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.
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.
I wasn’t confident of getting to this game as my flight home from Lulea wasn’t scheduled to land at Teesside until 5pm. You’d think that would be sufficient, but I’ve been delayed for one reason or another on quite a few of my recent trips. In order to avoid any uncertainty about Harry being able to attend, I’d arranged with him that his Dad would use my card and take him. If I did get back in time, I’d make my own way there and just buy a ticket. Secretly I was quite happy with this arrangement as I was none too keen to stand up for ninety minutes in the South Stand after a day of travelling.
In the end, my flight landed on time, Harry’s Dad couldn’t make it anyway and so it was the now regular trio of Tom, Harry and I that went. We were early enough to call into the fanzone pre-match where Tom’s cunning plan of buying two pints to cut down on the queuing was thwarted by Harry’s equally cunning plan of drinking one of them himself. He’s a tall lad for his age, so didn’t really look out of place.
Our defeat at Portsmouth meant that we had slipped behind Coventry at the top of the table but three points in this game would take us back to the summit, at least until the following afternoon.
The previous weeks’ international duty likely impacted on selection, with Browne retaining his place alongside Hackney and with Morris starting on the bench. Nypan had made his full debut for Holland and also began on the bench with Burgzorg returning.
I was surprised that Akpom didn’t start for Ipswich but pleased that he got a decent reception when he was called upon. I doubt that he’ll ever have as successful a season as that last one that he had with us. Sometimes a player just fits right and he certainly did then.
Ipswich had brought more than two thousand fans, which is a highly commendable turnout for a Friday night game that was on TV. They probably thought they were going to have a decent time of it when they were awarded a penalty just before the break. However, a very good save from Sol Brynn was compounded by us going straight up the other end and scoring. From thinking that they would be going in at half time a goal up to actually going in a goal down must have been hard for Ipswich to take.
Former boo boy target Morgan Whittaker added a second to aid his redemption before we had to endure a nervy final fifteen after they pulled one back. On the way out we were once again able to sing ‘We are top of the league, say, we are top of the league’. It might only be for the following nineteen hours, but it’s still a good feeling.
Trail of the Lion King 