Trail of the Lion King

It’s time for the Asian Champions League Final. Jeonbuk were at home to Qatari team Al Sadd, giving them what seemed to me to be an unfair advantage in a one-off tie. Still, I’m not complaining, it’s better than it being played in Timbuktu or somewhere, although admittedly the chances of the Asian Football Confederation ever staging the game in a West African town are pretty slim. Probably about as slim as those of FIFA awarding Qatar the World Cup Finals, I imagine.
 
Jeonbuk has done pretty well this season. Apart from reaching this final, they ‘won’.the  K-League with a couple of weeks to spare, putting themselves directly into the play-off final. Lee Dong Gook has had a good season too, top-scoring in the Champions League with nine of the twenty-five goals that he has scored this season coming in that competition. For all of that though and despite playing some great football, they’ve won nothing yet.
 
Jeonbuk’s route to the final was fairly straightforward, the only recent downside being an injury to Lee Dong Gook in the first leg of the semi-final that had kept him out of action since then. Al Sadd had a much more eventful run to the final, qualifying for the competition as a late replacement only after the Vietnam FA had forgotten to send their entry form in and then despite losing both legs of their quarter-final managing to go through due to their opponents fielding an ineligible player.
 
Al Sadd overcame Korean club Suwon Bluewings in their semi-final with the help of a goal scored as a result of them pretending to return the ball after it had been kicked out for an injury, but then playing a defence splitting pass to set up a goal instead.  The mass brawl that followed included a kung fu fighting sub.
 

"aaaaaaiiiiiiii"

There were reports that this game would be a sell-out and although this seemed unlikely Jen and I turned up an hour and a half before kick-off just in case. Jen asked the girl in the ticket office for seats in the ‘Special Zone’ which is the area where you get a table in front of you and free beer and chicken to put on it. I was a little surprised that the tickets were only 15,000 won rather than the usual 20,000 and when we got in we found out why. They weren’t ‘Special Zone’ tickets after all, those seats were reserved for visiting posh people and our ‘Special Zone’ seats were just normal lower tier seats. I didn’t fancy that so we headed upstairs and took a couple of seats next to the media section and close to the halfway mark.
 
I think I’ve started to take some of the good things about Korean football for granted. Drinking beer whilst watching the match for example. I’m used to either bringing in a few cans or else just buying a bagful from the shop inside the ground. Tonight though in a ruling more annoying than staging the final in Timbuktu would have been, the Asian Football Confederation had decided that beer had to be decanted into paper cups. Marvellous. As I’d already been hiking that day and didn’t want to be negotiating the stairs every five minutes I got three cups, the maximum I could carry. At least they were alcoholic I suppose, UEFA don’t even allow that at their matches.
 
As the teams lined up I discovered that Lee Dong Gook had only made the bench, with his lack of match fitness after his injury probably counting against him.
 

Jeonbuk v Al Sadd

 
The rumours of a sell-out were exaggerated, but it was an exceptional turnout for a Korean club game. The official announcement of 41,805 was probably only five or six thousand above my own assessment of the crowd. I suspect that Korean pride at the prospect of winning an international trophy made it more like a game involving the national side. Jen and I had been here a month earlier and despite Jeonbuk being top of the league the place was empty then. I suspected that some of the crowd hadn’t been to a match since the 2002 World Cup, which made the lengthy queues for paper cups of beer all the more frustrating.
 
There didn’t seem to be as much media interest in the game as I’d have expected, or at least they weren’t  occupying the designated area. Perhaps they were all in the ‘Special Zone’ drinking our free beer and eating our chicken. The media seats didn’t go to waste though as a party of kids just took them over.
 

I'm sure that they were all properly accredited.

 
As far as the football goes, Eninho put Jeonbuk ahead early on with a free-kick from the edge of the box. At that stage it looked as if Jeonbuk would run away with the game. They didn’t capitalise on their advantage though and Al Sadd levelled on the half-hour with a headed own goal from Sim Woo Yeon.
 

Eninho puts Jeonbuk ahead.

 
I braved the queue at half time only to discover that the beer was sold out. That’s what happens when you get thirty-five thousand people showing up once every eight years. In the second half Al Sadd stunned the home crowd when they took the lead after a quick break. With twenty minutes to go Jeonbuk brought on Lee Dong Gook and Lee Seung Hyun in an effort to try to get back into the game.

Lion King time.

The final twenty minutes consisted of constant Jeonbuk pressure punctuated by Al-Sadd timewasting. I reckon we only got about ten minutes where the ball was actually in play, with the rest of the time being spent treating Al Sadd players for a variety of mystery ailments.
 
The substitutions paid off though when right on the final whistle Lee Seung Hyun snatched an equaliser for the home side.

Two each.

Despite them stealing my Special Zone seat and then buying up all of the beer before half-time I couldn’t help feeling pleased for the Jeonbuk fans, even those who didn’t appear to know which team was which.

Just like 2002.

Neither side really looked like winning it in extra time and so penalties it was. The Korean bloke who turns out for Al Sadd, Lee Jung Soo, diplomatically missed his penalty but none of his team mates did and Al Sadd picked up the trophy. Jen and I struggled for a taxi afterwards and ended up with fried chicken and beer after all as we killed time in a hof waiting for the part-timers to make their way home.
 
Next up for Jeonbuk is the K-League play-off final at the beginning of December. Even though the crowd will drop by three-quarters I’ll be playing safe and filling my pockets with cans of Asahi.

Some of the things that I write about tend to be a bit vague. Actually that opening sentence is a bit vague. It proves my point though, I suppose. The vagueness is generally because I don’t really know what I’m writing about and it’s easier to just avoid including details rather than bothering to find out. This post is vaguer than most.

Jen and I had been hiking in Moaksan Provincial Park and were on our way down from Mount Moak when we spotted a football pitch in the valley at the bottom. At this point we were still a good kilometre away, but we could see that a game was underway. It reminded me of the view from the away end at St James’ Park. I didn’t take a photo at that point because my camera was in my backpack, but if you imagine a Subbuteo pitch at the bottom of your garden then you will probably have a reasonable idea of what we could see.

Anyway, once we got to the bottom we went and had a look. There was a football tournament taking place and since we were due a rest after our hike we stopped for a while to watch one of the games.

Now this is where it gets vaguer than normal as I have no idea who the teams were, nor the name of the ground. We were near to the start of a trail within Moaksan Provincial Park but I don’t even know if the name of the village was Moaksan. Whatever.  One of the teams was dressed up as Italy and the other as Holland, so I’ll just assume that the local council had stumped up the cash to stage a prestigious international friendly.

Johan Cruyff takes on three Italians.

One of the things that I like about Korea is the abundance of sporting facilities. Everywhere you look you will find football pitches, basketball courts, outdoor gym equipment. We’ve even stumbled across badminton courts halfway up a mountain before. This pitch was artificial, with a small stand at the half-way line and three rows of concrete seating running the length of the pitch either side of it . It would be ideal for a second or third division team.

The main stand.

The best thing though was the view. Whilst the hills behind the stand were impressive enough, the opposite side of the pitch had a mountain backdrop that was guaranteed to make a player’s attention wander whenever he wasn’t on the ball. I imagine quite a few goals have been scored whilst a keeper has been leaning against his post gazing into the distance. I used to be a goalie and I let loads in by not paying attention even though the only views I had to distract me were local housing estates or chemical plants. I dread to think how much more of a liability I’d have been if I’d played next to Moaksan.

The other side of the pitch

Some of the players looked to be getting on a bit and others were carrying a few pounds more than looked good for them, although I can empathise with all of that. Typical Sunday League stuff I suppose. In keeping with the lack of detail I’ve no idea what the score was either. There was definitely at least one goal at each end if that helps.

The Italians had an extensive post-match warm-down session.

It wasn’t the best attended of games. The only other spectators were the players who were waiting to use the pitch next and a small child that presumably belonged to some bloke who had been unable to get a babysitter. We stayed for about half an hour, but then had to get away because we were off to the Champions League Final. The football would undoubtedly be better at the big game, but the pitchside view certainly wouldn’t.

I find it hard to resist the chance to visit a new ground, particularly one that only gets used once a year and so I thought I might as well make the effort. Gyeongnam has previous for this sort of thing, they played a game at Geochang earlier in the season and have also staged matches at Masan, Milyang and Yangsan in the past. I have a feeling that they would probably play in your back garden if you offered them enough cash.

It reminds me a bit of the way that county cricket teams would share their fixtures around. Yorkshire would regularly visit Acklam Park whilst Durham would turn out now and then at Stockton Cricket Club. I’m not sure to what extent it still goes on but I suspect it’s less common these days than it was in the past.

I got the bus from Seoul Express bus terminal at 8.20am. It was 22,000 won and they seem to run pretty frequently. The roads were clearer than normal and I arrived in Jinju on time at 12.10pm.

I’d actually been to Jinju before. I was there last year with my mate Paul either side of a hike up Jirisan. On that occasion though, we’d seen the inside of a bar or two and the bus station, but not a great deal more. As I had plenty of time before the 3pm kick-off I wandered along to the fortress by the river which is okay for a quick visit.

Jinju Fortress

There are a few old looking buildings inside the fortress walls that have been rebuilt over the years. There is also a rock that a local girl jumped off a few hundred years ago. She managed to drown a Japanese General by throwing herself into the river and dragging him in with her. There was none of that sort of thing going on whilst I was there, but with a visit from a K-League team once a year I suppose that the locals no longer feel the need to make their own entertainment.

Be careful if you are a Japanese General.

I’d seen as much of the fortress as I wanted to by one o’clock and thought that I might as well walk to the stadium. I’d picked up a map earlier and it seemed easy enough, just follow the river until you get there. The river walk was quite pleasant. It was a bit overgrown but provided an opportunity to see some wildlife along the way, mainly butterflies and herons.

Just keep the river to your right and you won't get lost.

As the time moved towards half past two I was getting a little worried that my map may not have been too accurate, but fortunately the stadium came into sight. It’s a very impressive looking ground, built last year with a sensible capacity of twenty thousand.

Jinju Stadium

I got a ticket for eight thousand won and sat with a few lads that I know towards the back of one of side stands. The stadium was just as impressive inside as out, the highlight being a grassy bank behind one of the goals. It’s a feature that I like and I’ve enjoyed stretching out on the grass before at LA Galaxy and at Munhak for the baseball. I first encountered one at Wigan in the Boro’s 1986-7 promotion season, but the climate in north-west England meant that it was more like a slag heap. It wasnt just the players who should have been wearing football boots that day.

FC Seoul fans behind the goal.

There was an excellent turnout for the game, although as usual, people were still arriving well into the second half. At its peak, I’d say the place was 95% full, although the announced attendance claimed an impressive 110% capacity at 22,000.

The other end.

As far as the game went, it was always likely to end in tears for Gyeongnam. Seoul are having a far better season and needed a win themselves to clinch third place. Gyeongnam had a slim chance of making the play-offs but in addition to requiring three points they were also relying on two other teams failing to win.

Not a great deal happened in the first hour. Seoul then broke the deadlock when a heavily deflected shot from Ha Dae Sung wrongfooted veteran keeper Kim Byeung Ji. Gyeongnam’s task was made a little harder when they had a bloke sent off for something off the ball. I didn’t see what happened but unfortunately for Jeong Da Hooeon the ref did.

Seoul on the attack

Gyeongnam pushed forward despite being a man down and were then caught twice as Ha Dae Sung completed his hat-trick. In the end results elsewhere meant that the three-nil defeat didn’t matter. A lot of the crowd had gome home early once Seoul got on top, but it was still busy on the way out. As I left I was passed by about a hundred Korean RAF lads marching in formation.

Left, right, left, right.

The traffic was heavier on the way back to Seoul and so my return journey took over four and a half hours. I’ll keep an eye out for Gyeongman’s fixtures next season in the hope that they will continue to spread some games around the region.

This weekend saw the final round of fixtures for the third division Challengers League and so Jen and I got the bus from Dong Seoul to Cheongju for the game between Cheongju Jikji and Cheonan. It’s a journey that is only supposed to take ninety minutes but a combination of heavy traffic and plenty of accidents meant that we were on the bus for an hour longer than planned.

Fortunately we had allowed sufficient time and after taking a short taxi ride from the bus terminal we were at the Cheongju Stadium a good half an hour before kick-off. The ground is part of a complex that includes a basketball arena that is home to a women’s team, KB Stars, and a baseball park. I’ve no idea who plays there though. As there is rarely any beer for sale inside the stadiums in the third division I picked up a six pack of Hite from a convenience store across the road. The beer was in Hanwha Eagles branded cans. It has to be good for you if the baseball teams are endorsing it. I suppose that it makes it an official sports drink. Probably even isotonic or something.

There was no charge to get into the ground which is normal at this level but we were given a ticket each that was probably for a raffle. Cheongju Stadium is a fairly typical bowl, built in the mid-sixties and with the almost regulation running track. It was smartened up a bit a few years ago apparently and there is now a roof all the way around, although if it rained you would probably have to sit quite close to the back to get any benefit.

Cheongju stadium

Cheongju were in blue with the visitors in orange. Cheonan had brought a solitary fan with them and he had the end to our right all to himself. He had a drum to keep himself occupied and he kept up his chanting for most of the game. It was quite a heroic effort really and he was far more impressive than  the hundred and fifty or so home fans who seemed content to just sit and quietly chat to each other.

"I'll support you ever more..."

Cheongju took the lead in the sixth minute when a nice passing move was sidefooted home from close range. It was like a five-a-side goal, where the defence and keeper are drawn to the ball and someone finishes it off from the edge of the ‘D’.

The home side were well on top for the opening twenty minutes, with Cheonan frequently trying and failing to play them offside. It was quite a surprise therefore when the visitors equalised after one of their strikers headed home a cross from the right. It seemed a fair reward for the effort that their lone drummer was putting in.

Cheongju were back in front again just before half time though with a header from near the penalty spot. The lad who scored it must do it every week as he didn’t bother celebrating his goal.

The home fans - they didn't celebrate much either.

At half time there was a presentation to the ball boys, probably in recognition of their efforts over the season in retrieving balls from the far corners of empty stands. I went for a piss only to find a couple of the players in adjoining urinals. That rarely happens to me at The Riverside.

In the second half it was pretty much one-way traffic. Cheongju were awarded a penalty for handball early on and a lad who had just come on as a sub sent the keeper the wrong way to increase the lead to three-one.

3-1.

Cheonju got a couple more goals in the space of a minute or so a quarter of an hour from the end. I missed them both unfortunately, as the effects of the six pack of  Hanwha Hite had kicked in and I’d gone for another piss. There weren’t any footballers there that time.

Five-one was the final score. I was surprised to see that the Cheonan fans didn’t acknowledge their single fan at the end. He’d kept up his support throughout the game and didn’t even get a wave from the players, never mind the customary bow. I think if I’d been the Cheonan manager I’d have called him down from the stand and brought him on as a substitute for the last ten minutes.

The win meant that Cheongju Jikji finished the season in fourth place in their eight team group with Cheonan ending up two places and twenty points behind them in sixth.

You don't see many of those wandering around in Seoul.

Fortunately I got back to Seoul in sufficient time to be able to go to the FA Cup Final between Seongnam and Suwon. Seongnam, who won last season’s Asian Champions League are having quite a poor season and have been out of play-off contention for a while. Suwon are faring a bit better and are still in this season’s ACL and looking good for no worse than a third or fourth place finish in the K-League.

I arrived at Seongnam in plenty of time and was in the ground a good hour before the scheduled two o’clock kick-off. I went for a seat in the West stand as that’s the one with the best roof. The sky had been overcast all morning and I was expecting rain before too long.

The Suwon fans had been allocated the South stand to my right. That stand holds a couple of thousand people and  there were already three hundred or so visiting supporters in there when I arrived. I was fairly confident that the visitors would fill it by kick-off time despite the poor weather. Suwon are one of the better supported teams in Korea and they probably took close on two thousand all the way down to Busan on the south coast for last year’s final.

I wasn’t so confident about the turnout from the Seongnam fans though, despite the final being played at their stadium. I’ve been to games at Tancheon before where they probably haven’t had more than about fifteen hundred people in the ground in total, including a fair percentage of schoolkids on freebies.

It didn't seem like Cup Final weather.

Ten minutes after I took my seat the rain started and a few minutes later the running track was submerged. I was curious to see how the pitch would hold up as it had been so poor last season that it didn’t seem to ever last any longer than six weeks at a time before it needed re-laying. The way the rain was coming down it wouldn’t have surprised me to see large sections of turf being washed away.

The rain continued  for twenty minutes or so before easing off half an hour before kick-off. The roof around three quarters of the stadium doesn’t really cover more than the back few rows so it was no surprise that most seats remained empty until the sun came out.

Suwon have a couple of  different groups of fans, the bog standard ‘Grandbleu’ and the slightly more ultra ‘Highland Este’. The latter group mark off their own area with tape, a bit like arsey campers at Glastonbury. Their hardcore image was spoilt a little though when they started waving balloons around like apprentice Morris Dancers.

They've been known to terrorise opposition fans by popping a balloon.

Suwon were in their all-white change strip whilst Seongnam wore their usual Watford gear. It was the visitors who started the better of the two teams and they wasted a couple of good chances in the first few minutes. Seongnam probably edged the first half though and had a decent opportunity with a long-range shot that was tipped over the bar by the Suwon keeper.

Despite Seongnam looking the better team Suwon had the best chance of the half when they had a goal disallowed for offside after thirty minutes. It looked ok to me but the linesman had his flag up straight away.

If you half close your eyes it could be Watford v Leeds.

At the interval we were treated to a performance by girl band Sistar. There was a buzz of excitement in the West stand that was far greater than anything the football had produced and it wouldn’t surprise me if some of the teenagers in the crowd were only there to see their idols lip-synch their way through their latest hit. It was probably just as well that the microphones weren’t switched on as mid-way through Sistar’s performance the rain started to fall heavily once more.

The Room Salon beckons.

Whilst the subs warmed up on what looked more like a river than a running track I kept glancing across to the baseball stadium next door. There was an amateur game going on that the players seemed desperate to finish but in the end the rain was too much for them. To make it worse for the players, they had to pull the covers over the bases themselves.

I'd have done a 'Tevez'.

The second half remained goalless until fifteen minutes from time when a glancing header from a corner put Seongnam a goal up. Suwon tried to come back into it but they couldn’t come up with that little bit of magic necessary to break down the Seongnam defence. In the final moments, Suwon had a player sent off for going ape-shit at the extra official behind the goal when a penalty appeal was turned down.

The winning goal.

It was a shame that the penalty appeal was turned down. Half an hour of extra time might have meant that I wouldn’t have got drenched on the way back to the subway. The win not only took the FA Cup to Seongnam but it meant that they qualified for next season’s Champions League too.

There are plenty of public holidays in Korea and National Foundation Day gave me an opportunity to go to another football game. Jen and I had been down in Mokpo for the weekend and on the way back up to Seoul we broke our KTX journey at Iksan to watch Jeonbuk take on the army team, Sangju Sangmu.

We’d seen Jeonbuk play the previous weekend in Jeju, a game in which Lee Dong Gook had been dropped to the bench to keep him fresh for the mid-week Champions League quarter-final against Cerezo Osaka. It was a decision that had paid off as he scored four times in a 6-1 victory over the Japanese visitors.

The goals earned the Lion King an unexpected recall to the national team, sixteen months on from his last appearance and thirteen years after his first. It was a surprise as he’d been informed by the new team manager after the last World Cup that his style of play wouldn’t fit in with the pacey football that they were hoping to play from then on.

He's even on the posters.

We got a taxi from Iksan to the World Cup stadium and so that the sun wouldn’t be in our eyes we decided to sit in the West Stand. Just like at the Boro it’s the priciest part of the ground. If you are going to go upmarket you might as well do it properly and so we bought twenty thousand won tickets for somewhere called the ‘Special Zone’. I was unsure what to expect and wondered whether ‘Special Zone’ actually meant something like ‘Obstructed View’.

It was a sunny day so I had a couple of beers at a table in the concourse and watched the locals heating up their dried squid before we went to find our seats.

It seems a lot more popular with kids than I'd expect it to be.

The ‘Special Zone’ turned out to be a section that had probably been press seating during the World Cup, complete with tables in front of the seats. Once we’d sat down a waitress brought us a box of fried chicken and then a few minutes later she returned with a couple of beers. Occasionally I get nostalgic for the days of standing on the terraces but I think that is as much a lament for my lost youth as anything. Standing in the Holgate as a kid was great, but there wasn’t any beer, never mind a table to stand my cans on. I don‘t ever remember a waitress fighting her way through the crush to bring me a box of fried chicken either.

The view from the Special Zone

With no Champions League game on the horizon Lee Dong Gook had kept his place in the starting line-up, where he was joined by Brazilians Eninho and Luiz Henrique. I had a feeling that the Jeonbuk line-up would be far too strong for Sangju Sangmu. The army team’s early season form had vanished and they had now slid down into the bottom three. To make matters worse, half their squad had finished their twenty-one months military service a week earlier and returned to their regular clubs whilst the next intake of footballing squaddies wouldnt arrive until the close season.

It looked as if a few of the visiting fans had disappeared as well. I’d watched Sangmu away at Chunnam earlier in the year and there had been a decent turnout. For this game though, there probably weren’t fifty travelling supporters in total. Mind you, there weren’t many home fans either. I’d estimate around three thousand altogether.

Perhaps they should conscript some fans too.

Jeonbuk had plenty of chances early on and I was surprised that Sangmu managed to hold on for almost half an hour before conceding. Lee Dong Gook continued where he’d left off the previous week as he opened the scoring by sidestepping a defender and placing the ball carefully into the far corner. He then  almost scored a second when he lobbed the stranded keeper only to see the ball bounce up onto the bar and back out again.

Jeonbuk celebrate the opening goal.

It all got a little bit harder for Sangmu a few minutes later when their captain, Kim Chi Gon, was sent off. I didn’t see what he did but it looked as if he might have given the ref a bit too much lip. He’ll probably have to tone that sort of thing down if he doesn’t want to spend the rest of his army career doing press-ups on the parade ground.

Bang on half time Jeonbuk doubled their lead when Lee Dong Gook laid it back to Lee Seung Hyun who scored from the edge of the box. It should really have been three straight after the break when Lee Dong Gook put the ball past the post after a nice through ball from Eninho.

That miss looked as if it might prove costly a few minutes later when Sangmu pulled a goal back. Jeonbuk had been streets ahead of the visitors and a two-one scoreline didn’t remotely reflect what had gone on.

The Sangmu goal seemed to spark a bit of unrest amongst the home supporters and a banner was unfurled behind the goal. I’ve no idea what it said but it caused three security blokes to run from the halfway line and demand that it be rolled back up. I’d like to think that they were complaining about not getting any fried chicken or beer.

Whatever it said, it didn't say it for very long.

Jeonbuk seemed to step up a gear at that stage with Lee Seung Hyun restoring their two goal advantage with a close range tap in and then Eninho heading his side into a four-one lead. In between those two efforts Lee Dong Gook hit the post as Sangmu struggled with their one man disadvantage.

A couple of minutes from time Lee Dong Gook got his second of the game and his twenty-third of the season. He missed another very good chance just before the final whistle too. So, two goals, two efforts hitting the woodwork and two really good chances missed. What was a good afternoon for him could really have been phenomenal. If four goals gets you a national team recall, who knows what six would have warranted?

Jen and I took a taxi back to Iksan where we conveniently found an abandoned sofa outside of the station that proved ideal for finishing off the day with another couple of cans.

One day all railway stations will have seating like this.

The win extended Jeonbuk’s lead at the top of the table to five points with just three games remaining.

We are moving towards the end of the season now and in the second tier National League the battle for the play-off places is getting interesting. Not that the scramble for a top six position was of any relevance to this clash as Mokpo and Cheonan’s respective seasons had been over well before the league had taken its mid-season break. Mokpo went into this game third from bottom whilst Cheonan were only two places better off in the dizzy heights of tenth. As there is currently no promotion or relegation between the leagues in Korea there wasn’t therefore a great deal at stake.

Still, it was a chance for a weekend in a coastal town down south, so Jen and I made the three and a quarter hour KTX journey from Yongsan station on the Friday evening. We asked the cabbie to take us to where the hotels were and he dropped us off outside of a reasonable looking one near Peace Beach. We took a VIP room on the top floor for 120,000 won per night and it was very nice. It had a sea view and a large bed made of stone. Fortunately it also had an equally large bed with a conventional mattress for those of us who aren’t wholly convinced about the merits of sleeping on granite.

It was an Official Formula One Grand Prix Hotel, with a plaque outside to prove it. This wasn’t much to be proud of though as every hotel, restaurant, bar and coffee shop in town appeared to be similarly endorsed. The Korean F1 Grand Prix would be taking place in Mokpo a fortnight later and I suspected that everywhere would treble their prices, although I don’t imagine that the motor racing fraternity would be too impressed about paying a fortune to sleep on a bed with less ‘give’ than a pit straight wall.

It's official. Hamilton and Massa can fight over our room.

Over the course of the weekend we saw a few of Mokpo’s sights. If you take a stroll along the seafront there are a couple of large rocks that are supposed to look like blokes with old fashioned hats on. There was, as ever, some half-arsed fairy story about how the rocks came to be there. This is quite a common thing in Korea, making up legends about rocks based upon their supposed resemblance to anything from a dragon or a lion to a fridge freezer. Well maybe not kitchen appliances, but it’s only a matter of time. On the plus side however, it does stop people from cutting the rocks up and making beds out of them.

The resemblance to a couple of blokes with hats on was uncanny.

Mokpo doesn’t appear to have much in the way of beaches, it still seems to be more of a working fishing port than a seaside resort, with a lot of ferry traffic to the outlying islands as well places like Japan, China and Russia. When the tide is out it’s more mud than sand, although that does give the locals a chance to dig about in it for whatever creatures live in mud at the seaside.

The golden sands of Mokpo.

The shops along the seafront weren’t your normal seaside shops either. They did sell buckets and spades but they were of the galvanised heavy duty kind rather than something that a kid would use to build a sandcastle. Amongst the shops selling trawling nets and lobster pots there were even a couple of places that were selling anchors. I did wonder just how often a sea captain would fancy a nice new anchor. It doesn’t seem like your usual Saturday morning impulse buy. Maybe they get them bought for their birthdays.

There were plenty of shops selling fish too, some of them alive in tanks, some of them drying on racks, some of them propped up and grinning at you like Spongebob Squarepants merchandise. How could you cut up and eat a skate with a face like that?

Penny for the Guy?

We took a boat trip out to a couple of nearby islands. The ferry picks up from Mokpo and then does a two hour round trip that you can extend by getting off at an island or two. You then resume the journey when the ferry makes its next appearance a couple of hours later.

Our boat.

At the first island, Dalli Do,  people were surprised when we got off the boat. It was generally assumed that we were making a mistake as in the words of one local woman who lived just next to the ferry docking place, “There’s nothing here”. I’m a bit like that with Stockton sometimes, but you never really appreciate fully what a place has to offer when it’s your home town.

As it happens, she was right. We spent a pleasant hour and a half or so walking around a small island with not much there other than small farms. There were a couple of churches and with it being Sunday morning we saw a few locals heading off to a service. One farmer, dressed very smartly in a suit and tie, travelled there on his mini-tractor with his equally smartly dressed wife sat in the trailer behind.

Unfortunately I didn’t get a photo of the farmer and his wife, I just wasn’t quick enough as they passed by. I did manage to take a picture of a dead snake that we saw though. It was moving just that little bit slower.

It looks like the local mice had been getting their own back.

In theory the second island was the bigger attraction, it boasted outdoor swimming pools, flower gardens and restaurants. If I had to describe Oedal Do  in a single word though, I would choose ‘shut’. I’m sure it’s an interesting place to visit in the Summer but out of season it didn’t even boast a dapper looking farmer or a recently deceased snake.

A dog looking at a bit of rope is about as exciting as it gets on Oedal Do.

So, that’s the Mokpo touristy stuff. Time for the meaningless end of season battle between Mokpo City and Cheonan City. There’s a perfectly good thirteen thousand capacity football stadium in Mokpo town centre, the Yudal stadium, but as it’s not shiny or new anymore Mokpo play their games on the outskirts of the town at the Mokpo International Football Centre instead. I’m not too sure where the ‘International’ part of the title comes from either, unless visiting sailors hire the place for a kickabout. It’s got half a dozen or so pitches, some grass, some artificial. We got a taxi from the sea front that took twenty minutes and cost seven thousand won.

The grass pitch that our game was on had a few rows of seats all the way around with a bigger covered stand along one side, whilst a small roof provided a bit of shade for some of the people along the opposite side. It can accommodate six thousand spectators apparently and whilst there wasnt a running track, there was space to fit one in between the stand we were in and the pitch.

The main stand.

Mokpo were in their usual kit of blue shirts and white shorts, visitors Cheonan in an unusual combination of grey shirts and maroon shorts. Jen reckoned that they had probably stuck the strips in the washing machine at too high a temperature with something that they shouldn’t have. Cheonan completed their Sunday League look with grey socks. It was as if they had forgotten their PE kits and had to just make do with whatever they were wearing.

There were probably about two hundred people watching including the five Mokpo Ultras behind the goal to our left. They weren’t the most vocal of fans and if someone from the tourist board had replaced them with  a selection of rocks then I doubt anyone other than their Mams would have noticed. All it would need is a legend about the five loyal supporters who had turned to stone after watching another ninety minutes of mis-placed passes, squandered chances and defensive clearances that end up on the pitch next door. The rocks would probably attract more visitors than any football match would.

It looks as if the petrifaction process has already started for one of them.

Mokpo had most of the early play with the Cheonan keeper making a couple of very good  saves in the opening quarter of an hour. It was Cheonan who took the lead though with a penalty after twenty minutes. I don’t know what it was awarded for as I was too busy trying to take a photo of a woman with a dog.

Paris Hilton

I did manage to pay attention for the penalty which was easily put away to the keeper’s right by Hwang Ho Lyeong.

Cheonan City take the lead.

The younger Mokpo fans consoled themselves by randomly blowing horns into each others ears from close range. They’d been given them for free by some fella with an evil streak and a cardboard box full of them. He probably owned a hearing aid factory too.Their eardrums got a temporary reprieve after twenty five minutes when Mokpo got a free-kick on the left. In an admirable bit of teamwork one of the Mokpo fellas managed to get his fist to the Cheonan keepers face, whilst his teammate Yoo Woo Ram got his head to the ball. One all.

The equaliser.

Four minutes later the home team took the lead. A corner from the left was swung into the six yard box where everyone missed it and it bounced off the arse of Mokpo’s Kwon Soon Hak and into the net. They had another couple of good chances soon after but couldn’t add to their lead before half-time.

During the break we were treated to some belly dancers doing their stuff, followed by five teenage girls dancing to a K-Pop song. I could see how the belly dancers got the gig but the other girls looked to be doing nothing more than a short dance routine that wouldn’t normally be seen anywhere more public than their front rooms. I’d have preferred to see them all have a quick game of 5-a side instead, or maybe a penalty shoot-out.

Pan's People

Mokpo should have gone further ahead a few minutes into the second half. A free kick from thirty-five yards was parried by the visiting keeper only for the lad following up to somehow sky it over the bar when it looked far easier to score.

The fans around us were getting a bit excited at the prospect of a rare victory and were giving the ref a bit of stick. One bloke gave him non-stop slaver, usually some variant of “Sonovabitch”. A small kid, perhaps sensing that the ref’s eyesight was not his strongest point, shouted “Maerong” at him, which apparently means ‘I’m sticking my tongue out at you’.

There weren’t too many more chances in the second half, a Mokpo striker managed to hit the Cheonan keeper in the chops with a shot from close range, but that was about it. The win made no difference to the league positions, Mokpo remaining twelfth and Cheonan tenth.

View from the back of the stand

We got a taxi back into town and ended up at a restaurant where the prawns came fresh from a tank outside. They were cooked alive at the table and they didn’t half jump when the gas was lit underneath their pan.

On the way out afterwards we paused to look at some fish in one of the other tanks, a few of which were looking a bit lacklustre. The woman from the restaurant saw us staring at them and came outside. I thought she would probably give the fish a bit more oxygen to perk them up, but what she did was give the tank a good kicking until all the fish appeared rejuvenated and were swimming around like perfect specimens again. It made me wonder if I should have given that grinning skate a swift kick in the goolies to perk him up a bit as well.

Chuncheon is another one of those places that is miles away from Seoul, but you can get there on the subway. When it’s possible I can’t resist travelling that way rather than getting a quicker train or luxury bus. I suspect it’s because I’m tight with money.

Anyway, Jen and I set off from Yeoksam at quarter to nine in the morning and after changing to the Line Seven and then the Jungang Line we were at Chuncheon a couple of hours later. I thought the journey wasn’t too bad. Most of it was above ground and we had seats for almost all of it. Besides, what do you expect for 2,600 won?

It's a popular destination for old people.

Kick-off in the third division game between Chuncheon Citizen and league leaders Pocheon wasn’t until 3pm so we had time to sort out our accommodation first. We got a cab to Jungdo ferry terminal and then the ferry across to Jungdo Island. It’s a small island in the middle of a river, the ferry runs every half an hour between 9am and 6pm and it takes about five minutes to make the crossing. The island is quite famous as the location for a Korean soap, Winter Sonata, and there were photographs of the stars wherever you looked.

That's the ferry with Jungdo in the background.

I’d read somewhere on the internet that there were ‘cabins’ for rent on Jungdo and it seemed like it would make an interesting change from a hotel. It turns out that they do have ‘cabins’. They also have a pre-booking system as they are extremely popular on Saturday nights. Luckily someone had just cancelled and we got the last one for 55,000 won.

It was spacious enough, it had a bathroom, a cooker, sink, fridge, television and air-conditioning. Everything you could ask for really. Everything apart from a bed. Where the bed should have been there was just a floor. At first I thought we might have been burgled, but it seems that beds just haven’t caught on in Chuncheon yet. In my view then, it wasn’t a cabin. Cabins have beds. What we had rented was actually a shed.

Our shed.

There were a couple of duvets and a pair of quilts in a cupboard though. That was sufficient for me to be able to put the prospect of sleeping on a shed floor to the back of my mind for a few hours as we caught the ferry back across to Chuncheon and a Dak Galbi lunch.

Chuncheon likes to think it is famous for Dak Galbi. Perhaps it is, just not in the circles I mix in. In my circles Chuncheon is more rightly famous for people sleeping on shed floors. The Dak Galbi was good, not as spicy as the ones you get in Seoul, possibly because they used less oil, possibly because they tone it down for people from out of town. It was fine though.

Dak Galbi - It's mainly chicken and cabbage.

After lunch we took a five minute taxi ride to nearby Songam Sports Town. Not only was there a twenty five thousand seater football ground, but there was a baseball stadium, a speed skating track complete with grandstands and a skateboarding/BMX arena that was bigger than anything I’d imagine exists in the UK. It shows what it’s possible to achieve when you don’t have a bed to laze around in on a morning.

We didn’t have to look for the proper entrance to the stadium as we were able just to walk in through the ambulance entrance, make our way along the running track and then up to the main stand where we sat as far from the Tannoy speakers as possible.

Looking along the main stand at Chuncheon

Chuncheon were wearing bee costumes, Pocheon a more traditional white shirt and black shorts combination. They spoiled it a bit by letting their keeper wear his QPR shirt. Mind you, there’s nothing wrong with a bee costume.

Nothing wrong as long as you don't value your dignity.

There was a bloke sat in front of us who spent the entire game secretly talking into a hidden microphone. Honestly. It looked as if he was on the phone to someone but was concealing the fact that he was talking into a microphone hidden inside his shirt. Every time something happened on the pitch he would pretend to cough or rub his chin and then relay the information as discreetly as possible. The only explanation I can think of is that he was working for a bookie or that he had a mate using the betting exchanges. If the fella on the other end of the line had instant notice of a goal or a penalty a couple of seconds before everyone else then he could back or lay at advantageous odds.

He was wearing a wire, just like on The Sopranos.

Pocheon took the lead after twelve minutes when someone seized on a goalmouth scramble and planted the ball high into the corner of the net. There were one or two away fans in the crowd and they celebrated as the lad in front quietly cleared his throat and mumbled away into his mike.

As far as home fans went, there were five behind the goal with a drum and a horn which is not a bad ratio of fans to musical instruments. There were maybe eighty spectators in total in the ground.

A drum, a horn and a loud hailer. Not bad between five.

Mind you, what we lacked in numbers of fans was more than made up for by the substitutes. Pocheon had thirteen blokes togged up and sat on the bench, Chuncheon looked to have more, although I think one might have been a mascot and the other someone who had got lost on the way to a fancy dress party.

At half-time when they were all warming up they should have just had a fifteen minute eleven a side game between themselves. Although it would have been a bit rough on anyone who would have to sit on the bench for the half-time substitutes game too. Maybe that’s the time when you look to move on.

The Pocheon bench.

It didn’t take long in the second half for Chuncheon to equalise. The big centre back with the dodgy perm met a free kick from the left to head home the equaliser from close range. It was fortunate that I saw it as I’d been temporarily distracted by a takeaway delivery arriving for someone a few seats further along. The bloke in front with the hidden mike caught it all though and was relaying the information before the ball hit the back of the net.

1-1.

Pocheon were the better team and their number seventeen headed them back in front with about twenty minutes left. The same lad made the game safe in injury time by finishing well after Chuncheon failed to clear a ball that had been bouncing around the penalty area for just that bit too long.

1-3.

At full time we could have stayed for a raffle and the chance to win a bike or a sack of rice. Instead we left them to it and got a taxi back to the ferry. The island was still pretty busy after the day trippers had gone home as there was a camp site near to the sheds.

I think we must have had the lowest occupancy rate with just the two of us in our shed. A few yards away there was a hut that wasn’t much bigger but was housing ten old blokes. Their wives were all in the hut next to them. They looked to be having a great old time with the men barbecuing stuff and knocking back the soju before letting their wives do the washing and tidying up.

Some of the wives clearing up the mess their husbands had made.

We called it a night at about nine. If you are going to have a crap night’s sleep then you might as well make it long enough for the odd periods where you aren’t awake to cumulatively amount to something worthwhile. Fortunately it started to rain shortly afterwards and the partying pensioners knocked it on the head too.

We’ve just had the Chuseok holiday in Korea. It’s the one where people head back to the town of their ancestors and pay their respects to the dead. That’s all well and good but with only three days off work, it didn’t seem worth trying to get to Sunderland Crematorium and back. And so free from graveside obligations, Jen and I went to Hong Kong instead.

It’s an interesting place. We did touristy stuff on the first day, taking the tram up to The Peak where we sat in the breeze looking down upon the city and then a taxi to Stanley where we wandered around along the seafront and pier.

Hazy looking view from The Peak.

The next day we went to Macau. Like Hong Kong it’s one of those places that was previously owned by someone else but now belongs to the Chinese. There are still a fair few of the old Portuguese style buildings to see, although the rain in the afternoon meant that we spent more time in a restaurant than we did sightseeing.

Not much left of this place

One of the main attractions of Macau for the visiting Chinese is the quantity of casinos, at least thirty odd of them in what is quite a compact place. We weren’t tempted, which is just as well as in shorts we wouldn’t have got in anyway, but plenty of other visitors were. So many in fact that it took us over an hour to clear immigration on the way in. Still, it’s worth a visit, although I’d recommend a mid-week out of season trip.

This was one of the quieter streets in Macau.

On the third day we went to Peng Chau. It’s a tiny island near Lantau. When I say tiny I mean it, maybe 500m x 600m. There aren’t any motor vehicles apart from fire engines.  Going there was a bit of a bonus as we hadn’t intended to, we’d planned on hiking up a couple of big hills on Lantau. Being the  responsible people that we are, we’d even visited the council offices to buy a proper map. Unfortunately the map didn’t cover the ferry terminal and we got on the wrong boat. We only realised our mistake as the ferry disappeared into the distance after dropping us at Peng Chau whilst we gazed at a map of the island that wasn’t far off being actual sized.

Not the busiest of fishing ports.

Still, Peng Chau was worth a visit. We climbed the 95m Finger Hill and covered just about every path on the island before getting a mid-afternoon ferry back to Hong Kong Island.

On the way down from Finger Hill, Peng Chau.

As you might expect Hong Kong was a strange mix of English and Chinese culture, typified by the food. One evening we ate in a British-influenced place where I had chips with curry sauce and a deep-fried mars bar, whilst somewhere else I had deep-fried baby pigeons complete with their heads.

I didn't bother photographing the deep-fried Mars Bar.

Anyway, this blog isn’t supposed to be a ‘what I did on my holidays’ sort of place, despite my life appearing at times to be one long holiday. It’s meant to be a Korean sporting blog and so I’d better tell you about the match. I know that it’s not Korean football but it’s as close as you are going to get this week.

I’d got lucky really as this was the opening weekend of the season. Hong Kong isn’t very big but it has ten First Division teams and another twelve in the second tier of its league.

The game that we went along to was at South China’s Hong Kong Stadium. It’s by far and away Hong Kong’s biggest stadium with a forty thousand capacity. The other eight top division grounds hold about twenty-five thousand people in total between the lot of them. Not surprisingly South China is historically Hong Kong’s most successful team.

It was sixty Hong Kong Dollars to get in, that’s about a fiver and you could sit anywhere you liked on the lower tiers. The previous game here had been between Chelsea and Aston Villa in a pre-season tournament and prices for that ranged from about a tenner to forty quid. It seems that watching people off the telly is more popular than watching your own team.

Hong Kong Stadium

We weren’t allowed to take any cans or bottles into the stadium, not even plastic bottles of water. That wasn’t much of a hardship though as they did sell pints of  Carlsberg inside as well as proper looking pies. Neither team had any players that I knew although last season South China had that Kezman bloke who used to be at Chelsea playing for them. Nicky Butt turned out for them a few times last year too, adding a Hong Kong League Cup winners medal to a collection that I suspect he had thought complete.

The home team wore an Arsenal style strip whilst Tuen Mun were dressed up as Chelsea. The crowd totalled about three thousand including the five hundred or so fans that the visitors had brought with them. Mind you, it’s hardly a long trip. I’d be surprised if anybody didn’t follow their team home and away in a place as small as Hong Kong.

Arsenal v Chelsea

South China had most of the early play but didn’t manage to get any shots on target and it was Tuen Mun who opened the scoring, a glancing header from Milutin Trnavac sneaking inside the post.

It was quite a physical game with a few crunching tackles and a fair bit of posturing from one or two of the players. Chan Hin Kwong picked up a booking after half an hour for hanging on to an opponents leg like a particularly clingy child being dropped off by his Mam for his first day at school. The visiting keeper made a decent save from the resulting South China free kick.

Vekjc Nemad palms it past the post

It got worse for South China a few minutes later when the South African Makhosonke Bhengu put Tuen Mun further into the lead, much to the delight of his scruffy looking manager Dejan Antonic. South China finished the half resorting to long range shots and they got a bit of stick from their fans as they left the field.

We moved seats at half time and I took my seventy Hong Kong dollar litre of Carlsberg behind the goal.

The view from the other end.

South China had a couple of decent chances early on in the second half and on the hour had a goal disallowed for climbing. They finally pulled a goal back with a quarter of an hour to go when Brazillian defender Wellingsson de Souza headed home.

The goal just increased the determination of Tuen Mun to timewaste, resulting in a further seven minutes being added on. They held on to frustrate South China and in particular their coach who was sent off for getting in a paddy and booting a bottle of water into the air. Perhaps that’s why they don’t allow you to take them into the ground.

All in all it was a pleasant couple of hours. The stadium has a nice backdrop of hills behind one goal, the beer was cold and the football pretty competitive. Much more enjoyable than a Chuseok visit to a graveyard.