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FC Jove Espanol v Athletic Club Torellano, Saturday 16th December 2023, 5pm

May 12, 2024

My second game of the day required me to drive back north beyond Santa Pola to Alicante. Fortunately, the Ciudad Deportiva de San Vincente del Raspeig was on the outskirts of the town and so I didn’t have to endure the slow crawl through Alicante town centre.

I parked up near the ground and after a brief wander around to pick up some drinks and pastries from a supermarket I returned to the car to cover the floor with crumbs whilst listening to the first half of the Boro’s game at Swansea.

This was a fifth-tier game in the Tercera Group Six and unusually there was no admission charge. It soon became apparent though that the reason for this was that they were having a pre-Christmas toy collection instead. As I had no toys with me I just gave them some euros, thinking that older kids would probably prefer cash to buy Diamond White and fags anyway.

The artificial pitch had two rows of concrete seating around it, apart from one side where there was a much bigger stand that was largely uncovered but with a small amount of roofing at one end. On sunny days I suspect that you had to be there pretty early for a seat in that area. As it was teatime in December, I was happy to find a spot out in the open on the opposite side.

Jove were in a red and black kit with Torellano in blue and white. There was a Korean guy playing for the visitors and he put in a lively first half performance. The other noticeable fella in the opening stages was the ref who seemed to enjoy dishing out the cards.

Neither team broke the deadlock before the break and with a lengthy queue at the tea hut I wandered next door where what appeared to be an under-thirteens game was taking place.

I moved to the main stand for the second half just for a change of vantage point. Unfortunately, I’d nipped around the back for a slash when the visitors opened the scoring on the hour. No doubt it will have been, as the kids say, a ‘worldie’.

Jove applied some pressure but the away defence held out until two minutes from time when there was a collision right in the outer corner of the penalty box. The decision could have been given either way but, as so often happens, it went the way of the home side.

The penalty taker took an exceptionally slow walk up and was virtually stationary when he struck the ball. Luckily for him he sent the keeper the wrong way to level the scores and earn Jove a point.

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La Union CF v CD Estepona, Saturday 16th December 2023, 11.30am

May 11, 2024

With the Madrid trip done and our five weeks in Spain drawing to a close I took the opportunity to squeeze in a couple more games on the day before we headed back to the UK for Christmas. The first was a morning fixture about an hour’s drive away to the south for a fourth-tier game at La Union.

I was early enough to have a pre-match wander around but there wasn’t much going on other than locals meeting up for a coffee or a beer and some small town yapping.

The Estadio Municipal de la Union dates back to 1973 and can accommodate 3,000 spectators. With tickets costing fifteen euros a pop, I doubted very much that we’d get anywhere near a capacity crowd, even in a place with little else to do at that time of day.

I was right in my assumption that there wouldn’t be too many people attending. A few young lads lined up against the barrier on the near side, whilst most people wandered across to the four-row concrete terracing on the far side. There was little shade for a mid-day fixture though and it was one of those rare occasions where I thought that wearing a hat might have been the sensible thing to do.

I’d seen the visiting team, Estepona, at the back end of the previous season. At that time, they’d been pushing for a play-off spot. It obviously hadn’t worked out as they’d hoped as here they were, one season on, still playing at the same level. There wasn’t much to note in the first half apart from a few ropey tackles and some over the top appealing that was usually accompanied by gesturing for a card or two to be given.

Estepona took the lead ten minutes into the second half with a shot from the edge of the box that sneaked in at the foot of a post. It might even have come back off the upright and in off the keeper’s bonce. Understandably he was furious about it as, less understandably, were a few of the fellas near me.

La Union finished up with ten men when one of their players picked up a second yellow for showing his frustration at the timewasting. Estepona continued to drag everything out though and successfully ran down the clock to take the points.

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Rayo Vallecano v Celta de Vigo, Monday 11th December 2023, 9pm

January 29, 2024

The trip to Madrid had originally come about because I’d seen that Rayo Vallecano were playing on a Monday night, presumably for television. I found a hotel right on the edge of Retiro Park that was around a forty minute walk from the ground. It was also handy for the Anthropology Museum that has the skeleton of a giant and the head of a pirate, but unfortunately, that’s closed on Mondays.

The park was ok though, we had a wander around to get the steps in as well as stopping for lunch in one of the restaurants there. It was warmer than you might expect Madrid to be in December and so we sat outside. This had the benefit of sparrows that were bold enough to land on the tablecloth, looking for crumbs. It didn’t take long before some of the braver ones were eating bread directly from my hand.

Earlier that morning I’d walked to the Campo de Futbol de Vallecas to buy my ticket. Most of the tickets that I’ve bought on this trip to Spain have been digital, but Rayo are old school and you can only get them at the ground. At 11am I joined a queue of about a dozen people and picked up a ticket for the upper tier Alta Lateral section. It was fifteen euros which I thought pretty cheap for La Liga. I’ve paid more than that for fourth and fifth tier fixtures.

I liked the look of the stadium. For a start, it’s in the city with shops and houses all around. That compares very favourably with, say, my visit the previous day to Atletico’s new out-of-town super stadium. There’s a Metro station right next to the entrance, but as it’s only a forty-minute walk, it was something that I could leave for others.

The fellas in front of me in the ticket queue were from the away side, Celta de Vigo. It’s a decent trip from Galicia, particularly for a 9pm kick-off on a Monday night. They had baggage with them though, so presumably were staying over, perhaps so that they could pop in and see the pirate’s head the next morning.

That evening I retraced my steps to the ground. It was a lot busier, although I suspect that the streets around the ground would be busy most nights. There were plenty of options for eating and drinking including roadside vendors selling cans of beer from cool boxes. I’m not sure you’d get away with that in the UK.

Lots of people were drinking from cans prior to going in as there’s no alcohol served inside the ground in the top divisions of Spanish football. I’m quite comfortable with that as it’s rarely a pleasurable experience chugging back crap beer in a freezing concourse anyway. I’d be even less comfortable if it were allowed in the seating areas. Whilst they could probably handle it in Spain you just know that goals in England would result in pints being hurled up into the air.

It’s not just the drinking that’s more civilised out here, the relationships between the fans are much more grown up. There’s no problem wearing away colours in the home parts of the ground or with away fans milling around outside the stadium pre or post-match. There were plenty of people wearing Celta scarves around me, something that wouldn’t be tolerated by some of the home fans even in the West Stand at the Boro.

The ground holds about fifteen thousand but wasn’t quite full. I could see a few vacant seats around me and also in the edges of the Tribuna opposite. To my right was the home vocal section where the Rayo fans spent the game singing and waving flags. It was probably the best atmosphere of the trip, certainly better than that at Atletico the day before.

Rayo are mid table and looked much changed from the side that I’d seen nick the win at Yeclano a few days earlier. They were wearing their Peru colours which I’d noticed since arriving in Madrid are also the colours adopted by the city taxis. Celta are third from bottom with Rafa in the dugout.  He’s from Madrid and so probably knows the area around the ground well. I’d like to think that he’ll have popped into Retiro park to hand feed the sparrows too.

Rayo looked good, with some swift one touch passing. Early on I’d have been confident of them taking the points, but half time came and went without them making their superiority count. Celta grew more into the game in the second half and whilst Rayo still had more urgency about them, they couldn’t do enough to break the visitors down. It finished goalless and after a fourth forty-minute stroll of the day I was back in the hotel as midnight approached.

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Atletico Madrid v UE Almeria, Sunday 10th December 2023, 2pm

January 29, 2024

There’s a decent train service from Alicante to Madrid that only takes two hours and twenty minutes and so Jen and I decided to head into the capital for a couple of nights. We arrived mid-morning on the Sunday which should have been plenty of time for a 2pm kick-off at Atletico’s Civitas Metropolitan stadium, but I ballsed the metro up when making our way to the hotel and running out of time I had to take a taxi to the ground.

As you might expect it was busy outside of the seventy-thousand-seater stadium. In addition to the usual scarf and seeds stalls there must have been thirty or so proper food concessions around the outer perimeter of the stadium, selling just about any type of meal or drink you might want. They were all busy too with the queues lengthy enough for me to decide not to bother.

The stadium was extremely impressive, although despite its magnificence I suspect that a lot of the home fans would have preferred to still be at their old ground. It struck me as a Highbury v Emirates scenario.

My seat was behind the goal but in the corner. I’d selected one three rows towards the front of the second tier of four, so it was reasonably close to the action. I’d bought the ticket online for sixty euros but as the crowd was only fifty-five thousand strong for the visit of bottom of the table Almeria, I could have got one at the ticket office if I’d preferred.

Once inside, I bought myself a pulled pork bun. If I’d wanted to, I could have had a zero alcohol Tanqueray gin with it. I’m not a big fan of gin. I’ll drink the alcoholic version at a push, as I will with most alcohol bar the surgical stuff. I can’t see the benefit of a zero-alcohol version though in the way that I can with beer, although it’s the same for any ‘spirit’. I suppose at least with gin flavour you’d sip it slowly.

Atletico started well and after having a decent Griezmann finish belatedly chalked off by VAR, they still managed to find themselves two-up by mid-way through the first half. At that point I suspected a rout. Almeria hung in there though and pulled a goal back in the second half. By the end it was Atletico that was running down the clock and their fans were delighted when the full-time whistle was eventually blown.

After the game I decided just to walk back to the hotel. It seemed an easier option than trying to negotiate the Metro along with thousand of other fans and I didn’t want to shell out for another thirty euro taxi fare. It was about five miles back to our hotel on the south side of Retiro park and took me a little under two hours. I made it back just before dark, which was handy as Madrid must be the dog shit capital of the world. Without the benefit of daylight, I’d have trodden in enough to have ended up an inch taller.

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Valencia v Celta de Vigo, Saturday 25th November 2023, 4.15pm

January 24, 2024

I suppose the Mestalla had been on my ‘visit’ list for a while. Partly because it’s generally considered to be one of the iconic Spanish stadiums, but mainly because Valencia have been building a new ground for what seems like donkey’s years. Construction seems to start and then stall again for a while and so I’ve been given additional time that nobody would have anticipated when the New Mestalla plans were announced.

Jen and I spent the morning and early afternoon mooching around the city centre. There were old churches, squares with cafes and an indoor market with pig heads, live lobsters and skinned rabbits. We bought a bag of padron peppers that hopefully we’ll be able to roast to resemble the way you get them served as tapas.

As game time approached, we made our way to the ground. It was busy outside with fans of both sides milling around. The scarf stalls were doing brisk business, as were the bars. If I lived in Valencia, I’d be happy to go along regularly and follow the team. We’ve got Mendieta in common and I watched them win the Copa del Rey back in 2008. That’s enough for a connection.

I’d bought tickets online a couple of weeks earlier at twenty-five euros a pop for seats high in the North Stand behind the goal. It was a very easy process and all I had to do was make sure I could find the Downloads folder on my phone to retrieve them at the turnstile.

It was an epic climb to our seats with about a dozen flights of stairs and then once outside, three risers to each row of seats. The steepness meant that every row had a barrier in front of it to prevent people tumbling downwards after getting over-excited.

Valencia’s opponents were Celta de Vigo, a team that I‘d watched a lot of back in the days when I worked in Galicia. Inevitably, Iago Aspas was still turning out for them, seventeen years after I’d watched him play for their ‘B’ team. Of greater interest to the home fans was the Celta manager, Rafa Benitez, who received a warm round of applause and a chorus of his song in appreciation of his Valencia exploits twenty years ago.

It wasn’t a classic with neither side have the guile, pace or luck needed to break the other down and chances were at a premium. It finished goalless, which no doubt suited relegation candidates Celta better. At the final whistle Rafa hugged everyone in sight and took the applause of the forty or so travelling fans to our left. I made sure to hold the handrail on the way down.

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Middlesbrough v Cardiff City, Tuesday 3rd October 2023, 7.45pm

December 16, 2023

After the wins against Southampton and Watford, I was hoping that we could continue the run against play-off placed Cardiff. Alistair was available to come along with Harry and I and we were there early enough for him to have a go on one of the game consoles in the Generation Red area of the ground where we sit.

I watched him for a while, playing Manchester United against Manchester United. It was the same players on either side and therefore a fairly well-matched contest. So much so that it ended up nil-nil. Thankfully he didn’t opt for a replay, and we were able to let some other kid have a crack at it.

There was a better outcome on the real pitch. After a quiet first half Cardiff had the chance to go ahead when hitting the woodwork, before Jones tapped in a cross from close range for us. We scored a second goal towards the end when Latte-Lath broke at pace, checked his run with a trip and then recovered to finish with the coolness of someone who hadn’t just fell over his own feet in front of twenty-odd thousand people.

That was enough to clinch the points and move us up from the edge of the relegation area to the dizzy heights of sixteenth place in the table.

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Al-Shabab v Al-Fayah, Thursday 9th March 2023, 8.30pm

March 21, 2023

There’s a couple of weeks to go before Ramadan starts and the decorations are already up in the hotel that I’m staying in. I’m curious as to whether there’s an acceptable date for putting up decorations and whether most people adhere to it. I’m also hoping to find out if some people feel Ramadany, in the way that some people in the UK feel more Christmassy than others.

The walk to the ground was busy with people, some going to the match, others just embracing the start of the weekend. Lots of families were picnicking outside of the park and their kids were running around in the way that small kids do. One of them was dragging a kite behind him. It had the shape and print of a bird of prey, hopefully an actual kite. When the kid got it airborne it caused one of the feral cats that lives in the area to freeze, unsure of whether it should pounce or was about to be pounced upon.

Al-Fayah were the team that I’d seen a month or so ago beating Al-Hilal here in some cup competition. I remembered them primarily because of their orange-clad fans. They hadn’t brought as many with them this time but those that did turn up kept up a constant racket, reminding me of a bunch of Hare Krishnas.

This game was in the league and of greater importance to Al-Shabab who were third in the table than Al-Fayah sitting in eighth place and with little to play for. Most eyes were on the first v second game in Jeddah between Al-Nassr and Al-Ittihad and I suspect that many Al-Shabab fans would have hoped for a draw in that fixture. Some people may have stayed home to watch it as it looked like there were fewer than two thousand spectators in the ground.

Al-Shabab opened the scoring a quarter of an hour in and added two more before half-time. At that stage it looked like game over. A kid behind me attracted my attention by shouting “Inglesi, Inglesi” at me. I’m not sure how he’d worked out my nationality from the back of my head but he proudly told me that he was from Yemen, whilst his little mate was a Saudi. Whilst we were chatting Al-Fayah pulled one back with an own goal to go in at the break two down.

The visitors came out for the re-start all fired up and halved the deficit within minutes, setting up a nervy second half. With ten minutes to go attention turned to Jeddah where Al-Ittihad had gone a goal up against Ronaldo’s team. I could see the action on a telly in an executive box and was half expecting VAR to find a way to chalk it off. It stood though and with Al-Shabab managing to see out this game for a three-two win, it meant they had closed the gap to one of their title rivals.

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Al-Hilal v Al Fateh, Monday 6th March 2023, 8.30pm

March 19, 2023

Al-Hilal hadn’t played a game at home for more than six weeks due to their involvement in Morocco in the World Club Championship, or whatever it’s called these days. This was swiftly followed by the latter stages of the Asian Champions League which were played on a tournament basis in Qatar. They did well in both competitions, going down to Real Madrid in the final of the first one and qualifying for the final in the second, which will take place at the back end of April.

Either the prolonged absence or the notable achievements, or more likely a combination of the two, meant that this was a much more popular occasion than usual. Tickets generally go on sale two days before the match and with routine sales of no more than  four thousand, I didn’t make it a priority. I got around to booking my seat the day before the game and by that time the main stand had sold out. I ended up buying a ticket in the smaller stand opposite, on the curve.

The ground is only around ten minute’s walk from where I’ve been staying and I decided to set off early and do a couple of laps of the adjoining park. Despite there being an hour and a half to go to kick-off, the streets were crowded and the queues were already forming at the gates. I cut my walk short and headed in with an hour still to go.

My section already had more people in it than it usually would. The stand opposite was filling up to and eventually had few empty seats. This was for a clash between the fifth and sixth placed teams in the league and whilst Al-Hilal had played three fewer games than all of their rivals, they had had an unlikely thirteen points to make up.

The attendance was eventually announced as just short of fourteen thousand, which is three and a half times busier than I’ve seen at their games so far. Sadly, it didn’t work out as planned with Al-Hilal starting off sloppily and focusing more on showboating than securing the points.

Al Fateh went in front late in the first half and clinched the points ten minutes from time, sparking a mass exodus and taking the attendance back to a more regular level. Al-Hilal notched a consolation in added time but when the final whistle went the homecoming heroes were loudly booed as they headed for the tunnel.

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Lubbock Matadors v Irving, Saturday 25th June 2022, 7.30pm

July 2, 2022

After the week in Colorado, it was time to head south for another family celebration in a weeks’ time. Our first stopover was two nights in Lubbock, Texas. It was a six-hundred-mile drive and we managed it in around ten and a half hours. We stayed on a horse ranch on the outskirts of the city.

Lubbock was as hot as it had been in Nebraska, with the temperature beyond 100F. I was glad of the air-conditioning.

I didn’t really know very much about Lubbock, other than it’s the place where Buddy Holly was from. With that in mind we went along to the Buddy Holly Centre to look at some of the memorabilia. There was a house in the grounds of the museum that had belonged to one of the Crickets, Jerry Allison, and where he and Holly had written ‘That’ll Be The Day’.

Apparently, the reason that it is Allison’s house that was transported to the centre and not Holly’s is that the Holly family home been knocked down long before anyone thought of cashing in on it.

We also went to the City of Lubbock Cemetery to visit the grave. It was well signposted and easily found. Some people had left trinkets and glasses. There was even a Christmas tree bauble. I reflected on how strange it seems to me that Buddy Holly had actually played the Globe in Stockton. Twice, in fact, on the same day in his only tour of England in ’58.

He’d been to my town and now I’d been to his.

As we left the cemetery, we spotted a prairie dog on sentry duty by its burrow. There were a few others just outside the gates. I stopped the car so that Jen could take some photos, clearly bemusing the driver behind us who may very well have seen prairie dogs on grass verges by the road every day of his life.

After exhausting the Buddy Holly options Jen and I went along to Lowery Field, home of the Lubbock Matadors football team. They had a home fixture against Irving in the Lone Star Conference of the Western Division of the National Premier Soccer League. Lowery Field is another stadium used predominantly by an American Football team, but utilised for soccer in the offseason. It has a capacity of 8,500.

I’d bought tickets online a few weeks in advance for ten dollars a pop plus taxes. As we showed the fella on the gate the tickets on my phone, he offered us a dog bib if we could show him a photo of our dog. We don’t have a dog but I had a recent photo of me with my brother-in-law’s dogs that earned us two extra small bibs. They might fit the shiatzu belonging to Jen’s sister.

We had seats on the forty yard line, directly above around twenty or so singing ultras. They made a racket with a megaphone throughout the game, supplemented by drums and two trumpets. The crowd was later announced as over four thousand, which seemed a little high to me. Maybe they count tickets given away whether the recipients turn up or not.

There wasn’t much action in the first half, but the game came to life in the second when Irving went a goal up. This sparked some aggression from both sides and the visitors were soon a man down. Lubbock equalized with twenty minutes to go and the game then petered out to a draw with the focus moving to settling scores and accumulating yellow cards rather than any real attacking intent.

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Torch FC v Pennsylvania Classics, Sunday 5th June 2022, 6pm

June 7, 2022

After spending a couple of nights in a hut on top of a hill in Kempton Jen and I moved on to the nearby town of Buckingham. It’s another small place and less than sixty miles from Newark Airport where we’ll need to swap hire cars.

Jen had noticed that there was a heritage railway on the way and so we stopped to take a ride. The conductor was an friendly fella to chat to and despite having worked there since ’76, a relative new boy compared to some of the other volunteers. There was an old bloke sat near to us who spoke just like Paulie Walnuts. I made sure that I did nothing to upset him.

Buckingham has a nearby nature reserve and so we spent a couple of hours following some of the trails. I’d been hoping to stumble across bears and snakes like our last visit to the states, but the most we saw were squirrels and a heron. It was still a worthwhile wander about though and with plenty of tree cover we managed to spend most of our time in the shade.

One of the other advantages of Buckingham was that there was a fourth tier fixture scheduled for the evening of our arrival and as it was only twenty-minutes down the road we popped along. Torch FC were taking on Pennsylvania Classics in the Keystone Conference of the National Premier Soccer League. It’s a short competition with the eleven teams in the league playing each other just the once and all within a seven week period.

The game took place at Pennridge High School. There wasn’t a fixed price for admission but a suggested donation of ten dollars a head. Whilst it struck me as expensive for a fourth-tier game, we’d paid twice that for third-tier Richmond a few days earlier and so I coughed up. We were given a free programme which was a pleasant surprise.

Refreshments were better value with Jen getting a one dollar pretzel whilst I went big on a two dollar hot-dog.

I learned from the programme that Torch FC are a sort of Christian missionary project, a ministry through sport. Prior to the national anthem, which was sung by the club president from the commentary box, there was a prayer thanking God for providing a sunny day suitable for football. I’m sure there are plenty of football fans that will offer up a prayer during a game, more likely in respect of the result rather than the weather, but I’ve always thought that if there were any gods listening they’d have better things to do than get caught up in sporting events, particularly obscure ones.

Having said that, I’ve probably got better things to do most of the time than attending lower tier fixtures, so who’s to say that gods don’t have a similar mindset and are happy to prioritise prayers for minor leagues over major pandemics.

Once again, the pitch was cluttered with markings for a variety of sports in different colours. I reckon that six different activities took place on the pitch, including lacrosse. One benefit, I suppose, was that the ref was able to avoid pacing out ten yards at a free-kick and instead simply referred the players to the American Football one-yard markings to determine the placing of the wall.

Torch were in white with an orange trim, whilst Pennsylvania Classiscs were in a dark blue and teal kit. The players were all very polite, some of them referring to the ref as ‘sir’. We should adopt that in England.

Not a lot happened for most of the first half. Torch rattled a post a few minutes from the break before opening the scoring a couple of minutes into added time when the keeper flapped at a cross and someone tapped home from close range.

Torch doubled their lead on the hour before Classics notched a couple of goals to level the scores with fifteen minutes remaining. The points went Torch’s way though with a disputed late penalty that led to off the ball head-butting and a distinctly un-Christian reluctance from those involved to turn the other cheek.

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