This was a bonus game that we spotted whilst walking along the Hadrian’s Wall trail between Rickerby Park and Grinsdale. The path pretty much follows the river and goes past the Sheepmount Athletics stadium. The stadium itself was busy with people jogging around the track and someone shotting the putt. Near the entrance some kids were unloading javelins from the back of a car. We never got to mess around with javelins at that age. I’m not sure I’d be trusted to do it even now.
The centre field of the athletics stadium didn’t look big enough for a football pitch and didn’t have any goalposts. However, there were a few games going on in the surrounding fields and so Jen and I paused our walk to wander over to the match that was taking place on the pitch which had a fence around and dugouts for the coaching teams.
I asked about the teams and a lady very kindly called up the information on her phone and let me take a photo of it. Isn’t technology great? It was an under-fifteen game in the West Cumbria Youth League between Unisun Athletic and Windscale. The match was well into the second half and our arrival coincided with Unisun extending their lead to four-nil. We stayed long enough to see a Windscale consolation with a strongly struck shot from well outside the box, before leaving them to it and resuming our walk.
I got lucky with my full day back in the UK with both a Boro home game and a stable visit to see Hickton, the Riverside Racing Syndicate horse. I didn’t see him run at all as a two-year-old and so I’m hoping to be more involved in his campaign this season.
We’ve switched trainers for this season to the smaller yard of Declan Carroll and I went along with a couple of other syndicate members to watch him on the gallops.
Declan seems a decent bloke and was happy to spend an hour and a half with us, talking us through Hickton’s progress since arriving. He’s a horse that seems to have some ability, but is reluctant to show it. Hopefully Declan and his team can bring him on a bit.
We watched him run over six furlongs alongside one of the stable sprinters. It’s an uphill track so hopefully he’ll appreciate the much easier gradient next time he’s on the course.
After taking my Mam for quick jaunt around Aldi, I picked up Harry and we set off for the Riverside. Neither of us could work out how to get Radio Tees on the hire car radio, so we missed the team news. The Boro are short of centre halves at the moment, having sold Matt Clarke and then had Van Den Berg and Edmundson pick up injuries.
Jonny Howson still isn’t fit either and so Luke Ayling switched inside. Early in the second half he picked up an injury too which meant that left back Neto Borges took his turn to fill in. It feels as if they’ll all get a go at some point.
Derby are struggling at the moment and came for a point. We had the best of the chances, but it wasn’t until ten minutes from time that Finn Azaz broke the deadlock to give us a second win in four days. Hopefully we can build on that and get back into a play-off spot
Foundation Day is a public holiday in the KSA and meant a three-day weekend. I took the opportunity to fly down to Jeddah for the top of the table clash between leaders Al Ittihad and second-placed visitors Al Hilal. The fixture is apparently known as the ‘Saudi Clasico’. Al Hilal is undeniably the most successful Saudi club, whilst Al Ittihad’s claim to ‘top-two’ status probably relies more on their crowds than trophies.
On matchday morning I took a stroll along the seafront. It was a popular way to spend Foundation Day and families were out in force, bathing, sitting on the sand or, like me, simply going for a walk. One couple had brought a parrot in a cage out with them. Hopefully for its conversational skills.
Others had hired boats from the Marina and were cruising back and forward, invariably with a large green Saudi flag flying. Those people who didn’t want to leave their air-conditioned cars went up and down the coast road to the Corniche area. A lot of those cars sported large flags too with many of them being waved by a small kid stood on the back seat and with his or her torso sticking out of the sunroof.
My hotel, which was the closest one that I could find to the King Abdullah Sports City Stadium, was about an hour’s walk from the ground. I’d picked it so that if I struggled to get a taxi after the game, I’d be able to get back regardless. The match didn’t kick off until 9.15pm, but with little else to occupy my time I set off for the ground early in the evening.
However, with the stadium in sight, I realised that there wasn’t a walking route other than along a three-lane flyover without a pavement. I retraced my steps to a place where an Uber would be able to find me and booked a ride.
I’d bought my ticket around a month ahead of the game from Viagogo. It had cost me fifty quid, but I hadn’t wanted to risk general sale, particularly if it also involved registering Al Ittihad’s ticket app.
The area outside the stadium was busy, despite me being two hours early. I was searched on the way in and the steward was keen to confiscate my notebook. He called his boss over, no doubt hoping for some Brownie points, only for his boss to tell him not to be a dick. When he grudgingly returned the book, I should have asked him his name and wrote it down. Next time.
I had a wander around the concourse area and a young lad came over for a chat. He looked to be around eleven years old and told me that he had lived in Lancaster for seven years. It was great to hear a Saudi kid speak with a Northern English accent.
Once in my seat, I was able to watch a horse race on the big screen. The Boro should do that. Or maybe show one of the early kick-off games. It’s something that I’d like to see at tournaments such as the Euros and the World Cup. It gets people to the stadiums early which would minimise the queues and would likely increase food and drink sales.
Immediately prior to kick-off the home fans held up plastic sheeting in club colours. Both sides had large displays behind the goals that covered almost all of the fans in those sections. It was a passionate atmosphere, worthy of the ‘clasico’ label and if anyone doubted the sincerity of the support in this part of the world, it showed that Saudi fans, or at least those Saudi fans, are as committed to their team as any other supporters elsewhere.
Initial pressure came from Al Hilal and they took the lead midway through the first half. Al Ittihad hit back though and went in at the break two-one up.
A third goal early in second half put the home side well in control and when it looked like they’d added a fourth the fella to my left cleared off in the belief the points were in the bag. A VAR intervention saw the effort chalked off and it took a cool finish from Benzema five minutes from time to finally kill off any thoughts of an away comeback.
I was lucky enough to flag down a taxi after the game, but the traffic management roadblocks meant that we still had the ground in sight half an hour after setting off. I eventually got back to my hotel close to midnight, for what will likely be my final Saudi game for a while. It was a decent occasion to bow out on.
I was back in England for the weekend for some university stuff and so, as we’ve been doing of late, Jen and I stayed in London. This time we went for an Airbnb in Soho on the basis that we might as well be in the centre of whatever is going on.
It was certainly busy, although with it being an international rugby weekend, that might have been expected. The Rupert Street revelry went on until around 5.30am every morning, with a brief intermission before the workmen who were digging up the paving below our fourth floor flat fired up their pneumatic drills.
At the end of our street was the Paul Raymond Revue Bar with its neon sign outside. Elsewhere on the street were massage parlours, sex shops and places selling adult DVDs. This last one confused me a little, in the same way that newsagents still selling porn magazines do. Is there really anyone left that consumes porn from a top shelf? Surely with every conceivable interest (as well as some inconceivable ones) available on your phone, who would buy a DVD or a magazine in 2025?
Staying in one of the less gentrified parts of Soho took me back to my days as a student forty years ago. My friend Craig came down to the capital for a visit and we made a beeline for that very area. Our first stop was a peepshow where we descended the stairs to the basement to find a row of cubicles. We picked one each and went inside. There was a box on the wall where insertion of a fifty pence piece caused a flap to spring open and which enabled us to peer into a room that had similar viewing points around all four walls.
Sat in the corner of the room and reading a newspaper was a women aged about thirty. She wasn’t wearing any clothes. When she heard the flaps flick upwards, she glanced in our direction, put down her reading matter and pressed ‘Play’ on the portable cassette player by her feet. She danced awkwardly, similar to the way that you might have seen Donald Trump do recently. Thirty seconds later, the timer closed the flap, and she went back to checking her share prices whilst Craig and I made our way up to the street to find better ways to spend a ten-bob bit.
This time, there weren’t any peepshows and so instead Jen and I went to a War of the Worlds Immersive experience. It was a little too immersive for me with us having to scurry between rooms, climb through a window and even drop down a floor via a slide that I’d probably have enjoyed more as a small child. It was ok, but I’d have been just as happy sitting quietly and listening to the album.
Football-wise, the best option of the weekend was a third-tier women’s game at the Cherry Red Stadium in Wimbledon. I always think of Wimbledon as being quite posh but that’s probably just because of the tennis. As I walked from Tooting Broadway station, I was struck by how much of a shithole the place was. I had a glance in an estate agents window and the first house I saw was up for sale at a million quid. The next one was three million. It’s seemed that they just priced them in seven figure increments. If I had owned either property, I’d be selling up and buying a castle in Scotland.
Once again, my mind wandered back forty years. This time to an away game at Plough Lane, just two hundred yards from the new home of the current Wimbledon incarnation. I’d hitch-hiked down from Teesside the day before and was due to get a lift back from some mates who had driven down on the day of the game.
Apparently, they reached north London around lunchtime but in those pre-sat-nav days didn’t arrive at the ground until everyone was leaving at full-time. They didn’t wait for me, and I had to get a lift back in a coach that Ingle had put on. There weren’t any spare seats and so he put someone he didn’t know as well as me in the luggage compartment.
The fact that the Cherry Red Stadium also hosts the Wimbledon men’s team meant that I was ticking off one of the ‘92’ grounds. Bonus. I’ve not really made much of an effort to get around them all yet, but I suspect that it is something that I’ll embrace before long.
It was seven quid in. I also bought a programme that appeared to have been recycled from an earlier date and a Bombay potato pie. There was beer on sale that you could take to your seat. Only one stand was officially open, although a few people had strayed into the area behind the goal to my left. Most of the crowd were families and the majority of the kids present were girls, many of them in groups that might well have been junior teams.
With Wimbledon mid-table and Plymouth in the relegation zone, those around me seemed confident of a home win. Wimbledon took the lead midway through the first half when they beat the offside trap, allowing their runner to outpace the defender and steer it home. Plymouth hit back before the break with a shot that the keeper did well to parry, but was unable to prevent the ball looping skywards before dropping just under the bar.
As the game drew to a close it looked as if it would finish all-square. Wimbledon then had a defender sent off in added time for, I think, something that she said to the ref. With ninety-eight minutes gone a shot through a crowded box clinched the points for Plymouth. Some of their bench ran across the pitch from the opposite touchline to join the pile-on, incurring a couple more yellow cards for those with bibs on.
I headed back to Soho where, with it drizzling all evening, Jen and I didn’t get any further than the two doors down White Horse. It was the sort of evening that someone might very well have written a song about.
The second Boro game of my UK visit was at home to Burnley, at eight o’clock on a Sunday night. WTF? Who decided that was an appropriate time for scheduling a football match? It was another cold night and so I kept faith with my Russian coat. If it could cope with the sub-zero temperatures at the final Moscow Torpedo game before a winter break, then I was hopeful that it would do for Teesside.
Chances were at a premium and the nearest either side came to a goal was when Dael Fry managed to chest a goal-bound shot off the line. Burnley were timewasting towards the end and so were clearly happy with a point. I was too, I suppose, although a point a game over the season might well get you relegated.
It was the last match of 2024 for both Harry and I. A year in which I only got along to thirty-five games, albeit in twelve different countries and with thirty new grounds. I saw the Boro on just four occasions, witnessing two draws and two defeats in my visits to the Riverside. I’m hoping 2025 will be better on all counts.
I’m gradually working my way through the Northern League, although with promotions, relegations, resignations and lateral transfers for geographical reasons, it seems a never-ending task. Today’s game was in the Second Division at the Eastbourne Community Stadium in Darlington.
Home side Darlington Town are new to tier nine, having won the Wearside League last season. Chester-le-Street United have been at this level for three seasons now and from what I read online, appear to exist for the purpose of showcasing young footballers hoping for a career in the game. I might be wrong, but I think they are full-time with the players investing in their future by paying to play. They regularly take on the academy teams from clubs higher in the pyramid.
It was six quid to get in. Having turned sixty, I was tempted to ask what the age for concessions was, but I let it go. Anyway, it doesn’t feel right to be paying a reduced rate whilst I’m still gainfully employed.
There was a raffle for a basketful of booze, much of which looked like repurposed unwanted Christmas gifts. I bought a ticket anyway, despite suspecting that if I won, many of the bottles would go into a cupboard and remain there until I could re-gift them myself.
I took a seat in the small covered stand along one side and behind a sausage dog. There were also a couple of even smaller covered stands on the opposite side that might each have accommodated fifteen or so standing spectators.
It was a cold day, and I was glad that I’d nipped up to the loft before the game and looked for the big coat that I’d bought when living in Moscow. In the inner pocket I discovered a ticket from a 2021 Moscow Dynamo game, which might have been the last time I’d worn it.
The visitors took the lead ten minutes in when a corner wasn’t cleared, and someone bravely stuck his head amongst some flying boots. Chester-le-Street’s good start was undermined fifteen minutes later when one of their players was sent off for what looked like an off-the-ball elbow.
At half-time I nipped out to the burger van where I saw a kid try to salt his chips only for the cellar top to come off and deposit the entire contents of the container into the tray. He reacted as if nothing untoward had happened and nonchalantly walked away with his food as if he always went for an equal ratio of condiments to chips.
Darlington Town struggled to make an impression on the game after the break. The visitors should have gone two-up mid-way through the half when they were awarded a penalty, but it was blazed over the bar. There was some home pressure towards the end, but Chester-le-Street held on for the three points.
This month marked the fiftieth anniversary of my first Boro match, a home win against Birmingham at Ayresome Park. My second Boro game was actually fifty years to the day, a Boxing Day victory over Sheff Utd. Fifty years feels right for both those games as I was only a kid. What does seem strange though is that I only watched games at Ayresome for twenty years and we are now approaching the thirtieth anniversary of the move to the Riverside. Time moves much more quickly these days.
It’s moving quickly for Harry too as this was his last day as a thirteen-year-old. It barely seems any time at all since I rocked up at North Tees after he was born with some mince and mash for his Mam.
We got to the ground early enough to catch up with Tom and his mate Murgy in the fan zone. There were long queues for the bar, but Murgy very generously gave me a can of Stella from a carrier bag-full that he had brought with him.
It all started very well with Doak putting us one up early on and then Azaz adding a couple more. With half an hour gone we were three up and quite a lot of the away fans were streaming out for an early start back down the A19. Wednesday had a couple of chances towards the end of the first half, but when they went off at the break my main interest was whether we would emulate the 8-0 result against them from the Charlton’s Champions season.
It all went tits up after the restart. Latte Lath had an easy opportunity to square it to Doak for a fourth but took the shot himself. Wednesday went straight down the other end and pulled one back. Even then, I wasn’t worried and was disappointed that the announcer didn’t troll them by referring to their goal as a consolation.
They quickly scored another, Rav got a red, new keeper Sol Brynn knacked his shoulder and suddenly it was three-each. The momentum was all with Wednesday for the last half-hour and from what had seemed a certain victory I finished up relieved to see us hold on for a point. I suppose that after fifty years I shouldn’t really be surprised by such a turn of events.
I was due back in the UK for Christmas and New Year, but with the Usyk-Fury re-match scheduled for the 21st December I delayed my return for a couple of days and rerouted my flight via Riyadh. I’d learned my lesson from their first fight about the difficulty in getting a taxi after the fight and this time I booked an apartment, or rather a ‘studio’, a ten-minute walk from the Kingdom Arena.
I’ve a feeling that I might have been the only person to ever stay for two consecutive nights in that building as most of the other rooms appeared to be occupied by couples renting them by the hour.
I’d bought my ticket well in advance on the secondary market, but by fight night there were still plenty on sale and it clearly hadn’t sold as well as the first bout. As last time, there were plenty of Brits around, with groups of blokes all dressed identically in tight polos, tailored shorts, running shoes and those little trainer socks. I wondered whether that’s how people dress now back home or whether that’s their ‘Dubai’ clobber.
My ticket was for the floor area this time and posh enough to give me access to a lounge where there was a constantly replenished supply of little cakes. There were free drinks too, although the queue for a coffee was sufficiently long that when I needed an early-hours caffeine boost it was much quicker to nip outside and buy one instead.
My seat was close enough to the ring for me to be able to watch the action, but as the seating wasn’t banked, I was glad of the screen above the ring that enabled me to miss nothing when people in front of me decided to stand up or go for a wander.
I’d delayed my arrival to watch the Boro draw with Plymouth, but even so, I only missed the opening undercard fight. Most of the supporting fights went the distance, with a shocking ‘home’ decision in the Fisher v Allen fight. The timings were running late until rising heavyweight star Moses Itauma managed to get things back on schedule with a first-round knockout in the penultimate bout. I was especially pleased about that as I had an early morning flight, and I didn’t want a delay to the main event to eat into the time available for sleep.
I found the main event a lot harder to score that their first fight as so many of the rounds seemed very close. I had it as even after twelve rounds, so was surprised at the announcement of a unanimous 116-112 decision, whichever way it went. I suppose that’s how it works though when the rounds are close. You could have a 120-108 shutout where one boxer just nicks every round as opposed to a 114-114 draw where one fella absolutely dominates for six rounds but narrowly loses the other six.
Anyway, as you know, Usyk took the decision and retained his belts. I doubt that I’d bother going to a third fight as it’s hard to see a different outcome.
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.
Jen and I had a week in Jordan planned and when looking at the flight options it made sense for us to meet in Dubai and then fly on from there. I’ve never really understood the attraction of Dubai, other than as a hub for going somewhere else. It’s a place where I’ve spent time doing some consultancy in the past, but other than drinking overpriced pints in the sunshine, I’ve never really found anything worthwhile to get up to.
We stayed down by the Marina, which has plenty of shade from the nearby skyscrapers. That made it ok for an early morning walk before the temperature rose sufficiently to make it uncomfortably warm.
I had the option of going to a lower-level football game, but it was a fair distance outside of town and would have finished quite late. We headed for the races instead, mainly due to it finishing slightly earlier than the football but also because it had the added benefit of plenty of bars. We’d got lucky in a way, in that this was the first meeting of the season at Meydan.
I’d bought tickets in advance for an enclosure managed by a pub-chain, McGettigan’s. Presumably that’s a name concocted to sound as Irish as possible. Basic admission was about a tenner, but we paid another fifty quid each or so for a wristband that allowed unlimited drink for a three hour timeframe.
There wasn’t any gambling, or at least there wasn’t for me as I couldn’t access my UK bookies account. Other people seemed to have no trouble placing a bet by phone, but I suppose as they lived there then they were up to speed on all the dodges.
Instead, there was ‘competition’ with a cash prize for anyone who could select the winner in, I think, six races. A sort of placepot, just without the variable pot. It seemed very popular, but I didn’t find out about it until after the first race had gone off.
After a month in Saudi, I made the most of my wristband and it was a pleasant evening sitting drinking as the sun went down. It reminded me a little of when we used to live in Seoul and we would pop down to the baseball after work. Then, as now, we had no real interest who won, the sport was there simply to provide a backdrop to the unwinding. It was just as well really, as we didn’t pick a winner all night.
Trail of the Lion King 