Trail of the Lion King

It was a quiet weekend for sport. The National and Challengers football Leagues were still on their summer breaks and the second tier baseball Futures League teams were having a weekend off as well. Jeonbuk were in town though for a game against Suwon Bluewings and so Jen and I decided to go along to that one.

The original plan had been to walk around the Suwon Fortress Wall before the match. I’ve done it before and it’s a pleasant enough way to spend a few hours. It’s the wrong time of year though for that sort of thing with all the rain and so we decided to visit a few coffee shops instead. I can guess what you are thinking. Something along the lines of my balls are now being kept in a jar and in ordinary circumstances you’d have a point. I mean, why would you go to a coffee shop? It’s easy enough to make a cup of coffee at home so what makes women pay four quid a pop to drink it with a bunch of strangers? To my mind it’s as odd a thing to do as choosing to leave your house to use a public toilet rather than your own.

These weren’t normal coffee shops though. They all had a bit of an animal theme ranging from dogs to cats to sheep and to my mind that makes it a fine way to spend some time. The dog place was first and it had a rather cunning business plan which involved people paying to board their dogs whilst away on holiday and the dogs then spending their days wandering around a cafe whilst customers who like to pat them on the head paid further over the odds than normal for their tall skinny lattes. Any cash that people had left could be used to buy snacks for the dogs, removing the need for the cafe to feed them. Genius really. Although I did wonder what the owners would say when they came to collect their dog and discovered that Fido had gained three stones in weight within a fortnight.

Surprisingly very few children had limbs bitten off.

There were an assortment of canines, starting with some about the size of a guinea pig, one that looked half husky, something that was probably close to being an old english sheepdog and in the corner an overweight arthritic beagle that had to drag its back legs behind it whenever it wanted to secure its share of the snacks.

It could probably have ran for miles a week or two earlier.

The cat cafe wasn’t as good, mainly because it smelt like a room with twenty cats in it. You couldn’t feed them so just had to sit there and wait for one to wander over and sit on your knee or go to sleep on your table. We had to remove our shoes and disinfect our hands before we went in, but really that was all the wrong way around. I’m sure I smelt like a mad cat lady for the rest of the day.

It smells much better in the photos.

Next up was the sheep place and that was the worst of the three, primarily because there were no sheep. A sheep cafe without sheep is just a cafe. A fraudulent cafe if you ask me. A sign by the empty pen advised that they were away for the summer. I bet they were. Gone to live on a farm, I imagine. What are the odds that when their holiday is over they will be replaced by new ones half the size and age?

They’ve gone to a better place.

So, after visiting a year’s worth of coffee shops in a single day it was time for the football. Suwon and Jeonbuk are two of the main contenders for the K-League title but have had contrasting fortunes lately. Jeonbuk had only dropped a single point in the last nine league games whilst Suwon had slipped to four points behind the visitors with 5-0 and 3-0 defeats in their last two games.

Jen and I got to the stadium early to make sure of a seat under cover in the East Stand and slowly worked our way through a box of fried chicken and a couple of bottles of red wine. Lee Dong Gook was starting up front for Jeonbuk and both Brazilians were in from the start. There had been reports before the game that Luiz had agreed to join UAE club Al-Shabab and so it was good to see him keep his place.

Both sets of fans were impressive, braving the rain in the uncovered ends of the stadium. The official attendance was given as 17,645 but I’d have estimated it to have been somewhere between eight and ten thousand. That’s still pretty good when you consider the weather.

Suwon fans.

Jeonbuk were well on top in the opening fifteen minutes, so much so that their ‘in-running’ price of 6/4 seemed exceptional value. Unfortunately the storms must have been affecting the phone signal as I couldn’t get my bet on.

It took half an hour for Jeonbuk to make their superiority count with Eninho’s pace drawing a foul in the box. He tucked the penalty away himself. We were into the final fifteen minutes of the game before Jeonbuk got their second. Lee Dong Gook broke down the right and delivered a perfect pass for Lee Seung Hyun to stroke home.

Jeonbuk fans

Two minutes from time Luiz brought his Jeonbuk career to an end with an easy finish to another counter-attack. His emotional celebration of his goal made it clear that he was on his way and it was as good as confirmed at the end when his team mates tossed him into the air.

That’s all folks.

Luiz was last off the pitch and with it still pissing down we were happy to hang around and see him off. He’s played a big part in Jeonbuk’s success over the last few years and I’ve always felt that they looked a stronger team with him in it. Best of luck in Dubai, fella. You’ll probably get less rain there but I doubt that there will be the same diversity of coffee shops.

The third tier Challengers League has quite an unusual format. There are two groups of nine and each team plays the other teams in its own group home and away. Halfway through those fixtures each team has a single game against each of the teams in the other group. I can only assume that it is done that way to reduce the number of fixtures. Each team plays a total of 23 games instead of the 34 matches that would be required in a standard eighteen team league.

Anyway, we are now in to the inter-group games and it‘s a chance to get a feel for the respective strengths of each group. Yesan United were third from bottom of Group B whilst the visitors, Icheon Citizen, were third from the top of Group A. Yesan United are a new team for this season. I’d been to this ground a couple of years ago to watch Yesan FC in the second tier National League, but they had folded at the end of that season. I doubt really very much though whether the few people of Yesan who watch football really care which division their team plays in as long as they have one.

Jen and I caught the Saemaul train from Yongsan to Yesan. The Saemaul train is the next one down from the KTX and has quite a spacious buffet car. It’s as well that it does really, as we got to the station too late to collect our pre-booked tickets and had to just jump on to our train moments before it left. All of the seats were sold out so we resorted to finding a space on the floor of the buffet car alongside the grannies and soldiers.

Not as good as First Class.

Eventually we were asked for our tickets and had to buy new standing ones. It’s a decent system though as the costs of your pre-booked ticket are refunded to the card that you used to make the booking and there aren’t any penalties for boarding a train without a ticket.  I didn’t fancy sitting on the floor for an hour and a half though so booked us a two-person noraebang. This is a private booth with two reclining seats, two microphones and a karaoke machine loaded with K-pop. They didn’t look as if they had anything by The Jam so we didn’t bother with any singing and instead just relaxed in comfort for the rest of the journey. It was well worth it at five thousand won per thirty minutes.

Better than First Class.

On arrival at Yesan we had a quick lunch of dolsot bibimbap at a small cafe where the boast on the sign by our table was that they don’t re-serve left-overs to other customers. Really? That’s big of them. I was a little concerned that I couldn’t see any notices confirming that they usually washed their hands after going for a dump and that they only spat in your food if they were having an exceptionally bad day.

 The Yesan stadium is some distance out of town so we took a taxi. We had a bit of time before kick-off which allowed us to watch an over-fifties tournament on the pitch across the car park before having a walk around the ground.

View from further around.

Like most third division games it was free to get in. They even offered us complimentary coffee. Mind you, last time I was here they gave me a sandwich, so maybe they are cutting back now that they are in the Challengers League. There weren’t too many people watching, in fact there were probably more at the over-fifties tournament across the car park. There were maybe a hundred people or so in the main stand with perhaps another twenty dotted around the rest of the ground. We had a couple of bigwigs sat in front of us, one of whom would shout “Shoot” whenever Yesan approached the Icheon penalty box. The other would then exhale an exasperated “Aiiishhh” when the shot inevitably ended up nearer to the corner flag than the back of the net.

Despite it being free to get in, some people preferred to watch through the fence.

Yesan were in all white whilst Icheon were in blue. As I’d expected, most of the early pressure came from the visitors but it took them half an hour to open the scoring. A stray shot ended up at the feet of Kim Tae Kwon eight yards out and he finished comfortably. The lead didn’t last long though and five minutes later Kim Tae Hoon weaved his way through an Icheon defence that kept backing off to equalise.

View from the back of the stand.

As we moved into the second half it was still a game that could have gone either way with each side adding another goal to make it two each. With twenty minutes remaining Icheon striker Na Gwang Hyun was brought down in the box. He invoked playground rules and took the penalty himself, placing it to the keeper’s right. The home goalie Kim Dong Woo guessed correctly though and palmed it away.

“Why didn’t you just blast it son?”

It was still level as we approached the final fifteen minutes, but eventually Icheon got the rewards that  their superiority deserved. Centre half Kwon Hyuk Tae had stayed up after a corner and when the ball was played back into the box he headed home to put the visitors back in front. He looked miles offside to me, but got away with it.

Random irrelevant action shot.

That was the cue for Im Seong Ho to do his stuff for Icheon. He began by getting his head to a loose ball as it bobbed around the edge of the six yard box in a bout of head-tennis. The keeper had been chasing it around as if he was being teased by big kids tossing his iPhone between them just out of his reach. It was a relief when it was finally put it over the line.

Im then scored the goal of the game after a break down the right wing. He cut inside and fired home into the top corner. He wasn’t finished though and with three minutes remaining he brought the ball in from the left, took it to the byline and after drawing the defenders and keeper squared it to Lee Cheol Hui who tapped home from close range to make it six-two.

Goal of the game.

That was enough for Shoot and Aiisshh and they left before the end. You’ve got to beat that traffic.

Aiisshhh (right) has longer legs in real life.

Whilst I had expected Icheon to win, Yesan had made a decent game of it and the final score flattered the visitors a little. Neither team moved up or down in their respective groups.

Jen and I had arrived early at the Yesan Sports Complex for the Challengers League fixture between Yesan United and Icheon Citizen. I’d been there a couple of years ago but on that occasion I hadn’t noticed that there was another pitch across the car park from the main Yesan Stadium.

What made it even better was that there was a match taking place on it. We wandered over and discovered that the game between Yesan Old Boys and Taean Old Boys was part of a five team tournament that also included teams from Dangjin, Hongseong and Seosan.

One of the banners around the edge of the pitch mentioned that it was a competition for over thirties, forties and fifties. Today’s fixtures were for over–fifties.

The main stand.

I reckon that most of the players looked a bit younger than their years, maybe in their forties, with the odd box-to-box midfielder who probably still had difficulty in getting someone to give up a seat for him on the bus. There were also one or two less than mobile defenders who were well into their fifties, probably even their sixties.

And a nice view of the hills too.

We sat down on the terracing that ran the length of one side of the pitch and watched for a while. The standard was similar to what you’d expect in a game played by old blokes on a hot day. There was lots of passing and not much movement, a bit like the Boro in the latter stages of last season really. One or two mistimed tackles made it look a bit more physical than it was, but on the whole people contented themselves with just closing down the opposition player with the ball until he moved it on to someone else.

One of the Yesan box-to-box midfielders takes a breather.

The pitch would have been fine for the Yesan United Challengers League game and the stand more than appropriate for the crowd sizes at that level. In fact there were probably more people watching these games as they waited for their team’s turn than you get at a lot of the third division matches.

I read recently that since the 2002 World Cup the number of public pitches has increased from 97 to 649. I’d suspect that this pitch is one of the new ones and if it has made it easier for local leagues to spring up, especially when it extends as far as the over-fifties, then that’s got to be commended.

One of the waiting players has one last fag.

That first game finished not long after we arrived and so we stayed to watch some of the tie between Dangjin Old Boys and Hongseong Old Boys. One of the players in the tent below us tried to tempt me into having a game. He obviously hadn’t realised that I was under-age. He assured me that they had plenty of kit but I doubted that they would have had a pair of size twelve boots and so I was able to graciously decline.

It’s strange really. Whilst I was watching all I saw were stiff old blokes, good at passing and retaining possession but unlikely to be able to coax their legs into making a run. I regard fifty as being pretty old for a footballer but don’t tend to apply the rule to myself. In my head, I’m no different to when I was a kid, but just temporarily out of condition, nothing that a few weeks training wouldn’t put right. I’ve had the same opinion for the last thirty years.

One of the younger Dangjin players.

I played in a five a side league in Seoul when I first came out here but gave it up after that one season. Most of the players were more than twenty years younger than me and whilst I don’t mind being slow in a friendly game with my mates, I felt a bit guilty at letting people down in a competitive situation. I wonder if that was it for me. Perhaps I should have taken the opportunity for a first and last game for Dangjin.

As it got towards kick-off time in the Yesan United game Jen and I left them to it and made our way over to the main stadium.

Incheon has a new stadium this season. The one that they had built for the World Cup ten years ago at Munhak was deemed a bit dated and in a perfect illustration of the pace at which everything changes in Korea, a brand new ground was built.

It had been over a month since I’d last watched Jeonbuk in their away game at FC Seoul and I’d been waiting for Incheon’s fixture with Jeonbuk before paying my first visit to the new ground.  Jeonbuk has had a relatively poor start to the season and last season’s champions went into this game in fifth place. Lee Dong Gook has been doing pretty well though, his two Asian Champions League goals against Chinese club Guangzhou Evergrande in mid-week taking his total for the season so far to thirteen.

Jen and I got the subway from Yeoksam, changed at Sindorim and then took Line One to Dowon. It’s over thirty stops and it took us around an hour and a half. The new stadium looked impressive as we approached it. There’s an uncovered end behind one of the goals and as you walk up from the station it looks like a three-sided ground.

Brand new.

At Incheon’s opening home game the ticketing arrangement were a fiasco, with two-hour queues and people walking away when they couldn’t get in until after the game had started. I suspect that a lot of those fans won’t bother coming back, which is a shame. It worked out nicely for us though as it meant that we could buy our tickets without any trouble.

No queues this time.

We took our seats in one of the stands down the side of the pitch. The East one I think. We chose it because it was bathed in sunshine so those of you who know about sun movements will probably be able to tell if I’m right or not. There were more families around than normal which I put down to it being Children’s Day.

When my kids were young they would often ask me on Father’s Day when Children’s Day was. “Every day is bloody Children’s Day” tended to be my less than gracious response, possibly prompted by having to appear enthusiastic about another pair of novelty socks.

In Korea though, they do have a special day when you are not supposed to beat the little darlings quite so much as you normally would. Instead parents will mark the day by taking their offspring somewhere exciting, like a K-League fixture between Incheon and Jeonbuk.

As part of the celebration there were about a hundred small kids on the pitch before the game. Orphans I imagine, probably hoping that someone who had celebrated Children’s Day with too much soju might just take them home with them.

“I’ll take two with black hair please, if you have any.”

As the players came out, I noticed that Lee Dong Gook wasn’t starting. Maybe at thirty-three, two games a week is a little much for him. With Incheon being bottom of the league I imagine that his manager thought that they could get a result without him.

I reckon that there were about four thousand fans in the twenty thousand capacity ground, including around four hundred from Jeonbuk. The visiting fans had a section of the open end to our right, whilst at the other end the more vocal of the home supporters were congregated in a safe-standing area at the bottom of a single tier stand. When you add in the decision not to include a running track, I’d say that the Incheon stadium is probably the best football stadium in Korea.

The Incheon fans and their safe standing section.

Incheon took the lead in the second minute when a direct free-kick from the edge of the box was put straight into the top corner. Jeonbuk have recently been starting with the forty-one year old ex-Daejeon Citizen keeper Choi Eun Sung. It’s a hazard of being that age that every time you let one in people will wonder if you are still up to it. I doubt he’d have stopped that one twenty years ago though.

“Oooh, me aching back”

 A quarter of an hour in, Jeonbuk equalised when the Brazilian Eninho’s free-kick was deflected in. There has been a bit of a fuss lately over the attempt by national team and former Jeonbuk manager Choi Kang Hee to have Eninho nationalised and brought into the South Korean team in time for the latest round of World Cup qualifiers. There have been a few basketball players given citizenship but I suspect that the difference with them is that they look Korean. Maybe Eninho should celebrate his goals by posing as if in front of a bathroom mirror and flicking at his hair for two minutes whilst people wait behind him to wash their hands. That should convince people that he’s sufficiently integrated into Korean society.

With a few minutes left in the first half a shot from the edge of the box was parried by Choi and the rebound went straight to Park Joon Tae who knocked it in to put Incheon back in front. I’d have to question the ageing keeper for that one, he should really have palmed it to one side of the goal.

It was quite a sunny day.

At half-time I went to replenish my beer supplies and found that they had run out. Or at least they had at the bar nearest to us. The bloke serving did his best by tipping the barrel forwards and he even gave me a free cup of what turned out to be ninety percent froth. Fortunately the bar further along had stocks left so it wasn’t the crisis that it might have been. I’d recommend taking a few cans though, just in case.

The prospect of losing to the bottom club was sufficient to see Lee Dong Gook brought on at the start of the second half. Incheon defended well though and then with ten minutes of the game remaining they broke down the left and scored to make it three-one. I don’t think anyone was expecting that.

Incheon fans celebrate what seems like a certain victory.

Jeonbuk are one of those teams that fight to the end though and with two minutes left Eninho did his case for citizenship no harm with the visiting fans by pulling one back. Jeonbuk threw everyone forward and in the third minute of the four that had been added for stoppages Lee Dong Gook showed his worth by heading home the equaliser and his fourteenth of the campaign.

It’s not over etc.

As the final whistle went it must have felt like a defeat for the home players and fans. Not quite the Children’s Day treat that some of the kids thought that it was turning out to be. One fella was so annoyed that he slapped his season card down on the table in front of Jen and stomped off. Well, it’s the perfect day to behave like a kid.

Season cards are cheap here with the Incheon ones starting at eighty thousand won for twenty-two games. That’s about two quid a game as opposed to the fiver that you’ll pay on the day. Even so, I wonder if he’ll ring the club up and tell them that he’s lost it or whether he will be another one that’s gone for good.

This was the game that confirmed to me that I definitely have caught the groundhopping bug. I know that should have been obvious from some of my earlier trips, but this one really was all about ticking off a ground from my list of places that  I hadn’t yet been to.

I’d turned up for a National League fixture at Ansan’s Wa Stadium last year only to find that they were playing next door on the practice pitch. When I’d checked the fixtures this season it seemed that all of their games were scheduled for the smaller venue rather than the main stadium. All except this game against Yongin City.

So, I probably had one chance all season to see a game in the Wa Stadium. I’d seen Ansan play a home game before, I’d been inside the Wa Stadium before, but I hadn’t actually seen Ansan play at the Wa Stadium. That meant I had to go. What makes it even worse is that the 7pm on a Friday kick-off would prevent me from getting there until half–time. But, as I said, I had to go.

Me in the empty Ansan Wa stadium last year.

I nipped home after work and got changed. As I wouldn’t get there until half-time it didn’t matter if I spent ten minutes getting out of my work clobber, I’d still be there in time to see the start of the second half at around eight o’clock. I got the subway from Yeoksam to Gojan station on Line Four. The journey  took about an hour and the train was packed. So much so that I didn’t get a seat until a couple of stops before I was due to get off. The subway isn’t the most pleasant place to be during rush hour and I generally need a good reason to travel during that time. I’m not wholly convinced that forty-five minutes of second tier football between two teams that I don’t care about really qualifies.

You can see the stadium from the subway exit and I was relieved to notice that the floodlights were on. That tended to suggest that there hadn’t been a last minute change of venue.

The lights being turned on is a good sign.

The Ansan Wa stadium is a bit bigger than most of the stadiums outside of the top division. It has a capacity of thirty-five thousand and a large multi-level Lotte Mart store built into it. I took advantage of it being half-time and nipped to the Lotte Mart basement floor for a box of fried chicken. I shouldn’t have bothered though as it tasted like it had been there since my previous visit.

I walked around the perimeter on the upper level and found a gate open. The concourse was in darkness but I could see the pitch. I went in and it brought me out opposite the main stand. The stadium looked even bigger when inside and the running track that went around the pitch could probably have been a lot more than eight lanes wide if they had wanted. I liked the look of the curved roofs above the stands along the sides of the pitch and whilst both ends behind the goals were uncovered, that’s not really a problem when your attendances rarely reach five hundred.

The view from my seat.

The game was about to restart as I took my seat and I hadn’t missed any goals in the first half. The visitors, Yongin, were in all blue whilst Ansan or Ansan H to give them their full name were in white shirts and red shorts. They used to be Ansan Hallelujah until this season when in what seems like a crisis of faith they dropped everything bar the ‘H’ and removed the horizontal section of the cross from their shirts. Maybe they just got sick of waiting for some Divine Assistance.

Yongin on the attack.

There was a much smaller crowd at this game than there had been when I’d seen Ansan play on their practice pitch last year, although even if there had been twice as many fans the atmosphere still wouldn’t have been as good. The practice pitch has a small covered stand that runs the length of one side of the pitch. It was so full last year that my son and I had to stand at the back. A few drummers urging their team on and half a dozen kids playing in the long jump sand pit all added to that occasion.

That’s not to say that the Ansan fans who were there weren’t putting the effort in for this game. There were about a hundred and fifty of them, almost all in the main stand and with a small section making some noise. I suspect that a good few of them were American and brought up on basketball as one of the more popular chants was “Defense, defense”. If there were any Yongin fans around, I didn’t notice them.

Ansan fans

The game stayed goalless until fifteen minutes from the end when Yongin’s Kim Myeung Seon played a one-two on the edge of the box, took the return pass and finished well to put the visitors a goal up.  Ansan couldn’t respond and the one goal was enough. A bloke to my left applauded pretty enthusiastically at the end, so maybe there was someone there supporting Yongin after all.

He stopped clapping when he saw me taking his photograph.

I discovered later that Yongin had a player sent off in the first half and I’d watched the second half without realising that it was ten men against eleven. It wasn’t quite a Chris Kamara moment, but it was something that I probably should have spotted.

As far as the stats are concerned, Yongin moved into fourth place in the table. Ansan remained one spot off bottom. I ticked another ground off my list.

It’s second round of the FA Cup time in Korea and just like in England it’s the last set of ties before the big clubs come in. For third division teams like Gimhae and Yangju, a second round victory will be rewarded by a game against international players, possibly in one of the World Cup stadiums and (unless they draw Seongnam) a crowd considerably larger than they are used to playing in front of.

I’d made my way down to Gimhae earlier in the day to watch some baseball and afterwards got a lift into town from fellow Boro fan Alan who lives down that way. We stopped for something to eat at a traditional sit-on-the-floor seafood restaurant where I was able to compensate for my lack of flexibility by positioning myself with my back against the wall. The food was good though and as we were only in there for half an hour or so I was able to get to my feet unaided.

I’ve noticed that a lot of the old-fashioned places are cheating a bit. Some give you that much-appreciated back support by having chairs without legs. My favourite places take it a step further though and have a hole under the low table to dangle your legs into. A bit like those inspection pits that people used to have in their garages in the days when it was the done thing to fix your own car. I had a pit in the garage of one of my old houses. It was filled with old shoes for some reason though and so little use for car maintenance. Although as I’m not the sort of bloke who knows a crankshaft from a camshaft, it’s probably just as well.

Gimhae Civil Stadium

We arrived at the Gimhae Civil Stadium twenty minutes or so before kick-off. The surrounding area had been very busy and for a while we wondered if there would be a bigger crowd than normal. There wasn’t though. The crowds of people were there for a big event nearby.

It was a shame that more of them didn’t decide to watch some football as there was plenty of room. Gimhae Civil Stadium has an official capacity of thirty thousand and whilst it didn’t look that big to me, the hundred and twenty or so spectators were never going to have any worries about finding an empty seat.

There were four Gimhae ‘ultras’ to our right. They had marked their territory with material, although with nobody within thirty yards of them it seemed a little unnecessary. They very politely lifted the barriers for me when I had to pass them to go for a second half slash.

The Gimhae diehards.

Yangju had brought about fifteen fans with them from north of Seoul. It was an impressive effort as the club hadn’t put a supporters bus on for them and they had travelled independently. Like the Gimhae fans they kept their chanting and drumming going for most of the game.

The Yangju fans

Gimhae were wearing a sort of AC Milan kit, although the black stripes didn’t go all of the way up the front of the shirt. Yangju were dressed up as Norwich. The breakthrough came early as Gimhae went a goal up in the first couple of minutes. We were talking and not really paying attention so I couldn’t tell you what happened.

Yangju looked to be the better team in the remainder of the first half, but Gimhae could easily have gone two up against the run of play when they hit the post on the half-hour.

First half action.

At half time we got a firework display from the Yangju fans that lasted a good few minutes. Eventually there was an announcement on the tannoy telling them that fireworks weren’t allowed and asking that they didn’t light any more when the current ones had gone out. Maybe the Yangju fans struggle to understand the southern accent because they didn’t take the slightest notice. It was only when a bloke in a suit turned up and had a word that the fireworks stopped. Even then I suspect that it was more likely to be due to them having none left to light rather than a sudden grasping of the Gimhae twang.

Yangju celebrate only being a goal down at half time.

Gimhae picked up the pace a bit after the break and fifteen minutes into the second half they equalised with a shot from the edge of the box. As the second half drew to a close our attention drifted somewhat to the Boro game kicking off in England. I couldn’t get a live feed on my phone but at least the BBC updates every minute or so kept us in touch with whether or not our promotion hopes were still alive.

Extra time came and went for Gimhae and Yangju without any further goals and we went into a penalty shoot out. The Gimhae keeper managed to keep one of the Yangju penalties out whilst Gimhae scored all five to go through to the Third Round. I was expecting more of a celebration from the winners but they seemed quite laid back about it all. Perhaps a trip to one of the big teams isn’t something that they really fancy. Or maybe they are just cool fellas who don’t make a fuss about stuff.

That’s all folks.

As Alan was driving me towards Busan train station we got the update that confirmed Boro’s season was over. We’d taken it to the final game which is something that I’d have settled for last August but it’s still disappointing when even the slimmest of chances finally disappears. I’d booked an early morning train back to Seoul so picked a hotel as close to the station as I could. I had stayed at the Samil Hotel when Jen and I were in Busan last year and I couldn’t remember whether it was any good or not.

Samil Inn, Busan.

It wasn’t. Whilst it was cheap and handy, it smelt as if the room hadn’t been aired for months. Hopefully I’ll remember that next time.

This was the other of the two games being played simultaneously on adjacent pitches. The beauty of that is that you don’t have to read anything in this post about my journey to Cheonan or the usual guff about what I’d had for breakfast. I’d had glimpses of the first half of this match whilst watching the game next door between Cheonan City and Busan Transportation. From a distance it looked as if Germany were taking on Holland but as the teams came out for the second half I could see that whilst Cheonan were wearing the classic Dutch combination of orange shirts and white shorts, Gyeongju Citizen had red and green stripes on the fronts of their white shirts.

Not quite the 1974 World Cup Final.

The visitors were leading by two goals to one but that didn’t seem to have diminished the support from the half a dozen home fans close to where we were sitting. They had four drums between the six of them which is a ratio that I imagine even the drummiest of marching bands could only aspire to.

Four drummers drumming.

There were probably about a hundred people in total watching, which was pretty good when you consider that a game of a much higher standard was taking place less than twenty yards away. I didn’t notice any fans cheering on Gyeongju, just as I didn’t when I saw them play in Seoul recently. Maybe they don’t have any travelling fans. Or maybe they just don’t like to make a fuss, acknowledging goals at either end with a similar stoic nod and a wry smile. That’s fair enough, I’ll watch out more closely for them in future.

The view from the other side.

Ten minutes into the second half, Cheonan drew level. One of their strikers chased a through ball and placed his shot to the keeper’s left.

It's on its way in.

There weren’t a great deal of chances for most of the second half and my attention did drift occasionally to the Cheonan City game taking place to our left. Five minutes or so from the end Cheonan’s Park Min Seok cut in from the right and shot across the keeper into the corner of the net to give the home team the lead. The lads with the drums seemed overjoyed.

The joy was short-lived though as Gyeongju hit back almost straightaway through Jang Ji Soo. His initial shot was parried by the Cheonan goalie but the ball ballooned up and he was able to direct his header over the grounded keeper. Three-all and surely worth more than a wry smile from the away fans.

Jang Ji Soo - Gyeongju Citizen.

The point moved Gyeongju up into second place in their nine team group, whilst Cheonan remained in seventh place, five points behind.