Jen and I were down in London for the weekend, primarily for a Saturday night gig. We were staying in Camden, which made it easy enough to walk down to Soho early morning. We’d signed up for the ‘In the City’ tour, which is run by Paul Weller’s sister, old mate and biographer. That’s three people, rather than one.
It was very good, calling at a few recording studios, including Solid Bond. Some defunct and some still going gig venues, as well as what was the highlight for me, the Apple building where The Beatles did their rooftop concert. It’s smaller than it seems in the footage, so no wonder the noise carried easily down to street level.
After lunch I took the tube out to Leyton, for the League One fixture between Leyton Orient and Rotherham United. Leyton seems ok, with lots of Victorian/Edwardian terraced houses that I imagine probably go for a couple of million quid.
There was a statue of former Orient player Laurie Cunningham, who had previously got a mention on that morning’s music venue tour. Apparently, he was a regular at some daytime disco on Wardour Street in the seventies.
I’d bought my match ticket online in advance for the East Stand, which looks to be the oldest of the four seating options. Even though I’d had my lunch, I couldn’t resist a pre-match snack of that East End staple, pie, mash and liquor. I’m more familiar than most with pie and mash, but liquor was new to me. I don’t see its appeal spreading northwards though, as it is a watery, tasteless green gravy.
I’d looked up the players at each club that morning and was pleased to see that former Boro players AJ Matthews and Aaron Connolly currently play for Orient, whilst Duncan Watmore and Jordan Hugill are on Rotherham’s books.
The fixture meant little to Rotherham, who had already been relegated earlier in the week, but Orient were still in a four-way scrap to avoid the drop. The people around me were nervous and saw the fact that Rotherham had nothing to play for as a bad sign.
They were correct to be pessimistic as an away goal in each half clinched the points that were no longer of any benefit to the visitors and made an Orient relegation more likely.
Of the ex-Boro players, the was no sign of Matthews or Watmore, whilst Hugill didn’t get off the bench. Aaron Connolly came on as a sub in the second half for Orient to the kind of reception reserved for players who have been missing for a while and whose reputation has grown during their absence. He tried to make things happen but was hampered by being just as fucking useless as he was for us. Maybe if Orient do go down, he might find his level.
Jen and I had booked a fortnight in Cyprus back in December, well before the latest Middle East drama. My Mam was convinced that we should cancel, particularly after the drone attack on one of the military bases, but that’s what Mams always say.
We were staying up in the hills on the edge of a small village, so I doubt there was much prospect of any missiles heading our way. It was quiet enough, certainly more so than in Paphos, which had so many Brits strolling around that it might as well have been Scarborough.
As you may have suspected, a reason for selecting Cyprus was that it is one of the countries where I’d yet to see a football match. There weren’t too many options with our first week coinciding with the break for the international fixtures.
One week in, we headed eastwards towards Erimi for a game in the third division. We stopped off at the archeological site at Kourion for a wander around the ruins. It was worth a look, with some well-preserved mosaics. I’d seen a snake the previous day, when wandering around some ruins in Paphos, and so spent most of my time hoping to see another.
We also had time to visit Kolossi Castle before the match, but there were no snakes there either. After a quick lunch, we drove further into Emiri to the Koinotiko Stadium. It had started to rain whilst we were at the castle and so Jen decided that she would stay in the car.
I paid my six euros admission and in a segregated ground had a choice of left or right. I went left and found myself in with the away fans. There wasn’t any shelter and so I just took a place at the top of the terracing where I was able to see most of the action over the top of the pitch side fencing.
The game was a relegation battle. Kouris Emiris, in fifteenth place in a sixteen-team division, looked doomed with only six points all season, but Omonia, in fourteen place, still might avoid the drop into the fourth tier.
The rain got heavier as the first half progressed. A lady very kindly insisted that I took her umbrella on the basis that she could share the one that her son was using. I was very grateful.
It was a typically hard-fought game, with lots of tackles flying in. Both benches screamed for everything, and I thought the ref did well to keep control.
The visitors took the lead after twenty minutes. The shot beat the keeper but slowed before it reached the line. The defender’s desperate lunge was just too late to keep it out and all those around me forgot the rain in the celebrations.
The weather improved in the second half as Kouris Emiris came back into the game. They equalized on the hour and after the visitors had a man sent off, nicked a winner with ten minutes to go. I felt sorry for the lady who had lent me her umbrella as even a point would have moved her team out of the bottom three, but that’s how it goes.
The game took the total number of countries where I’ve watched a football match to sixty-eight.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Trail of the Lion King 