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Platinum Stars v Township Rollers, Saturday 11th July 2015, 10am

September 5, 2015

It’s difficult to know sometimes when one season ends and the next one starts. The promotion play-offs from the third tier hadn’t taken place yet so it felt as if it’s still 2014/15. However, with the new South African Premier League season just four weeks away, the Maize Cup certainly had the feel of pre-season about it.

It was a four-team tournament taking place at Moruleng which, by happy coincidence, is very close to Pilanesburg National Park. I’m not one to miss the opportunity of combining a visit to a new stadium with a drive around a national park and so we spent the afternoon in Pilanesburg looking at the wildlife.

Sometimes you see a lot, sometimes you don’t and this had been a fairly quiet day up until late on when half a dozen rhinos ambled past. Rhinos do a lot of ambling, but more often than not they do it out of sight. Or at least out of my sight. On this occasion though we were able to watch them make their way along the edge of a lake, no more than fifty yards ahead of us.

Prior to the rhinos, I think the most interesting thing we’d seen were some cormorants feeding their young. Or not so young. It seemed scarcely believable that the ‘chicks’ weren’t ready to feed themselves.

Earlier that day our forty rand tickets had entitled us to watch three games in the same stadium. Two semi finals at 10am and noon respectively, followed by the winners of those games meeting at five o’clock. With Pilanesburg beckoning, we were happy to stay for just the first of those matches, the clash between local Premier League side Platinum Stars and Township Rollers from over the border in Botswana.

Forty rand is generally the minimum pricing for a top-tier game in South Africa and so for those with the staying power the chance to see three games was pretty good value. As a further incentive we were also given a Maize Cup branded beanie and a bag of popcorn each. This almost made up for having our bottles of coke and water confiscated on the way in.

Moruleng Stadium is very similar to a lot of stadiums in this part of the world, with a single covered stand along one side and an open bowl around the remainder. There’s space for a running track, but it looked as if someone had forgotten to construct it.

We took up seats in the main stand to take advantage of the shade provided but the arrival of a brass band early in the first half meant that we didn’t spend long in them.

Rollers, in blue, took the lead after around twenty minutes and then added a second just before the break. They had brought a few hundred fans with them and in the second half we moved to the other side of the stadium on the basis that the fans would be quieter than the band.

Ten minutes from time Platinum Stars knocked in what I thought at the time was nothing more than a consolation goal. Five minutes later they had another and had forced a draw that had rarely seemed on the cards. The tournament schedule left no room for extra-time and so we went straight to penalties.

The momentum was with the home side and they won the shoot-out five-four, leaving the Rollers fans to drift out seven hours earlier than they’d been expecting to leave just a few minutes before. A chorus of “Bye Bye Baby” from the home support wouldn’t have gone amiss.

That evening we watched the final on the telly in our nearby hotel bar. I imagine that the Rollers fans will all have been back in Botswana by that time with the complimentary popcorn long gone.

Tags:Ambling rhinos, Maize Cup, Moruleng Stadium, platinum stars, Township Rollers
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Zimbabwe v Comoros, Sunday 21st June 2015, 3pm

August 29, 2015

The second game of our Zimbabwe trip was an African Nations Championship qualifier between Zimbabwe and Comoros. In case you were wondering, the African Nations Championship is a sort of little brother to the better known African Cup of Nations. It is limited to players currently turning out for a club in their home country whilst the bigger tournament is the one that causes your Ghanaian winger to disappear every second January for a month or so.

And if you were also wondering about Comoros, yes, it’s a real country. By my age I should really have heard of all of the countries in the world, but that one had passed me by. Too much emphasis on ox-bow lakes and the like in geography, I reckon.

The drive to the Rufaro stadium took us through some of Harare’s poorer areas and an enormous market where it looked as if you could buy anything you fancied. There was a coffin shop on one corner which, after seeing how the Zimbabweans drove their cars, probably did a roaring trade.

We’d chosen to hire a car despite the warnings that the Zimbabwean Police were likely to issue you with an on-the-spot fine every twenty yards for whatever reason they fancied. We didn’t have any trouble at all with them though and arrived at the Rufaro Stadium with a similar amount of dollars to that which we’d set out with.

There was more than an hour to go to kick-off and the area outside of the stadium was already busy with vendors selling food, drinks and national flags. There wasn’t a car park and so we had to leave the car by the side of the road in the care of a fella who assured us he’d take good care of it.

Tickets were two dollars each which I thought was pretty good value when you consider that we’d paid a dollar to watch a second division domestic game the previous day. However, there were also some ten dollar VIP tickets and so we thought we’d take a gamble that whatever undisclosed benefits they offered would be worth the uplift.

Initially they appeared poor value with the only noticeable difference between the concrete terracing in our stand and the other three stands was that we had a roof. Luxury indeed, although not really worth five times the price or remotely worthy of the VIP designation.

As the stand filled up with people who looked like they would have more pressing ways of spending the eight dollar differential between seats in the sun and the shade I started to wonder if we really were in the right place. We weren’t. The VIP section was downstairs and if we’d got there early enough then our ten dollar tickets would have allowed us to cushion the terracing with a thin mat.

We did get to sit right next to the Extremely Important Person Section which actually had armchairs in it. They were reserved for the various bigwigs from the Zimbabwean government and Football Association, some of whom, somewhat ungratefully, didn’t show up until well into the second half. Maybe they hadn’t been able to resist a browse around the coffin shop.

The rest of the thirty-five thousand capacity stadium had filled up nicely by that time, with probably around twenty-thousand fans in total spread over the stands.

The standard, as you might have expected, was a lot higher than the previous day’s game and Zimbabwe had a neat passing game on the artificial surface. They took the lead ten minutes in with a shot from the right.

It looked as if Zimbabwe might rattle up a hatful but despite the decent stuff in the build-up they were less than clinical in front of goal with one particularly wasteful miss sufficient to cause me to exchange wry smiles with a government minister to my left.

Comoros seemed quite happy to slow things down and keep the deficit to the single goal and their plan worked until the final minute when a scrappy home effort made the game safe. On the way out I was jostled in the crowd a couple of times as if someone was after my wallet, but I managed to hang on to it. The car was still there too, so overall I’d call the day a success.

Tags:CHAN, coffin shops, Comoros football, Rufaro stadium, Zimbabwe football
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Zimbabwe Republic Police v Ngezi Platinum, Saturday 20th June 2015, 3pm

August 19, 2015

It’s taken a while but we finally got around to visiting Zimbabwe, or at least got around to visiting Zimbabwe officially. We’d been in Kruger a few weeks earlier and whilst out walking one evening I’d waded across the Limpopo to stand on the Zimbabwean soil on the opposite bank.

There wasn’t much to see or do whilst stood there and so I waded back across before I got into trouble.

Illegal Immigrant.

This ‘official’ visit was much better. We flew to Harare and had three nights there before moving onto Bulawayo. The plan had been to catch the overnight train between the two cities but on arriving at Harare station we were informed that there were no sleeper compartments on that night’s train. We caught a flight instead.

Harare Station

We had a further three nights in Bulawayo, staying at the colonial style Bulawayo club. I’ve never seen so many sepia photographs of blokes with big whiskers. We then managed to make an overnight train journey to Victoria Falls. We’d been on the posh Blue Train in South Africa a few days earlier but this journey was very different.

The Zimbabwean train used carriages built in Birmingham in the 1950s and I doubt they’d been cleaned since. We booked a first class compartment designed for four people and whilst it was a bargain at a total of $48 I was never really comfortable. The guard warned us of gangs of thieves wandering the train and suggested that we double lock the door to try to prevent them jemmying their way in whilst we slept. I didn’t sleep as much as I might have done after that advice.

Bulawayo Station

The views through the window were spectacular though, or at least they were once I’d cleaned it. In defence of Zimbabweans and their railway, everyone we spoke to was very friendly and didn’t give the slightest hint that they might have murder or robbery in mind.

View from the window.

At Victoria Falls we did just as you’d imagine and watched the water cascading down. We took a boat trip down the Zambezi and Jen ran a Half Marathon in her second best time ever. So, all pretty good stuff.

Victoria Falls.

And what about the football? Well, we got to two games, both in Harare. The first one featured the Police team who are more commonly referred to by their previous name of the Black Mambas rather than their current official ZRP moniker. They play at the Morris Depot ground inside a police compound which was very conveniently situated around five minutes drive from our hotel.

We had to hand over our passports to the armed guards at the entrance, presumably to deter us from getting up to any mischief and then hand over a further dollar each to watch the game.

The Main Stand

Zimbabwe has used US dollars for a few years now after some pretty impressive inflation left their own currency virtually worthless.

In fact, whilst we were there, the banks were finally getting around to changing the old currency for the new at a rate of so many quadrillion Zimbabwean dollars to one US. We were frequently offered old notes and whilst I bought a few of them I didn’t manage to get a quadrillion dollar bill. The highest I got was a ten trillion dollar note. Hopefully their currency will recover someday and we can retire on it.

“This time next year, Rodney…”

The Morris Depot had a concrete terrace that went around one side and end with a run-down scaffolding-like stand built on top of it and a further stand opposite. It has a five thousand capacity but that wasn’t remotely threatened by the turnout for this game.

The pitch wasn’t in the best of condition with odd sections of grass that showed more growth than other parts of the playing area in a look reminiscent of those straggly areas that dogs have on their wrists.

View from the Main Stand.

The battered dugouts fitted in well with the rest of the surroundings, with smashed perspex providing the substitutes little respite from the wind.

It was the dugouts that provided the highlight of the first half when in an attempt to retrieve the ball from the Mambas area one of the away players pushed it so hard that he smashed most of what remained of the perspex. It led to the inevitable spell of ‘handbags’ before the lino intervened and made all of the subs sit down quietly, presumably with their hands on their heads.

A little maintenance required.

One of the home players hit the bar on the half hour but that was about as close as either side got to scoring. The standard wasn’t great but I suppose that was to be expected with it being a second tier game. All of the matches in the Premier league had been called off due to an international game that weekend.

Good save.

Neither side were able to break the deadlock and as we’d managed to avoid getting up to anything we weren’t supposed to, the armed guard on the gate was happy to give us back our passports on the way out.

Tags:Black Mambas, Ngezi Platinum, victoria falls overnight train., Zimbabwe football, ZRP
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Moretele Gunners v North West Shining Stars, Tuesday 16th June 2015, 3pm

July 24, 2015

I don’t often get to games on a Tuesday afternoon but I’d taken some time off work and extended the weekend to a far more preferable five days. It should be like that all of the time, two days a week at work is sufficient for anyone.

The third tier ABC Motsephe League game at Temba was the final event of a break that had started at Pretoria Station the previous Friday lunchtime. Jen and I travelled from there to Hoedspruit on the Blue Train. It’s very posh. We’d been on a Premier Classe train last year where we had a fancy sleeping compartment, but this was another level. In fact, it was so posh that I had to buy a tie in order to be permitted to have my dinner.

The journey eastwards could probably have been done in around four hours in a car, but it stretched to twenty hours on the train, stopping for what seemed like no good reason at any number of places on the way where locals on the way to or from work stared in though the window at over-dressed people glugging champagne.

It’s blue.

And whilst champagne is all very nice, it wasn’t the best part of the journey. Oh no, the best bit was having a bath in our cabin. A bath! On a train! Does life get any better than that? I don’t think it does.

The water slopped about a little at times as the train picked up speed but I didn’t care. I was hoping we’d pull in at a station just so people could see me lying there and then faint in shock at sight of someone having a bath on a train.

In the bath. On a Train.

Fresh from bathing on a train we spent the next three nights at the Thornybush Reserve, which borders Kruger. We had a bath there too, but it’s not the same as having one on a train. Where it did hold the advantage was in the wildlife.

There was so much good stuff around that we even had a lion wander into the camp to chase around and kill an impala on the decking where we ate lunch. We didn’t see it as we were still in bed a few yards away but we saw the still-warm aftermath when we got up for breakfast half an hour or so later.

Just like one of those CSI programmes off the telly

As for stuff we were out of bed for, the leopard was probably the best. We managed to get up close to one that was dozing in the shade when the guide drove his truck through a few bushes. I was amazed at how big it was. It had a head the size of a basketball.

It was more a yawn than a roar.

When basketball head tired of being stared at and wandered off we then managed to loop around to meet it and see it out in the open. Sighting of leopards have been pretty rare for us in our two years in Africa, the best we’d managed up to then was when a much smaller one paused for a couple of seconds, stared at us and then disappeared. This was much better.

Failing to conceal itself behind a tree.

After three days of similar stuff we flew from the tiny Hoedspruit Airport to the somewhat larger OR Tambo in Johannesburg. As I still had one more afternoon off work we headed for the Temba township an hour or so away up the N1 to squeeze in a match.

Most of the fixtures in the third tier ABC Motsephe League had been completed by this time of year but the North West Region had a backlog and they had used the public holiday to round off their season.

We actually been to the Temba Stadium a couple of weeks earlier, but it had been a wasted journey with the game having been called off at short notice. This time though we parked the car as the players were warming up on the pitch and the main stand was beginning to fill up.

Main Stand

I had a chat with a bloke who assumed that we were there in some sort of official capacity. When I revealed that we were just there to watch the game he commented “You must really like football then.” Fair assumption, I thought, considering that it was a meaningless end of season game in the lower leagues.

We took up a position on the back row of the bench seats and watched the fans come in. Most had a few cans of Castle, others a couple of large bottles of Hansa. It’s a public holiday. Football, beer and a seat in the sun. I doesn’t get much better than that. Unless there were leopards as well, that is. Or arriving on a train with a bath.

Refreshments.

The clock ticked around to three and the players continued to warm up. I wasn’t unduly concerned as games often start a little late, but with a desire to be out of town before dark I didn’t want too much of a delay. By three-thirty the warm-ups had gotten somewhat ragged with some of the players putting more effort into slapping each other than focusing on the drills.

Three forty five came and went, as did four o’clock. The problem, it transpired, was that there were no match officials. Did that matter I thought? Would it really be an issue if one of the staff reffed the game? At quarter past four the ref and his linesman pulled up in an old Corolla. They were partially changed and completed the process next to their car.

Eventually.

The crowd showed an impressive amount of patience as the linesman arsed around with their sock-ties. I doubt it would have been the same in England if Clattenburg had turned up a couple of hours late and then fannied around bosticking his wig to his head.

Eventually, everyone was on the pitch and ready. Or almost ready. One of the nets wasn’t quite properly fixed and so kick-off was delayed for another couple of minutes whilst the necessary repairs were made.

Sunday League memories.

The game eventually started at twenty five to five, a quarter of an hour or so before the time that it should have been finished.

View from the main stand.

I don’t usually include a lot of match detail in these posts, mainly because nobody cares, even me. After all, it’s not the Boro. This time though the lack of information is because we only saw the first ten minutes of action. Temba isn’t really a place to be after dark, especially when everyone has been drinking all day, and so we cleared off at the time I’d originally intended.

Some football.

Our plan for a daylight getaway was almost thwarted as someone had blocked our car in. Or at least they almost had. With some very careful manoeuvering I was able to reverse it through a gap with no more than a centimetre to spare on either side. Jen said it was the most impressive thing I’d done in the five years we’ve been together. I think that’s probably a compliment.

Tags:ABC Motsephe League, Blue Train, Moretele Gunners, North West Shining Stars
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CD Tortosa v CF Camarles, Sunday 31st May 2015, 5pm

July 22, 2015

After the play-off game in Tarragona it was back to Tortosa with the opportunity to see a further match that afternoon. One game a day is generally sufficient for Jen and so I went to this one by myself.

We were staying at the Parador that overlooks the town and it took less than half an hour to wander down the hill and over the river to the Estadi Municipal Josep Otero.

It’s not often we stay in a castle.

There wasn’t much going on in Tortosa on a Sunday teatime. I doubt there’s much goes on anywhere in Spain on a Sunday teatime and so it makes perfect sense to fill the void with a game of football.

The crowds gather.

The previous day’s fifth tier game at Lleida had been free admission so I was a little surprised that for a game in the sixth tier Catalana Segonda I was directed to the hole in the wall that served as a ticket office. I was further surprised to be charged ten euros, the same price as at the third tier play-off game at Tarragona earlier that day. I suppose they know fine well that there isn’t much else for people to do once they’ve finished their lunch.

And a discount on my tea.

I’ve no idea who Josep Otero was (or is) but the stadium named after him had a seven row covered stand along one side and open terracing along the other. There were offices behind one goal and five a side pitches behind the other.

The view from (and along) the main stand.

Most people sat in the main stand and as tends to be the way in Spain almost all of them knew everyone else and spent the first few minutes after their arrival greeting each other. I wondered how many games I’d have to go to before I’d get kissed on both cheeks by half the crowd. Not many I suspect.

The fans on the opposite side of the pitch appeared to be Camarles fans. You don’t have to travel very far in the Catalana Segonda league and assuming that they were actually from Camarles then they will have had a twenty minute drive along the C-42.

Camarles fans.

Tortosa were dressed up as Stoke whilst the visitors were sporting something similar to a Barcelona kit. The standard was pretty good when you consider that there are over a thousand clubs playing at a higher level in the Spanish pyramid system. Both sides managed to keep the ball well on the artificial pitch.

Stoke v Barca.

One thing that could have been improved upon was the number of goals. Not the number of goals scored, but the amount of goalposts situated around the pitch. We had a pair intended for smaller cross-field games that weren’t too bad but the additional set behind each goal made it look like some sort of experimental trial into whether the excitement level could be raised by allowing teams to score into more than one goal.

Part of what could have been described as a six goal thriller.

As far as the action went, there weren’t many chances. The visitors broke the deadlock early on when one of their strikers spun his defender, picked the correct set of posts and fired Camarles into the lead.

View from behind a goal.

That one strike was sufficient to clinch the win in a meaningless end of season fixture. The celebrations at the end suggested that victory meant far more to the visiting fans than I’d have expected in the circumstances. There’s probably a bit of rivalry going on that I’m not aware of.

With the game over I retraced my steps back through the town and up the hill to the Parador.

Tags:camarles, Spanish football, tortosa
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Gimnastic de Tarragona v Huesca, Sunday 31st May 2015, Noon.

July 13, 2015

Another day, another game. This time in Tarragona, about an hour’s drive from Tortosa. Or rather an hour’s drive to where the satnav reckoned the stadium was and then another hour’s drive around town trying to find the actual location.

The Nou Estadi was actually built in 1972, so not very new at all really. I wonder when it will just be known as the Estadi? And you’d think that after forty-odd years someone might have got around to erecting a sign or two pointing out where it is.

We eventually spotted the ground five minutes before the noon kick-off but by then all the nearby parking had been taken and we ended up having to walk from about a mile away.

The not so Nou Estadi

We were able to buy ten euro tickets for the uncovered stand along the side and by the time we had undergone the searches and taken our seats the game was already half an hour old.

It’s 1.40 to the pound these days, so that’s about seven quid.

There was a decent crowd with the other three sides of the sixteen thousand capacity stadium apparently full. We had the Huesca fans at the opposite end of our section and a fair bit of space around us. For those who didn’t fancy coughing up their ten euros for a ticket the view from the road above the stadium afforded a decent view, certainly better than that of the away fans at St James’ Park.

View from the right of the Preferente Superior

View from the left end of the Preferent Superior

Whilst the previous day’s game at Lleida had been a fairly meaningless end-of-season fixture, this one had a lot more riding on the result. Gymnastic and Huesca had each finished top of their respective Segunda B divisions and were playing each other for a place in the second tier. This was the second leg, with the first game at Huesca having finished 0-0.

It’s a strange system. The four regional winners meet in two semi-finals, of which the two winners are promoted and go on to play each other for the overall divisional championship. The two losers drop into a further play-off that also involves the second, third and fourth placed teams in the leagues.

Looking the other way from our seats.

Nastic were in Man Utd kits, whilst Huesca could have passed for Jeonbuk Motors in their green and black strips. The games had been goalless when we arrived and it remained that way as we reached half-time.

The home side took the lead soon after the restart with a long-range daisy cutter from Lago that struck both posts before rolling over the line.

The goal understandably upped the tension and it boiled over when a Huesca player declined to give the ball back from a throw in after the Nastic keeper had put the ball out for a Huesca injury. The header from Rocha that put Nastic two up moments later raised tempers even further amongst the visiting players and they had Manolin sent off for what I believe is termed non-specific skullduggery.

Man Utd v Jeonbuk Motors.

At that point you’d have thought it was all over and Huesca might have turned their thoughts and energy to the next bout of play-offs, but they kept pushing forwards despite being two goals and a man down. I couldn’t help but contrast their efforts with those of the Boro at Wembley six days earlier where I’d thought that we seemed to accept our defeat far too early in proceedings.

At eighty minutes it really was all over when substitute Jiminez broke free and chipped the keeper from twenty yards to make it three-nil. The players celebrated as if they’d just been promoted, which I suppose they had. Huesca kept going to the end though and notched a consolation with a couple of minutes to go.

Final Score.

The win for Gimnastic secured the main prize of a place in the second tier and a two-legged tie with Real Oviedo to determine the overall Segunda B Championship.

Tags:Gimnastic de Tarragona, Huesca, Segunda B, Spanish football
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Lleida Esportiu B v Amposta, Saturday 30th May 2015, Noon.

July 11, 2015

Whilst the Boro’s play-off defeat had brought the domestic season to an end in England there was still plenty of football going on elsewhere and a three day break in Spain on the way back to South Africa gave me the opportunity to take in some games.

Jen and I were staying in Tortosa, a small town about seventy-odd miles from Barcelona. There wasn’t any information in the papers on the fixtures in the fifth tier Primera Catalana leagues but I was able to glean enough from the internet to find a game in nearby Lleida. Nearby that is, if a two hour drive counts as nearby.

We drove over and occasionally through a variety of scenic hills, passing Riba Roja on the way. I recognised the area as I’d stayed there with my son around ten years ago on a fishing holiday. As usual he caught more than me but he generously allowed me to share the glory in the photo with the catfish.

His hair is better these days.

Lleida is a lot bigger and busier than Tortosa but we made it through the Saturday morning traffic and reached the satnav destination of Ave Dr Fleming without too much trouble. Lleida’s main stadium, the Camp d‘Esportes was in sight and we soon found the practice pitch nearby where the B team matches take place.

There wasn’t anyone taking money so we just sat on one of the two small stands down the side of the pitch. It wasn’t surprising that it was free entry as there was an unimpeded view from all four sides. Most people had chosen to sit on the benches where we were but there were maybe twenty or so fans watching from the elevated area behind the goal to our left and a handful more who had parked opposite us and were watching from a roadside position.

Fans behind the goal.

There was a fella who had a stack of team sheets and he very kindly gave us one. It turned out that he was the media bloke from the club and we chatted a little about Lleida’s season. He asked us why we were there and seemed impressed that we had no reason other than an enjoyment of watching football. I kept quiet about the two hour drive from Tortosa as I felt that might just tip us into the weirdo category.

Teamsheet

Lleida were in Italy strips with visitors Amposta in black and white. The fixture was about as meaningless as they come with it being the final game of the season and with neither side in contention for either promotion or relegation.

The view from the benches.

Both teams played some decent football in the first half, keeping possession well, but Lleida had the edge. Ruiz opened the scoring after ten minutes when he headed home from about six inches out. Another header, this time from Noel doubled their lead before Trota put the hosts three up just before the break.

As there didn’t seem to be any facilities at the ground we nipped around the corner to a bar for some half-time refreshment.

We rarely do this in South Africa.

I watched the second half from behind the goal. It was a decent vantage point but the game suffered from the frequent substitutions. At this level teams can bring on up to five replacements and both sides took full advantage of the rules to give as many players as they could a run out. Lleida even changed their keeper.

View from behind the goal.

Becerra scored a late consolation for the visitors, but it was of little consequence. The Amposta players didn’t even bother grabbing the ball and sprinting back for the restart.

Dugouts to the left.

The victory left Lleida in a mid table finish with Amposta a point ahead of them but still well-shy of the play-off positions. After a lunch that was late by our standards but probably still counted as breakfast time to the locals we headed back across the hills to Tortosa.

Tags:Amposta, Lleida, Riba Roja, Spanish football
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Middlesbrough v Norwich City, Monday 25th May 2015, 3pm

July 5, 2015

Well, would you believe it? I’d had a week-long trip to the UK booked since last September and it ended up coinciding with a trip to Wembley. Not just any trip to Wembley either, but the Boro in the play-off final.

I’d been hoping that we’d go up automatically but realistically there were eight teams that had similar prospects. Derby failing to even make the play-offs showed how tight it was at the top and in the end fourth place was fair enough.

Getting tickets wasn’t too difficult and within an hour of them going on general sale I had the four I needed for myself, my son and two of his mates. They were all heading down a day early for the Trafalgar Square pre-match party but as I’d rented a house in Whitby and had four generations of family staying I limited myself to driving there and back on the day of the game.

The grandkids.

A pre-5am start to beat the Bank Holiday traffic meant that I was parked up in what looked like the last remaining spot at Stanmore Station by around half-past nine and a contactless credit card meant that I could skip the queues of fans buying their day-return tickets.

As I wasn’t drinking I had no intention of arriving at Wembley five hours in advance of the game and so I stayed on the tube until West Hampstead instead, as that seemed like the sort of place that I might be able to while away some time.

It was as I’d anticipated and I spent a couple of hours reading the paper in what I presumed was a trendy coffee shop, although as far as I know Flat Whites and Tall Blacks might have gone out of fashion five years ago. Maybe they are even ironically offered retro-drinks these days.

With a bit more time to kill I had a wander in the direction of Swiss cottage. It’s a nice enough leafy suburb and the sort of place that I’d have been content to have lived at sometime if I‘d ever had the spare two or three million quid necessary for a house there. I spotted an old Volvo parked outside of one of the houses. It was the same model that I’d owned in the last days of my first marriage twenty odd years ago. Some lives you never get around to living, others you are happy to leave behind.

Mine was slightly older than that one.

Before long it was time to get back on the tube to Wembley. My carriage was full this time, mainly with Norwich fans singing anti-Ipswich songs. I paused at the subway exit and looked down Wembley Way, partly to take in the view but mainly to try to reconcile what I could see with my recollections of the place.

View from the station

As hard as I tried I couldn’t match the current surroundings with my memories. I first went to the national stadium in 1975 on a school trip to watch England schoolboys before taking in a few full internationals in the eighties. I’d been to the previous four Boro games at the stadium but I suppose the last of those was seventeen years ago and so maybe it’s no wonder that the surroundings seemed unfamiliar. Perhaps I was approaching from a different direction.

View from 1975.

A quick lap of the ground and I was in my seat in block 538 for a pie and a coffee, the kids warm up game and Me Mark Page. It seems as if there is no respite from that fuckwit. If only someone could find him a Saturday daytime slot on hospital radio somewhere.

Tom and his mates arrived shortly before kick-off having spent the previous twenty-four hours preparing for the game in a manner that I don’t think my liver is cut out for these days. He thinks he’s a bit of a Jonah having seen us lose four finals. I had to remind him that a lot of the Boro fans in the crowd will have seen those plus the Zenith Data Systems game twenty-five years ago. He was only six months old when we’d lost that one so I’d thought it sensible to leave him at home that time.

View from Block 538.

And the game? If I said it was Typical Boro then you‘ll know how it went. We didn’t play as well as Norwich and they deserved their victory. We’ve struggled this season to get back into games whenever we’ve gone behind and overcoming a two goal deficit was never on the cards.

I left as the clock ticked around to ninety minutes and was on the M1 by half past five, leaving the defeat further behind me with every passing mile. It was time to look to next season.

Tags:Middlesbrough FC, Norwich, Play-off final, Wembley
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Mamelodi Sundowns v Ajax Cape Town, Saturday 16th May 2015, 3pm

July 2, 2015

I’d seen games at all of the 2010 World Cup stadiums bar one, although at two of them it was rugby rather than football. The Nelson Mandela Bay stadium in Port Elizabeth was the missing entry on my list and so the decision to host the 2015 Nedbank Cup Final there turned out to be a pleasant surprise.

On the plane.

I should have seen a game at the stadium a couple of months earlier and had gone as far as booking an afternoon off work, flights and a hotel to coincide with a Friday evening Chippa United game. However, as so often happens the date was changed shortly before it was due to take place and whilst we had a nice enough weekend in Port Elizabeth, we didn’t see any football.

We did get to spend some time in Addo Elephant Park on that previous visit and it was good enough for us to want to do the same again this time. The decision was made easy by the memories of a lion sauntering along the road past our car.

Too close to fit the photo.

We also stumbled across a herd, or multiple herds, of elephants that had to be close to one hundred and fifty strong. We’ve seen big herds in various National Parks in the past, but nothing to that extent.

I suppose it is an elephant park.

On that first visit we also did some hiking in an area of the park that had no animals with big teeth. It had plenty of spiders though and as we were the first people on the Zuurberg Trail that morning we unwittingly broke numerous webs with our faces.

Just as well it didn’t have big teeth.

The highlight of Addo Elephant Park second time around was getting extremely close to some elephants. Close enough that if anything had gone wrong we’d have been the latest wildlife-related mishap to have featured in the Darwin Awards.

On one occasion we were parked next to dense undergrowth and we could hear the elephants eating their way through it until they emerged a few feet ahead of us. A little further along the track I pulled up just before a path crossed the road and waited for the elephant walking along it to cross in front of us. I held my breath as it paused within touching distance of the car as if to consider whether to flip us into a ditch.

There wasn’t much dispute over Right of Way.

And so to the match. The Chiefs and Pirates had both been knocked out of the Nedbank Cup in the quarter-finals, opening the door to Mamelodi Sundowns and Ajax Cape Town. We had a bit of excitement on the way to the ground when the car behind drove into us. There was minimal damage to our hire car and with the rear bumper easily pushed back into position we shook hands and left it at that.

As we spoke to people on the way to the stadium I was amazed at the number of fans of the Chiefs and Pirates that were at the game. They were temporarily supporting Ajax in the hope that the Sundowns wouldn’t pick up a trophy. It seemed all too bitter to me. Whilst I’d prefer Newcastle or Sunderland not to win anything I doubt I’d go to the trouble of turning up and cheering for their opposition. Unless, of course, the opposition was us.

On the way in.

We had posh eighty rand (four quid) seats in the tunnel side stand, but there looked to be just as much room and a good enough view from the forty rand general admission areas elsewhere. It was cold though and I looked enviously at the people who had picked up free scarfs on the way in.

The more vocal of the fans were in the stand opposite to us with the Sundowns supporters taking up positions closer to the pitch whilst those from Cape Town were further up towards the back.

No segregation necessary.

It was a fairly even game with both teams limiting the amount of decent chances on offer and it was goalless at the ninety minute mark. As a freezing cold neutral I’d have been happy with a last minute winner for either side, but it wasn’t to be.

View to the left.

Extra-time brought little difference and as we neared the final whistle both teams seemed content to play for penalties.

Some rare goalmouth action.

It all looked to be going well for Ajax in the shoot-out with, if I remember rightly, them being 3-1 ahead with just two penalties remaining for each side. Defeat for the Sundowns was so close that the Pirates fan next to me got me in a bear hug and kissed me. I was grateful for the warmth and appreciated the lack of tongues.

Hat of the Day.

As so often happens though, the big team wins. Ajax missed their remaining two chances to seal the victory and Sundowns drew level before clinching the trophy in the sudden death penalty phase. The fella next to me had slunk away at 3-3, no doubt to avoid the prospect of being kissed by any of the celebrating Sundowns fans.

Tags:Addo Elephant Park, Ajax Cape Town, mamelodi sundowns, Nedbank Cup Final, Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium
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Platinum Stars v Mamelodi Sundowns, Sunday 22nd March 2015, 3pm

April 23, 2015

This weekend started with the second of Jen’s races. It was a half-marathon this time at Hartbeespoort and with a 6.20am start we spent the night before in a hotel near to the start line.

The early morning melee seemed a bit chaotic to me with 50k, 10k and 5k races all taking place in addition to the half marathon. To make matters worse, lots of runners arrived late and were forced to fight their way through the people lining up for the next race just to make the start line. I know that there will be people who have put a lot of time and effort into organising the event but it seemed to me that the best solution would be to have four separate events spread over the year. People could even run all four races that way.

Anyway, once the half marathon was underway I retired to MacDonalds to read the paper before returning to the finish to see Jen record a personal best time.

And they’re off!

Once the race was over we headed off to Pilanesberg National Park. The highlight of the first day was watching a couple of jackals feeding on a bird at one of the lakes. They didn’t want to share, meaning that the dominant one spent as much time chasing away the other one as it did eating his dinner.

The second jackal had just started eating when a group of elephants drinking nearby decided that they’d rather the jackal wasn’t there and by advancing in a tightly packed group, chased it away. The jackal wasn’t prepared to leave the bird though and backed away to the required distance pulling the carcass with it.

Jackal and its dinner.

Next morning at the same lake we spent some time watching baboons climbing a tree and then jumping into the water. Some were happy to be doing it just for the fun of the splash whilst some were trying to push others into the water. There would be the odd chase or fight but it was mostly just leaping into the lake for the fun of it. I half expected one of them to shout “Geronimo“ on the way in.

“Geronimo”

On the way back home from Pilanesberg we called in at the Royal Bafokeng Stadium for the Nedbank Cup last sixteen game between Platinum Stars and Mamelodi Sundowns. It’s a ground that I’d been to before, for a game between New Zealand and Slovakia in the 2010 World Cup, but oddly I didn’t realise this until afterwards.

In fact, I spent the game wondering why the ground I was in hadn’t been used for the World Cup when it looked so similar to the nearby stadium with the almost identical name that I falsely recalled from five years ago. In my defence we did approach it from a different direction and sat in other areas of the stands, but even so. Maybe it’s old age.

On the way in.

We parked on a field a couple of hundred yards away which was filling up with Sundowns fans. There wasn’t much in the way of security and with our weekend bags visible in the back of the car I wasn’t all that confident that they would still be there when we got back.

We were thoroughly searched on the way in and ended up two bottles of coke and a chocolate bar down. What’s the point of taking a chocolate bar from someone? Would they do it to a small child?

Hat of the Day

There were still ten minutes to kick-off when we took our seats in the middle tier of the main stand. At that stage there were probably more fans outside than there were in the stadium. Nobody, except us, ever seems in a hurry to get into games over here and there were still people turning up well into the second half. We saw a group of kids who had been in the parking field when we arrived finally reach their seats twenty minutes in. Perhaps they’d been arguing over having their chocolate confiscated.

View from the main stand

The Sundowns fans were congregated opposite us and made up the majority of the three or four thousand crowd. They made plenty of noise though, keeping up the singing all game.

The Platinum Stars support was harder to spot. They had a few fans up near us, but there were as many Chiefs and Pirates shirts as their own. It was only on the twenty five minute mark when their brass band turned up that the home fans started to get behind their team.

The Boys in the Band

We changed seats for the second half, braving the risk of rain to sit further round in the open section. When the rain eventually arrived we nipped downstairs and took up seats in the back row of the lower tier, under the overhang. That’s one of the advantages of small crowds.

The main stand

And the game? Well, Sundowns looked the better side. They always do look the better side in those Brazil strips. They took the lead on the half hour before Stars levelled close to half-time. With the prospect of extra time looming, Sundowns settled matters with two goals in the last few minutes.

Chiefs and Pirates both went out of the competition the previous day and Sundowns will no doubt fancy their chances of picking up the cup.

Tags:Hartbeespoort half marathon, mamelodi sundowns, nedbank cup, pilanesberg, platinum stars
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Trail of the Lion King

Archive for the ‘Football’ Category

Platinum Stars v Township Rollers, Saturday 11th July 2015, 10am

Zimbabwe v Comoros, Sunday 21st June 2015, 3pm

Zimbabwe Republic Police v Ngezi Platinum, Saturday 20th June 2015, 3pm

Moretele Gunners v North West Shining Stars, Tuesday 16th June 2015, 3pm

CD Tortosa v CF Camarles, Sunday 31st May 2015, 5pm

Gimnastic de Tarragona v Huesca, Sunday 31st May 2015, Noon.

Lleida Esportiu B v Amposta, Saturday 30th May 2015, Noon.

Middlesbrough v Norwich City, Monday 25th May 2015, 3pm

Mamelodi Sundowns v Ajax Cape Town, Saturday 16th May 2015, 3pm

Platinum Stars v Mamelodi Sundowns, Sunday 22nd March 2015, 3pm

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