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Al Sareeh v Al-Faisaly, Saturday 9th November 2024, 8.30pm

December 11, 2024

One of things that that I try to do whenever I’m working away from the UK is to visit the countries near to where I’m staying. It worked especially well when we lived near Kuala Lumpur, and we spent a lot of time exploring the region with a mix of iconic sights and low-level sport.

Nobody would ever think of describing Al Ula as a ’hub’. There are usually around four flights a day, mainly internal and so it takes a bit of planning, and some time off work, to visit just about anywhere. Jordan is one of the places that I’d been lining up for a while. Petra, of course, is a well-known tourist destination and equally importantly, it’s a country where I’d not yet seen a football game.

The trip didn’t get off to the best of starts. I’d booked a hire car from the only agency that claimed to be at the airport, rather than off-site. They lied. After some difficulty tracking the guy that had arranged to meet us, we were taken to the middle of nowhere. I began to wonder if they had a side gig in organ harvesting. When we arrived we were offered a car that not only had more than a hundred thousand miles on the clock, but it looked as if it had spent most of those miles competing in demolition derbies or delivering coal. I couldn’t be arsed to go back to the airport and start the whole process again though and so we took it.

Our first couple of nights were in Amman and we made the obligatory visits to the Citadel and Roman Amphitheatre. They were fine. Of more interest were the pavement pet shops that we saw whilst walking back in the direction of our hotel. I quite like the idea of someone passing by and, on a whim, buying half a dozen week old ducklings.

The next stop was Wadi Rum for a couple of nights in the desert. It’s a four hour drive south from Amman and, as it’s close to the Saudi Arabian border, it’s probably not much further away from Amman as it is from Al Ula. The rock formations at Wadi Rum were spectacular and we spent time riding camels and hiking early in the morning whilst there was still some shade.

Jen and I were also driven around in the back of a pick-up to see rock carvings and places of interest. Lawrence of Arabia featured heavily with stops at his house, a spring that he drank from and a secluded corner where he had a piss.

The camp that we stayed in was virtually empty. On the first night a Dutch couple were there but on the second night we had the entire twelve tent set up to ourselves. Apparently, tourism virtually halted a year ago with the escalation of hostilities in the region. We passed other camps that also seemed deserted and at some of the destinations on the pick-up drive around, we were the only people there.

I felt sorry for the camp owner, who was just a young lad and had clearly made a big investment in his business. He seemed upbeat about prospects, but how do you absorb a year’s worth of bookings just vanishing?

The final part of our trip was three nights in Petra. It was about an hour or so’s drive back in the direction of Amman. Whilst hammering along the motorway I noticed something unusual in the middle lane. I slammed on the brakes and realised just in time that it was a puppy. Fortunately, there were no cars immediately behind me, so I was able to leap out and grab him. He can’t have been more than about six weeks old.

We tried googling animal shelters but that doesn’t seem to be a thing in Jordan. If I’d been in England I’d have kept him, but we eventually decided that his best chances of survival were to be dropped off where there were plenty of people and few cars. We found a spot in the next town and got a few strange looks as we abandoned him, but it gave him a better chance of surviving than he’d had twenty minutes earlier.

Petra was virtually as quiet as Wadi Rum. We stayed in a five-storey hotel right by the main gate which had only five guests. The Petra site was similarly deserted, which was great. Quite often we found ourselves with no other people in sight. On the third day we hiked in from a back gate to the tomb known as The Cathedral and it felt like we had the hiking trail to ourselves.

At times, there were more stray cats and dogs than people. Cats seemed appropriate to be wandering ancient tombs, but the dogs looked out of place. I always think a dog should have a human of its own.

Good as all the tourist stuff was, I needed to tick off a football ground to make the visit complete. There weren’t many options, and the only match of the trip took place on our first night in Jordan. Getting there required a forty-minute drive north from our hotel in Amman to the Prince Mohammed stadium at Zarqa. The roads were poor, as they were in most of Jordan, and I seemed to hit a pothole every few hundred yards.

The fixture was in the Shield Cup and from what I could gather, was being played at a neutral ground. It’s a pity that we hadn’t arrived in Jordan a few hours earlier as there had already been a game in the same competition at the ground that afternoon.

We were able to park at the stadium and had a chat with a lad hoping to pick up some of the passing shisha trade. He mentioned that he was a Liverpool fan then directed us further along the stand to the nearest entrance gate.

There wasn’t a ticket office, or at least not one that I could see and a guy scanning tickets pointed us in the direction of a young lad who he reckoned would sort us out. It seemed that the section we were trying to get into was for the Al-Faisaly fans and one of their ultras had been tasked with buying tickets online for anyone who turned up without having made prior arrangements.

We gave him four Jordanian Dinars each and once he’d downloaded the tickets, he accompanied us to the entrance and the first fella scanned them from his phone. It all seemed a lot more complicated than just handing cash over without involving the middleman, but that’s modern life.

We were then searched, and Jen had two cans of fake coke that we’d bought ten minutes earlier confiscated. When I asked if we could drink them there and then, someone intervened to point out that elderly visitors from abroad would be unlikely to misbehave and we ended up having our drinks returned to us to take into the stand.

We had seats along the side of the pitch, facing the main stand. Prince Mohammed Stadium was built in 1998 and has a current capacity of 11,400. It’s an artificial surface with a running track between the pitch and the stands.

Every now and then a group of Al-Faisaly fans would wander over to chat, checking out who we were, why we were there or explaining to us the difference between ultras and hooligans. One group of young lads even offered to take us out to a restaurant to sample the Jordanian national dish of mansaf.

I think Al-Faisaly were expected to win but unfortunately for the fans around us that’s not how it worked out. Al-Sareer had the better of the chances, but the game didn’t really take off until the final ten minutes when Al-Faisaly had a man sent off and then Al-Sareer took advantage of their numerical advantage to nick a late winner.

More importantly, I’d ticked off a football ground in my sixty-second different country.

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Middlesbrough v Queens Park Rangers, Saturday 2nd September 2023, 3pm

October 15, 2023

I’d had an interesting couple of days leading up to this game with a visit from one of Jen’s American brothers and his wife. We met them in York, showed them the delights of Norton and then spent a couple of days up at Hadrian’s Wall.

We walked a section at Cawfields and called into the Museums at Vindolanda and Birdoswald. If I’d been to Vindolanda when we walked the wall a few years ago I’d forgotten it, but both were well worth a visit.

With David and Jackie having left us for the Scotland leg of their holiday I was free to turn my attention to the Boro game. It had been a poor start to the season for us with just the point against Huddersfield from our opening four games.

I was reasonably confident that we could turn things around though. There’s been a lot of change in personnel and whilst we’ve lost some quality players from last season’s team, once the new fellas gel I’d expect us to start picking up points.

Harry’s cousin Alistair was free for this one and so we were treated to his parkour skills as he scaled every wall and jumped every bollard on the way to the Riverside.

One of the reasons I was hoping for a good performance is to try and convert Alistair. He claims to be a Man City fan, although I view it as a good sign that he’s happy to wear the various Boro tops that one of his Grandads gets him.

My hopes weren’t to be fulfilled though. QPR took the lead just before half time with a shot that could either have been a ‘worldie’ or, more likely to my mind, an outrageous fluke. We had our share of the chances, more than our share in fact, but with a second goal for QPR coming twenty minutes from time, we slipped to another defeat.

I doubt a position at the foot of the table with just a single point from five games will encourage Alistair to switch allegiance but with an international break coming up there’s an opportunity for Carrick to try and sort things out.

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CD Leganes v Sporting Gijon, Saturday 4th February 2023, 4.15pm

February 21, 2023

Jen and I like to get to Spain fairly frequently and this trip was another one based around flying into Madrid. I arrived early morning from the Middle East with Jen having spent the previous night at an airport hotel. Our plan was to stay three nights in Avila and then head back to Madrid for an evening out prior to catching our return flights the following day.

First up was some hiking. We broke the journey to Avila at the Fuenfria valley and walked up into the hills. There was still snow on the ground and as we gained height, I regretted not having any of those spikey things with me to slip over my boots. We didn’t see much in the way of wildlife, a couple of those big soary-type birds and a dog in the car park that might have been half-bear, but it was good to get out into the hills.

We’ve taken a similar approach in the past where we pick up a hire car in Madrid and motor out of the city for an hour or so to places like Toledo or Segovia. Avila was just as good, with a medieval wall around the town and sufficient bars and restaurants to meet the needs of someone who hadn’t had a drink for the previous six weeks.

As you might have expected, I’d checked out the nearby fixtures and Real Avila had a game on the Sunday. There were a few options for Saturday, and I picked a game at Leganes mainly on the basis that an afternoon kick-off wouldn’t impact upon the evening activities. I was also influenced by Leganes having an ex-Boro player turning out for them. Or at least they usually do. Ken Omeruo, a long-term loanee under Mogga and Karanka, is a regular for Leganes these days, but, as is often the way, picked up an injury after I’d booked the tickets.

I took the scenic route from Avila and it was an enjoyable drive to the outskirts of Madrid. We left the car in a Decathlon car park five minutes’ walk from the Estadio Municipal de Butarque and headed around to the south stand.

The tickets had cost thirty euros each and we were able to have them scanned directly from my phone at the entrance gate. Our seats were behind one of the goals in an open section. There was just the one covered stand and the twelve thousand capacity looks to be about right for a fairly unfashionable Madrid team in the second tier.

There was a small section of Sporting Gijon fans in the corner to the side of our section. This was supplemented by a few more fans on the other side of the fence and then the odd one or two dotted about near us. The doesn’t seem to be any real rivalry between the clubs, or if there is, it didn’t extend to any animosity between the supporters.

Oddly, the floodlights were on long before kick-off, despite the bright sunshine. Maybe there are tighter restrictions on utility company profits in Spain. Highlight of the first half was the visit of the churros bloke. He wandered around the stand selling three churros with a cup of chocolate dip for three and a half euros.

Leganes went a goal up inside three minutes with a shot from the edge of the box that sneaked through a crowd of players and ended up in the net. They were well on top at that stage and could easily have put the game out of Gijon’s reach if they had taken one or two of the chances that they created. The momentum changed ten minutes before the break though when a yellow card was changed to a red after a VAR intervention and the home side found themselves a man down.

As the second half went on, the visitors grew in confidence and looked likely to take something from the game. Or at least they did until the ref evened up the numbers with a few minutes to go. Every time there was a Gijon foul, and sometimes when there wasn’t, the Leganes players had been agitating for cards. It finally paid off with a red in the closing stages.

With the numbers down to ten a side Leganes were able to see it out and take the points. We took a more direct route back to Avila for a prompt start on the tapas and rioja.

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Middlesbrough v Luton Town, Saturday 10th December 2022, 3pm

December 11, 2022

It seems ages since we’ve been to the Riverside, but it’s just five weeks. In that time though I’ve seen ten games elsewhere including fixtures in Latvia and Qatar, so it’s little wonder that the memories of the draw against Bristol City on the afternoon of Bonfire Night have already faded.

Jen and I drove back from Cumbria on the morning of the game. We’d stayed over the night before after a Boo Hewerdine gig. The trip had also given us the opportunity to do a little bit more of the Hadrian’s Wall National Trail. We did the good bits in the middle of the route ten years ago, but have recently been completing the sections at the western end. There’s not much wall to see, but it’s easy walking and well-signposted, so requires little preparation other than remembering where we left the trail on the previous visit.

On this occasion we had time to walk for six miles from Crosby on Eden to Rickerby Park and back. The temperature rarely got above zero and we saw little wildlife other than geese and robins, but it was great to be out in the fresh air before the daylight faded.

The gig was very good too. Boo was playing in the village hall in Armathwaite which has a capacity of less than one hundred. There was no bar, but everyone was encouraged to bring their own drink and we had a great view from the front row. Jen was a bit worried that he might think we were stalking him as we were front row in a small club in Bradford for one of his gigs last year, but I don’t think he recognized us.

I remember being front row for Mark Lamarr at the Comedy Store in Leicester Square thirty-five years ago. I had my beer resting on the stage and then my feet. Lamarr and I exchanged a few words during the show, culminating in him asking if I thought I could do better than him and then challenging me to step up on to the stage. I accepted his invitation and did an impression of Mr. Whippy having a shit. It got as big a laugh as he had done all night. Thankfully for the people of Armathwaite, the stage was too far away for me to put my feet up and there was no reprise of my brief stand-up career.

Having dropped off Jen, I picked up Harry and Alistair and we made our way to the Riverside. Talk was all about how Carrick was likely to have benefitted from the World Cup break with him having had the chance to get his ideas across the players. We also wondered how Riley McGree would do after the career high of playing in a World Cup against Messi.

Initially it looked as if there had been little benefit to us from the World Cup break as we struggled to assert ourselves against Luton, but we grew more into the game as the first half progressed. McGree looked more confident than usual, so perhaps there was a Qatar dividend. With time running out another Crooksy cameo goal took the three points and moved us into the top half of the table.

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Sedbergh and Dent United v Wetheriggs United, Saturday 19th November 2022, 2pm

November 21, 2022

It will be a shame if Elon Musk does cause Twitter to implode as I currently get some great information from it. Last week I discovered from my feed that a team in Cumbria had fielded a sixty-eight-year-old player. You can’t pass up the opportunity to see something like that and so, on the off chance that his performance merited him retaining his place in the team, Jen and I headed for Sedbergh to see Sedbergh and Dent Reserves take on Kirby Lonsdale Reserves in the fourth division of the Westmorland League.

I like to try and combine these trips out with something other than football and a check on the route revealed that we would be passing Cautley Spout, which is the biggest waterfall of its type in somewhere or other, possible Cautley. Further investigation led to the discovery that we could park up at the Cross Keys temperance pub, have some lunch and then walk out and back to the waterfall, all in sufficient time to get to the game.

The Cross Keys was fantastic. It was full of old, interesting stuff and had a coal fire burning in one of the rooms. They do B&B as well, so at some point I’d like to go back and use it as a base for a longer walk across the Howgill fells.

The walk to the waterfall was easy enough as it probably wasn’t much more than a mile each way. Despite the rain on the way over, we struck lucky with a break in the inclement weather and within an hour we were back at the Cross Keys. We saw some unusual looking mushrooms but little in the way of wildlife apart from the brightly painted sheep penned in near to the road.

The short walk meant that we had plenty of time to get to Sedbergh, for the game in the seventeenth tier of the pyramid. However, as two o’clock approached we still hadn’t found a pitch with people on it. A further check on Twitter revealed that the fixture had been postponed due to a waterlogged pitch and so my plan to see the sixty-eight-year-old was thwarted. Temporarily, I hope.

Plan B meant seeing the Sedbergh and Dent United first team instead. They play in the dizzy heights of the fourteenth tier Westmorland League Division One and just four miles away at the club’s other pitch in Dent.

We arrived at the Church Playing Field twenty minutes into the game and with Sedbergh, in green and black, a goal to the good. It was a decent venue for a game at this level, with a grass pitch, dugouts and goalposts that didn’t require the players to fit the nets and risk losing a finger.

Jen and I set up our camping chairs on the far side from the dugouts, alongside the Wetherigg subs and manager. It was a reasonably feisty first half with a lot of noise coming from both sets of teams. Our arrival brought the attendance up to fifteen which seemed a little on the low side as I doubt that there was anything else going on in Dent that afternoon.

The visitors equalized a few minutes before the break with a well-taken half-volley, but Sedbergh re-took the lead bang on the forty-five-minute mark when the away keeper fumbled a corner. We then got to listen to the Wetherigg half-time team talk in which their captain criticised the jittery defending, commenting that it was as if they had all done three lines of coke. I liked his precision in specifying the quantity.

By the time the second half started it was already beginning to get dark, so much so that with twenty minutes to go there wasn’t sufficient light to take useable photos. The players and management continued to shout at each other and at the ref but didn’t manage to add any further goals. Despite not seeing the pensioner play it had been a good day out and I’ll try to get along to some more Westmorland League fixtures when the opportunity arises.

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Windscale v Richmond Town, Wednesday 31st August 2022, 7.45pm

September 4, 2022

Harry and Isla had gone back to Teesside ready for the start of the new school year, leaving Jen and I with a few days left in The Lakes. I’d noticed that the Ennerdale Show was taking place and so we thought that we’d have a wander along. There were various competitions such as best pair of carrots, best set of three hounds, a bit of horse parading and even some fell running. We didn’t enter anything.

The dog was soon bored with looking at beagles that were half his width and so we left after a couple of hours and went for a walk at Ennerdale Water. There were far fewer people around and with a free car park and well signposted walking trails I was surprised that it wasn’t more popular. Perhaps everyone was at the show, focusing on winning Best Six Peas in a Pod.

That evening we called in to Egremont for a Wearside League Premier Division game between Windscale and Richmond Town. I know Egremont pretty well, or at least I knew it well thirty years ago when working at Sellafield. Thursday nights frequently culminated in the Old Hall nightclub for what was known as ‘Grab a Granny’ night. Looking back, it seemed like anyone in their thirties was considered a granny those days and it may very well be that some of them were.

Jen and I still had Henry with us and that caused a problem when I noticed the sign at the Falcon Club entrance prohibiting dogs. It’s a reasonable restriction as I’m sure plenty of dog owners would just bring their pooch for a walk, perhaps when a game wasn’t taking place, and then let it piss or crap on the grass.

Jen very kindly offered to skip the delights of eleventh-tier football and take Henry for a walk around the neighbouring estate. There was nobody taking money at the gate and probably around fifty people lined up around the perimeter fence.

If you look at the map of Wearside League teams, Windscale are the only one on the west side of the country. The rest are, well, in or around Wearside. I’ve no idea how Windscale ended up in a league that otherwise comprises clubs from a small part of the north-east and I doubt that it’s a popular journey for visiting teams and officials.

Windscale were in blue, with Richmond Town in red. The visitors had the best of the play for most of the first half, but it was Windscale that took the lead half an hour in with a well-directed header from a free kick. They could have doubled their lead just before the break when a shot from the edge of the box hit the inside of the post and somehow bounced out rather than in.

Henry and Jen completed their walk and returned to the car park during the half-time interval. That was my cue to call it a night and follow the remainder of the game on Windscale’s twitter feed. It took them until added time to notch a second goal and seal the points.

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Barrow v Lincoln City, Tuesday 23rd August 2022, 7.45pm

August 29, 2022

Jen and I were over in the Lake District for a couple of weeks, primarily to take in the Sea Power festival at Muncaster Castle. We’d spent a couple of hours earlier in the day walking the dog up on the fells and with him suitably tired out I thought I’d drive down to Barrow in the evening for their League Cup tie with Lincoln City.

I’d bought my ticket for a tenner online and when navigating my way around the ground I stopped at the fanzone for a burger. There were tributes to former players on the wall and one of them was for Kenny Lowe. I worked with Kenny for Capper Pipes at ICI about thirty-five years ago, although it’s his dad, Kenny Senior, that I’ve a better recollection of. Kenny Junior eventually went pro towards the end of his playing career and subsequently managed Barrow. It looks like he has been doing well managing in Australia in recent years.

Despite already having a ticket it took a while to get into the Holker Street ground. I joined a queue for the main stand twenty minutes before kick-off and still managed to miss the first ninety seconds. A fella behind me was furious, complaining to a steward that “It’s the same every week”. You’d think that if he knew about the difficulties getting in then he’d turn up that little bit earlier.

I spent the first half in my seat at the back of the main stand. The fella next to me was able to give me some info about the Barrow team and when he found out that I was a Middlesbrough supporter we traded memories of Boro players from the seventies and of various pubs in the Teesside area.

Lincoln went a goal up after a few minutes, but Barrow equalized soon after and the teams went in level at the break.

At half-time I went for a drink and discovered that I could walk around the perimeter and watch the second half from the stand opposite. I felt guilty about not returning to continue my discussions with the fella from the first half, just in case he was left wondering if he had offended or bored me, but switching sides gave me the opportunity for more varied photos.

Not a great deal happened in the second half. I watched John Rooney, the younger brother of Wayne, for a while. He had a lot of the same mannerisms as his brother, including that jump and twist reaction when something doesn’t quite come off. I’d been told that he was lacking fitness and that showed, but he put the effort in until being subbed and looks a decent player at this level.

As it was getting late, and I had no real interest in which team won I left on eighty-six minutes. I was less than ten yards outside of the ground when a roar went up that was too loud to be anything other than a home goal, almost certainly the winner. I drove past the ground five minutes later and heard another, more muted, celebration that I took to be the final whistle.

I was wrong though and as I listened to the round-up on the radio, FiveLive reported that the final score was two each and that the tie would be going to penalties. I was a few miles up the A595 by the time Lincoln prevailed to take their place in the third round.

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Richmond Town Reserves v Northallerton Town Reserves, Wednesday 10th August 2022, 6.30pm

August 24, 2022

I’d been hoping to watch a game at Earls Orchard for a while. It’s the pitch that’s alongside Richmond Castle and occasionally pops up in groundhopper threads about picturesque venues. Richmond Town played their games there until joining the Wearside League and then moved to the Dave Clark Arena, which sounds grand, but in reality is a school pitch.

Richmond Town Reserves play in the less demanding Wensleydale League and when I noticed that they had a pre-season friendly against Northallerton Town Reserves at Earls Orchard, I thought I’d go along.

Richmond is an ideal location to go for a walk and so Jen and I turned up a couple of hours prior to kick-off and took Henry for a stroll along the River Swale. The Coast to Coast National Trail runs alongside the river for a while and as we thought we’d be unlikely to get lost if we kept the river in sight this seemed like a simple option.

The path took us through some fields of sheep and kept returning to the river, which allowed Henry some drinking opportunities. Wildlife sighting were rare, with rabbits in a field being the highlight. There were lots of people around though with some family barbecues being held on the river banks and groups of teenagers dipping in and out of the water.

We were back at Earls Orchard in time for kick-off and, as suspected, the castle did provide a spectacular backdrop. Richmond were in blue with Northallerton dressed up as Newcastle. There weren’t many people watching, maybe twenty or so most of the time, and I suspect some of the lads in the crowd were either first teamers or squad members who hadn’t been selected.

Not a lot happened in the first half but the game came to life in the second half with Richmond scoring two penalties in quick succession. They added a third on the hour before Northallerton pulled one back from a spot kick of their own.

Richmond had the game well under control though and rattled home another three goals before the end for a comprehensive victory. If I lived in Richmond I’d probably pop along every week, set up a camping chair, and watch the football in front of a special backdrop.

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Carlisle City v Nelson, Saturday 23rd July 2022, 1.30pm

August 17, 2022

I’ve still got a handful of Northern League grounds to visit and with Carlisle City’s Gilford Park being the furthest away we made a day of it and went for a walk. Back in 2011, Jen and I spent four days walking alongside Hadrian’s Wall. We didn’t do the full route then, but focused on the central area which has most of the best bits. The furthest west we got at that time was Lanercost Priory and so what I thought we’d do was park up at Walton and then walk eastwards to the Priory and then back again.

It was an enjoyable walk despite some rerouting along a road. There wasn’t a lot of wildlife or a lot of wall, with most of the remains being buried rather than on display, but it was well signposted as the National Trails tend to be. Suitably inspired, we returned a few days later to walk the section between Walton and Crosby in both directions.

Carlisle City were taking on Nelson, a fellow tenth tier team that plays in Division One North of the North West Counties League. Nelson had played the previous day in Scotland and were accompanied by a handful of fans enthusiastically following the mini pre-season tour.

We gave our three quid admission to a girl at the gate. She was complaining to her friend that her fake tan was rubbing off on everything she touched. I remember when my daughter went through her fake tan phase and there was a terracotta stain around every light switch in the house.

There were two seated covered stands and a covered standing area down one side. I’d estimate that around forty people in total had turned up in cold and drizzly weather. We sat in the stand behind the goal.

Nelson’s conditioning seemed better than their hosts and they were two up after fifteen minutes and added a third on the half-hour. Carlisle pulled a goal back, but Nelson added a fourth before half-time. The constant stream of people returning from the burger van meant that the dog was far more alert to what was going on than the Carlisle defenders had been.

Nelson looked as if they would add to their lead after the break but ran out of steam as the game went on, perhaps as a consequence of playing on successive days. Carlisle took advantage of their opponent’s fatigue and scored a couple of late goals to make the game seem closer than it really was, but Nelson held on for a four-three victory that made the trip all the more enjoyable for their travelling fans.

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CISA v Flatirons Rush, Sunday 19th June 2022, 6pm

June 26, 2022

In all we spent a week in Colorado, initially staying a night in the woods, then a couple of nights at the in-laws and then four nights in a cabin at a family celebration ten thousand feet up in the mountains at Leadville. On the drive up to the cabins Jen and I were distracted by a sign for Buffalo Bill’s grave and museum. Who wouldn’t detour for that?

It was an interesting way to while away an hour with some vintage footage of the wild west shows and memorabilia. There was a book that listed his touring performances and I noticed that he played Stockton and Middlesbrough on successive nights in July 1904.

From what I can gather, the Stockton show may well have been down by the railway line across the road from Norton Aldi. I might dig a little deeper as its weird to think of Buffalo Bill having galloped around a place more commonly used these days by young kids on motorbikes. Maybe we should re-introduce bison to Norton and give the lads on their bikes a chance to round them up.

The mountains around Leadville are great for walking. We hiked a total of thirteen miles around Turquoise Lake on a trail that was mainly on the flat and benefitted from good tree cover. The higher altitude in Colorado made the temperatures much cooler and far more pleasant to hike than it had been in both Pennsylvania and Nebraska.

We also went up a big hill to a height where there was still snow on the ground. It took about two hours to get to the lake at eleven thousand feet that we were aiming for and there were some great views on the way up of the mountains behind the torrents of water gushing downwards.

Some of the group suffered a bit from the altitude and so had to go back down and I was pleased that Jen and I had been in Colorado for a few days in advance. At the lake we ate our left-over pizza from the previous night and tried to tempt the trout in the clear water to take a bite of crust. They would swim towards the splash but then decline the crumb at the last minute.

Whilst there were no sporting events to watch in Leadville, Jen and I had been able to get to a football game whilst staying at David and Jackie’s house. It was a few miles away at the Randy Penn Stadium at Englewood High School and in the fourth tier USL2.

Colorado International Soccer Academy were taking on Flatirons Rush in the Western Conference, Mountain Division. It’s a division with only five teams and Flatirons went into the game in second place in the table with CISA two places below, but having played fewer of their fixtures than the rest of the division.

We arrived at the High School car park to find people tailgating. They waited until the national anthem struck up before packing up their beer and food and heading inside. Over on the opposite side of the pitch there were people who watched the entire match from their truck, saving the ten dollar admission fee. The fence didn’t obscure the view too much and by standing in the back of the truck they were able to get a perfect view.

The Randy Penn stadium looked as if it was more usually used for American Football, with the markings on the pitch and the posts still up at each end. There was also an athletics track around the pitch.

We sat in a twelve row aluminium stand that ran the length of one side of the pitch and there was a smaller, similar stand opposite that hadn’t been opened for this game. I’d estimate that the attendance peaked at around sixty.

CISA were in light blue and, I think, were an U23 side. Visitors Flatirons Rush, who were in a white and grey kit, had the best of the early possession and territorial advantage. They took the lead ten minutes in after a break left them in a two against one position and the free man neatly tucked the ball away.

Flatirons should really have doubled their lead on the half-hour from a penalty awarded after the lino spotted some skulduggery in the box. The shot came back out off the inside of the post and so it stayed at one-nil.

The second goal came on the hour when a Flatirons striker broke away and sat the keeper on his arse before rounding him to roll the ball into the empty net.

It was a niggly game and CISA didn’t take well to being behind. There were a few tackles where the foot was left in and plenty of off the ball contact. One of the home coaches was sent off for bending the ear of the fourth official one time too many and his team picked up at least two yellows for dissent.

Flatirons sealed the points from a free-kick on the edge of the box that they took quickly and whilst the CIMA defence were still trying to organize the lining up of a wall. A simple pass to a man stood unmarked in the box allowed him the luxury of knocking the ball into an open goal whilst the keeper was still holding the far post and demanding the wall moved six inches to the left.

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