The new season hadn’t started well for the Boro with defeats in both of the first two fixtures. I hadn’t seen either match live as I’d been working away but Harry hadn’t been too impressed with the home game.
I’d got back into the country the day before this match and took the opportunity to do something with Harry’s sister Isla. She’s into horses rather than football and so we went for a trek on the moors near Boltby. I’d forgotten how strenuous horse riding can be, particularly if you have a cantering posture that involves standing upright. I was still stiff legged as Harry and I walked to the Riverside twenty-four hours later.
I wasn’t confident at all that we’d take anything from the game. It wasn’t so much that we’d lost a lot of the key players from last season, or that it would likely take their relatively unknown replacements time to settle in. No, it was the presence of former Boro boss Neil Warnock in the away dugout. I don’t know the stats but he always seems to take points from us. His time with us might very well have been due to a desire by Gibbo to eliminate that annual six-point handicap.
The summer recruitment had stepped up in the days before the game with Latte Lath and Engels arriving and starting. Chuba had secured himself a move to Ajax which probably looks a little more impressive than it may turn out to be. Unless, of course, he gets to wear the ‘14’ shirt.
Huddersfield could easily have built on their opening goal, but once we’d equalised it looked more likely that we’d get the winner. Silvera was a handful but struggled to get his efforts anywhere near the target. It finished level which, on past experience, I consider two points dropped by Colin rather than us.
The Bucharest trip was intended to coincide with the Saudi Eid holiday. However, the dates are not something that you can accurately rely upon too far in advance. Apparently, there’s a committee of old blokes who look at the visible shape of the moon and then they announce the start and finish of the holiday a few days beforehand.
Whatever they saw, worked well for me and resulted in an additional day at the end of the holiday. I had no intention of wasting the extra time off and so had a look at how I could rearrange my return flight for maximum benefit. To cut a long story mercifully short, I dropped the Bucharest trip down from a week to five days and Jen and I flew on to Sweden for three nights instead.
It was a destination predominantly chosen for availability and ease of getting there, but also because they play their football between April and November.
We flew into Skavska airport, which is just south of Stockholm and about an hour and a half’s drive from the small house in someone’s garden that we were staying at to the north of the city. It was as well that we had to pass through Stockholm as Jen needed some emergency dentistry and she was able to nab a walk in appointment within a few hours of our arrival.
Stockholm seems a pleasant city. I’m not sure if I’d called in there during one of the interrailing trips in the eighties, but if I had then nothing appeared familiar. It was good to be out in the country though. We saw a bit of the wider landscape from the plane window and it’s all coast, lakes and forests. Yet another place that I could readily move to.
The tooth removal meant that there was no time for a match on the day that we arrived, but I lined up a fixture for the following day in the Division 5 Uppland South league which, despite its name, is actually part of the seventh tier of Swedish football.
On the day of the game we went for lunch at nearby Rimbo, where the only option available was beef with some sort of jam sauce, then went for a walk at Finsta where we followed a trail dedicated to a Saint Bridget. I’d hoped that she was the patron saint for the vertically-challenged, but apparently not. It was a short walk through some woods to a church and then on to a cave and back again. After the heat of both Saudi Arabia and Romania, it was good to be outside in temperatures suitable for mooching about.
We’d driven past the Lundbyvallen ground a couple of hours before the 7pm kickoff and it was a relief to see someone putting up the nets. I’d also noticed a covered stand which, in an afternoon that had seen the odd shower, might well prove useful.
We arrived for the game half an hour or so before kick-off and with the main car park already well populated. We followed the sign to the overflow parking and then wandered down past a club house selling food and drink, taking a seat at one of the picnic tables along the side of the pitch.
Considering that the game was in the seventh tier and in a village that didn’t appear to have even a corner shop, I was surprised to see floodlights. Not that I expected them to get much use in Sweden in June.
Riala were in third place in the table, with visitors Uppsala in second. By the time play got underway there were probably around eighty people in attendance along with a couple of dogs, including a young husky that was keen to be somewhere else.
The standard was decent and by half-time Riala were two counter-attacking goals to the good. They added a third on the hour with an ambitious back-heeled volley that was perfectly executed.
At that stage, it might very well have turned into a rout, but instead the visitors upped the pressure and within ten minutes had pulled two goals back. They pushed hard for an equalizer in the final stages, but it just wouldn’t come. The win meant that Riala drew level on points with their opponents in the battle for the second promotion spot.
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.
There’s a big block of public holiday this time of year in Saudi Arabia and so I took the opportunity to head off to somewhere else. I’d been looking for somewhere that was reasonably easy for both Jen and I to get to and, as you might expect, somewhere with some football going on.
I settled on Bucharest, with it being only three to four hours from both the UK and Saudi Arabia and one of the host cities for the UEFA U21 Championship.
On the morning of the game, we had a wander around and called in at a natural history museum. My main interest in these places is usually the bad taxidermy and there were plenty of exhibits with visible bullet holes or stitching that looked as if it had been done by the animal itself. The most interesting sight though was a fossil of some kind of pre-historic mammoth. It dwarfed the elephant and hippo skeletons positioned either side.
Later on, I took a taxi to the Stadionul Steaua. It’s a new ground, so not the one that the Boro played at in 2006. It’s not the place where Steaua plays either according to the taxi driver. It seems that they have been taken over and the majority of their fans are following a phoenix club which plays at the national stadium.
He also told me that he had lived in Blackpool for two years, working at Billy Smart’s Circus. He volunteered that he hadn’t been impressed with English women, believing that their perception of their attractiveness rarely matched the reality and recalled their tendency to drink too much then start shouting and fighting.
I hadn’t expected that the U21 Championship would attract decent crowds, but this game featured one of the host nations and that had created some interest. Ukraine provided the opposition and, on a day when Russian mercenary forces were marching on Moscow, there were plenty of blue and yellow flags being brandished outside of the stadium.
A quick search and I was through a perimeter fence, followed by a well-marshalled queue for the turnstiles to have my seven quid ticket scanned.
I’d not had a drink for more than eight weeks and sadly the best that UEFA were allowing was a non-alcoholic Burgenbier. It tasted ok, but I would have appreciated that buzz that comes from downing your first pint in a while.
My seat was down the side and in the lower tier. A pretty good view really and, I suppose, a benefit of buying the ticket on the day it went on sale. This was the second match in the group for each side with Ukraine already sitting on three points and Romania yet to get off the mark after an opening game defeat. That meant the absolute minimum that the home side needed to stay in the competition was a point.
Ukraine had the best of the first half and managed to get behind the Romanian defence fairly frequently. The home goalie was in good form though and it was goalless at the break.
For the second half I moved to the upper tier behind one of the goals, just for a change of perspective. I’d chosen the wrong end though as Ukraine were doing most of the attacking.
Romania’s hopes of progressing from the group stayed alive until a minute from time when an own goal gave Ukraine the victory. There was some added-time drama when the visitors went down to ten men after some pre-free-kick jostling went a little too far, but Ukraine held on to take the points and qualify for the last eight.
This wasn’t the game that I’d hoped to be at on this date. I’d wanted to be at Wembley to see the Boro in the play-off final. Whilst I didn’t want to tempt fate prior to the play-off semi, I also didn’t want to discover too late that everything was sold out and so I’d booked flights, a hotel and a train ticket for Jen. Sadly, football doesn’t always work out as you want.
Instead, I was back at the Prince Faisal stadium for fourth placed Al-Shabab against fifth placed Al-Taawon. For a change I thought I’d go into the VIP section. At two hundred riyals a ticket it was twenty times more expensive than my usual seat, which is just the other side of a perspex screen. Two hundred riyals is forty-three quid and so it’s not overly expensive by football standards these days. It’s certainly cheaper than the Wembley ticket would have been.
The security guard at the entrance gate seemed a little surprised that I was meant to be there, as did the bloke checking the tickets at the main entrance. Perhaps I just don’t look ‘corporate’. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not.
Once inside I was given a silver wristband and an Arabic coffee. One sip was enough to confirm that there’s a good reason why Starbucks don’t sell that stuff. The fella next to coffee guy was holding a container of hot coals and he wafted the smoke at me. Cheers Matey.
That was it for hospitality add-ons apart from frequent offers of tea and water during the game. I’d half expected a buffet or at least someone with a tray of chocolates, but maybe you needed a gold wristband for that sort of thing. As kick-off was only ten minutes away, I followed someone up some stairs to the main stand.
My designated padded seat was close to the half-way line and behind the dugouts. There were some tv screens showing the match on a ten second delay. That actually worked quite well, giving you the opportunity to check how much contact actually occurred whenever someone went down as if shot.
If I’d been a real VIP then I could have sat on one of the settees at the front. They were occupied by people who everyone seemed to know and whenever someone new turned up we had an elaborate fake kissing routine where the two blokes would touch cheeks three times. That’s face cheeks, in case you were wondering. They would then pause slightly before going back for one more.
Al-Taawon went a goal up about half an hour in and at which point I realized that almost everyone in my section was an away fan. At half-time I wandered inside in the forlorn hope that it might be a bit like the old Ayresome Park Hundred Club and that there would be a table with plates of quartered pork pies. No such luck though.
In the second half Al-Taawon rattled in two more goals for a three-nil win. I don’t think the experience was worth twenty times the usual price, particularly as in my usual section I’d have been able to buy a Kit-kat. It’s always good to try something different though.
I’d had my eye on a visit to the Prince Turki bin Abdul Aziz stadium for quite some time. It’s the home of Al-Riyadh who play in the second tier Yelo League. Unfortunately, a lot of their games are scheduled for weekdays and often with a kick-off sufficiently early to avoid the need for floodlights.
This fixture was their final home game of the season and therefore my last chance until August or September. I had been to the ground before, to watch an U17 game on the adjoining practice pitch, but this was my first visit to see a match at their proper stadium.
It had been a good season for Al-Riyadh as they had built on their promotion from the third tier the previous season and clinched a place in the top-tier Saudi Pro-League at the first attempt. It was made a little easier for them by the expansion of the higher division from sixteen to eighteen teams, meaning that fourth place was sufficient to go up. The year had gone less well for visitors Al-Shoalah, who were adrift at the bottom of the table and would be plying their trade in the third tier next season.
Prince Turki bi Abdul Aziz stadium is over in the south-west of Riyadh and twenty-two kilometres from where I’m staying. It’s mainly on roads with a decent flow of traffic though and I got there after a thirty-minute taxi ride and with an hour to spare to kick-off.
The ground is supposed to hold fifteen thousand spectators, although that looked a bit optimistic to me. The capacity had certainly been reduced by the placing of chairs in one of the stands. They looked as if they had been removed from a function room and then covered to protect them from dust.
I was directed to the far end of the covered stand. Apparently, the centre section which had tables and flowers was for VIPs and then the next blocks were reserved for not quite so important people, but still more important than plebs like me. It all seemed a lot of effort for a game with free admission and an eventual crowd of no more than three hundred people. Perhaps they only had two hundred and fifty chairs.
I watched quite a few people arguing with the stewards who appeared to have nightclub bouncer-like powers in arbitrarily deciding if your face fitted or not. I wondered whether putting my black socks over my trainers might have got me in.
Maybe the stewarding was intended to keep out the small group of ultras that had congregated to my left. They provided support throughout the game, although I’d have preferred that they did it without using a loudhailer. The older I get, the less tolerance I have for noise.
At half time I moved across to the stand opposite. It was certainly quieter, but what I gained by distancing myself from the loudhailer guy was offset by the plague of locusts. Did you know that the collective noun for locusts was a plague? Me neither, but somewhat appropriate, I think.
As I entered the uncovered stand one of them kept bashing itself against my head. Only one winner there really. There were hundreds of them on the terracing, some just sat there, others that had congregated near the stairwells a little worse for their encounters with the soles of people’s shoes.
And the match? Well, Al-Riyadh went a goal up mid-way through the first half when a freekick was saved and the rebound nodded in. Al- Shoalah equalized before half time with a shot from inside the box that was perfectly placed just inside the post.
I was expecting Al-Riyadh to prevail in the second half, but I think they might just have been celebrating their promotion a little too thoroughly, if that’s possible over here, and they ran out of steam. Two goals in the last fifteen minutes clinched the win for relegated Al-Shoalah to put a dampener on the promotion party.
I’m a little wary these days when I see age-group or lower tier games listed at the Prince Faisal stadium as I’ve turned up at least twice only to find that the match was taking place elsewhere. This one was a reserve fixture featuring the two sides whose first teams had clashed at the ground the previous evening and as it had been a late addition to the website match listings, I had high hopes that the venue might be correct.
Unfortunately, I had stuff to do and so wouldn’t be able to see the first half, but I thought that if I caught the last half-hour or so it would be worth the fifteen-minute walk from where I stay.
Arriving at the stadium I quickly checked out the practice pitch where there was nothing going on. Moving further around I was able to see into the main stadium and there was actually a game going on. Excellent. I continued around until I reached the main entrance which was open to let people into the sports centre.
All of the gates to the football ground looked to be shut and each one had a policeman loitering. I headed around to the right where there’s an entrance big enough to allow an ambulance in. With the pitch in sight a steward called a halt to my progress and after a short conversation it was established that spectators were strictly prohibited. As was taking photographs. Hmm.
Still, I like a challenge and so instead of returning from where I’d came, I continued around the perimeter until I reached the big open stand that runs along one side of the pitch. I walked purposefully as if I had a right to be there and was ignored by the first steward I saw. Once out of his line of sight, I tried a closed gate. It opened, and I was into the stand.
The sun was getting low and so it made watching and taking photos difficult from that section. I came back out and moved further along towards a fenced off area where there was a steward with his back to me. I dodged up a stairway, taking the six flights of steps that brings you out on the upper tier. This got me past the fence and the steward and allowed me to enter the stadium far enough along not to have to look into the sun.
The scoreboard revealed that Al-Shabab were four-nil up and a quick look around confirmed that I was the only spectator. I watched the action for a couple of minutes and then, keen to avoid any police attention, made my way back down and looked for an open exit. Everything was shut other than the gate that I’d came in by and to get to that I had to complete my lap of the stadium interior, again with a purposeful stride. I exchanged nods and a smile with security on the way out and left them to it.
I ended up buying two tickets for this game on account of the weather. Initially I’d intended to sit in the big open stand, but a day of downpours persuaded me to think again, and I bought another one, this time for the covered area in the stand opposite. Tickets are only two quid a pop so it’s not expensive to keep your options open.
There was a slight drizzle as I took the short walk to the Prince Faisal ground and so I veered right instead of left and headed for the covered section.
It was another small crowd of under a thousand, although there was a reasonable turnout amongst the singers in the stand opposite. Al-Shabab, in white, had little to play for whilst visitors Al-Wehda, in red, were just beyond the relegation spots and clearly intent on taking something from the game.
They went ahead after twelve minutes and frequently threatened with their pace when running at the Al-Shabab defence.
The home side had the ball in the net early in the second half, but neither set of players seemed convinced that it would stand. They loitered at the centre circle for three minutes whilst the VAR did his stuff, eventually sending the ref over to the screen to have a look for himself. That meant another two minutes delay whilst he stared at the screen with his head at the angle more commonly seen when a dog watches the telly. As expected, the effort was disallowed.
Al-Shabab had other chances, including one attack that needed a triple point-blank save from the Al-Wehda keeper, but didn’t create anything reflective of the gap between the teams. In the end the single early goal was enough to take the points and put a bit of distance between Al-Wehda and their relegation rivals.
The biggest game in Saudi football is between Al-Hilal and Al-Ittihad. They are the two most successful clubs in the country by a long way and as the biggest teams in the two biggest cities, Riyadh and Jeddah, it’s a classic rivalry. It’s known as El Clasico over here, although Madrid and Barcelona may well raise a collective eyebrow at the borrowing of the term.
As befits the occasion ticket prices had risen from the usual twenty riyals for Al-Hilal home games to a still reasonable, I thought, ninety-two riyals.
I arrived with an hour to go to kick-off and it was busy outside. The usual scarf and flag sellers were out in force and most had supplemented their usual stock with some Al-Ittihad gear.
Whilst Al-Hilal don’t have much to play for in the league, Al-Ittihad were five points clear of Al-Nassr with just four games left. An away win would just about settle things. The rivalry was enough to guarantee a competitive game though and with Al-Hilal fresh from their Kings Cup victory it was Cup winners v Champions-elect.
Once inside I bought myself a shawarma and made my way up the six flights of stairs to the top tier. The away fans had around a quarter of the ground, and it seemed that most of them had brought a flag. Others had sneaked flares in with them, an impressive achievement given the body searches at the entrance gates, and we were treated to a display in the moments before kick-off.
Al-Ittihad settled first and seemed to have far too much space in the final third. They quickly went a goal up and then added a second on the half-hour.
Al-Hilal got a foothold after a VAR awarded goal where the keeper tried to push out a cross that ended up at his near post. The fans around me were adamant that it had crossed the line, but the players didn’t make much of a fuss. The action went on for a good three minutes before the ref received a whisper in his earpiece and belatedly pointed to the centre spot.
Surely a goal-line issue has to be settled quicker than that? There was an appeal for a pen just before half-time that was turned down but when the ref blew for the break everyone was wondering what would happen if three minutes later the VAR decided that it actually was a spot-kick? Do they come back out again? Or take it at the start of the second half?
In the second half Al-Hilal had the best of the possession and pushed for an equalizer, which finally came deep into added time when a header was saved but the rebound tucked away. The draw, plus Al-Nassr’s win, brought the title race back to life with just three points separating the top two and with three games to play.
An U19 fixture on the other side of town wouldn’t necessarily be something that I’d be overly interested in attending, particularly when it wasn’t scheduled to finish until well after ten-thirty. However, it was a chance to tick off another ground, my ninth in Saudi Arabia and all in Riyadh. That was enough to make me put in the effort and I took a taxi to the King Salman bin Abdul Aziz stadium. I’m not sure how widely used the name is and it might be more commonly known simply as the Al-Hilal stadium. Google Maps and Waze weren’t convinced by any of the names that I tried, and I ended up navigating by using the mosque next door as the destination.
On arrival I made a lap of the ground and nearly wandered into a basketball training session via the main entrance, but a group of young lads kindly directed me further around to the gate for the football.
It has been a while since the stadium was the regular home of the Al-Hilal first team. They currently turn out at the Prince Faisal stadium after having been booted out of Mrsool Park when Al-Nassr offered the landlord more cash. If they sign Messi, I suspect that they will be on the move again, to the sixty thousand capacity King Fahd ground.
This ground is ideal for youth games though, with a five thousand capacity and two stands, one covered, the other open. There’s no seating at either end behind the goals. I was in the covered stand, towards the back. If I’d been bothered, I could have removed a cover from one of the armchairs and sat in a bit of comfort, but I was happy enough with one of the tip-up seats.
I was soon joined by an old Egyptian bloke who showed me some clips on his phone of his son, Kareem, a striker for Al-Hilal. He was understandably very proud of his boy and from some of the goals on his highlight reel he looked a decent prospect. Kareem started up front, although he often dropped back into midfield to link up the play.
Visitors Al-Ohod took the lead after about half an hour and I was impressed by Kareem’s Dad applauding the goal. It wasn’t long before Al-Hilal equalized with a deflected shot and the teams went off at half-time level at one-each.
The game came to life a few minutes into the second half when the Al-Hilal left back picked up a second yellow card. Much to his Dad’s disappointment, it meant an early finish for Kareem too as he was sacrificed for a defender. On the hour Al-Hilal went down to nine men after another sending off. Their bench was apoplectic with the officials.
Al-Hilal still went for the winner despite being two players down. Their numerical disadvantage was soon halved as a last-ditch tackle from Al-Ohod on the edge of the box resulted in a straight DOGSO red. The Al-Hilal bench were happy enough over the sending-off but were adamant that it should have been a pen.
The home side continued to push for a second goal and with seven minutes of added time had their chances, including hitting the bar from a thirty-yard free kick. With nine additional minutes already gone there was another tackle in the Al-Ohod box. This time the penalty was given, and it was the turn of the visitors to berate the ref. It took four minutes for the situation to calm down and that’s without VAR.
The pen was dispatched, and the entire Al-Hilal staff and subs celebrated on the pitch as if they had won the World Cup. Within a few seconds of the eventual restart the ref finally brought the evening to an end.
Trail of the Lion King 