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Samcheok v Gyeongju Citizen, Saturday 13th November 2010, 2pm

November 18, 2010

I haven’t seen very much of the third division whilst I’ve been here which surprises me a bit. If I’d had to forecast at the start of the season what I’d get up to I’d have thought my trips to matches would have been fairly equally spread amongst the divisions. But it hasn’t worked out that way and whilst I’ve been to almost all of the top division stadiums I’ve only managed to get to a single K3 game so far.

I had an opportunity to double my tally for the season last Saturday though as it was the first leg of the K3 Play-off final, with Samcheok hosting Gyeongju Citizen. Samcheok is quite a trek from Seoul and I remembered it from spending an hour or so there a few months ago when I changed buses on the way to the Hwanseon Cave.

Hwanseon Cave

But, you have to be somewhere, and whilst a four and a half hour journey each way to watch two poor teams contest a match where I had little interest in the outcome seems a bit of an odd way to spend a day, it does have its plus points.

Apart from enjoying watching live football, I quite like the traveling. The buses are comfortable with wide single seats and I tend to alternate between reading a book and looking at some fantastic scenery. This journey went through the mountains, where I saw plenty of graves in the hillsides and as I got close to Samcheok, which is on the east coast of Korea, I had some decent views of the sea.

As we drove along the seafront I did think that maybe I should have made this a weekend trip and seen a bit more of the area, but I’d already arranged to do a bit of hiking with Jen the next day. We’d walked the first fifteen kilometres of the Bukhansan Dullegil the week before and I was looking forward to doing the next fifteen or so. Actually, I’ll fill you in on how the hike went now and then get back to the football. I think these things read a bit better if they finish off with the match.

So, on the previous week’s hike we had ended up north of Sangbangjong, where the path turns to the east in the direction of Gangbuk-gu.

Bukhansan Dullegil

Our plan for the second leg had been to get the 704 bus from Gupabal subway station back to where we had left the trail and then hike through the valley towards Gangbuk –gu. We would then carry on beyond the Information Centre until we found a convenient point to leave the trail having done somewhere around fifteen kilometres.  This would mean that we could complete the 44km trail on a third visit. Unfortunately plenty of other hikers had the same plan and the buses all seemed too full to even bother trying to get into them. We took a taxi instead and beat the crowds.

It was fortunate that we did get there before the buses as when we passed the Park Ranger Post we were stopped and told it was reservations only to go beyond that point. Again we were in luck as that day’s quota hadn’t been reached and we were given a slip of paper and waived through. Fifty yards up the road we reached another checkpoint, this time manned by a couple of soldiers complete with tin hats. They seemed content to let the Rangers do all the work and didn’t even come out of their sentry hut.

Some of the peaks that we saw from the valley were spectacular, with rocks on the top that looked likely to fall if given the slightest touch. Perhaps that was why we couldn’t see anyone on those hills.

Bukhansan rocks.

As far as wildlife went, we didnt see much. There were plenty of signs telling us of the various species that lived in the area, but all that we spotted were a couple of dogs that weren’t very wild at all.

Bukhansan wildlife

The section of the trail where entrance was restricted was a very pleasant walk, with far fewer hikers than we’d seen on the rest of the trail. The woods were close to a couple of military bases and it looks as if they had used the area for training. We passed a watchtower and a small parade ground and at one point along the route there were anti-tank defences.

Anti-tank defences. Or something.

Once we got to the other side of the valley the route skirted the edges of the city. Whilst I’m happier being up in the hills this did have its advantages, mainly that I could forget about the roll of gimbap that I’d packed for lunch and get something a little better. We went into a restaurant that specialised in mutton and had barbecued lamb chops instead. I can’t think of a single hike I’ve ever done that wouldnt have been improved by stumbling across a restaurant that allows you to barbecue lamb chops at lunchtime.

We did pass a few other restaurants along the route, quite a few of them having signs outside informing passers-by that they specialised in the combination of dog and duck. As The Dog and Duck is quite a popular name for a pub in the UK, I was amused by the prospect of a Korean visitor to the UK seeing the pub sign and popping in for some familiar food.

In the afternoon we walked on for about another three hours, passing a cemetery dedicated to the victims of the 19th April 1960 massacre of protesters by soldiers.

April 19th Cemetery

We couldn‘t get into the cemetery from the trail, but there was an observation point that gave us a good view of it from up on the hillside. I’m not quite sure exactly where we left the trail later in the day, but hopefully we will manage to find our way back to complete the final section.

Right, back to the football. I’d left the Seoul Express Bus Terminal at half past nine in the morning and I didn’t get to Samcheok until ten to two in the afternoon. The bus had about ten passengers on it to start with, but then dropped most of them off at Donghae, which is a town just along the coast from Samcheok and as it has a beach and a harbour it looks like somewhere worth visiting. Mind you, after four hours on a bus, even  places like Billingham start to look like they are tourist hotspots.

As we approached Samcheok I spotted the football ground on the outskirts of the town. A little further along the route I also noticed a banner advertising the game. The good news was that I’d got the date right. However I hadn’t been quite so precise with my understanding of the kick-off time. I was under the impression that it was a three o’clock start, whilst the banner had it down as 2pm. As it was already ten to two and I wasn’t yet at the bus terminal that wasn’t the best development.

It worked out ok though. When I got off the bus I was fortunate enough to get into a taxi whose driver knew where the football stadium was and I arrived at the ground a couple of minutes after kick-off.

Samcheok Football Stadium

It was free to get in and you just sat where you liked. Mind you, as the total attendance in the fifteen thousand capacity stadium was no more than about one hundred and fifty people, it wasn’t a fixture where much stewarding was required.

One of the teams was wearing a red strip, the other was in white. I had no idea which team was which and as the half went on I didn’t really get any wiser. I think that I was sat with the Samcheok fans, although as they weren’t wearing any colours and with most of them seeming to cheer everything that was going on regardless of who did it, I couldn’t be absolutely certain.

The chants were led by a bloke with a drum who appeared to have brought a class or two of schoolkids with him.As he banged the drum they would chant each players name in turn. Occasionally he would vary the routine by giving the drum a rest and by hitting an iron railing with a saucepan instead.

Samcheok supporters.

The stadium was quite typical of older Korean grounds. It was oval shaped, with a running track and with a small covered stand along part of one side. The remainder of the oval was uncovered terracing. Where it did differ from other places was the playing surface. It was grass, which isn’t too unusual, but it was yellow grass, which tends to be a bit rarer. Particularly as we are only a few weeks past an uncommonly lengthy rainy season.

Maybe a little watering might be an idea.

It was a fairly typical first leg, with both sides not wanting to give too much away. There were a few running personal battles between the players which were making the play a bit niggly and the number nine for the white team was spoken to a couple of times for not disguising the sly digs at his marker a bit more professionally.

At half time I nipped outside and after being given a free coffee I bought a hot dog in a bun that had been inserted onto a stick and then deep fried. It tasted as bad as you would expect it to. I decided I would watch the second half from the other side of the covered stand and so I made my way past the main entrance. I was surprised to see eleven brand new bikes lined up by the front door, hopefully they would be the prize for the winning team. I’m sure that they would be a lot more use than a medal. Back in the nineteen seventies I can remember the winners of the League Cup getting a tankard each rather than a medal, but a bike would be even better, although I’m not sure about the practicalities of doling them out from the Royal Box and then having to manhandle them back down the Wembley steps again. It would make the lap of honour that bit quicker though.

Bikes outside the main entrance.

As I took my seat for the second half I noticed that I was now sat with the other set of fans. I was fairly sure that this lot were supporting Gyeongju, who by now I had concluded were the team in white. Gyeongju is a town from a lot further down the coast. I was there a couple of months ago with Jen, after we had been to a barbecue out in the countryside nearby. It has some old tombs in a park that looks like teletubbyland and every second shop sells nothing but barley bread.

Gyeongju

The Gyeongju fans were as noisy as the Samcheok ones that I’d sat near in the first half. There were probably about thirty of them, although I did wonder if they had been expecting more when I saw the supplies that they had brought with them. Even though we were into the second half they still had cases of food and drink unopened. They looked a lot rougher than their Samcheok counterparts. Perhaps it’s a harder life in tellytubbyland. One of them, who I’ll call Tinky Winky, was leading the chanting. He didn’t have a drum or a saucepan, which is probably just as well, as judging from his looks I suspected that he was prone to smacking himself in the chops with a saucepan rather than banging it on the railings.

Gyeongju supporters

They had a chant that might have been “Gyeongju“, but it actually sounded more like “Dog Dirt“. I really hope that it was one of their players names.

Both sides had their chances, although I dont really remember either keeper making a save of note and the game finished up at 0-0.

View from the other side.

By this time I’d made a circuit of the terracing and ended up back where I’d started. In addition to the usual bowing I was treated to a salute from the Samcheok players.

Attenshuuun.

After the players had left the pitch most people wandered down onto the yellow grass for a raffle where just about everyone seemed to win a scarf, ball or a bike.

Everyone's a winner.

After a while I left them to it and walked back into town. It took me about half an hour to reach the bus terminal and ten minutes after that I was on my way back to Seoul.

Posted in Dead people and stuff, Football, Hiking | Leave a Comment »

Suwon Bluewings v Jeonbuk Motors, Sunday 7th November 2010, 3pm

November 14, 2010

This week saw the final round of matches in the K-League and I made my way down to Suwon for the visit of Jeonbuk. With it being an afternoon kick-off I did think about setting off early and doing a circuit of the fortress wall that surrounds the old city. I’d walked it in a clockwise direction before Suwon’s game against Daejeon Citizen earlier in the season and thought it would be interesting to see it from an anti-clockwise perspective.

I didn’t bother in the end though. I’d been hiking with Jen the day before and we had finished up later on in one of those barbecue restaurants where you cook your own food. This one was slightly different though as in addition to the pieces of meat, you also got an assortment of shellfish, fresh from the aquarium. I made a bit of an error in putting some of the more explosive ones straight onto the grill rather than keeping them in their loosely wrapped foil, but injuries were minimal. Apart from to the shellfish, of course, but they gave their lives in a good cause.

The hiking was interesting. Or it was to me. You will have to make your own mind up. I’d read about a new trail that had opened in the Bukhansan National Park and that circles around the main peaks and goes through some of the small villages, across some newly installed skywalks and along paths that had been closed to the public for over thirty years. The entire Dullegil circuit presently consists of 44km and we thought it would be ideal for getting around on three separate days out. For the first of these we set off from Bulgwang subway station and walked clockwise in the direction of Yangju-si.

This is the map, although we didn't bother with one.

During the fifteen kilometres that we walked we saw exactly what we had expected to as we moved from wandering though small groups of houses to heading up into the hills where we often looked down upon Seoul.

Somewhere along the route.

We occasionally passed graves and for those wishing to delay their eventual burial, exercise areas, including at one point a couple of badminton courts deep in the woods.

The exercise machines proved popular with the senior citizens.

If I had a criticism of the route it would be that some of  it was along the pavement next to a particularly busy road. It’s a shame that these sections couldn’t have been replaced  by a trail, maybe a hundred yards or so away from the traffic. The route was also very busy at certain points, some groups of hikers seemed to have upwards of  fifty or sixty people in them.

Another quiet day in the countryside.

We stumbled across some sort of gathering in the yard of what might have been a restaurant. I’m a bit vaguer than normal because I didn’t really know what was going on. However what I can say is that it involved a couple of women in tradition dress and a whole pig wrapped in not so traditional polythene. It reminded me of a party that I’d once ended up at in Loftus after an afternoon on the drink and so we sensibly kept our distance.

Not too bad a bacon sandwich.

It’s a popular season for hiking at the moment as it’s the time of year when the leaves change colour and drop off the trees. It’s a big deal here, with different regions touting themselves as the perfect place to see the multi-coloured foliage. The Tourist Office even publishes tables showing the dates when the views will be at their most spectacular for each park. Back home we just call it Autumn. There was the odd bit of wildlife about and we saw a squirrel and one of those little chipmunk things, but didn’t manage to spot any bears or wolves.

Dead leaves. Whoopy do.

Anyway, the cumulative effects of the hike and the subsequent beers that accompanied the explosive clams meant that I didn’t get around to walking around the Suwon Fortress Wall. I’m getting better at making my way to Suwon though and in a rare feat of co-ordination I took the subway to Sadang and then got off it to transfer to a bus that dropped me right outside of the Bluewings Stadium.

I still had a couple of hours to go before kick-off and so decided to get some lunch. There was a chinese restaurant nearby that looked like the sort of place that would have photos on its menu so I went in there. It did have some very small pictures of the food but unfortunately they were no help at all as I couldn’t recognise what any of them were. They were quite expensive as well compared to the items that didn’t have photos alongside them so I suspected that they were the set meals. I didn’t really want to order dinner for five people, and so I just pointed at one of the cheaper menu entries and hoped that I had actually selected some food rather than chosen from a list of delivery charges to various destinations. One of the staff was then given the task of  repeating the same Korean phrase over and over again, possibly in the belief that I spoke Korean but was just being stubborn in not answering. I hoped that she was querying my order rather than informing me that my trousers were on fire.

I resigned myself to receiving a bowl of plain rice at best, or if things went particularly badly wrong, maybe some raw kidney garnished with chicken eyeballs. The chef even came out of the kitchen to gawp at the foreigner, which left me in no doubt that I must have ordered the first lark’s tongue omelette that he had cooked in a decade.

When it arrived though, I was in luck. I’d got a spicy noodle soup with bits of seafood in, a few mussels, some octopus legs, that sort of thing. Very nice it was too. Not too many lark’s tongues or chicken’s eyeballs at all.

I was meeting some people before the game so I got a few cans of that Japanese beer in the silver tins and made my way up to the stadium to wait for them. They’ve got a few sculptures on the grass on the way in and a toilet block in the shape of a football.

Just in case you didn't believe me.

I found a table outside of a cafe and drank my beer whilst I watched the crowd turning up. There’s a stage about a hundred yards away from the cafe and a band that were due to perform after the match were setting up and playing the odd number. It was quite a pleasant way to while away a bit of time.

The stage is behind those people.

I’d been there for close to an hour when the lads I was meeting turned up and by that time I’d worked my way through the Japanese beer and had replenished my stocks with Cass from the cafe. I knew them from a football messageboard, but it was the first time I’d met them in real life and the plan was for them to record a brief chat with me to use on a podcast that they do. I wasn’t wholly convinced about the wisdom of this as they seem to know their stuff about Korean football and I found it hard to imagine what I could possibly say that would prove either interesting or informative to their listeners. I just turn up at games, wander about aimlessly with a can in my hand and then drift off home at the end hopefully after managing to establish which team was which. I briefly provided a segment on Spanish football for an American podcast a few years ago and just about killed that show off after three weeks. Still, I consoled myself with the thought that as it’s quite new they probably don’t have many listeners anyway, so I wouldn’t be wasting too many people’s time.

We recorded about four minutes of gibberish, which will no doubt sound like they selected a bloke to interview without first enquiring if he knew what football was, before going into the ground. I thought that I might as well just go into the Suwon end with them. Suwon has the liveliest fans I’ve seen over here, so I’d be able to stand all game, plus in the convoluted play-off permutations I was hoping that Jeonbuk would lose and be overtaken by Seongnam so that one of the midweek games would be in Seoul and not Jeonbuk.

I picked up a couple more beers and joined in as if I’d been a Suwon fan all my life. I suppose a perfect result would have been a high scoring win for the home team, with Lee Dong Gook rattling home a few for Jeonbuk. As expected the Suwon fans were pretty good and led by a band at the front plus blokes with megaphones, they really got behind their team.

Suwon supporters.

Their team though, was a lot less impressive. Eninho opened the scoring for Jeonbuk from a free kick early on and Lee Dong Gook soon added a second. Luiz Henrique made it three nil before half time.

Eninho finds the gap in the Suwon wall for the opener.

It didn’t really seem to bother the Suwon fans though and in a way I could see why. They had recovered from a terrible start to the season which had brought about the sacking of their manager, Korean legend Cha Bum Kun. It’s a great name, but how much better would it have been if his parents had given him the name Daf instead of Bum. Whilst Suwon hadn’t made the play-offs they had won the FA Cup a fortnight or so earlier and qualified for the Champions League. This game then was meaningless and just a chance for the fans to have a bit of fun before packing away their gear for the winter. As the second half started they unfurled a giant surfer over our heads that obscured the view of the pitch entirely. Probably for the best, I think, and anyway, it meant I didn’t miss anything as I nipped up onto the concourse for some more beer.

A good time to nip to the bar.

Jeonbuk added a fourth in the second half, before Suwon finally got a consolation goal. Lee Dong Gook then rounded things off with his second of the afternoon and Jeonbuk’s fifth.

1-5, final score.

It all gets a bit blurry after that. I know I got some more beer from that cafe near the stage before we went to a restaurant,where I remember topping my glass up from the pitchers on the tables but had to be told the following day that I’d had chicken to eat. This was followed by a spell watching the band on that stage near the cafe where in addition to yet more Cass I mixed things up a bit with a bottle of Soju. Eventually the tiredness from the previous days hiking must have taken its toll though and I headed off home, falling asleep on the bus and having to be woken by the driver when it stopped at Sadang. If he had let me sleep I may very well have ended up back at the stadium an hour after leaving.

Elsewhere Seoul got the win they required to top the table, with Jeju finishing second and Jeonbuk in third. Ulsan, Seongnam and Gyeongnam filled the other three play-off places.

The K-League has a week off before the play-offs begin so next week I’ll probably pop along to see the first leg of the third division play-off final at Samcheok. I’ve been there before and it does strike me as a place where a whole pig wrapped in polythene wouldn’t attract a second glance.

Posted in Football, Hiking, Pigs in polythene | 1 Comment »

Seongnam Ilhwa Chunma v FC Seoul, Wednesday 3rd November 2010, 7.30pm

November 10, 2010

On Wednesday I went along to Seongnam in the hope that they would get at least a draw against Seoul and help Jeju to finish top of the table. I wouldn’t normally care who finishes top but I’ve got a weekend booked to Jeju that coincides with the date of the play-off final. If Seoul overtake Jeju at the top then Seoul will be hosting the game instead whilst I’ll be three hundred miles south watching a match on telly that’s taking place about five miles from where I live.

It doesn’t take me long to get to Seongnam, in fact I even had time to nip back to my apartment after work and pick up a coat, hat and gloves. It’s pretty cold at this time of year and so my usual work attire of a short-sleeved shirt wouldn’t have been much use. I know short-sleeved shirts aren’t particularly stylish, but it was ridiculously hot in the summer. Besides, they take a lot less ironing than a normal shirt, although with winter approaching I’ll soon be able to get away with my usual approach of wearing my shirts unironed, underneath a jumper.

The north east corner

I arrived at the ground well before kick off, bought a nine thousand won ticket for the east stand and got a couple of beers, although I wasn’t wholly convinced that chilled Cass was the most appropriate drink with the temperature dropping rapidly. Seongnam’s forward from Montenegro, Dzenan Radoncic was wearing tights and gloves as if the cold was a bit of a shock to him, although I wouldn’t have thought that the winters were much milder in his home country.

The game was fairly open with both teams looking to get forward at every opportunity before Seoul opened the scoring after about ten minutes with a scrappy goal. Bollocks. It got better though when Seongnam equalised a few minutes later. I was actually out of my seat celebrating for the first time at a Korean football match. It’s so much better when you care about the result, whatever the reason. I know that I won’t ever develop the same feelings for a Korean team that I have for the Boro, so maybe what I need to do is introduce a reason to care, perhaps with a big enough bet on the result to give the match that element of tension.

First half action.

My joy at the equaliser didn’t last long though as Seoul regained their lead just before the half hour. Double bollocks. They managed to stay ahead until the interval when despite having to drink them with my gloves on, I got another couple of beers from the chiller cabinet.

With it being half time I’m going to break off from the football to tell you about my most recent haircut. The actual clipping itself was just as you might have expected it to be, but afterwards the barber produced the sort of attachment that you see at garage forecourts for vacuuming the interior of cars and he gave my freshly cropped bonce a thorough hoovering. I’ve been to this barbers two or three times before and not had this particular treat. Perhaps they save it for regular customers and I’ve now been deemed worthy of the special attention. Whatever, I’d highly recommend it as a way of getting rid of the rogue clippings that a dusting with a brush or towel might miss and I’m sure it would work pretty well at getting rid of an infestation of head lice too.

Whilst I’m away from the subject of football I’m going to get on to the Olsen twins again, so to speak. A gratuitous photo in my last match report certainly seems to have increased the traffic to the blog. So much so, that I’m going to do it again. As I’ve never met Mary-Kate and Ashley, I don’t have any photos that I’ve taken myself, so I’ll have to ’borrow’ one from the internet. Not that it will be difficult, it looks as if there are one or two of them out there.

Olsen twins in a topless car

Mind you, it isn’t people mixing up the Olsen twins with the LG Twins that brings most visitors here, no, it’s people looking for bears. I know, you would think they would just try the woods. I’d like to believe that it was people searching for the bears that live in Jirisan National Park or the bear that sometimes appears at British Sea Power gigs, but I don’t really think it is. I think its more likely that people arrive here looking for big gay beardy blokes in checky shirts, only to come across a selection of relief pitchers for the Doosan Bears instead. Make your own joke up there, I’ve given you enough permutations.

Well, it’s a broad church here so if your interest is in bears, I’m happy to oblige. We can start with a shot of the British Sea Power Bear, Ursine Ultra, that I also found on the internet. And without any clothes on.

Nude bear

We can go back to the football now. The second half was just as end to end as the first had been with Seongnam pushing for an equaliser in front of their relatively small crowd. I’d been here a couple of weeks earlier for the Champions League semi final and the east and north stands had been fairly full that night. This game was played out in front of an almost empty stadium though. There were a few hundred visiting supporters who made plenty of noise, but I reckon the total attendance was probably no more than a couple of thousand people.

FC Seoul fans.

The Seoul manager, Nelo Vingada, didn’t seem too happy, despite his team hanging onto their lead. I can’t help but look at him and think of Alf Garnett. Stick a West Ham scarf around his neck and he would be a dead ringer.

FC Seoul manager Nelo Vingada

With Alf’s exhortations ringing in their ears, Seoul managed to hang on for the victory, a win which took them a point clear of Jeju at the top of the table with just one match left to play. The defeat for Seongnam prevented them from overtaking Jeonbuk, who remained in third place despite losing to Busan. That meant that I was likely to miss the final three play-off games if the placings remained unchanged. I had been hoping that Seongnam could pip Jeonbuk to gain themselves a home midweek tie in the battle between the third to sixth placed clubs. Without that though, it’s beginning to look as if the football season could be over a little earlier than expected for me and you’ll have a quieter winter to look forward too.  Still, I’ll no doubt be able to find a picture of a couple of bears indulging in a bit of snowballing or the Olsen twins in their stockings to keep the interest levels up.

Posted in Football, Haircuts | 3 Comments »

FC Seoul v Busan I’Park, Sunday 31st October 2010, 2pm

November 4, 2010

It’s getting towards the end of the season, with only a week or so remaining in the battle for the play-off positions. I probably wouldn’t have bothered with this game normally as I’ve seen Seoul play at home a couple of times already and I’ve also been to their Sangam stadium to watch the national team twice. However, I’ve got a bit of a vested interest these days in how Seoul get on. The battle to finish top of the league and earn direct entry and home advantage in the play-off final on the 5th of December is a two horse race between Seoul and Jeju United. I’ve already got flights to Jeju booked for that weekend and the last thing I want to happen is for Seoul to pip them to the top spot and for me to miss the final game of the season because it’s taking place in Seoul whilst I’m in Jeju.

With that in mind, Jen and I went along to cheer on their opponents, Busan, in the hope that Seoul would drop some points. We’d travelled back from Cheonan that morning where we’d been to a Halloween party the night before at one of the universities there. Cheonan is about eighty kilometres south of Seoul and whilst it’s actually possibly to get there on one of the far-reaching subway lines, we went on the bus instead. It goes direct rather than stopping at each of the thirty odd subway stations between my apartment and Cheonan and so even with the heavy traffic it was still a little quicker.

I forgot to take any photos in Cheonan, so here's one I found on the internet.

We found a hotel close to the bus terminal in Cheonan and checked in. Mind you ’checking in’ makes it sound a lot more involved than it really is. You ask the price of a room for the night or the hour, depending upon your plans. Someone tells you the price though a small hole in a window and you then exchange cash for a key. No credit card swipe, no forms to fill in, they don’t even ask what your name is. You usually get given a little pack with the key that contains a toothbrush, a condom and a razor. The room was fifty thousand won (twenty eight quid), which seemed reasonable enough to us but was a bit too expensive for the four American lads that we spoke to outside. They told us that they had been tipped off that rooms were available in Cheonan for twenty thousand won. As all four were probably sleeping in the same room that would work out at less than three quid a head. Good value if you can find it, although deciding which one would have a shave, which one would clean his teeth and how the other two would make use of the condom could no doubt cause a few arguments amongst them.

As with the previous weekend, our room was unremarkable by Korean standards, the only feature of note being a mirror that filled the entire wall that the bed was positioned against. This gave me a bit of a shock the following morning when I awoke to the sight of a middle aged bloke with a shaven head staring straight back at me from about a foot away. For a brief moment I wondered just how drunk I’d got at the party the night before.

The answer, incidentally, is not very. I’d had a few cans and a bottle of wine but slowed the pace down with a couple of  Cuban cigars. I’d taken the cigars to assist with lighting the roman candles but in the end they weren’t needed due to the Firework Code being different over here. Or maybe it’s not applicable to the Chinese fireworks that Jen had bought. Perhaps it’s a translation issue. It may well be that if you type ’Use a taper and light fireworks one at a time at arm’s length then stand well back’ into something like Babelfish it comes out as ’Dip the end of the firework in the fire as if it’s a marshmallow and then wave it around a bit before pointing it vaguely skywards or in the direction of a security guard who has wandered over to see how imminently the campus is likely to be burnt down’.

This is how you do it over here.

The party had quite an American feel to it. Mainly, I suspect,  because the people there apart from me were all Americans. But that aside, the lanterns were made from pumpkins rather than turnips and we had something called Smores to eat. For those of you from the right side of the Atlantic, a Smore is made by heating a marshmallow in the fire (as if it were a firework), either on the end of a toasting fork or on a straightened wire coat hanger, depending on the poshness of the party you are at. The marshmallow is then eaten between two biscuits with a bit of chocolate added to it. We cheated apparently, by using biscuits already coated in chocolate.

I'm not sure if that's a firework being lit or a marshmallow being toasted.

If I remember rightly, I’m sure the Firework Code mentions dogs as well, possibly something about not letting them hold sparklers if they are under five years of age, I think. We didn’t have any sparklers unfortunately, but there were a couple of dogs there, both of which seemed to quite enjoy the whole occasion. Although the availability of sausages and chocolate biscuits might have had more to do with that than the roman candles. One of the dogs was a cross between a beagle and a pomeranian. Normally if anyone has a beagle, or even half a beagle, then that will set me off reminiscing about the one I had as a kid. Coincidentally, it had already happened that morning, as when taking a break from cycling along the Han River, I got talking to a Korean bloke who was walking a dog that he described as ’half beagle and half hush puppy’.

I didn't get a photo of the beagle/hush puppy cross, so here's a picture of the Han River instead.

It turns out that his dog used to do exactly the same things that mine did, legging it at every opportunity and supplementing a fairly bland diet with stuff that had a bit of a kick to it. I’m mainly thinking of electrical wires and rose bushes here. We spent a pleasant ten minutes chatting before I got back on my bike and left him to his dog walking. I feel as if I’m digressing more than normal here, but I’m just going to take it a little further before I bring it back in the direction of the football game.  I haven’t lost sight of it. Honest. On another of my brief bike ride pauses that morning I’d watched a few minutes of a baseball game alongside the river. It seems an ideal sport for unfit old blokes, most of whom were smoking whilst waiting their turn to bat or to be called up as a relief pitcher. Now that I find that my cigars aren’t necessary for lighting fireworks any more I might just have to take up playing baseball instead.

Saturday morning baseball next to the Han.

Right, back to the Halloween party. Or more specifically to the half beagle, half pomeranian dog that wasn’t allowed sparklers at the Halloween party. I’ve got a bit of reminiscing about the non-beagle side of his breeding too, although it’s reminiscing about someone reminiscing rather than a direct memory of my own. In fact, as the pomeranian in question belonged to my Grandad, it might actually be me reminiscing about my Mam reminiscing about what my Grandad had told her. I’m going to google ’reminiscing’ now to see if I’ve mentioned it enough times to bring this site up on the front page for nostalgia seekers. It will make a change to get some visitors who are searching for something other than the Olsen twins. They no doubt get a little bemused when their search directs them to this blog and to the LG Twins instead

However, I like to think that there’s something here for everyone and since this match report is all over the place anyway, it’s as good a week as any to slip in a picture of Mary-Kate and Ashley.

Olsen twins 2010 - A very popular search.

Anyway, back to the reminiscing and when my Granda was a kid, somewhere between the beginning of the twenty century and the start of the First World War, he had a dog. A pomeranian, to be more precise, although I’d be disappointed if you hadn’t guessed that for yourself by this point. It was a white pomeranian called Snowy and in the days when kids in the north-east of England didn’t have much apart from ricketts and a hacking cough, the dog was his pride and joy.

Snowy probably looked a bit like this. Initially, anyway.

Unfortunately Snowy passed away at some point, perhaps after catching my Granda’s cough. I don’t know for certain as that wasn’t part of the story. However, what happened next was passed down the generations. My Great Grandad, who apparently wasn’t one for the usual guff about dogs having gone to live on a farm, had Snowy skinned and made into a fireside rug. Yes, really. Not a very big rug I imagine, but a rug nevertheless. I’m now beginning to wonder if whenever they caught a mouse they would have them flattened and recycled as a drinks coaster. I hope so. Perhaps the intention was that they  would sit on what was left of Snowy as they lit fireworks and toasted Smores. Again, I’m guessing. My Granda did tell my Mam that he would lie with his face on the new rug and cry his eyes out, although in the days before you could watch the likes of the Olsen twins on television, an evening spent sobbing in front of an open fire was probably a bit of a treat.

The half pomeranian at the Halloween party is unlikely to meet a similar fate I suspect, and at sometime after midnight, with the fire burning out, the marshmallows all smored and the security guard due back at any moment with reinforcements we got a taxi to our hotel in Cheonan town centre. The driver had a sat nav but he obviously knew the way as he had it tuned into the Blackburn v Chelsea game instead. A nice way to round off the evening.

So, it’s taken a while, but eventually, the Seoul v Busan game. As we were hoping for Seoul to get beat we paid twelve thousand won to sit in the away end. At one point I thought we might be the only people behind that goal, but a few more Busan fans filtered in and sat near the front. I think it was probably the lowest crowd I’ve seen at a game in that ground and despite the attendance being officially stated at 28,000, I reckon that there were probably more like 8-10,000 there.

Not so many there.

Seoul took an early lead and then doubled it shortly after. It was a bit disappointing as Busan had looked fairly lively to start with. The visitors managed to pull a goal back just before half time though to give me a bit of hope.

Busan fans celebrate their goal

During the interval we were treated to an impressive display from some ninja people who with a variety of  jumps and kicks managed to thoughtfully litter the entire left side of the pitch with debris from smashed wooden boards. If they had brought on a couple of beagles to chew the boards up they couldn’t have made much more of a mess.

Would you make a mess like that at home?

In the second half Busan pushed for an equaliser, but it just wouldn’t come. They had enough of the play but they rarely managed a shot on target. Seoul did their best to run out the clock with plenty of timewasting, although I did wonder how often the physio was being called on to the pitch to extract balsa wood splinters from a players arse rather than to assess a footballing injury.

Busan push for a second goal.

The home team wrapped it up with a third goal towards the end to make it increasingly likely that Jen and I will be at the pony races in Jeju on the final weekend of the season rather than the World Cup Stadium.

If you were wondering about Jeonbuk and Lee Dong Gook, they won. I actually saw a bit of their second half on the telly in our Cheonan hotel room. A 3-1 victory over Chunnam Dragons taking them into third place in the table. Lee Dong Gook was captaining the team, although he didn’t score himself this week. He was subbed with a few minutes remaining and the game safely in the bag.

Next match for me will be midweek at Seongnam, where I’ll be hoping that they will make a better effort at taking points off Seoul than Busan managed.

Posted in Baseball, Football | 5 Comments »

Busan I’Park v Suwon Bluewings, Sunday 24th October 2010, 4pm

November 1, 2010

At the weekend Jen and I went down to Busan for the Korean FA Cup Final. We’d had a bit of a choice to make as the first Korean Formula 1 Grand Prix was also taking place on the same day. In a way, I felt I should go and watch the motor racing. It’s a global event and with it being the first time that it had been staged in Korea, I suppose it’s a fairly historical occasion too.

Having said that, I went to Silverstone last year for the British Grand Prix and I wasn’t too impressed with it. Don’t get me wrong, I had a great time. I picked my son Tom up at a nearby railway station and then we spent the weekend camping about half an hours walk from the circuit. But it was the social side that I liked best. The race itself wasn’t particularly easy to follow live and I don’t think the weekend would have been any less enjoyable if we had just gone camping and watched the race on the telly.

The tents weren't too sturdy and the BBQ wouldn't light, but apart from that...

I think the main problem was that you don’t really get enough information when you are watching the race at the track. I was never really sure which car was leading and you miss most of the action by being limited to a single viewpoint. The cars are so loud that I needed to wear earplugs and that meant that I couldn’t hear any tannoy announcements or even have a conversation with Tom. The people in the know had hired little five-inch tellies so that they could stay up to-date with what was going on. I just thought that if you are going to watch it on a screen, you might as well choose a large one in a bar somewhere and avoid paying two hundred and fifty pounds for the privilege of being deafened.

That's Jensen Button. Probably. Although it could be his team mate.

So in the end we plumped for the football. There was a firework display in Busan on the Saturday night and that helped swing it too. It was probably a wise choice. Despite the tempting prospect early in the week of free tickets to the Grand Prix being dished out to foreigners, it seemed like a lot of people struggled to get into the circuit. I read that seats were just allocated on a first-come, first-served basis, which must be a little annoying if you were one of the early bookers who had shelled out a few hundred quid for a prime spot.

We set off for Busan on the Saturday morning on the KTX and less than three hours later we were there. We’d decided to try to stay somewhere near Gwangalli beach, so that we would be handy for the firework display that evening and so after a half hour taxi ride we wandered along the seafront looking for a room. The hotels in Busan seemed fairly dull compared to some of the others that I’ve seen over here. I’ve stayed at one which had four full size plastic horses above the door and  another that had fake palm trees on the roof. There was nothing like that in Busan though, or if there was we didn’t see it.

The first hotel we called into had a notice on the wall confirming that it was full. It had a restaurant though and so we stayed for lunch and something called dak galbi. Jen speaks very good Korean and so it usually means that when I’m with her I know what I’m going to get on my plate before it arrives. When I’m by myself it’s much more of a lottery as to what I’ll get given to eat. That’s not unique to Korea, by the way. When I was working in Spain I was once given a saucer of almonds instead of the anticipated steak and chips and on another occasion the cod I thought I had ordered turned out to be a pig’s foot.

None of those problems this time though and the dak galbi was even better than  normal as in addition to the usual chicken and cabbage in a spicy pepper sauce it also had prawns, mussels and bits of octopus in it. You cook it yourself in a big dish heated by a gas flame set into the table. It’s easy enough, all you have to do is move the stuff about now and then to stop it sticking to the pan. A bit like most things I eat apart from weetabix really.

This is a photo of dak galbi that I found on the internet.

We had a window seat in the restaurant and were able to watch the preparations for the fireworks which consisted mainly of someone filling as much of the narrow beach as possible with plastic chairs. Families were already staking their claims to spots on the pavements five hours before it started by putting down picnic blankets and making themselves at home. A group of monks wandered past our window at one point, some of them no more than young children. It seemed somewhat early in life to be making that sort of career choice, whilst a shaven head struck me as too much of  a commitment if you just did a bit of monking on a weekend as an alternative to joining the scouts.

Anyway, after the dak galbi we gave up on the prospect of a room with a sea view and moved one street back from the beach. There were plenty of hotels to pick from there and we tried one where we could see people stood on a rooftop terrace. It didn’t have any palm trees or plastic horses up there but we thought that it might come in handy for watching the display later on.

The hotel with the roof top viewing point had a room for us but by Korean standards it wasn’t too impressive. It had a circular bed, but when you’ve stayed in rooms that boast a dance floor with flashing lights, an overhead remote-controlled skylight or a coin operated condom vending machine on the wall, a bed without corners doesn’t really strike me as much to write home about. It was rock hard too, possibly because most Koreans usually prefer to sleep on the floor. I doubt the floor would have been any firmer than that mattress.

A little later we headed back out for the fireworks. Our plan was to meet some friends of Jen somewhere. It was all a little vague and in the end they didn’t make it. They were stuck at a different beach and by now the traffic was heavy enough to make moving around a pain in the arse. We were fine though, as we’d bagged a table at a beachside bar. There was a set fee for a table as the bar sought to make the most of one of the last busy nights of the season. For a hundred and fifty thousand won (eighty quid!!) we got a plate with four burgers on it, chips and a bit of salad. We also got two four pint pitchers of beer, three bottles of soju and a couple of soft drinks. It was the same standard deal whether you were sat at the table alone or if there were half a dozen of you.

One pitcher down, one to go.

The burgers were rubbish. I think they came out of a tin. They reminded me of the ones I used to eat in Stockton High Street after a night out around town twenty-five years ago. The burgers in those days had so little meat in them that you could eat them without chewing. Quite handy I suppose if the evening had ended up with you having a few teeth knocked out.

Three and a half of the four burgers remained on the plate at the end of the night, although we made a decent effort with the chips and the beer. The fireworks were excellent and sitting outside a bar watching them was a whole lot more relaxing than being stuck in the crowd of people trying to find a place to stand on the beach or the road. I suppose we would probably have had a pretty good view from our hotel roof, but we’d have had to have sorted out our own beer and chips.

Quite a good finale.

After a night’s sleep that might as well have been spent on floor we woke up to Cup Final Morning. As you may have suspected it didn’t quite have the same sense of excitement that I remembered as a kid in the days when the whole morning was spent building up to the main event in the afternoon. I flicked through the television channels just in case there was a Korean version of It’s a Cup Final Knockout or Cup Final Mastermind, but if they have programmes like that over here I couldn’t find any of them.

We had a few hours to spare before the 4pm kick off and as it was raining we went along to the Busan Museum. The really old stuff like rocks made in to axeheads or chopping blocks was a bit dull, as were the slightly later bits of broken crockery, but I quite liked the more modern exhibits from the various Japanese occupations and the relatively recent Korean War.

After lunch we wandered around the nearby UN Cemetery. There was some event going on and the place had a few Korean veterans stood around and also a party of modern-day soldiers. Twenty two countries answered the UN call for military or medical assistance and most of them were represented in the cemetery. The Americans have a policy of repatriating their fallen and so had very few graves here despite having lost around forty thousand servicemen. In those days the British tended to bury people in the country where they died and so we were the largest contingent, with 885 of the 1,100 or so personnel who had died during the Korean War being buried within these grounds.

As you would expect, the cemetery was impeccably maintained and it was sobering to read the details on the headstones. Very often you would see a cluster of graves that all showed the same date of death. I wondered whether they died alongside each other. Some of them were still teenagers and possibly conscripts as it was at a time when we still had National Service.

With an hour to go to kick-off we left the cemetery and took at taxi to the Asiad Stadium. The traffic was fairly heavy and we arrived with about ten minutes to spare. There was a long queue at the entrance into the west stand and we still had tickets to buy before we could even join the line. In a stroke of luck we were offered tickets for free as we approached the ticket office by a couple of blokes who had a big wad of them to give away. We gratefully accepted two of them and ignoring the queue to our right, we turned left and fifty yards further along were able to walk straight through an entrance to the south stand.

Ten minutes before kick-off.

We were supposed to be meeting some Suwon supporters in that end of the stadium but one of them had suffered a bit of a mishap, falling three stories from an unguarded stairway and suffering serious multiple injuries. Thankfully he survived and is expected to make a full recovery. It’s incredible to think of the steps that people will take to avoid us.

The stadium was impressive. It was built for the Asian Games in 2002 and also hosted three World Cup matches that year. It’s too big, of course, for the attendances that Korean football matches get, even Cup Finals, so someone had come up with the clever idea of building temporary stands on the running track down one side of the pitch and behind one of the goals. Half a stadium within a stadium, if you like. It allowed the fans in those seats to get much closer to the action, although it did mean that the roof on the stadium offered them no protection from the elements. Whilst the temporary stands were just about full, there was plenty of space in the rest of the stadium and despite the attendance being announced as 31,000, I’d have estimated a less impressive 12,000 or so.

How clever is that?

Equally less impressive was the lack of beer on sale. I’d walked halfway around the entire concourse just before kickoff in search of a pint as visiting museums and cemeteries is thirsty work. Unfortunately I couldn’t find anywhere selling alcohol. Luckily I had an emergency stash of whisky that I had lugged up and down Jirisan a month earlier and had brought to Busan in case we had ended up watching the fireworks from the beach. I don’t really want to be carrying it around for the rest of my life, so I had a few nips of that instead.

Random photo of stuff happening.

I like watching cup finals. The games aren’t always classics but you know that the players will be up for it and its likely that tempers will fray a bit later on, particularly if one team is behind. I’ve seen the German and Spanish versions in the last couple of years and was at Wembley supporting the Boro against Chelsea in 97. We went behind after thirty seconds in that one, so we hadn’t even managed to sit down before our tempers frayed.

The Suwon fans around us were pretty good, keeping up the chanting for most of the game. They were rewarded with a goal midway through the first half, as Yeom Ki Hun scored from a well placed shot from outside of the box.

Suwon fans after the goal.

They celebrated the goal with a chorus of a song to the tune of Ob la di, ob la da. Despite it being something that sounds like McCartney had knocked up in about ten minutes, the lyrics were obviously a little difficult to remember for the Suwon fans and they had been replaced with the even simpler “Ohhh, ohhh, oh,  ohhh, ohhh oh.“

Another random action shot.

At half time it was still 1-0 and we were treated to a girl band miming one of their songs on the pitch. They appeared to forget that the microphones were just for show and made the error of trying to use them for addressing the crowd after the song. Perhaps, to avoid any confusion, they should have been given hairbrushes to mine with instead. Fortunately someone ran on to the pitch from the sidelines with a real microphone for them and after being warned not to try to brush their hair with it, the budding popstars were able to thank the crowd for supporting their album sales and delaying the inevitable day when they would have to look for jobs in room salons.

The second half was quite scrappy with both teams getting stuck in a bit more and Suwon in particular taking any opportunity to timewaste by exaggerating their injuries. The players squared up to each other a couple of times but it never really boiled over in the way that I’d hoped it would.

Suwon fans unveil their surfer.

There weren’t a great deal of chances and despite it being a fairly even game, Suwon’s solitary goal turned out to be enough to claim the trophy. We got the usual presentation ceremony with paper fired into the air and the now obligatory rendition of We Are The Champions.

Party time.

The win gave Suwon a place in the Champions League and we filed out before the lap of honour to catch our train back to Seoul. When I went into work the next day, no-one even knew that the Cup Final had taken place and the talk was all about the Grand Prix. The combination of crashes and cars sliding off the track in the rain seemed to have captured their imagination in a way that a domestic football game could never hope to. Next year I suspect a fair few of them will be heading down to the track and then wondering where to get hold of earplugs and little tellies.

Posted in Football | 1 Comment »

Seongnam Ilhwa Chunma v Al Shahab, Wednesday 20th October 2010, 7.30pm

October 28, 2010

If the name Al Shahab is unfamiliar, it’s because they are from Saudi Arabia. Last night I was at Tancheon Stadium watching Seongnam take them on in the second leg of their Asian Champions League semi-final. Al Shahab held a 4-3 lead from the first leg and so barring a goalfest, a win by a single goal would be enough to take the Korean team through on away goals.

Jen had managed to get us free tickets through some Facebook group she was in, although I doubt too many people actually ever pay to get into Seongnam. They regularly give away tickets to schools and colleges to boost their crowds which on the occasions I’ve been there so far have still been well under a thousand.

View from the river

I was late getting to the stadium and as I got nearer it sounded as if the attendance was way above the usual turnout. I’d missed the kick-off and I could hear the roar of the crowd from the other side of the river. I met Jen outside and we made our way into the north stand, which is the section behind the goal where the home fans congregate.

Last time I was here, there were about thirty fans in the stand. They made a decent effort to get behind their team but with so few of them it wasnt much of an atmosphere. This time though, the stand was just about full as was the east stand to our left.

East Stand

With us being fifteen minutes late, we had to just take seats a couple of rows from the front which wasn’t a great view. The running track meant that we were a long way from the pitch and the advertising boards obscured our view of the players legs from their knees downwards.

I've had better views.

It was a fairly even first half, the Saudi’s looked a decent team, but Seongnam were creating plenty of chances. They managed to take one after half an hour when Jo Dong Keun finished after a flick on from Dzenan Radoncic. That put them level at four each on aggregate but ahead on away goals. The fans around us celebrated as a trip toTokyo for the final beckoned.

One Nil.

At half time I got a couple of beers and we moved further back for a slightly better view. The area that we moved to was a bit livelier too, with more kids in it than a goat orphanage. Most of the crowd had those bits of cardboard that you can either hold up as a sign or fold into something that makes a noise when you strike something with it. Initially they were hitting them against the backs of chairs or themselves. However, as most of the supporters around us appeared to be teenage lads, it wasnt long before they were all hitting each other. None of it was particularly aggressive and a lot of it seemed subconcious, it’s just the way fourteen year old boys behave with each other. At times, it was more entertaining than the match as they would wait until one of them looked the other way, or glanced at the match before catching him unawares.

I'm glad I'm not a teacher.

We spent about ten minutes watching them whacking each other on the head until I couldn’t resist it any longer and after picking up and folding my own bit of cardboard, I gave a couple of them in front of me what is traditionally known as ’a clip’. Their mates seemed to appreciate it even if the recipients didn’t.

Actual bodily harm? Possibly. But worth it.

The second half was pretty open, with both teams having opportunities on the break. Neither side managed to take its chances though and eventually the ref blew to send Seongnam into the final.  As we left it seemed as if half the crowd were cracking each other on their skulls with the bits of cardboard. I hope it catches on elsewhere.

Posted in Football | 3 Comments »

South Korea v Japan, Tuesday 12th October 2010, 8pm

October 19, 2010

This one was only a friendly, but with the history between the two countries, it’s a friendly that matters. I’d learnt how to get the tickets from the Hana Bank before the last game and so a couple of weeks ago I popped into my local branch during my lunch break to get tickets for fellow Boro supporting exile Alan and myself.

Of course, these things never run smoothly and despite it being only the second day of the tickets being on sale the first woman that I spoke to in the bank gave me the dreaded crossed arm gesture and advised me that the tickets were sold out. I suspected that at best she was mistaken and at worst she thought that the easiest option to reduce her workload on a lunchtime was to just send me away. I very nearly responded to her crossed arms with a gesture or two of my own, but thought better of it.

Still, I must have looked so incredulous that one of her colleagues made a comment to her before asking me to wait a moment. Ten minutes later I had two tickets for the north west corner at 30,000 won apiece. Perhaps the confusion arose from the north stand being sold out. That’s the section where the more vocal of the home fans go and there’s obviously a bit more demand for that bit.

On the evening of the game the subway was especially busy and so it looked like there would be a decent sized crowd. I made the mistake though of not switching to Line 6 until Hapjeong, three stops before the World Cup Stadium subway station. It took me fifteen minutes to inch my way from the platform entrance to the doors of the train, by which time two packed trains had already been and gone as I watched from a few yards back in the queues.

That's my thumb in the corner.

Despite the delay I was still at the stadium by 7.30pm and I met Alan outside of the subway exit.There were far more people milling around than at last months game against Iran, which boded well for the atmosphere inside the ground.

Subway exit.

We made our way in and took our seats in the northwest corner. We were in the lower tier but twenty eight rows up, so we had a decent view. At that stage the ground was about half full, although as the game went on the crowd probably got to about eighty per cent of the stadium’s capacity, so there must have been about fifty thousand people there in total.

The Korean fans certainly didn’t show any respect to the Japanese, booing their anthem before the start and their players whenever they got the ball. It’s not surprising I suppose, when you’ve been invaded and occupied by your neighbours as  frequently as Korea has been by Japan then there’s bound to be a bit of residual resentment.

The anthems and presentations.

In additional to the oppression of the Korean people, most historical sites in Korea have also suffered at the hands of the Japanese one way or another. Just in case anyone might be unaware of this there are usually notice boards nearby telling you of the skullduggery. It might be that a particular building has had to be restored because the Japanese burnt it down in a temper, or that the original manuscripts that were once inside are missing because the Japanese wiped their arses with them. Usually any paintings that are on display are only copies due to the Japanese having using the larger of the originals as wallpaper pasting tables or something and the smaller ones to line their cat’s litter trays.

I’m fairly sure that the next time I come to the World Cup stadium there will be a sign blaming this Japanese visit for everything from the divots on the pitch to the queues in the toilets.

Non-stop support from the Koreans.

The Koreans did, however, get behind their own team and there were gasps of anguish every time one of their attacks broke down or when Japan looked threatening. The fans in the north stand next to us kept up constant chanting and drumming throughout the game, waving the large flags at the front every few minutes and setting off flares early on. I’d like to try to get into that section for an international match. Particularly one with a sizeable crowd.

They like their flares.

Park Ji Sung wasn’t playing as apparently his knee was swollen with fluid after a training session. I doubt that Fergie will have been too happy about that. The absence of the Korean captain probably reduced the noise levels by a few decibels mind, and saved the medical staff from having to treat the numerous cases of hysteria that tend to break out whenever he touches the ball. The broadcaster still brought their dedicated Park Ji Sung camera crew with them though and every now and then a shot of him watching the game from the sidelines would be flashed up onto the big screen, no doubt with a caption that his knee injury wouldn’t have happened if the Japanese hadn’t agreed to the fixture.

It’s fascinating to watch a Manchester United game on telly over here. Park Ji Sung is such  a star in his home country that the half time highlights consist almost entirely of his efforts. Every one of his touches of the ball tend to be shown with little regard for anything else that went on. If he wasn’t involved in a build up to a goal, it probably wouldn’t qualify as a highlight and therefore would struggle to make the cut. If he was having a quiet game whilst Man Utd ran riot, you could be forgiven for thinking that it was still 0-0 if you were relying on the television half-time highlights for your information.

Keeping up with the latest on Park Ji Sung whilst watching the game.

This game was genuinely scoreless at half time, Japan having looked the better side but without really creating anything of note. The second half was a bit better with both teams getting forward a little more but again without looking as if they could create something to break the deadlock. If a goal was going to come it looked likely to be as a consequence of a Korean defensive mistake, but they rode their luck and the game finished 0-0.

They didn't score from this corner.

The subway was just as busy on the way out and I resorted to heading in the wrong direction and looping around to beat the queues. That’s it now for the national team until the Asian Cup in Qatar in January. There isn’t much of a buzz about them under their new coach Cho Kwang Rae, who whilst  he seems to know exactly the sort of football he wants to play, doesn’t appear to have yet managed to make it work.

Posted in Football | 1 Comment »

Ulsan Horang-i v Jeonbuk Motors, Saturday 9th October 2010, 5pm

October 13, 2010

On Saturday I travelled down to the south of the country for the second weekend in a row. This time though it was to Ulsan where the home side Ulsan Horang-i were taking on Lee Dong Gook’s Jeonbuk Motors.

I was up early and by about quarter to eight I was already at Seoul Express Bus Terminal where I bought a ticket to Ulsan on the 8am ‘Deluxe’ bus for 29,300 won.

Seoul Express Bus Terminal

Deluxe means that the bus only has about 30 seats, each of them larger than normal and arranged in a 2+1 configuration. They are pretty comfortable and recline sufficiently to allow you to easily take a nap. This was handy as the journey of almost four hundred kilometres was scheduled to last about four and a half hours. We stopped after about three hours for a break at a motorway services. I’ve no idea where we were, but it looked nice enough.

Somewhere between Seoul and Ulsan.

If one of the market stalls had sold fishing rods I might have been tempted to have left the bus there and then.

Another one for those with an interest in motorway service stations.

They didn’t sell fishing rods though and so I got back on the bus and just after one o’clock I arrived at the Ulsan Express Bus Terminal.

I hadn’t managed to learn very much about Ulsan before getting here. It didn’t warrant a mention in either of the Korea guide books that I have, nor did the internet throw up anything of interest. I picked up a map and some leaflets from the Tourist Information Office and learned that they have a few mountains around the edge of town that looked worth a visit. They also have a lighthouse where people often gather to watch the sunrise and they have an industrial complex that the notes on the map recommended viewing from the top of one of the hills after dark when it would be fully lit up.

That place looks somewhat familiar.

I liked the last suggestion, it reminded me of gazing upon Teesside from Roseberry Topping. Unfortunately I didn’t have time to climb any mountains and I was too late to see the sunrise so I just had to mentally file the knowledge for any future visit.

As I had about three and a half hours to spare before the five o’clock kick-off I decided I might as well do my sightseeing on the way to the stadium. It was marked on the map that I had and looked to be a few miles away. I set off walking in the general direction, safe in the knowledge that I could always get a taxi if it turned out that the scale of the map bore no relation to the actual distance involved.

There wasn’t a great deal of interest along the route although I suppose that when the Tourist Information place is giving the Industrial Complex a plug, you know that it’s not really a town geared up for visitors. I did take the opportunity to get a haircut though. It had been a month since my last one and as I had a bit of time to spare it made sense to get an overdue job out of the way. I may have mentioned before that the barber shops over here are not alway what they seem. Some are just covers for brothels, others, whilst providing haircuts, also offer a variety of ‘extras’. Or so I’m told. I think the barbers that I went into was one of the latter type. The barbers chairs were hidden behind a screen so you couldn’t see them from the street and once in the door there was a small reception area where the barber, a couple of old blokes and a glamorously dressed women in her mid-thirties were sitting watching golf on the telly. I did my usual mime of shaving my head and the barber directed me to behind the screen.

In the back area there were three barbers chairs set out in front of mirrors and then behind them were three single beds. The odd thing was that there was nothing dividing the chairs from the beds or the beds from each other. If a customer wanted the glamorous woman to break off from the golf and fiddle with his bits, it would be in full view of anyone on the next bed or in the barbers chairs.

I like to think I’m fairly worldly-wise but I’m not sure I’d be too keen on someone, perhaps my next door neighbour, sitting down for a short back and sides whilst  I was getting jiggy with the staff, six feet away and in full view.

Anyway, the option didn’t arise and neither did anything else. Perhaps they realised I was just after a haircut or maybe the golf was at a particularly critical stage. Nobody else turned up in the ten minutes or so it took to give me a trim, so I didnt get a live show included in the price either.

About two and a half hours after setting off from the bus station I got my first glimpse of the stadium. Or at least its roof, with the rest of it hidden behind trees. It is right in the middle of a very picturesque park, complete with a boating lake.

It's behind those trees.

I had a wander around, as I tend to do and took a few photos. It was an impressive looking stadium from the outside, another of those built for the 2002 World Cup. It has a forty four thousand capacity and hosted the Germany v USA quarter final if you can remember that far back.

Ulsan Munsu Stadium

 I bought a ticket for the East Stand, which faced the tunnel, and went in. I was pleased to see that it didn’t have a running track like so many of the stadiums over here and after getting a couple of cans of Hite I took a seat in the back row of the lower tier, bang on the halfway line.

Kim Young Kwang, the Ulsan goalie seemed very popular. There was a lot of footage of him on the big screen before the players came out, although it did seem to include a fair few fumbles, which left me questioning both his competence and that of the bloke who put the video together. The fans liked him though, he had his own banner behind the goal next to a large inflatable tiger and he got the biggest cheer of the day when the teams were read out.

Grrrrr.

This was a big game for both teams. Ulsan started the game in fifth position with Jeonbuk in sixth, three points behind and in the final play-off position, but seven points clear of the next team Suwon. A win for Ulsan would just about make them safe and would give Suwon a bit of hope in their chase for sixth position, whilst a win for Jeonbuk would just about finish Suwon’s season.

Lee Dong Gook had been restored to the starting line-up after his substitute appearance the previous week as Jeonbuk went with the wing backs again, with Eninho playing just off the Lion King.

A few minutes into the game about fifty soldiers joined the hundred or so Ulsan fans behind the goal.

Just in case North Korea gets a bit arsey.

Jeonbuk didn’t bring as many fans as usual with them with only about fifty of their supporters grouped behind the opposite goal. It has just occurred to me that these reports could be a lot more accurate than they actually are. When there are only around fifty fans in a stand it shouldnt be beyond me to count them and tell you exactly how many there are. I’ll try it next game. I might even try counting the exact crowd just to see if I can do it. In fact at some of the lower league games I could probably get you a list of all their names.

Anyway, Jeonbuk started well and Lee Dong Gook had a chance in the first few minutes that looked offside to me but it didn’t matter as he shot straight at the keeper. No doubt the save will be on the highlights reel before next weeks game. A few minutes later Ulsan nearly scored from a corner when Yoo Kyoung Youl headed over the Jeonbuk bar.

Almost the opening goal.

Not a great deal more seemed to happen in the first half, apart from the appearance of Flag Boy. This lad turned up about midway through and wandered about the East stand collecting food and drink from people who appeared to be strangers to him. After he’d eaten and drank as much as he wanted he went down to the front of the stand and led the singing for a while before a niggly first half drew to a close.

Squid? Beer? Crisps? Thanks very much.

At the interval I wandered out for a couple more cans of Hite, watched a girl wearing the home team’s goalie top sing Blondie’s Maria and then moved upstairs to see what the view was like from higher up.

By popular demand

The second half was a bit better with Ulsan’s Columbian Julian Estivan Velez  forcing the Jeonbuk goalie to make a decent save early on and Lee Dong Gook blazing over the bar from distance. Middlesbrough’s finest ever Korean ex-player made amends after an hour though when he got on the end of a cross from the left and despite not connecting properly his scissor kick bounced up into the roof of the net for the opening goal.

Even better than his goal against Mansfield.

Not only did the goal shake things up on the pitch but it caused a bit of a scuffle behind the goal between one of the Jeonbuk fans and a bloke who I think was a club employee, possibly part of the security team. They appeared to have a disagreement over the lighting of a flare to celebrate the goal and in a throwback to more civilised ways of going toe to toe, each of them carefully removed their jackets before trying to get stuck in. It couldn’t have been any more ‘old school’ without them incorporating pistols at dawn. As ever in these situations, plenty of others managed to keep them apart and the security man departed without making his point or collecting his jacket. He had to send in one of his less confrontational colleagues to retrieve it for him.

Hold my coat.

Both teams had their chances late on, Ulsan from a free kick and Jeonbuk with a disallowed goal from Lee Dong Gook a few minutes from the end.

Near enough full time.

There were no further goals though and the win took Jeonbuk into fifth place, above Ulsan on goal difference and seven points ahead of seventh placed Suwon with just four games remaining.

Posted in Football, Haircuts | 3 Comments »

Incheon United v Jeonbuk Motors, Sunday 26th September 2010, 3pm

October 3, 2010

My friend Paul had been over here for a week or so and after hiking up Cheongwangbong in Jirisan earlier in the week we’d been doing a bit of sightseeing. Despite having been here for seven months now and having travelled all over the country, there are still lots of areas of Seoul that I’m not too familiar with. When you have a visitor staying though, it provides a little bit of motivation to get out and have a look at some of the tourist attractions.

There are a couple of famous markets, Dongdaemun and Namdaemun,  and we had a bit of a wander around those. You could pretty much buy anything you wanted in these places with whole streets devoted to single items such as power tools, broiled fish or ginseng roots in bottles.

One of the markets.

We didn’t bother with the power tools or the ginseng, but we did chance the broiled fish soup. Very nice it was too once you got the hang of removing the bones with chopsticks.

We also visited what was described as a folk museum, but there wasn’t much  music going on. It seemed to concentrate on preserving household items from the 1970’s which I quite like in a museum. After that we stumbled upon a recently refurbished gate that was quite impressive.

As good as new.

Seodaemun prison was next on our itinerary. I’m starting to wonder if the ’daemun’ suffix is Korean for tourist attraction. Probably not. I’m used to seeing signs over here pointing out some injustice or another perpetrated by the Japanese during one of their occupations, generally the destruction of a national treasure or two. The prison though was the real deal and a thought-provoking place, particularly the execution chamber.

Seodaemun prison.

With the sightseeing done and with my legs too sore from the Jirisan hike to do any more walking we turned our attention to watching a bit of sport. We had planned to go to the horse races on the Sunday, but it wasn’t on because of the Chuseok holiday, so that left the football. Paul is a Middlesbrough fan too, although a bit of a lapsed one these days, so what better than a game involving Middlesbrough’s most famous Korean ex-player, Lee Dong Gook? Actually he is our only Korean ex-player, but that’s beside the point. His team, Jeonbuk, were playing at Incheon whose stadium is only about an hour and a half away from my apartment and so that’s where we went.

The season is starting to draw to a close now with only a handful of games left before the play-offs. Jeonbuk should be able to remain in the play-off spots as Suwon’s recent resurgence seems to have fizzled out a bit, whilst Incheon are well adrift but have nothing to worry about as the K-League doesn’t have relegation.

It had been a bad week for Jeonbuk though, they had been knocked out of the Champions League at the quarter-final stage by Saudi Arabian club Al Shabab. A one-nil away win for the Koreans being insufficient to overturn the two goal deficit from the first leg. Things were going better for Incheon though. A run of bad results that had seen them without a win in the league since May had been ended the previous week with a 4-1 away win at Daegu.

As we had arrived quite close to kickoff we got tickets for the East stand, which was the nearest to the subway. They were ten thousand won each, which seemed quite expensive compared to the four thousand won that it cost to go behind the goal. Still, it saved a three minute walk and with the state of my legs after the Jirisan hike it was well worth it.

The Munhak stadium had been quite badly damaged in the recent storms and a lot of the roof was missing. The upper tier in the East stand was closed, presumably because of the damage, so we found ourselves some seats in the back row of the lower tier, the only place where we wouldn’t have the sun in our eyes. There were a couple of hundred Incheon fans behind the goal to our right, but not much more than thirty or so travelling supporters from Jeonbuk at the other end. Perhaps the rest were still making their way back from Saudi Arabia. I reckon the total attendance was no more than a thousand, despite it being officially put at over six thousand.

Jeonbuk fans

The big shock of the day was that Lee Dong Gook wasn’t playing. Were they not aware that Paul had travelled six thousand miles to see him? And what about this blog? It’s supposed to be about the Lion King. There’s a limit to how long I can waffle on about silkworms, baseball and death by electric fan, you know.  Or perhaps not. Not only was Lee Dong Gook nowhere to be seen, but Eninho, Luiz Henrique and Krunoslav Lovrek were also missing, ‘rested’ after the trip to Saudi Arabia during the week.  It was hard to see where the goals were going to come from.

Jeonbuk, who were playing a 5-3-2 system for a change, started the better of the two teams and after twenty minutes their left wing back Kim Min Hak was fouled as he shaped to shoot. From where we were I thought the ball had just bobbled as he went to hit it, but the ref was a lot closer than us, possibly almost two hundred yards closer, so I won’t question the decision too much.

Kim Min Hak, a young lad who was making only his third appearance, got to take the penalty himself in the absence of the big guns and he put it away very confidently for 1-0.

1-0

Incheon were coming back into it more though as the game went on and their Bosnian- Herzegovinan striker, Samir Bekric, sidefooted a good opportunity past the post after half an hour. A few minutes later Lee Jun Young escaped the attentions of the covering defenders, megged Lee Kwang Hyun and then passed it though the legs of  Jeonbuk captain Kim Sang Sik for Yoo Byung Soo to tap home his 16th goal of the season for Incheon.

That was it for the first half and as we got ourselves a beer we had a look across to the adjacent SK Wyverns baseball stadium where some fans had already began to arrive. They had a game starting at five o’clock which, in a rare example of Korean fixture co-ordination, meant that we could pop into the baseball after the football match had finished.

The baseball stadium

I was quite pleased about that as the food is much better at the baseball than the football. Paul, having declined the dried squid, had got himself some gimbap. I decided to wait though until the SK Wyverns game and have some pork dumplings instead.

It’s probably worth reflecting on the fact that we were able to sit at our seats and drink a can of Max each. If we had done that in the UK it is almost certain that we would have been arrested, fined and banned from every ground in the country for three years. It seems a bit excessive for a couple of middle-aged blokes having a quiet beer.

Not long into the second half Yoo Byung Soo took his total to seventeen for the season when his shot took a wicked deflection to wrongfoot the Jeonbuk goalie. He didn’t seem too embarrassed though, choosing to celebrate by making that overhead heart-shaped sign that is surprisingly popular in Korea.

Incheon fans celebrating and hoping that it doesn't rain.

That second goal was the signal for Jeonbuk to abandon their wing back experiment and after a double substitution that brought two debutants on, they switched to 4-4-2.

The home team went further ahead on the hour as Lee Jun Young skinned Kim Min Hak and sent over a perfect cross that Kim Young Bin finished off not quite so perfectly with his shin for 3-1.

Jeonbuk pressed forward in the final stages, but they didn’t ever look convincing without their experienced strikers. They did pull one back though towards the end with a second penalty of the game when their final substitute Kim Hyung Bum claimed his first goal of the season.

3-2

I’ve seen Jeonbuk come back from the dead a few times this season and they almost salvaged a point in the final moments when one of the new lads broke clear but hit it over the bar. I’d have fully expected Eninho or Lovrek to have put that one away. It wasn’t to be though and we made our way out towards the baseball and the pork dumplings.

The defeat left Jeonbuk in the sixth and final play-off position, ten points behind leaders Jeju United but with a game in hand. Play-off rivals Suwon could only draw and are six points behind Jeonbuk in seventh place, but they have played two games more. I think the play-off spot is fairly safe for Jeonbuk, but they will need to improve a fair bit on their current form if they want to realise their ambitions of retaining their title.

Posted in Dead people and stuff, Football | 2 Comments »

Gwangju Sangmu v Incheon United, Sunday 12th September 2010, 3.10pm

September 30, 2010

On Sunday I got the opportunity to visit another of the World Cup stadiums. One of the hiking groups that I’m in were walking along the coast from Buan to Gyeokpo on the Saturday, so it seemed a good opportunity to combine that hike with a trip to nearby Gwangju and the Guus Hiddink Stadium the following day.

Buan is in the south west of Korea and with the hike setting off at 11.15am, Jen and I got the bus from Seoul at 7.50am. The weather was pretty bad for most of the journey, with heavy rain until we got close to Buan. The bus was about fifteen minutes late arriving and when we got off at the terminal there wasn’t anyone around who resembled a hiker. If it had been raining in Buan we would probably have forgotten all about the hike. The weather was fine though and with the route following the coastline meaning that we were unlikely to get lost we took a taxi to the sea wall starting point of the nineteen kilometre trail.

We had a bit of luck when we got there as I recognised a girl who I’d walked with before and we soon caught up with the other seven members of the hiking group. The first 6km or so followed the beach where we saw families digging for something, possibly clams, maybe some sort of razorfish. I’ve no idea what they were doing to be honest, they could have been burying their grannies for all I knew. I saw a few of those flying fish that jump out of the water, some of them quite close to the shore. There were also plenty of locals in the water, all of them overdressed, as is the way it’s done in Korea, some of them to the extent that they were wearing tee shirts, jeans and trainers.

The second stage of the trail took us up into the woods where we passed a lot of army outposts and huts, providing coastline defences and training opportunities. It started to rain around this time. It was a hot day though and with the humidity I wasn’t convinced that I’d be any drier if I put my waterproofs on.

The final third of the hike was on roads, mainly due to us getting lost, and by the time we arrived at Gyeokpo beach, I was pretty much soaked through. I wasn’t as wet as two days earlier though. I’ve recently started playing five a side out here and we had played our first match that week in the rain that accompanied the hurricane. By the end of the game there were pools of water all over the pitch.

We left the rest of the hiking group at the bus station and checked into a hotel by the beach. It was a hundred thousand won for a room with a sea view and a balcony. It was probably the best room in the hotel, on the top floor with the window coming down to floor level and then taking up virtually the whole wall that faced the sea.

Our hotel.

After calling into a restaurant for a variety of seafood including some small ’cut in half’ crabs in a stew that I probably expended more calories trying to extract the meat from than I took in from eating them, we headed back to the hotel. In the foyer they had an umbrella stand that was well stocked with fireworks. I don’t know how the various guides allocate stars to hotels but if I was doing it then a bucket full of fireworks in reception would be enough to guarantee an extra star or two.

We bought four of them for a total of ten thousand won and set them off reasonably responsibly on the beach. By reasonably responsibly I mean that we stuck them in the sand.

Can of beer to responsibly douse stray sparks.

We did light a couple at once, which I believe the Firework Code frowns upon, but that was nothing compared to the way the Koreans let them off. Adults and children alike all just held them at arms length and fired them one handed down the beach.

And this is how the locals do it.

The next day we got a local bus to Buan and then a slightly less local bus to Gwangju. By the time I’d had some bulgogi for lunch there wasn’t really much time for any sightseeing which was a shame. Gwangju is famous for a massacre of protesters demonstrating against the military government in 1980 and there is a cemetery and museum that I was quite keen to see. I did have time for a haircut though, notable for the look of horror on the hairdressers face as she shaved it down to the requested three millimetres.

We got to the stadium about an hour before kick off and it was an impressive sight with curved roofs on each of the two stands along the sides of the pitch. Not for the first time I regretted that my camera was incapable of taking wide angled photographs. The stadium had been renamed after the World Cup to honour Guus Hiddink’s achievement in taking the team to the semi-finals. One of the games that it staged was the Spain v South Korea quarter final that the Koreans won on penalties after a goalless draw. I suspect that might have been the last time that the stadium was full.

My new favourite stadium

We got a couple of tickets for seven thousand won apiece and made our way into one of the stands with a curvy roof. If we’d wanted, we could have sat in the media section, complete with little tables, but it was a bit windy so we went down to the lower tier instead and sat in what looked like a VIP section. I’d had a look for somewhere selling beer but couldn’t see anything, although I can’t have been that desperate as there was still time to nip back outside and pick up a couple of cans if I’d wanted.

Whilst the stadium still looked in decent nick, the pitch was poor, with a lot of bare patches.Gwangju Sangmu, the home side, are actually the army team. They have been playing in the K League since 2003 when the Korean footballing authorities decided that they would like all of the former World Cup stadiums to be occupied and in a move that strikes me as a little insensitive, moved the army team into the city where the massacre by the military had taken place twenty three years earlier.

The team is made up of professional footballers who have had their careers interrupted by compulsory military service. All men over here have to serve at least twenty-one months in one of the armed services. From what I can see the only exception seems to be Olympic gold medal winners and the team that reached the semi final of the World Cup in 2002. Lee Dong Gook was left out of that squad by Hiddink who perceived him as being a little on the lazy side and he ended up playing for Gwangju Sangmu whilst doing his national service between 2003 and 2005. I wonder how often he cursed his former national manager as he got out of bed at 6am to march up and down the parade ground.

You might remember Kim Jung Woo from this summer’s World Cup. He was the lad who saluted during the South Korean national anthem. Well he was playing, no doubt regretting that they had been knocked out at the last sixteen stage. Two more wins and he could have given up wearing khaki for good.

The away team were Incheon. I’ve seen them a couple of times already this season and they are struggling a bit. In fact, going into this game they hadn’t won in the league for ten games, a run that stretched back to the end of May. Mind you, Gwangju Sangmu were on an even worse run, it was early May since they had picked up three points. So, what do you reckon, nailed on draw?

Incheon, who have a pretty decent travelling support normally, had brought about thirty fans with them.

Incheon fans

 At the opposite end of the stadium, the Gwangju ’ultras’ consisted of six sorry looking kids, although with the benefit of a couple of loudhailers they did make a bit of noise. It isn’t often that a team has more players than fans. Actually, they had more substitutes than fans. Bless.

Look very closely behind the goal and you can see the Gwangju fans.

It didn’t take Incheon long to go ahead. Their Brazilian striker Bruno Correa robbed a Gwangju defender and squared for Young Byong Soo to tap home from close range. The thirty Incheon fans, sensing their first win since before the World Cup break celebrated with a song using The Beatles tune ’I Will’.

The Army side fired in a couple of long range scuds from outside the box but apart from that didn’t really threaten for the rest of the half. At half time we were treated to an eleven a side game between some young kids on a coned off pitch that was smaller than the one I’d played five a side on two days earlier. In classic schoolboy fashion all twenty outfield players chased the ball around the pitch, although if they had spread out a bit it probably wouldn’t have looked a whole lot different. One was so small that his bib came down to his ankles. Still, I suppose it will stop him getting rusks on his football shirt.

Their parents trebled the attendance.

In the second half Incheon had a couple of chances to put the result beyond doubt. Substitute Nam Joon Jae looked as if he might have been brought down as he shaped to shoot  and then in the last couple of minutes they hit the bar after taking the ball off a Gwangju defender who for some reason was dribbling along his own six yard box. A court martial offence worse than shooting General Melchett’s pigeon.

As I’m sure you suspected would happen, the missed chances came back to haunt Incheon in injury time. Park Won Hong, who had only been on the pitch for a couple of minutes, headed home for Gwangju after a scramble in the box to enable both teams to preserve their records of not having won since May. I checked later and the official crowd was given as 1,318. I’d have guessed at half of that at the most. Perhaps that’s what happens when you put the army team in a town with a reason not to be too keen on the military.

Meanwhile, back in the world where teams do occasionally win a match, Jeonbuk got beat 3-1 at home by Gangwon. Lee Dong Gook played the entire game but didn’t score. Still, at least he wouldn’t be doing sentry duty afterwards like the Gwangju players. The result left Jeonbuk in fourth place, six points behind leaders Jeju United.

Posted in Football, Haircuts, Hiking | 3 Comments »

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