Archive for the ‘Football’ Category

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Horsham v Littlehampton Town, Thursday 8th May 2025, 7.30pm

May 10, 2025

Jen and I have some odd stuff in our house. Possibly because we’ve furnished it mainly from eBay. Whilst we do have central heating, we’ve supplemented it with some antique French stoves. They originally burned coal but have since been converted to use ethanol. I recently bought another one, which required collecting from the south coast and since I like to squeeze the most out of how I spend my time I decided to schedule our pickup trip to tie-in with a match.

The best option was a cup final, the Sussex Senior Challenge Cup final. Not only was it a meaningful game, but it was played at Brighton’s ground, the Amex Stadium. I’ve not really made much of an effort to-date to complete the ‘92’ but recently have decided that I should try and tick more of them off. I’d been holding back on the missing stadiums in the top two tiers, just in case I could go there with the Boro, but our current aversion to promotion means that somewhere like Brighton would require a cup fixture.

Jen and I travelled down on the day of the game and checked into a seaside hotel at Hove. That gave us the opportunity of walking along the seafront for a couple of miles each way. We called into the pier where we tried the penny falls machines, although most are ten pence these days. I thought about having a go on the ghost train but couldn’t be arsed to find the ticket booth.

On the way back, we stopped at a beach stall for some seafood. I had whelks and cockles, neither of which I’d ever eaten before. Both were fine, one was a kind of sea snail and the other tiny clams, although I forget which was which. The clams just tasted of seawater, which I understand is a good thing. In a nod to her Deep South roots, Jen had crawfish tails but was bemused by the lack of seasoning.

We had a parking ticket for the Amex but initially went to the wrong car park and then had to drive to the other side of the ground. It’s a stadium in the middle of nowhere but has a handy rail link. I doubt anybody gets there solely on foot.

Tickets were thirteen quid a pop and I’d bought them online in advance. I didn’t pay much attention at the time to which team I’d be supporting but we found ourselves in the Littlehampton section of the only stand open. The crowd eventually numbered around three thousand, many of whom had been on the beer for a few hours. The stewards had their work cut out stopping people drinking in their seats, vaping or just generally making a tit of themselves.

Horsham were the better side. Not surprisingly really as they had just won their tier seven league to gain promotion to the National League South. Littlehampton managed to avoid relegation from the eighth tier, so will be two steps behind Horsham next season.

Whilst Horsham had plenty of chances, they couldn’t finish them, and the game looked destined to go straight to penalties at full-time. However, in the sixth and final minute of added time, a curled Horsham free-kick was enough to break the deadlock and earn them the trophy.

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CD Utrera v Atletico Espeleno, Sunday 4th May 2025, 12 noon

May 8, 2025

Our final stop of this Spanish trip was a couple of nights in Olvera. It’s one of those picturesque towns full of white buildings and topped with a castle on a hill. It’s only around an hour and a half from Seville and so we had some time to fill between the respective check-out and check-in times.

There was a fifth-tier game in Utrera, which is around twenty kilometres outside of Seville, that fitted our timetable perfectly.

We arrived early to discover that Utrera is a town full of storks. There was a nest on the chimney behind the olive oil factory and then two or three more on top of the bell tower of the nearby church. As we approached the Estadio Municipal San Juan Bosco, we spotted another nest in what looked like some kind of stadium communication mast.

Jen rarely pays much attention to the action at these games, but when there are storks going backwards and forwards to their nest every few minutes, it’s understandable.

Outside of the stadium was a statue of former Utrera resident, Jose Antonio Reyes. You might remember him playing for Arsenal and Real Madrid. He died in a car crash a few years ago driving between Utrera and Seville, which had been another of his clubs.

We paid our ten euros admission and called at the food hut behind the main stand. We had a coffee each, from a proper espresso machine, and a baguette each with some sobrasada on it. That’s a kind of chorizo paste. With a bottle of coke to take to our seats, it came to eight euros altogether. It’s a far cry from the poor-quality options at the Riverside, where a similar quantity of food and drink would be well over twenty quid. They even gave us a real knife each to spread the paste.

There were presentations before kick-off for where one player got a trophy that looked a bit like the World Cup whilst another was presented with a shirt with 200 on the back. I think the former was Utrera’s player of the season and the other was being celebrated for either having played two hundred games for the club or alternatively, having reached that age.

There was a good atmosphere with fans enjoying the sunshine and a season that had gone well. Victory today would likely clinch a play-off spot for the home side. I’m not sure if there were any away fans, but they probably wouldn’t have felt so happy as they had already been relegated from their fifth-tier Tercera division.

There were lots of kids watching, although most of them were sporting shirts from bigger clubs. Mbappe and Ronaldo were sat just in front of me, with Haaland a couple of places further along. Messi must have been off sick. One young lad had brought a loudhailer which he chanted into whilst encouraging the folks in the stand to clap along.

Tensions rose in the crowd when Espeleno took an early lead. It stayed that way until Utrera equalised bang on half-time. Two more second-half goals started the play-off party and Utrera even brought the old bloke on for a run out.

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Sevilla FC Femenino v Levante UD Femenino, Saturday 3rd May 2025, 4pm

May 7, 2025

It wasn’t the best of weather in Seville, but Jen and I had dodged the rain in the morning to call into a record shop and pick up some old Spanish vinyl. We then found a Korean restaurant for lunch. I had dolsot bibimbap, which was something that I’d generally enjoyed when we lived out there. This one was ok but would have benefitted from being spicier. I wondered whether they had replaced the gochujang sauce with ketchup.

I finished my lunch in time to watch the Boro’s season conclude in a similarly unsatisfactory fashion as once again we failed to create anything worthwhile, going down to a Coventry side that weren’t really any more impressive. Let’s hope that whatever we receive when Hackney moves on is spent on someone who can move the ball forwards rather than sideways.

Once the second Coventry goal went in, I got the car out of the underground hotel parking and drove to the only game in town, the top-tier women’s game between Seville and Levante. It was at the Estadio Jesus Navas, which is part of a larger complex with a few pitches. I’d seen Seville’s C team play on one of the smaller pitches a few years ago.

It was easy to park and the ticket office was right next to the entrance gate. I paid my ten euros and took a seat about half-way up the covered main stand. The rain had returned and if I’d sat any lower down, I’d have got wet.

The current focus on sunflower seeds at football games seems to be changing behaviour. Two blokes nearby had brought some and each was using an empty cup to store the husks. Maybe the next campaign in Spain should be to encourage people to pick up their dog’s turds. I’d much rather walk on discarded sunflower husks then stand in spaniel shite.

Seville went into the game ninth in the table, with little to play for. Levante, however, were only a point above the relegation zone. Seville were the better side and went ahead on the half hour when a ball played between the central defenders created a chance that was neatly tucked away.

Whilst Seville dominated, they had to wait until five minutes from time to seal the points with a second goal and spark the scarf twirling from those fans that had stayed until the end.

I drove back to the centre of town, parking the car before some parade made its way down our street. I’m not really sure why they bother, dressing up and marching around all seems a lot of effort to go to on a holiday weekend.

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 UD Tomares v La Palma, Thursday 1st May 2025, 12 noon

May 6, 2025

My second game of this trip to Seville was a similar distance away from where we were staying as the first game, only this time it was on the other side of the river. There looked to be some motorway walking in the route suggested and so I tried taking a bus to the Tomares district instead.

I wasn’t very successful. A combination of a reduced public holiday service and me misunderstanding which part of the bus station it would depart from meant that I had to resort to taking a taxi to get there in time for kick-off.

A better form of transport would have been the VW Beetle that we’d seen waiting outside a church for the bride and groom to emerge. It was similar to the one that was my first car, forty-three years ago, with a 1300cc engine and the squarish ‘Europa’ bumpers. This one was a cabriolet, which wouldn’t really have worked too well in Teesside.

The Beetle was accompanied by a bloke with bagpipes and, as with most churches in Spain, there was someone down on their luck asking for money sat on one side of the doors and a lottery seller on the other. A lot of churchgoers seemed to hand over some cash to the person in need, before then buying a lottery ticket. Buena Suerte!

It was ten euros to get into the Campo De Futbol Municipal San Sebastian for a second successive fixture in the fifth-tier Tercera division. Both sides has something to play for with Tomares still within reach of a play-off spot and La Palma four points adrift of safety but still not without hope of avoiding relegation.

There were around four hundred people inside, many of them already sipping at their tiny beers and with a definite public holiday weekend vibe.

I was happy to get a Coke Zero and save my partying for later in the day. If I’d wanted some food a café was selling enormous sausage rolls and there was a three-foot-long empanada that I couldn’t work out if it was going to be sliced up for sale or raffled off whole.

There was also a sign barring people from eating sunflower seeds in the main stand. I’d recently read about a la liga club doing this on the basis of the mess that it causes. Perhaps all they need to do is sell them with an extra bag for collecting the husks.

As I had no illicit snacks I took a seat in the right side of the main stand, only to move a few minutes later when I realised that I was surrounded by home fans using the occasion as a chance to fill each other in on what they’d been up to since the previous match. I moved to the other side where the away fans around me didn’t always feel the need to incessantly yap away.

La Palma went ahead within three minutes when, after a neat reverse pass, the resulting shot was tucked just inside the near post. The teams were level at the break though after a Tomares equaliser from a glancing header.

Tomares gradually gained control and then took the lead on fifty-five minutes when an attempt to play offside at a freekick left four home players stood by themselves, just a few yards out. As the visiting defenders waved their arms and frantically appealed from a distance, the home strikers managed not to mess it up and went two-one ahead.

It was one-way traffic for the rest of the game. The La Palma keeper pulled off a couple of decent saves and Tomares hit the underside of the bar. With twenty minutes to go they added a third to keep their play-off hopes alive.

I got luckier with the buses on the way out and, despite a reduced service, found myself back at the bus station in half the time that it would have taken me to walk it.

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Inter Sevilla v AD Ceuta B, Wednesday 30th April 2025, 5pm

May 5, 2025

After staying in Ronda, Jen and I moved on to Seville. I’m familiar with the layout after visiting last year and we stayed on the old town side of the river. It’s a busy time of the year in Seville as it leads up to the Feria. The festivities don’t seem to slack off from the Easter celebrations and, if any excuse were needed, bring people out onto the streets for strolling, eating and drinking.

One of the things that Soph’s beagle Henry does is remember where he once found food on the pavement. He’ll always try to return to that spot confident that if there were food there once, then there’s likely to be food there again. I was a bit like that in Seville. Last year I saw a poster for a record fair and ended up going and buying a load of Spanish vinyl. This year, I couldn’t walk past a lamp post without checking for a record fair poster. At least I didn’t cock my leg.

I also thought about the dog when I saw a whole skinned rabbit in the supermarket. It still had its ears on. One of the treats that we give Henry are dried rabbit ears. I’d never wondered what they tasted like until I realised that I had the chance to find out. Sadly, we were in a hotel room, rather than an apartment, so if I’d wanted to sample a rabbit ear it would have had to have been raw. I can wait.

My first game in Seville was at the Complejo Deportivo Demitrio Pichel which was an hour and forty minute’s walk to the outskirts of the city. I could have driven but having secured a spot in the underground hotel car park, I was loathe to risk losing it. The weather wasn’t too good though and I had to nip into a convenience store to buy an umbrella.

The route took me away from touristy Seville and into areas that won’t ever feature on the city bus tours. I made good time and arrived at the ground with twenty minutes to go to kick off. It was still raining and the uncovered plastic bench seats along the side of the pitch had puddles in then. I had a couple of paper napkins, but a woman who arrived after me resorted to reviewing the receipts in her purse and using the ones she could risk disposing of to dry her seat.

The game was in the fifth-tier Tercera division with Inter Sevilla taking on Ceuta’s B team. The home side were rock bottom of the table and already relegated whilst the visitors, who are based in a Spanish territory at the tip of Morocco, were safely in mid-table. They are a B team, so perhaps promotion isn’t necessarily overly important to them.

Ceuta looked the more professional outfit, particularly in respect of their kit, which was just as you would have expected it to be. Inter’s green shirts were less consistent, with some of them having names and numbers, whilst others had numbers only. There wasn’t even any uniformity between the fonts used for the names, suggesting that players had taken their kit home and got their Mams to customise them.

The highpoint of the first half was the rain easing up after twenty minutes, although a train going past on an adjacent line ran it close. Many people turned away from the lack of action to keep an eye on the high scoring game behind us between six year olds.

Ceuta took the lead from the penalty spot soon after the restart and then added a second on the hour with a cracking half-volley from an acute angle.

Inter got back into it soon afterwards with a goal that went in off the underside of the bar. That always makes a finish look spectacular. It was all in vain though as two away goals in the last ten minutes sealed the win for the visitors. They got on their bus back to Africa and with my umbrella furled I retraced my steps into the city centre.

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CD Campillos v CD Cartama, Sunday 27th April 2025, 11.30am

May 4, 2025

Once I’d discovered the fixture list for the Andalusian First Division, it was an easy task to check out Sunday’s fixtures and select a morning game, three-quarters of an hour’s drive up the road at Campillos. It’s a small quiet town and I doubt that it gets many visitors other than a handful of travelling fans supporting away teams.

After wandering around for a while we called into a café for some coffee and carrot cake and then made our way towards the Campo De Futbol Andres Padilla. There are two stadiums, back-to-back, and our game was on the one with the artificial pitch. A few people were congregated outside the ticket window and we joined them to pay our five-euro admission.

The seventh tier is coming to a conclusion, and this was the penultimate game for each club. Hosts Campillos went into the game a point above the relegation zone, whilst visitors Cartama were in third place and looking to preserve their position in the play-offs. Perhaps the importance of the result contributed to the turnout. I’d have estimated that there were probably around two hundred or so spectators, including a few near us from Cartama.

It didn’t start well for Campillos. They were a goal down inside two minutes, with a second coming after a quarter of an hour. They took it badly and spent much of the first half berating the officials. By the time Cartama added a third just before half-time, the home fans, players and bench had worked themselves into a fury over every perceived injustice. It took the ref a good three or four minutes to reach the dressing room as every man and his perro wanted a word with him and his assistants.

The match became a lot more interesting when Campillos pulled a goal back soon after the restart. They should really have reduced the deficit further, but they missed a couple of easy chances. Cartama went from coasting to timewasting with players dropping to the floor for treatment at every opportunity.

With thirteen minutes remaining, Cartama broke free, and their striker resisted the urge to throw himself to the floor or take the ball to the corner. Instead, he finished well to put his side four one up. At that stage some of the home fans made their way to the exit.

They really should have stayed as Campillos responded with two goals in a minute to get within a goal of their opponents and then spent the remaining fifteen minutes (including added time) pressing for a equaliser. Cartama’s keeper went to ground every time he caught the ball and they regularly delayed goal kicks by a player lining up to take it before trotting away to allow someone else to welly it upfield. I’d have issued far more cards than the ref actually did.

The timewasting worked and the visitors held on to retain their third position in the table. Campillos slipped into the bottom four with just the one game remaining to avoid the drop.

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CD Ronda v Atletico Benamiel CD, Saturday 26th April 2025, 6.15pm

May 3, 2025

Ronda is a pleasant place to stay. It’s busy with busloads of tourists coming in each day from Malaga, but if you can avoid getting caught up in the middle of thirty Germans all following a lady holding a flag on a stick, it’s fine for a stroll about.

Fine that is until the power all goes off. At the time, we’d assumed that it was a local issue, probably caused by high winds. Eight hours later when the first brief restoration of the phone signal occurred, we learned that it was an international issue covering all of Spain and Portugal, plus a bit of France.

I think we take connectivity for granted these days, but twenty hours without electricity where all you could buy was whatever a darkened corner shop might sell you for cash and a complete lack of online updates or even the ability to make an old school telephone call, soon gave an insight into how quickly society might break down if a power outage went on for a few days.

We had limited food in the dead fridge and forty euros in my wallet. I’d let the car get low in fuel though and there wouldn’t have been enough in the tank to get us to our next destination of Seville if we’d been travelling that day. Whilst I’m not going to turn into one of those ‘prepper’ folks, I’m mindful of the possibility of a repeat occurrence and will try to be better prepared. Or at least until it’s all forgotten.

The game that we went to in Ronda, was a couple of days before the outage. It was only a twenty-five-minute walk from where we were staying and so Jen and I didn’t need to use the car. That’s a real benefit when street parking is at a premium and you’ve bagged a handy spot.

The game was Ronda’s final home game of the season, and they were hoping for a big crowd. A van with loudspeakers had been driving around town all morning, advertising free admission. A few hundred people turned up, but I’ve no idea how many spectators usually attend. Some of them looked unfamiliar with their surroundings and what they should be doing, so maybe the marketing worked.

It was a critical game for Ronda, who were sat in the fourth and final play-off spot of the seventh-tier Andalusian First Division. Atletico Benemiel had nothing to play for, sitting in the middle of that eight team section in the table, sandwiched between the four play-off spots and the four relegation positions.

Ronda went a goal up midway through the first half, before Benamiel equalised ten minutes later. It seemed to matter more to the visitors, who picked up multiple bookings and had a fella sent off for instigating a hullabaloo just before the final whistle. For the record, a hullabaloo ranks higher than argy-bargy, which itself is a step up from hand-bags.

The home players slumped to the floor at the end, with the two dropped points meaning that with just one game remaining, their play-off ambitions were no longer in their own hands. Pretty much as I imagined that the Boro players might have done after their similar home draw with Norwich earlier that afternoon. Still, we go again, as the coaches say, and for both Ronda and Boro, there’s hope that it might all work out fine in their respective final fixtures.

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UD Ronda B v CD Athletic Coin B, Saturday 26th April 2025, 10am

May 2, 2025

Jen had a conference to attend in Seville and as I can work from anywhere that I fancy, we decided to have a couple of weeks in Spain. We started off in Ronda, which is a picturesque town above a valley. On the Saturday morning, we took a walk down the hill with the intention of being able to view the town from below. It didn’t quite work as we ended up on the side of town without the spectacular cliffs, but I suppose it meant that we saw some views that don’t make it on to the postcards.

Something that we did see though was a horse exercising. A bloke had taken it from a stable and walked it to a nearby field. He let it off and it galloped around on the grass by itself whilst he smoked a fag and scrolled through his phone. If the horse ever learns the way to the field by itself then I suspect that the fella may well be out of a job.

Our hike didn’t really work out well as we realised we had taken a path that led only to someone’s front door. On retracing our steps, we learned that we were now on the other side of Ronda, close to the supermarket that we’d called into on arrival. Jen pointed out some floodlights nearby and since we were unlikely to ever reach the cliffs that we’d intended to, we revised our route and headed for what I’d hoped to be a stadium.

As we got close I heard a few shouts and the sound of a whistle. Result. There’s nothing like stumbling across a bonus game. My pleasure dimmed a little when I realised that it was actually the New Sports City stadium which is where we intended to watch a seventh-tier game that evening.

We saw some of the action from the woods outside and realised that it was a youth game. Some digging around online revealed that it was an under fifteen fixture. These are termed Cadete B games in Spain with Cadete A being the next age group up, under sixteen.

One of the Ronda clubs, UD, were taking on Athletic Coin in a regional game. It was three euros to get in, which seemed steep to me for a kids fixture. Most of the crowd were parents and younger kids, who were there for their own games and training sessions, straight after the current match.

Our arrival was at around the hour mark and the score was level at one each at that point. We saw a couple of away goals from Coin as they took the points. It’s always nice to have a sit down for half an hour on a hike and when you can spend that time watching football even better. Stumbling across a bonus game also meant that we’d have no difficulty in finding the stadium when we returned that evening for the senior fixture.

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Gosforth Bohemians v West Moor and Jesmond, Wednesday 23rd April 2025, 6.30pm

May 1, 2025

I like to include something other than the match itself in these posts. Mainly to convince both of my readers that I’m leading a wildly interesting life, but also because there’s no real reason why anyone would have much of an interest in outdated football reports from lower-league games. And rightly so.

However, Jen and I had only returned from Sheffield the day before this game and had done little other than drink in the back garden. Best I can do then is add a picture of Soph’s dogs who had spent the night at our place.

This particular outdated report is from the eleventh tier Northern Alliance League, albeit their Premier Division. I selected it because we had a dawn flight from Newcastle Airport the next morning and Gosforth’s Benson Park ground was only a ten-minute drive from our airport hotel. The Northern Alliance is a feeder league to the Northern League, but neither Gosforth Bohemians or West Moor and Jesmond are challenging for promotion. Neither are threatened by relegation either, so there wasn’t much that either side had to play for.

Gosforth is quite posh. The houses around the ground all had nice gardens and the only noise from nearby was the sound of tennis balls being hit back and forward at the club behind one of the goals. I’m not sure about West Moor, but, despite never having knowingly been there, I’ve always considered Jesmond to be posh too.

Gosforth were in red and white hooped tops. It seemed more like a rugby shirt than a football kit. West Moor and Jesmond were in blue.

Despite it being free to get in, there were only about ten spectators, including Jen and I. I’m not even sure that all of them were there for the game. I think a woman who was sat at a picnic table may have been waiting for someone to finish their tennis session whilst the bloke with the black spaniel looked as if he regularly walked his dog around the edge of the field whether there was a match taking place or not.

The fixture had an end of season air to it with nothing much happening for the first half-hour. The visitors took the lead at that stage with an outside of the foot sliced finish which, if it were intended, was very impressive indeed. The opener spurred West Moor on and they added a second before the break with what was also a decent finish.

Play was a lot more expansive after the restart, or perhaps it was just that everyone simply got tired of defending. Either way, the goals flowed, and we finished up in rapidly fading light with a five-two away win.

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Sheffield Wednesday v Middlesbrough, Monday 21st April 2025, 3pm

April 30, 2025

Three wins. After the victory in add-time over Plymouth on Good Friday, a play-off spot was still within our own hands. All we had to do was win our final three fixtures, starting with a Hillsborough trip. Sheff Wed had lost five home games on the trot going into the game and so an away win seemed feasible.

Jen and I were staying over in Sheffield for a couple of nights in a hotel that was just a fifteen-minute walk from the ground. I’d been to see a lower-league cup final in Mexborough in the morning and as it was all done and dusted within ninety minutes, I was back in the hotel with plenty of time to walk to Hillsborough.

The Boro were unchanged, although we’d added another centre-half to the bench with Lenihan joining Fry and Edmundson. I doubt that he was fully fit, but Carrick has a habit of including injured players to keep them involved.

We started well with Azaz finishing off a neat passing move after ten minutes and then Hackney winning a pen midway through the half. After Conway’s injury time spot-kick winner against Plymouth I had high hopes of him putting us two up. Unfortunately, the keeper guessed correctly on this occasion and kept Wednesday in the game.

We struggled in the second half, and it was no surprise when Wednesday equalised. Carrick tried a short-term reshuffle, moving Howson into midfield and pushing Hackney up into the ten role. That didn’t achieve anything and with a minute to go a failure to clear a cross enabled Sheff Wed to score a deserved winner. Conway had a chance in added time to snatch a point but hit the bar from close range.

It was another poor performance on a day when play-off rivals Bristol City and Coventry both lost. Ironically those results meant that we were in no worse a position than we had been when we kicked off. With two games remaining, two wins will be sufficient to reach the play-offs. Two wins. Surely that can’t be beyond us?

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