Trail of the Lion King

Hwaseong are one of this season’s new teams in the fourth tier Challengers League. They don’t really play in Hwaseong though, more in the middle of nowhere to the south-east of the city. I’d been hiking on the morning of the game down past Taean and managed to catch a bus to nearby Suwon.

Jen had written down the full address of the Hwaseong stadium in Korean for me and the taxi driver was able to successfully enter the details in his satnav. It showed a journey of around 17km and thirty five minutes. Forty minutes later we were driving at walking pace along farm tracks. I was sure that we were lost and kept showing him a photo of the brand new stadium at Hwaseong. The driver remained equally convinced that the ground would be just around the next corner. He pointed out a hand-written sign stuck to a gatepost that apparently confirmed his belief.

He was right. We turned one more corner and the stadium appeared from nowhere.

That’s part of the main stadium in the background.

The delay in getting there meant that I’d missed the opening twenty minutes. I’d also missed four goals as the score was two apiece. Bugger.

The practice pitch main stand.

The game was on the practice pitch rather than the main stadium, but it was very impressive despite the almost obligatory running track. There was only one stand, but that’s all that was needed. I didn’t notice any fans from visitors Gyeongju, but there were around five hundred home supporters, most of them decked out in what I imagine were complimentary orange scarves.

Hanwha Eagles will want their inflatable sticks back..

Hwaseong were in orange whilst Gyeongju wore their white shirt with the red and green stripes. I’d barely arrived when a Gyeongju forward chased a long ball and put his side three-two ahead.

It was a ridiculously open game with play rapidly switching from one penalty area to the other. Both sides spurned plenty of chances to score until with a couple of minutes to go to half time a Hwaseong striker got clear and slide the ball under the body of the advancing keeper to bring his side level.

Gyeongju on the attack.

A few minutes later the ref blew for half time and to my surprise the players all slumped to the floor. It soon became clear that I hadn’t arrived midway through the first half of a 3pm kickoff game, but midway through the second half of a match that had started at 2pm. Well that would explain the open nature of the game and me having missed four goals. Double bugger as they say. I filed out and went to have a look around the main stadium. Very nice it is, hopefully I’ll get to see a match there sometime.

The real Hwaseong stadium.

As for getting back to Seoul, I took a cab to Osan station. It took half an hour and cost 15,000 won. I then stood for an eighty minute subway ride back to Yeoksam. If you are going to Hwaseong for the football I’d recommend catching a cab from Osan rather than Suwon. Apart from it being cheaper it’s a much more direct route on busy roads and you won’t piss the farmers off anything like as much.

The point each was enough to keep Hwaseong in second place in Group B, whilst Gyeongju climbed to third in the table.

Wednesday was a public holiday so I knocked off work early on Tuesday afternoon and Jen and I caught the train to Singyeongju. It’s the newish KTX station on the edge of Gyeongju and it means that you can be there in not much more than two hours from Seoul. You’ve then got to take a cab into town but it still makes it a lot quicker than getting the train to the old Gyeongju station or catching a bus.

Our cab dropped us at the bus terminal where they are plenty of motels. We went for the Dollar Motel, although at 50,000 won its name was somewhat misleading. For our money we got a smart room, fast wi-fi and a packet of condoms carefully presented in a stand on the bedside table.

The Dollar Motel, Gyeongju.

The following afternoon we walked for half an hour up to the stadium. We’d been there as recently as six weeks ago to watch an FA Cup first round game featuring fourth tier Gyeongju Citizen and so it would have been a little disappointing if we’d managed to get lost.

Photobombed by an old lady and her dog.

Gyeongju Hydro and Nuclear Power moved to Gyeongju at the start of the season. Previously they had been Daejeon Hydro and Nuclear Power. I’ve a feeling that with a team already playing in Gyeongju then the new fellas are unlikely to attract many locals. Not to worry though, there’s always the option of busing in one hundred and fifty employees for a team-building day out.

Whilst if I had worked there I wouldn’t be too keen on giving up my public holiday, I can think of worse team-building activities than an afternoon at the football. As you would expect, they all showed commendable enthusiasm, waving flags, banging inflatable sticks together, blowing vuvuzelas and proudly wearing matching tee shirts.

“We all love our jobs!!”

I’d estimate there were another seventy or so people sat in the main stand apart from those seeking to improve their career prospects and that left the rest of the bowl to Jen and I. We’d watched the first of the new seats being installed six weeks ago and now that it was finished it looked very impressive. Completely pointless, but impressive nevertheless.

Never to be sat on.

Hydro Nuclear Power were in red shirts and shorts whilst Yongin wore all blue with a red trim. The teams seemed fairly evenly matched over the opening half hour, although with them occupying third and fourth places in the table I suppose that’s not too surprising.

Ten minutes before half time the ref awarded the home side what I thought to be a fairly dodgy penalty. We then had a four minute hold up whilst the ref and fourth official argued with the Yongin bench. Eventually one of the coaches was sent to the stand.

Off you go.

The Yongin keeper then added to the delay by walking twenty yards away from the goal and adjusting every bit of kit he had on. He just stopped short of removing his socks and trimming his toenails.

Eventually Ju Song hwan sent the keeper the wrong way to open the scoring.

One – Nil.

At half time most of the people on the team-building exercise disappeared and we didn’t see them again until the game was nearly over. I presume that they wouldn’t want to have to walk home or miss the roll call on the bus.

Gyeongju had the better chances early on in the second half, Yu Joon Soo going close with a shot that was deflected out for a corner.

A few minutes later the coach who had been sent off in the first half was spotted back on the bench and so received his marching orders for the second time. Having shown that he couldn’t be trusted to stay in the stands he was sent to the changies instead. Unfortunately the door was locked and so a compromise was reached whereby he could loiter at one of the stadium exits and smoke a fag.

And stay away this time.

Yongin upped their efforts as time ran out whilst the Gyeongju players did their best to take the sting out of the game by rolling around on the floor for a minute or two every time one of the opposition got within a yard of them.

The visitors almost equalised in the final minute when Jeong Hui Jin found himself clear on goal but he tamely rolled his shot straight at the keeper.

Yongin on the attack.

At the final whistle the HNP employees celebrated as if they’d just  been told that they could spend the next public holiday with their families. The result kept Gyeongju in third place and dropped Yongin down to fifth.

I’ve been to this stadium at least twice in the past to see Goyang KB. They don’t exist anymore though and so it meant a repeat trip to see the new K2 League tenants, Goyang Hi. It’s pretty straightforward finding the place, you just take Line 3 as far as you can in the direction of Daewha and the stadium is about a hundred yards further down the road.

Nice new banner.

It’s nine thousand won to get in. I’m not really sure about how successful clubs in the second tier will be at charging for admission. On the one hand I’m sure they are trying to portray the event as something of value whilst on the other they are competing with the K-League proper as well as baseball and basketball which charge similar prices but take place in front of much bigger crowds.

99% empty.

Goyang had attracted around four hundred fans which whilst poor for the league they are in still struck me as a reasonable turnout. They were spread around the forty thousand capacity stadium, most in the main stand with a handful behind the goal. There were a couple of extremely vocal foreigners just along from us, their shouts of “Come On Goyang” making a welcome change from the more traditional “Goyang Fighting!”

Goyang fans behind the goal.

The Army team had brought thirty or so fans with them. Some of them may have been the parents or grandparents of the players, others perhaps Korean War veterans showing their support for the military, some more than likely thinking that they’d signed up for a bus tour to the Azalea fields. Whatever, they seemed to be enjoying themselves with their drums and monk bells.

Oldest fans ever.

And the game? Nothing much happened in the first half whilst in the second Goyang had more of the better chances with their right-winger Yu Man Gi posing the main threat.

It was Sangmu that opened the scoring though with twenty minutes left. A cross from the left found the keeper on the wrong side of the ball and as he dived back towards his goal he could only palm the ball into the net.

Yu Man Gi levelled for the home side ten minutes later, bursting into the box and burying his shot into the far corner.

It’s like Maradona and the Belgians all over again.

Goyang almost sneaked it at the death when Yu Man Gi cut inside again but just failed to keep the ball in play before sending his cross over.

The two points dropped by Sangmu saw them fall from second to third whilst the point gained by Goyang took them off the bottom and up to the dizzy heights of seventh place.

This was the second of the three matches that I saw in a fifteen minute groundhopper frenzy. It took place at Icheon Practice Pitch B and featured a couple of schoolgirl teams, Da Hang Gge and Seol Bong. As with the game that I’d just left on the Practice Pitch A, it was part of the 8th Annual Icheon Tournament. Or at least I think it was, it would have been a bit odd though if fourteen year old girls were to take on a team of eighteen year old lads later in the tournament.

Icheon Practice Pitch B

The standard wasn’t up to much, with most of the players tending to chase after the ball rather than keeping to anything that resembled a formation. They all seemed to be enjoying themselves though and I suppose that’s what matters.

I’ve not seen very much women’s football over the years. In fact the only game I can remember seeing live was the German Cup Final in 2009. I was in Berlin to pay for a house that I’d bought on ebay after coming home pissed and discovered that the cup final was taking place at the Olympic Stadium that weekend. The men’s cup final that is. By holding up a cardboard sign, I managed to get a ticket from a fella that had a spare and once inside I discovered that they play the women’s final as a curtain-raiser to the main game.

The standard was decent, as you might have expected, although I thought that it was a shame that more people hadn’t got there early enough to give the match a bit more of an atmosphere.

Olympic Stadium, Berlin.

There wasn’t much of a crowd at the Icheon Practice Pitch B either, but a fair proportion of the ones who had turned up made some noise with the inflatable sticks that you see at the baseball games.

Perhaps they were in detention.

I paid even less attention to this game than I had to the one next door and so couldn’t tell you which team was which or even what the score was. Don’t suppose it matters really.

This post is pretty much for the hardcore groundhoppers. Or, I suppose, anyone who googles Jeil High School. Or maybe even Zen.

I’d arrived at Icheon’s stadium for their game against Busan Transportation when I heard shouts and a referee’s whistle coming from a nearby pitch. A closer inspection revealed games were taking place on both Icheon Practice Pitches. Now if that’s not groundhopper heaven I don’t know what is.

Icheon Practice Pitch A

First up on Icheon Practice Pitch A was a game between Jeil High School and Zen. One team was in red, the other blue. I couldn’t tell you which was which though. What I did find out was that the match was part of the 8th Annual Icheon Tournament, if that’s any use.

There was a sizeable crowd, maybe a hundred or so, most of whom were sat in the stand that ran a fair way along one side. Quite a few of them were in their football togs so I imagine that those fellas were playing later in the day.

About as many fans as at a Seongnam match.

I watched for a few minutes from behind the goal and because there was nobody to tell me not to, took a few photos with my camera poked through the netting. I rarely get to do that at other games.

From inside the goal.

Nothing more to tell you really, except that it was nil-nil when I arrived and still nil-nil when I left a few minutes later. Shortest post ever I suspect.

The second round of the FA Cup is the stage where the teams from the third tier National league come in to the competition. I hadn’t yet seen Gangneung play a home game so their tie against Honam University seemed an ideal opportunity to put that right.

The evening kick-off meant that Jen and I had been able to fit in a hike in the nearby Odaesan National Park before catching a bus from Jinbu to Gangneung. There are plenty of motels around the bus terminal and we were sorted with a place to stay by tea-time.

I pointed out the restaurant where I’d been served what I’d thought was raw liver soup last time I’d been here only to be told that it’s a place that specialises in blood clot soup. Wonderful. Somewhere to avoid later on then.

At six o’clock I took a taxi to the ground, it’s only a couple of miles away from the bus terminal and the fare wasn’t much above the minimum. There’s not a lot going on around the stadium that Gangneung share with K-League Gangwon and it actually took me longer to find somewhere to buy some beer than it had to get there.

Home of both Gangwon and Gangneung.

I took a seat right on the half-way line, behind a girl’s middle-school football team. How could I be so precise? Well, they’d parked their bus outside. I’ve never been to a school that had anything more than a mini-bus between the whole school, certainly not a coach dedicated to just one of their sports teams.

They don’t know they’re born.

In addition to the school kids, we had about another three hundred people or so dotted around the stadium. There were fifteen home ultras with a drum behind the goal and judging by the cheering whenever the students went on the attack, a fair few parents in the seats around me.

The Gangneung hardcore.

Gangneung were dressed up as Chelsea, whilst Honam were wearing a red and white Adidas kit reminiscent of the one that the Boro wore around 1983. No surprises as to which team I’d be cheering on in this game then.

The home side had the best of the opening twenty minutes, although Honam had a couple of chances on the break. It was noticeable just how much better the National League side were at ‘earning’ free-kicks. The slightest contact would result in the victim going to ground and the referee blowing for the foul. One of the Honam players tried to get in on the diving  but was lucky to escape a yellow for his ‘Best Man Dead’ effort.

Gangneung’s superiority paid off ten minutes before half-time when a high cross into the box was headed back across the goal, dropping over the line just inside the far post. It didn’t take Honam long to equalise though, the chance coming from a ball played through to their right-winger on the edge of the area. He had enough time to take a touch, glance across at the linesman to make sure he was onside and then sidefoot it home in the way that Bernie Slaven did so often. There wasn’t a Holgate fence for him to climb on, but he looked happy enough with his goal.

The posh seats.

At half-time we had a few fireworks going off outside the stadium. Perhaps they’d only just got the news about Thatcher.

Gangneung continued to dominate after the break, although both sides were playing good, fast passing football and creating chances. The home side hit the bar from a direct free-kick, whilst the visitors almost scored on the hour with a shot that just drifted past the post.

Nothing to see here.

As we approached the end of normal time Honam seemed quite happy to take the draw, perhaps with one eye on eventual penalties. They managed to hang on until the final whistle and take the tie into extra-time. I was out of beer at this point and so called it a night, heading back into town to meet Jen for something to eat at anywhere that didn’t specialise in blood clot soup.

A quick check the following day revealed that Gangneung had got a second goal to give them the victory and take them into the third round.

Gimpo is one of the new clubs in this season’s fourth tier Challengers League and last Saturday I thought I’d go along and watch them take on the previous year’s champions, Pocheon. The Gimpo City Stadium didn’t seem to be the easiest place to get to as I couldn’t find a subway station anywhere near the ground, however I had been told that there’s a bus that runs from Gangnam to Gimpo City Hall, which is close enough. I don’t often take the local buses due to the increased likelihood of my ballsing things up but on this occasion it worked fine.

For reference, and assuming you are starting from somewhere near where I live, you come out of Gangnam Station Exit Four, walk on for about fifty yards and then catch the 9501 bus. It takes about an hour to get to Gimpo and you get off at the City Hall stop. Don’t worry, it’s announced in English.

If you cross over the footbridge and then walk back along the other side of the road for about two hundred yards before turning right, the stadium is about a hundred yards further on. I walked all the way around the stadium before I found the way in, but then I like to do that even when I already know where the entrance is.

Gimpo Civil Stadium.

The stadium looks a bit run down, but I was impressed by the various paintings on the outside. At the gate there were a few old biddies fussing around, welcoming people in and making sure they had coffee and a programme. I made my way up to the main stand which I’d estimate held about a thousand. It was partially covered with the roof providing shelter for maybe two hundred people. As it was pissing down, this was the ideal place to sit and in a  handy coincidence the crowd was just the right size to allow anyone who was happy to squeeze in to keep dry.

Gimpo were in an Arsenal strip whilst Pocheon had some sort of blue effort with an orange trim. It reminded me of the type of colour scheme that you’d see on a deodorant can with sales targeted at fourteen year old boys.

I’d only just sat down when a glancing header from Hong Jee In put the visitors in front. There was a brief outburst of cheering from some people behind me that suggested  that there were some Pocheon fans sheltering from the rain too, probably his Mam and Dad.

Pocheon held the lead for twenty minutes or so until a poor headed backpass put Hwang In Seong clear through on goal. His shot beat the keeper but came back off the post, Gimpo teammate Lee Seung Hyun was following up and he bundled the ball home for the equaliser. That sparked a bigger celebration.

Hwang in Seong was at the heart of most of the Gimpo attacks and should really have put his team in front, poking the ball against the outside of the post and then heading over from the six yard line. Pocheon are a decent team though and they regained the lead just before the break when a mazy run into the box from Seo Dong Hyun took him past two defenders before he pulled the ball back for Ahn Seong Nam to tap in.

Pocheon on the attack.

At half-time I sacrified my seat in the dry and nipped out to Maccy D’s across the road. I then watched the second half through a gate on the other side of the stadium that had overhead cover. Gimpo were making a game of it and could have equalised again when Kim Seong Jin hit the post with a looping shot from thirty yards.

There were four Pocheon fans on that other side of the ground who had declined a seat under cover. They kept up a steady stream of encouragement in circumstances where I doubt I’d have bothered.

The Pocheon hardcore.

The away fans were rewarded twenty minutes from time when Kang Seok Gu curled a free kick into the box, nobody got a touch and it bounced past the unlucky Gimpo keeper. I felt sorry for the fella as he’d had a solid game. He made amends with two saves in quick succession afterwards but they merely served to keep the score down, Pocheon finishing up three-one winners.

The victory maintained Pocheon’s unbeaten record and consolidated their position at the top of the table. Gimpo, with two wins and two losses so far, remained in fifth place.

Anyang Cheetahs were a big deal in the K-League a few years back, they even won it in 2000. It all went wrong though at the end of the 2003 season when their owners, under pressure from the KFA, agreed to relocate from Anyang to Seoul, rename the club FC Seoul and play their home games at the Sangam World Cup Stadium.

That was all well and good for the people of Seoul who took up with the shiny new team, but it left the Anyang fans with an empty stadium and plenty of time to go shopping on a Saturday afternoon.

The advent of the new K-League second division, or K-League Challenge as it is oddly known, provided the opportunity for the city authorities to get a team up and running again and that’s what they did. After nine years of weeds on the terraces, Anyang had its team back.

Anyang Stadium

Anyang’s opening fixture was against Goyang Hi, another team with a back story. Last season they had been turning out as Ansan H, the H being a shortened version of their previous name Ansan Hallelujah. I’d been to see them a couple of times, once at their 35,000 seater stadium, the other time at the much more appropriately sized practice pitch next door.

Ansan had decided that they no longer wished to have a football team and H were forced to move on, pretty much in the same way as when they were booted out of Iksan a few years previously. I can only presume that they must leave the changies in a bit of a state.

Whatever, this was one game that I really fancied and so I caught the bus from Yeonggwang , where Jen and I had stayed after the game the previous day. I couldn’t believe that there were direct buses between the two places, Yeonggwang Bus Station only runs buses to about half a dozen destinations so quite why someone selected Anyang as one of them is beyond me.

I took a taxi from Anyang Bus Station to the ground. The driver had no idea that there was a football stadium in Anyang, but he knew of the ice hockey rink next door so I was able to convince him to take me there instead. After stocking up on beer and buying a ten thousand won ticket, I took up a place behind the goal with the home fans. If there was going to be a place to party then that was it. As kick-off neared it got busier, culminating in a procession of Anyang fans making their way from a makeshift bar that they had set up outside the stadium.

They had waited nine years for this.

There had been rumours that the seventeen thousand capacity stadium would sell out and it may well have done, but apparently the majority of tickets had been bought by sponsors who then must have just thrown them in the bin. The official attendance was three thousand four hundred or so and I’d say that was about right.

For the Anyang fans who had been waiting for this day for nine years though the attendance didn’t matter as they greeted the arrival of the teams with a mass hurling of bog rolls. That’s a football tradition that you don’t see so much these days, but one I’m always happy to participate in, particularly for the opportunity it gives you to bounce an unfurled roll off an unsuspecting head.

The teams take to the field.

I’d arranged to meet up with a few lads I know from the football over here, some were Anyang fans, some were groundhoppers, some were fella’s who just like a bit of a party. Some were all three. The upshot of that was that I didn’t take a lot of notice of the action on the field. It wasn’t really about the game anyway, just about enjoying Anyang getting their club back.

I took the odd photo though.

I was just about sober enough to be able to remember the first goal. It was from Anyang and a couple of minutes into the game. It was greeted with similar celebrations to those we’d just gone through as the teams ran out.

More action from the game.

Goyang managed an equaliser not long before the end. I didn’t realise this however until the next day when I stumbled across the scoreline somewhere. Or if I had known, I’d forgotten it. All in all, it was a very good day.