Trail of the Lion King

It was time for my first football match since the World Cup. If I’d wanted to I could have gone down to Jeonju to watch Jeonbuk play in a K-League game. They had got a bit behind in their fixtures due to their Asian Champions League run and so were starting up again a week before everyone else was due to resume after the break for the World Cup.

Whilst the prospect of seeing Lee Dong Gook and his mates get back on track in their championship challenge was quite appealing, I’d already been to Jeonju and so thought that I’d have a trip out to see Seoul Martyrs in the third division instead. I left the house at about half past three for the five o’clock kick off after first putting on a layer of sun cream. It’s getting pretty hot over here at the moment and now that I don’t have much hair my head seems to burn so much more easily.

I’d got a bit of an unwanted bronzing the previous Sunday when I’d spent a day rafting on the Hantan River, a couple of hours to the north east of Seoul. It was an enjoyable day in a very scenic valley, but I’d come home a lot redder than when I went out. I’d also come home with one knee bigger than the other, as whilst on one of those occasions when you get out of the boat to just drift along with the current, I’d whacked my legs on a rock hidden a couple of feet below the surface.  Still, I’m not going to complain too much as I count any day in the water as a success if I can manage not to drown. And speaking of successes, I’d doubled the number of Korean words that I know by the frequent use of  “One, Two” or “Hana, Dul” as we rowed. If the gas industry ever dips into recession I’m confident I could now make a reasonable living coxing Dragon boats.

I should really have allowed a bit more time to get to the match as I had to sit through twenty four stops on the subway before arriving at Soyu station in the north of Seoul about twenty minutes before the 5pm kickoff. I hopped into a taxi and asked the driver to take me to Gangbuk Soccer Stadium. Normally I like nothing better than putting people straight on the correct `Football v Soccer` terminology, but today I didnt have the time or the inclination to get involved and just took the easy option. Or what I thought was the easy option.. He looked at me as if my over-reddened face was due to the telephone ringing whilst I was ironing rather than the effects of the sun and he kept repeating in apparent disbelief,

“Gangbuk? Soccer Stadium?”

It was as if I’d asked him to take me to Harrods in Billingham town centre.

“Yes, Gangbuk Soccer Stadium” I confirmed.

He shook his head and started jabbering away in that aggressive way that a lot of Koreans do, even I imagine when they are reading their kids bedtime stories. I often listen to my colleagues at work talking and from the tone of their voices I am usually convinced that they are having a violent argument that will end in one of them being hurled out of the fourteenth floor window. More often than not it turns out to be nothing more sinister than one telling the other what he had eaten for lunch.

Fortunately I had the address of the stadium written down and I handed it over with a smug look on my face. He read it, shook his head again and went back to his routine of;

“Gangbuk? Soccer Stadium?”

Now I know the third division doesn’t have big crowds, but as far as I was aware I was within a couple of miles of the stadium and he was a taxi driver who makes his living driving people to places in Seoul, so it shouldn’t really have been beyond him.

Anyway, he set off, still chuntering away. I was tempted to use my newfound knowledge and give him a quick burst of “Hana, Dul, Hana, Dul” to hurry him along but on reflection felt that it might not necessarily help. A hundred yards or so later, he pulled up at a taxi rank and got out to ask for directions, taking with him my piece of paper with the address on.

A minute or two later he got back into the taxi and picked up where he left off, like an Action Man with a jammed voice cord.

“Soccer Stadium?”

“Yes, but Gangbuk Soccer Stadium” I replied, not wanting him to try and solve his dilemma by taking me to the World Cup Stadium a few miles away instead. That was enough to set him off again.

“Gangbuk? Soccer Stadium?”

I think he sensed from me hitting my forehead with the palm of my hand that I was ready to get out and so he set off again, but with a bit more decisiveness this time. He cut across two lanes of traffic and swung the car into what looked like a school. Perhaps he thought that they would have a pitch there that he could pass off as the Gangbuk Soccer Stadium.  A few minutes later he was back on the main road and stopped to ask a woman stood at the traffic lights. He barked at her in the same way he had been doing at me and she, after giving him what appeared to be a mouthful back,  pointed  in the direction that we had just come from and gave him a few directions. A quick U turn and a couple of minutes later we were there.

I still don’t think he could believe that someone would choose to watch a game there, if indeed he had any idea that there was a match taking place. I’m pretty sure that he was expecting me to admit my mistake and to then sheepishly ask him to drive on to the World Cup Stadium or somewhere. But I didnt, I paid him as gracefully as my mood allowed, which wasnt very gracefully at all as it happens, and got out.

The stadium was at the top of a short incline and I could see through the bars of the large gate to the terracing at the far end. I went through a smaller gate to the right and was inside. Nobody appeared to be collecting any money, which wasnt surprising really as the six or seven step terracing was surrounded on the other three sides by woodland. A path ran all the way around the pitch and there seemed to be almost as many walkers taking a bit of exercise as there were spectators at the match. It was all very picturesque, although I imagine that had anyone been taking a walk through the woods, it would have been quite an odd sight to stumble across as you came to a clearing.

The teams were on the pitch and about to kick off. Seoul Martyrs, who were struggling towards the bottom of the table, were in red shirts, with black shorts and white socks. Their opponents, Cheonan, had the same shorts and socks combo, but were wearing white shirts.

The home team had the advantage of five fans behind the goal who were making as much noise as they could, with a drum, loudhailer and one who had made the unusual choice of banging two empty plastic drinks bottles together. Perhaps it will be the craze of the next World Cup.  I didnt see any away fans although if their taxi experience had been anything like mine, they could still have been travelling around Seoul trying to convince their driver that they really didnt want to be at the Olympic Stadium ten miles away.

There were maybe another hundred or so people watching, spread around the pitch, some in the small covered stand at the halfway line, others sat on benches and looking like they were just taking a short break from a stroll in the park.

The game was fairly even for the first twenty minutes or so, Cheonan looked marginally the better team and were passing the ball well. Seoul probably had the best couple of chances though before Cheonan took the lead with a well struck shot. There was polite applause from most of the crowd, so it looked as if they were neutrals who had just nipped out for a bit of fresh air.

I wondered if the first goal would open the floodgates. When the two teams had met last in October, Cheonan had won 12-0 and whilst I don’t like a game to be too one-sided, a score like that would more than make up for any lack of tension over where the points were going. By half time though, there was still just the single goal in it. I popped into the small convenience store just outside the main gate for a drink, only to find a couple of the Cheonan subs in there, one of them keeping his blood sugar levels up with an ice cream, the other taking on board a little extra energy by way of a Pot Noodle.

It didnt take Cheonan long to score a second after the restart, with a breakaway goal that was very well finished. The Seoul Martyrs fans kept up the noise though and their team still didnt look out of it. I was hoping they would pull one back just so that I could tell a passerby the score with my new Korean words, but they didnt. Still, it was a big improvement from the last time they had met Cheonan. Unfortunately I had to leave after an hour as I had stuff planned for that evening and so I had to wait a couple of days to find out that Cheonan had added a third after I’d gone. Fortunately the taxi driver on the way out didn’t find it too unreasonable when I asked him to take me to the nearest subway station.

Further south, Jeonbuk Motors beat Daegu by four goals to nil with Lee Dong Gook coming on as a second half sub and scoring twice in the final few minutes. It moved them up to sixth place in the table, five points behind leaders Ulsan Horang-i but with a game in hand. I’ll probably go and see them next week when they visit Daejeon Citizen.

This was meant to be one of those ‘two matches in consecutive days’ trips, as I’d noticed that both the teams that play in Changwon were at home in the same weekend. Changwon City of the second tier National League had a game on the Saturday night, followed by top division Gyeongnam on the Sunday afternoon. I’d had a bit of a late night out in Bundang though on the Friday that included ‘Coffee Tequila’s’ at 3am. A ‘Coffee Tequila’ involves licking what appeared to be instant coffee powder off your hand before knocking back the tequila shot in one. It’s not a variation that I’d tried before and I’m still not wholly convinced that either my companion or the barman weren’t taking the piss somewhere along the line.

Whatever. The upshot though was that next morning I didn’t fancy doing anything at all, particularly taking in a match involving a lower division team that I’d just discovered shared a stadium with their top tier neighbours. Part of the attraction for me of going to these games is seeing the different grounds and turning up twice within twenty four hours at the same place just doesn’t have the same appeal.

So, it was Sunday morning by the time I set off for Changwon. I caught the 9am KTX, changing at Miryang and passing the Cheongdo Bullfighting Stadium on the way before arriving at Changwon just after midday. I’d had a bit of a read about Changwon during the week and to be honest, it was probably just as well that I was only there for the afternoon, there didn’t seem a great deal else there that was worth seeing. It seemed to be mainly shopping malls and office blocks. I got a taxi into the city centre and then after some lunch, got another taxi to the ground.

Since there isn’t much to say about Changwon, I’ll take the opportunity to fill you in about Korean toilets. Instead of just having a seat and a lid like ours do, they have a plug in unit that sits on top of the bowl. You can buy them in the electrical stores and supermarkets for a couple of hundred quid. It looks like a seat, but is thicker and has a panel of buttons down the side. When I first moved into my apartment I couldn’t work out how to flush it and, as you do, just pressed all the buttons in the hope that something would happen. Well, it did. What happened was that a jet of water shot out of the bowl into the air and started flooding my bathroom. No matter which other buttons I pressed it wouldn’t stop, not until about thirty seconds had elapsed anyway. I’ve unplugged it now.

At work, the panel at the side of the seat has seventeen different buttons on it. When you sit down the toilet plays a tune and then the seat warms up. I’ve learnt my lesson though and don’t touch any of the buttons. I daren’t in case a wire brush appears and gives my piles a scrub.

The ground looked pretty smart from the outside and was decorated with a lot of banners in the Gyeongnam colours of red and black. It was only built last year and holds 15,500 people, perfect for a club of Gyeongnam’s size. I walked along the front of the stadium and then up behind the goal where I bought a ticket. I’m used to the odd surprise at these ticket offices but today’s was one of the best yet. I handed over the exact money for a 10,000 won ticket and in return got not only my ticket but a 6” square pizza box with a slice of pepperoni pizza in it. I took my snack, declined the offer of a couple of those inflatable sticks to bang together and went into the ground. You could sit anywhere at all, so I decided to sit in the shade. It was a hot day and I’ve been finding recently that my severe new haircut doesn’t give my scalp much protection from the sun. Mind you, I don’t get compared to Meat Loaf any more, so I’m not going to complain about trivial stuff in comparison. Second degree burns seem a lot more preferable to some smirking twat whistling ‘I’d do anything for love’ behind your back.

I bought a couple of cans of cold beer to accompany my pizza and took a seat high in the main stand. The teams came out and lined up before being presented to someone who looked important. We then got a minute of mournful music during which the players stood respectfully with their heads bowed whilst the crowd sat, a little less respectfully, eating their free pizzas and chattering away amongst themselves.

As the game kicked off there were a lot of people outside, perhaps being held up by the need for more pizzas. In fact, twenty five minutes into the match there were still people making their way in. This was probably the closest to capacity that I’d seen any ground in my time here, but I suppose that shouldn’t be much of a surprise, given that Gyeongnam, in second place, were playing the league leaders, Seoul. Gyeongnam were in red shirts and black shorts whilst Seoul, who usually wear AC Milan style red and black stripes were in white shirts with a diagonal red and black stripe and black shorts.

The official attendance was given as fourteen and a half thousand, but I reckon that there were more than a thousand empty seats, maybe two or three thousand in total, but even so, a twelve or thirteen thousand strong crowd in this stadium certainly made for a better atmosphere than the similar sized crowds at the much larger World Cup Stadiums that I’d been to at Seoul, Incheon and Jeonbuk.

The stadium announcer was doing his best to get the crowd going and with the help of the scoreboard displaying the words, soon had the fans chanting along and banging their inflatable sticks together. After any bit of excitement on the pitch, it seemed as if he summarized it afterwards, usually getting a decent cheer out of the crowd. Quite how he managed this after some dismal finishing from the home team I’m not sure, but no matter how bad the miss, the crowd would roar after his comments. Perhaps it was something along the lines of…

“Another terrible miss from that useless apology for a centre forward, but give him a cheer because I hear that he is nice to his Mam and he got his dog from a rescue shelter”

A few minutes before half time Ha Dae-Sung picked up two yellows in quick succession to reduce Seoul to ten men, but they hung on until the break. I took the opportunity to have a walk around to the other side of the ground and picking up another beer, sat behind the goal for a while. There was an enormous football obscuring the view of anyone unfortunate to be sat behind the corner flag. That would have been interesting had it been a sellout.

Worse than Goodison Park

The Gyeongnam fans were making a pretty good effort with flags, drums and almost non-stop singing. The best bit though was the close up view of their goalie, Kim Yong-Dae. With his shaggy ginger hair he looked like a cartoon lion. He seemed very popular with the small children, who probably thought he was a mascot. I was given some dried squid to eat by a gang of old biddies. This seems to happen a lot and when I moved later to the other end of the ground I got given some Pringles. I must look like I need feeding up.

Kim Yong Dae

Five minutes before the end Gyeongnam’s Ghanaian striker Alex Asamoah was subbed. Nothing unusual about that normally, but in his case he had only come on twenty minutes earlier. There was a lot of booing but I couldn’t tell if it was aimed at the player or the decision. Whatever the thinking behind it was, it had a positive effect and the place went wild as Gyeongnam got an injury time winner. A second Seoul player, Kim Jin-Kyu, was sent off afterwards after picking up two yellows for dissent. It looked as if the second was for whatever he was muttering to himself as  he walked away from the referee. The final whistle had gone even before he was back in the dressing room and I headed off past the piles of empty pizza boxes to get a taxi back to the station.

Goooaaalllll

Meanwhile a last minute goal from Lee Dong Gook wasn’t sufficient to prevent Jeonbuk suffering their first defeat of the season at home to Ulsan Horang-i. That dropped them down to sixth place, five points behind new leaders Gyeongnam who had leap frogged over Seoul with that injury time goal.

Saturday morning and I thought that it was about time that I headed down to Jeonju to see Lee Dong Gook and his team Jeonbuk Motors play at their home ground. The Jeonbuk match wasn’t until the Sunday afternoon but I decided to make a weekend of it and have a look around Jeonju whilst I was there. After the previous weeks trek on the subway to Incheon it was a pleasure to get back on the KTX and travel the 230km to Jeonju in comfort and in not much longer than it had taken me to reach the suburbs of Seoul.

The train was 42,000 won each way for first class which works out at about fifty quid return for a two hour journey to Iksan and then a thirty minute trip on the regional commuter train to Jeonju. Not too bad I thought for a last minute booking. I’m starting to get the hang of buying tickets now and just used the ticket machine rather than joining the queue at the ticket office. The journey was pleasant enough again, I like the way that the ticket collectors bow as they enter and leave the carriages, although I’m not so impressed with the people pushing the trolleys with the drinks and food. They seem to regard it as a time trial in trying to go from one end of the carriage to the other without stopping or catching the eye of the passengers.

The view from the window was mainly of the Korean countryside, although I suppose that’s what you’d expect in Korea. The Canadian Rockies would have been a bit of a turn-up. A lot of the villages reminded me of Bulgaria or Kazakhstan, single storey buildings, lots of mud and with coloured plastic roofs, the sort of houses that didn’t look as if they would take more than a week to put up, even if you had spent the first six days of the week waiting for the builders to arrive.

When I got to Iksan I changed trains onto a smaller commuter train. The interesting thing about this one was that the seats rotated so that you could face whatever direction you fancied. I don’t just mean that the seat back could be moved, but the entire two seat unit rotated 180 degrees. I was sat next to a bloke who was returning home for a wedding and he quizzed me about the UK and what I was doing in Korea. He did seem a little surprised when I told him that I was making the trip from Seoul to see Lee Dong Gook play for Jeonbuk. I thought to myself that it was fortunate that I wasn’t making this trip to see a third division game, he’d probably have nervously moved seats and swiveled it to face away from me.

On arrival at Jeonju I came out of the station and looked for the bus stop mentioned in my guidebook, but couldn’t see it. I did see a sign for the Hanok Village though, four and a half kilometres away. The Hanok village is a place with traditional Korean single storey housing, a few temples and a bit of an attraction for tourists. It’s supposed to be one of the best examples in Korea. Four and a half kilometres isn’t much and as I only had a small backpack with me I decided just to walk it. It was an extremely sunny day and the road was long and straight, with small shops, bars and cafes lining the route.

Not quite Champions League

After about half an hour I saw a football stadium. I was pretty sure that it wasn’t Jeonbuk’s ground as I’d read that they played in an out of town stadium built for the 2002 World Cup, but I thought that it might have been one used by the team from Jeonju that plays in the division below, the National League. As I tend to do, I went and had a look around. As I approached the ground I heard a whistle and a bit of shouting so assumed that there must be a game going on inside. I couldn’t see any turnstiles or gates open, but there was a door that opened when I tried it. I wandered down a corridor and past a kitchen where the staff were shouting at each other and I could smell something cooking that was reminiscent of school dinners. Further up the corridor I could see daylight and hoping that it would lead to the pitch I headed for that. It was the pitch and there was what looked like a training game going on between teams in green and orange bibs. Trying to look like someone who was supposed to be there, I quietly took a seat in the main stand and watched.

The standard was very poor, so I doubted that it was proper players training, more like a bunch of mates having booked the pitch for a kickaround. There weren’t any linesman and the ref seemed very strict with his offside decisions, possibly to keep the score respectable but more likely because he rarely moved from the centre circle. The players were fairly equally split between those wearing shorts and those in tracky bottoms, although I wouldn’t have been surprised if one or two were wearing jeans. Oddly and despite the heat, a lot of them were wearing gloves. It was a good natured game, with plenty of laughter when someone managed an air shot or missed an easy opportunity. After about twenty minutes I left them to it, leaving via the main entrance this time and avoiding having to walk past the kitchen again just in case the arguments between the cooks had escalated into something involving meat cleavers. I resumed my walk toward the Hanok village although I hadn’t seen another sign since I left the station.

Possibly the reason that I hadn’t seen any signs for the Hanok village was that I was lost. After about another hour and an encounter with a couple of giggling teenage girls who seemed to find it amazing that someone would choose to walk to the village from wherever we were I admitted defeat and got a taxi. Wise move as after a good ninety minutes walk I must have been further away from it than the original four and a half kilometres. It was interesting enough, to the extent that a village of single storey houses can be, but I soon headed into town via a market with lots of dried fish to find a hotel.

Just like Peterlee

As I walked through the market, I got a plenty of attention with people saying hello to me and asking where I was from. One bloke came up to me, stroked the hairs on my arm and laughed. I felt like a dog with a flat head from too much patting, but they were all friendly enough. Kids greeted me with a kind of sing song that they seemed to have learned off by heart…

“Hello, how are you? My name is Kim, pleased to meet you, goodbye”

All of it trotted out before I could get a word in edgeways. I think Westerners must be a lot scarcer in Jeonju than they are in the big city. I found a hotel that set me back about twenty quid. It had free juice in the fridge and a vibrating bed that I couldn’t work out how to turn on.

Old blokes playing cards by the river

That evening I went into the town and watched Man Utd play Chelsea on the telly. The main interest for the Koreans was Park Ji Sung. The build up was all about him and the half time highlights consisted of showing his every touch and little else. It was as if he had taken on Chelsea single handed.

The next morning I went for a walk along the river. Every hundred yards or so there was gym equipment set up for passers by to use. Quite a clever idea I reckon, there must be loads of people who would never join a gym but who would be happy to have a play on stuff set up next to the river. I watched quite a few old folk have a bit of a work out on one of the machines and then walk on for a hundred yards and use a different one, perhaps with a break at a bench for a sit down and a chat. Add in a moan or two about how all this used to be fields and it’s circuit training for the elderly.

Old folks working out

I hadn’t had any breakfast so at about eleven nipped into a café for something to eat. Jeonju claims to be famous for its bibimbap, a rice based dish where you mix in a few veggies and then add a bit of spicy sauce and an egg. This one came with fourteen side dishes including beef in a sesame seed sauce, a couple of bowls of soup and various types of pickled vegetables and seaweed. Despite not speaking any English they showed me how to eat it, which bits to wrap in lettuce and which sauces to mix with which pickles. Then they charged me seven thousand won for it, which is about four quid. I can’t see how they could make much of a living at those prices.

I had a bit of time before the game and so wandered back to the Hanok village. There were a few bits that I’d missed the previous day as a consequence of having my map upside down. Once I’d got my bearings I went and had a look at a temple where they had the portraits of the formers Kings of Korea. There was a little write up about each one, ending with the lad who had the misfortune to be running the show when the Japanese invaded. That was the end of the monarchy and it seems that when the Japs were sent packing at the end of the Second World War, they didn’t bother to reinstate the monarchy. Just as well really, as there wasn’t enough room for many more portraits, although I’ve no idea if that figured much in their thinking.

Pair of Kings

Anyway, time for the match and I got a taxi to the stadium. Just as well really as it must have been a good ten miles out of town. As I walked around the stadium I spotted that Incheon had brought three coachloads of supporters with them, all of them appearing to be weighed down with banners, flags or drums including, I noticed later, their oddly worded banner ‘MEET YOU HALL! BOYS!’ I bought a ticket for the North Stand, which is the Jeonbuk singing end. It was six thousand won, with the most expensive West Stand being ten thousand won, half the price of Seoul FC.

Stadium

The Jeonbuk fans were almost all wearing bright green shirts, often with a name on the back in English. I noticed a ‘Crazy Boy’’, an ‘Ultra Crazy Boy’, a ‘Greenholic’ and plenty with ‘Green Family’ on them. As kickoff approached we were entertained by previous Jeonbuk games on the big screen accompanied by an exuberant commentary that made Alistair Brownlee seem like Richard Dimbleby on state funeral duty.

The fun didn’t last for long though as Incheon took the lead after four minutes following a free kick from just outside of the box. Lee Dong Gook seemed popular with the crowd who were chanting his name. He was fouled a couple of times early on and then missed a good chance as he got on the end of a cross and put his shot wide from about a yard out. He was playing up front with a giant of a bloke who was absolutely useless. He wasn’t effective as a target man and he didn’t seem to have any real ball skills. If he had been wearing tracky bottoms he wouldn’t have looked out of place in the previous day’s game between the teams in the green and orange bibs. I wasn’t sure if it was just the two strikers in a 4-4-2 or if the left midfielder who often found himself alongside them was meant to be a third or if he was just too lazy to track back. After about half an hour the Jeonbuk keeper spilled a shot and Incheon followed up to make it two nil to the away team.

Green Army

Fortunately for Jeonbuk, they got straight back into it. Lee Dong Gook played his part by falling over the keeper after a corner and then prevented him from getting to his feet as the ball was lobbed into an unprotected net from outside of the box. Incheon were livid, whilst the Jeonbuk fans were torn between celebrating and laughing. A minute later and with Incheon still complaining Jeonbuk equalized as the ball fell to Lee Dong Gook about ten yards out and this time he contributed in more conventional style by picking his spot inside the near post. Jeonbuk could have gone in ahead at the break when the giant striker had an easy opportunity in injury time, but he chose to take a touch and his touch was crap. So, 2-2 it was at half time.

Lee Dong Gook celebrates the equaliser

In the second half I decided to watch from the upper tier. The stadium had four curvy stands which were joined at the lower tier but separate above that. It had been voted nicest looking stadium or something at the 2002 World Cup and you could see why. Eight years on it was starting to look at little shabby, with the seats getting a bit discoloured, but in a ‘MILF’ sort of way, it still had it.

After an hour the lanky striker got the hook to popular approval and then with fifteen minutes to go the Lion King latched on to a back pass, took it wide of the keeper and with two defenders closing in rolled it into the empty net  for the winner. At the final whistle I made a quick getaway so that I could grab a taxi, happy to miss the bowing as I knew I’d get enough of it on the train.

The win took Jeonbuk into fourth position, two points behind the leaders Ulsan, but with a game in hand.

After watching the National League game between Incheon Korail and Yesan, I had an hour to spare before the match between Incheon United and Ulsan Horang-i kicked off and so I walked back around to the front of the stadium to get a ticket and something to eat. The baseball match that I had passed on the way in had just finished and plenty of the fans from that game were still milling around, reliving the match and not quite ready to go home. A lot of them, particularly the groups of young lads, or the father and son combos, were throwing a baseball between them, usually managing to catch it in their baseball gloves. They weren’t always successful though, quite often a throw would go astray and the ball would either bounce off into the distance with a small child scurrying after it or else it would clobber an unsuspecting passer by as he made his way towards the subway. I found myself having to watch a number of balls simultaneously in an attempt to avoid being knocked spark out by an errant return.

 Having passed up the opportunity earlier to get something to eat at the station, I had a look around the outside of the stadium for some food. The best that I could find was a stall that served something about the size and shape of a fun size Mars bar, but with the texture of a marshmallow flump. I was given a large paper cup with about eight of them in, submerged in what could possibly have been some sort of stock, but might just as easily have been simply hot water. They were beige, tasted of nothing and were hot enough for me to burn my tongue. I doubt Ronald MacDonald would lose any sleep over them.

 Generally I’ve enjoyed the Korean food I’ve had so far in my time here. I eat in my works canteen every day with a colleague, Mr. Park, and with neither of us being particularly faddy eaters we always just take pot luck and join the shortest queue. This means that we don’t find out what we are going to get to eat until we reach our particular serving counter. It works pretty well and I haven’t had a bad meal yet. There’s usually a main dish, perhaps some bits of fish, squid or meat, a bowl of very watery soup and a few side dishes of rice, bean sprouts, seaweed, radishes etc. It’s usually all very spicy with the exception of the boiled rice. The other day I started eating what I thought was seaweed, but Mr. Park pointed out that they were fish, undoubtedly the tiniest fish I’ve ever seen, never mind eaten. If you, or your children or your dog has ever had worms, you know, those little white things that don’t seem to have a head and just wiggle? Well, these were about that size, but silver and with a black spot at one end that might have been an eye. I certainly wouldn’t like to have to try and gut one. They were quite crispy and I could pick up about thirty at a time with my chopsticks. That’s how small they were. You could probably get five hundred of them in a matchbox. In the canteen after collecting your lunch you serve yourself with Kimchi from a pot at your table. Kimchi is cabbage in a spicy red sauce. It’s taken me forty five years to finally discover a way to enjoy cabbage, so I’m quite pleased. I’ll be even happier if they start selling it at football games in place of the hot beige flumps.

 I took my burnt tongue off to the ticket office and bought a ticket for the East Stand for eight thousand won, which is about a fiver. I could have got one for behind the goal in the North Stand for four thousand, but I knew that this was another stadium with a running track around it and I didn’t fancy the extra distance from the action that I would have been if I had gone behind the goal. I dodged the remaining baseballs that were still flying around and went into the ground.

 I noticed that a lot of the people entering the ground were bringing takeaways in with them and a few cans of beer. There didn’t seem to be any restrictions on what people could bring through the turnstiles or into the seated areas although I didn’t see anyone with a cup of the beige flumps. I was still hungry after my earlier poor choice and so had a look at the options inside. I didn’t fancy the bags of corn snacks and so it was a choice of dried octopus or a cup of something that looked like very thin chips, a bit like the ones that you get in MacDonald’s but much thinner. I watched someone reheating the dried octopus on a small camping stove provided for that purpose and suspected that as you just seemed to throw it over the naked flame that I’d struggle to do it successfully. I went for the skinny chips instead. Bad choice again, they were rock hard, as if they had been inadvertently fried twice, and tasted of nothing but cooking oil. Next time I’m bringing a couple of matchboxes full of those tiny fish.

 As kick off approached, the ground was still pretty empty. I’d have guessed that there were a couple of thousand in there, mainly in my stand, with two hundred or so behind the goal in the North stand. To my left, there were about twenty Ulsan fans and straight across the pitch the West Stand was virtually empty. It was a shame really as it was a very impressive stadium with a capacity of just over fifty thousand, two big stands with much lower ones behind the goals and a roof that appeared to be made of a series of pointy canvas tents.

 The Incheon fans behind the goal were making a fair bit of noise despite there only being about sixty of them involved in the singing. They had a couple of drums to help them and it looked like some megaphones too. They also had some cracking banners, one of which said ‘TERROR AND TREMBLING’ which I took to be a reference to peoples mental state after the pre-match dodging of the baseballs. The other banner was a little odd; it was stretched out behind the goal and read ‘MEET YOU HALL!  BOYS!’. Yes that’s right, ‘MEET YOU HALL!  BOYS!’. I couldn’t decide whether the banner had been ordered over the phone and the line had been particularly bad that day or whether they really were suggesting a meeting in a hall somewhere, a sort of rainy day wet playtime for hooligans.

Almost certainly a tribute to Stuart Hall

 The chanting continued as the teams came out onto the pitch, Incheon in blue and black stripes, Ulsan in the all white kit with the blue tyre tread band that I’d seen them in the previous week at Daegu. The Incheon players each kicked a football into the crowd, one of which came quite close to me and was snaffled by an old bloke who took more delight in his prize than I would have thought possible for someone over the age of ten. As the match kicked off the Incheon fans began a rendition of a song to the tune of I Will by The Beatles. It went on for a few minutes and seemed to follow the structure of the original song. This got them into my good books. If I’d been behind the goal I’d have just joined in and sang the original lyrics.

 The Incheon left back and captain caught my eye early on, which was quite a feat as he only looked to be about five feet tall and the advertising hoardings weren’t much lower than that. He looked a good ten years older than the rest of his teammates and a fair bit harder too. I doubt a stray baseball or a red hot beige flump would have caused him much concern. He actually reminded me of a bloke I used to work with and who coincidentally played left back for the works team. I’ll call him Davie, mainly because that was his name. He was as ‘no-nonsense’ at work as he was on the football pitch and was known for pinning up against the wall anyone who gave him a bit of problem. He had a farm as well as a bit of a sideline and one day he was telling me about a sick sheep he had. I asked him if he had called the vet out and he told me that he rarely bothered with that, preferring to dispatch them himself, coshing them on the head with an old table leg. I made sure I never gave him any trouble either on or off the pitch.

 The Incheon fans continued to be in fine voice and switched from The Beatles to a song called Coast Boy. I know this because soon after they started singing it, the camera was turned onto them and they appeared on the big screen jumping up and down. The lyrics to Coast Boy were then flashed up onto the screen with the title in English. It was wasted on the singers as they were directly below the screen and couldn’t see it, but I was impressed to see that it was the bloke who operated the screen taking his lead from the crowd and not vice versa.

 Coast Boy had barely died down when Ulsan took the lead. The Incheon keeper completely lost the flight of a long range shot and it went straight through his hands. Fortunately he managed to get his face to it, but it was only a temporary reprieve as Ulsan put the rebound away whilst he lay stunned on the turf. Davie, the Incheon left back stood and glared at his keeper, obviously weighing up whether he had time before the restart to nip back to the dressing room for his table leg.

 Fortunately for their keeper’s well-being, Incheon equalized within about fifteen minutes with a deflected shot from the edge of the box after the Ulsan keeper had punched clear from a corner. That was it for the first half. I went for a wander during the break, mainly to try and warm up a bit as the temperature had dropped quite rapidly. The concourse was full of kids playing football and teenagers swigging beer or soju. Soju is a popular drink over here. It’s a rice based spirit that varies in alcohol content but tends to be about the twenty percent mark. It tastes a bit like vodka, you can buy it in plastic bottles in the supermarket for about sixty pence and it’s ideal for swigging when you need to warm yourself up at the match.

 Mind you if any of kids in the concourse had decided to play next goal the winner before returning for the second half, or if the teenagers had decided to have one last nip of soju, it would have caused them a bit of confusion. Incheon had barely straightened up from their pre-second half huddle when Ulsan re-took the lead. Anyone getting back to his or her seat a minute late would have seen Incheon kicking off at 2-1 down and would no doubt have assumed that they were watching the start of the second half.

 Incheon pressed throughout the remainder of the second half despite having their centre half sent off and had a few good chances including hitting the bar with the final kick of the game. But it wasn’t to be and Ulsan won 2-1 to the delight of their twenty fans. Davie and his Incheon team treated us all to deep and remorseful bows as thanks for braving the freezing cold before I headed off into the dark for the thirty two stop subway journey home.

 And what of Lee Dong Gook? Well, Jeonbuk Motors didn’t have a game this weekend, it’s one of the drawbacks of having a fifteen team league. They had, however, played the previous Wednesday night in the Asian Champions League, beating a Chinese team, 2-1 away. The Lion King played the whole ninety minutes and notched his first goal of the season for Jeonbuk when scoring an eighty seventh minute winner. Let’s hope that’s the goal that kick starts his season.