves. He’ll be hard to replace if the rumoured Premier League does happen this summer.

At the interval I went downstairs for a drink. The queue was slow, probably on the basis that there was a big demand for their award-winning pies. They looked to have a decent beer selection too.

Morecambe had Conor Ripley in goal. He’s a player that I’ve kept an eye on since he left the Boro and it looks as if he should get some game time this season after his bench-warming at Preston. He took some stick from some Boro fans over his weight but reacted good-naturedly. He put in a good performance, pulling off some decent saves and wasn’t at fault for any of the goals.

The tempo slowed in the second half as the effect of playing in the heat and the impact of the substitutions took its toll. Overall though, we looked good and whilst the squad still needs to be added to I’m hopeful of a good start to the season proper.

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Lubbock Matadors v Irving, Saturday 25th June 2022, 7.30pm

July 2, 2022

After the week in Colorado, it was time to head south for another family celebration in a weeks’ time. Our first stopover was two nights in Lubbock, Texas. It was a six-hundred-mile drive and we managed it in around ten and a half hours. We stayed on a horse ranch on the outskirts of the city.

Lubbock was as hot as it had been in Nebraska, with the temperature beyond 100F. I was glad of the air-conditioning.

I didn’t really know very much about Lubbock, other than it’s the place where Buddy Holly was from. With that in mind we went along to the Buddy Holly Centre to look at some of the memorabilia. There was a house in the grounds of the museum that had belonged to one of the Crickets, Jerry Allison, and where he and Holly had written ‘That’ll Be The Day’.

Apparently, the reason that it is Allison’s house that was transported to the centre and not Holly’s is that the Holly family home been knocked down long before anyone thought of cashing in on it.

We also went to the City of Lubbock Cemetery to visit the grave. It was well signposted and easily found. Some people had left trinkets and glasses. There was even a Christmas tree bauble. I reflected on how strange it seems to me that Buddy Holly had actually played the Globe in Stockton. Twice, in fact, on the same day in his only tour of England in ’58.

He’d been to my town and now I’d been to his.

As we left the cemetery, we spotted a prairie dog on sentry duty by its burrow. There were a few others just outside the gates. I stopped the car so that Jen could take some photos, clearly bemusing the driver behind us who may very well have seen prairie dogs on grass verges by the road every day of his life.

After exhausting the Buddy Holly options Jen and I went along to Lowery Field, home of the Lubbock Matadors football team. They had a home fixture against Irving in the Lone Star Conference of the Western Division of the National Premier Soccer League. Lowery Field is another stadium used predominantly by an American Football team, but utilised for soccer in the offseason. It has a capacity of 8,500.

I’d bought tickets online a few weeks in advance for ten dollars a pop plus taxes. As we showed the fella on the gate the tickets on my phone, he offered us a dog bib if we could show him a photo of our dog. We don’t have a dog but I had a recent photo of me with my brother-in-law’s dogs that earned us two extra small bibs. They might fit the shiatzu belonging to Jen’s sister.

We had seats on the forty yard line, directly above around twenty or so singing ultras. They made a racket with a megaphone throughout the game, supplemented by drums and two trumpets. The crowd was later announced as over four thousand, which seemed a little high to me. Maybe they count tickets given away whether the recipients turn up or not.

There wasn’t much action in the first half, but the game came to life in the second when Irving went a goal up. This sparked some aggression from both sides and the visitors were soon a man down. Lubbock equalized with twenty minutes to go and the game then petered out to a draw with the focus moving to settling scores and accumulating yellow cards rather than any real attacking intent.

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Atomic Pork Chops v Winnipeg Goldeneyes, Saturday 11th June 2022, 6.30pm

June 12, 2022

After Buckingham, Jen and I drove up to Newark to swap the hire car for the one originally booked and then headed to the Keystone State Park for three nights. We had a ‘modern cabin’ booked. I think ‘modern’ refers to it having a bathroom, something that didn’t strike me as being particularly modern at all. It was an enjoyable place to stay, as most accommodation with a firepit tends to be, although there wasn’t much in the way of wildlife nearby other than rabbits and squirrels.

In an effort to try and see bears and snakes, or at a push some deer, raccoons or muskrats, we went for a hike around the lake and up into a forest. It was a good way to spend a morning but despite wandering around for six miles we didn’t really see anything other than birds and butterflies.

Next stop on the trip was Chicago. It’s somewhere that I’d picked mainly because I thought there would be good opportunities for sporting events. It’s also somewhere with a bit of family history in that one of my grandads visited it in the 1920’s and saw someone shot dead whilst walking down the street. He was in the merchant navy and travelling cross-country from New York to San Francisco to join his next ship. I don’t know how long he and his shipmates spent in the city but I thought it interesting, particularly when walking around some of the historical areas, that they might very well have walked the same streets getting on for a hundred years or so ago. We didn’t see anyone shot dead, so maybe Chicago is a bit safer than in the 1920’s.

One of the things that I’d like to do sometime is see a baseball game at Wrigley Field. Whilst it’s not quite the oldest, it’s probably the best known of all the baseball stadiums. The Cubs were out of town though and so we had to make do with a tour. It was very informative and we started off with some general info whilst sitting in various parts of the stands, before moving down to pitch side to stand in the outfield.

We then moved on to the locker room used by the visiting team and at various times over the years by Paul McCartney, Pele and Michael Jordan. It was strange to look around and imagine each of them preparing to head out into the daylight.

We then went up to the press box and finished up by sitting in the home dugout. I’ll get back for an actual Cubs game at some point.

Whilst there was an option of going to a MLB White Sox game across town, I decided to head for some lower league action instead at the Midwestern Medical Field. It’s a stadium that dates back to 1991 and has a capacity of almost eleven thousand.

The game was in an independent league for teams too far from others to be allowed to play in the AA or AAA leagues. The Kane County Cougars were taking on the Winnipeg Goldeneyes. Although for some reason the Cougars were playing as their alter-egos, the Atomic Pork Chops. This may have been a ploy to sell different shirts and more bacon products. Who knows?

We opted for central bench seats at fifteen dollars, although we could have paid ten dollars to sit on the grass. Or even ten dollars to walk past the grass and sit in the fifteen dollars seats. I had a hot dog which didn’t look as good as the hot dogs that I saw some other people eating so there must have been some selection option that I hadn’t noticed.

Jen went for a funnel cake. I’d not heard of it and tried a bit. It’s just mis-shaped donut really. It tastes ok but I can’t see it catching on.

Winnipeg Goldeneyes are a Canadian team, from approximately eight hundred miles to the north. I doubt that you get many away fans in this league. A father and son duo who had been roped in to sing the Star Spangled Banner also trotted out what I presume was the Canadian anthem. It’s not particularly catchy and maybe something like ‘I’m a Lumberjack’ would have gone down better.

For additional between innings entertainment we were treated to stunt dogs. These were collies that had been trained to catch frisbees and run between their owner’s legs. It was better than it sounds and but unfortunately none of them took a piss against any of the bases.

We also had races between the mascots and small kids around the bases and something called battle ball where small children put their upper bodies into an inflatable ball and then tried to concuss each other. They also sang Happy Birthday to those celebrating that day. Jen asked me if the song triggered any particular thoughts, which it didn’t. Turns out it was her birthday and I’d forgotten. Again. I like being married to someone who doesn’t make a deal about something like that. I suspect that some fellas in a similar situation may have ended up in a worse state than the battle ball kids.

Goldeneyes went three up early on and then twice finished an innings with the bases loaded but without adding to the score. It looked as if this might come back to bite them in the arse when the Pork Chops hit three single home runs, two of them in successive balls to level at three all in the sixth. The Canadians got away with it though running out five-three winners in the end.

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