Spartak Moscow 2 v Tekstilshchik Ivanovo, Sunday 28th March 2021, 2pm

April 4, 2021

I’d had this ground on my list of potential places to see a game for a while. It’s pitch 4 at the Spartak Academy and I’ve previously seen it listed as hosting Spartak Youth and Women’s games. I’d even had a wander along to it a few months ago when visiting Sokolniki Park to check that it really did exist, so I suppose you could say that I’d done my homework.

I retraced my route from the park for this visit, pausing for a bonus youth game at Pitch 1 before rocking up just over an hour early. A friendly English-speaking steward pointed out the ticket office a little further down the hill and even told me which stand to ask for if I was not a fan of either team.

The woman in the ticket office found it quite amusing that someone who didn’t speak any Russian would want a ticket for a reserve team game in the middle of nowhere. Although not as amusing as when I tried to pass a thousand ruble note through to her to pay for a ticket that turned out to be free.

Ticket in hand I returned to the entrance gate where the metal scanner and the pat down search failed to discover the SLR camera in my coat outer pocket. Therefore if you inadvertently turn up at the game with a chainsaw in your handbag or a dozen rare turtle eggs strapped to your shins, I’d recommend using Gate A.

The steward told me that there were only two rules, ‘wear your mask and keep your distance from other spectators’. I like rules like those.

My ticket was in block A2 which was along the side with the dugouts. Four out of every five seats were taped off to make it easier for people to follow rule two, although as kick-off approached the later arrivals tended to ignore the tape. The stewards enforced a one seat gap between people and spent a disproportionate amount of their time reiterating rule one to those who were wearing their mask beneath their chin.

Stand B was behind the goal to my left and contained the Spartak fans. They sang for most of the time and even got the odd ‘call and response’ chant going with the people near me.

There were around twenty or so fans in the seats opposite me supporting Tekstilshchik Ivanovo. They too did their share of singing, but the most notable element of their support was the banner showing a skull in a top hat. I’ve no idea at all what it was meant to signify, but it’s a good look for a skull.

Ivanovo is a city around five hours drive north of Moscow, so I imagine a few of the visiting fans were based in the capital. As I run out of local new grounds Ivanovo might make for a realistic option as I cast my net a little wider, particularly if there is a convenient train service.

Spartak were in their usual Boro tops, whilst the visitors were in a strange black and grey combination, that if the grey bits hadn’t been stripes I’d have assumed was due to the kitman mistakenly putting them through a boil wash. Neither side gave their fans anything to sing about in the first half and I think there was half an hour gone before we witnessed a shot on target.

At half time I stretched my legs behind the stand before taking a seat at the other end when play restarted. There were fewer people in that section and I was able to keep a greater distance between myself and everyone else.

Spartak opened the scoring on the hour with a good finish before letting Tekstilshchik back into the game a few minutes later with a defensive mix-up. There were a lot of cynical fouls that earned yellows and a couple of tackles that I thought warranted reds as the game became increasingly ill-tempered.

Both sides had their chances at the death but failed to take them. The Spartak players slumped to the floor at the final whistle as if they had just been knocked out of a cup or suffered a relegation rather than drawn a meaningless mid-table fixture against a side one place above them. Maybe the academy does sessions on looking like you care.

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Burevestnik v Lightning, Sunday 28th March 2021, 11 am

April 2, 2021

As a ground hopper it’s great when you stumble across a match that you weren’t expecting. I was on my way to the second tier game between Spartak Moscow’s reserve team and Tekstilshchik Ivanovo when I heard the unmistakable sound of a referee’s whistle coming from the first pitch at the Spartak Academy complex. I’d just walked from Sokolniki Park where the snow was still on the ground but enough of the paths were clear for me to enjoy a stroll around in the fresh air.

Sokolniki is supposed to have wild boars in it but I’ve never seen any. Apparently, it was used by one of the Tzars as a place to catch rabbits with his falcons. I’ve not seen any rabbits or falcons either. Nor any Tzars for that matter. There are always some of those grey and black crows about though, generally in pairs. I spotted one that seemed to be collecting food rather than eating it.

Pitch 1 of the Spartak Academy is a small ground with seats along one side that have an obscured view through a fence. There are no seats behind either of the goals and the opposite side of the pitch houses the dugouts.

As I approached the entrance a fella in a grey kit was leaving.  A quick count up revealed that his team only had ten men so I suspect that he was heading for his car in a huff after being shown a red.

A banner identified the team in blue as Burevestnik and a bit of online research revealed the visitors as Lightning. They were competing in the Under-17 Winter Championship of Moscow and had drawn a crowd of around twenty spectators, some clearly supporting the teams playing and not just killing time before the Spartak game.

I hung around for fifteen minutes or so which was long enough to see a goal for each side, including one cracker from outside of the box that clipped the bar on the way in.

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Khimki v Krylya Sovetov, Monday 22nd February 2021, 2.30pm

March 7, 2021

The winter break is over and the football has resumed in Russia. It seemed a little premature to me with temperatures being as low as -24C recently. Apparently, it has been the coldest Moscow winter since Napoleon was up to his mischief. It’s certainly colder than last year which I was told was the warmest Moscow winter since the dinosaurs were wandering around Red Square in their shorts. Who knows? For what it’s worth, there’s been heavy snowfall and as it hasn’t got warm enough for it to melt all the authorities can do is pile it up around the corner from my flat.

I’d been busy at the weekend but a public holiday on the Monday tied in nicely with Khimki’s FA Cup last sixteen fixture with second division Krylya Sovetov. Khimki is up at about ten o’clock on the second Moscow ring road. I’m at near enough seven o’clock so it’s not a bad journey in a taxi.

I’d bought a ticket in advance for nine hundred rubles in the smallish stand down the side that faced the much larger main stand. It looked as if only one in ten seats or so were being sold which is a welcome Covid precaution in a city that often gives the impression that the pandemic is a thing of the past. I suppose that I could be a little less cautious for the game as I’d had my first Sputnik V jab although with the emergence of new strains and the effectiveness of the vaccines not yet certain I’m happy to try and keep my distance from other people for the time being.

There was snow around the stadium and with it being minus twelve when I got out of the taxi I was glad that I’d worn an extra pair of trousers under my jeans. Maybe I’m getting used to the cold as it didn’t seem that chilly. Certainly not as bad as at Highbury twenty-odd years ago in that New Year’s Day game that was cold enough for Robbo to decide not to ever pick himself ever again. Mind you I did have an extremely thick down jacket on, with a hat and a buff underneath the hood covering all but my eyes.

Once inside I loitered in the concourse with a coffee before making my way outside with five minutes to go to kick-off. There was a light dusting of snow on the pitch with the lines cleared. Over in the main stand I could see drifts that hadn’t yet been shifted to the stockpile outside my front door and there was sufficient ice on the floor for me to be wary whenever I stood up.

Khimki Arena was built in 2008 and has a capacity of just over eighteen thousand. I estimated that there were less than a thousand fans inside for this game which might have been due to ticket restrictions but more likely was as a consequence of most people preferring to stay indoors.

The home side were dressed up as AC Milan, suitably accessorized with hats, headbands, gloves and tights. The visitors were sporting light blue shirts, dark blue shorts and, when visible, pale blue flesh. In a nod to times past the ref had brought an orange ball with him.

The game was less than ten minutes old when we got the first talking point. A ball was played in for a Sovetov striker. Under pressure from a centre-half he lunged at it but failed to make contact and a goal kick was awarded. It took a while before that kick was taken though as the ref stood at half-way with his finger pressed against his earpiece with the scoreboards informing us that the Video Assistant Ref was doing the do.

The on-pitch ref was directed to take a look at the touchline-telly and he subsequently made the charades signal for a tv show and blew for a penalty which was converted to give the visitors the lead.

We had barely restarted when Khimki lost one of their defenders for a DOGSO foul. The red card looked harsh to me as the foul was barely in the attacking half of the field. However, unless the video ref had nipped out for a piss I trust that it will have been carefully reviewed. Sovetov had the better chances in the remainder of the first half but the ten men kept the deficit to a single goal at the break. I risked the ice underfoot to get a large cup of tea that was too hot to handle without gloves. Ideal really in the circumstances.

Sovetov doubled their lead on the hour with a well worked passing movement. Their fans behind the goal seemed pleased and someone a few seats away who was likely to be a Khimki fan rolled his eyes at me. A reciprocating eye roll response was the best I could manage with my eyes being the only part of me visible under all my clothing. I did my best to convey that I knew his pain.

With around fifteen minutes to go a second Khimki fella received his marching orders. It was the lad wearing the beanie and he saw a straight red for booting someone over on the far touchline. He stomped off down the tunnel slamming the door behind him. Luckily he didn’t get as far as the bath or his car before the ref was asked to reconsider and after looking at the telly called him back on to the pitch and swapped his red for a yellow. I’d hoped that beanie boy was already on a yellow, just to see his reaction at being called back (ideally wearing just a towel and his hat) only to be sent off again. He was free to carry on though and spent the rest of the game chirping away at the ref and no doubt reminding him of his mistake.

I dare say the ref will have given him a bit back when the visitors made it three as full-time approached and then added a fourth in stoppage time to rub it in and seal their quarter-final spot. Despite the cold it was good to see some live football, hopefully there will be further opportunities over the next few weeks.

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Torpedo Moscow v Spartak Moscow 2, Sunday 15th November 2020, 5pm

January 23, 2021

Keepers wear just about anything they fancy these days but back when I was a kid green was the order of the day and the colour that you naturally associated with goalies. There was the odd exception in that if you think of, say, Dino Zoff, it’s grey that comes to mind. Steve Sherwood was red, which sadly just about killed that colour off as a credible option for keepers. Shame really, as I’d thought that it looked pretty stylish when I wore it between the sticks for Freddy Natt in the 1974-75 season.

Jim Platt often turned out in blue for the Boro in his early days and I’ve got a vague recollection of seeing mid-seventies photos of Peter Shilton in an all-white kit. Not as convenient as green for getting grass stains off the elbows though.

The most iconic goalie kit though has got to be all-black combo worn by Lev Yashin. I checked him out recently to see if he’d played for Russia at Ayresome Park in the ’66 World Cup but he’d sat that game out with an injury. Something I did discover though was that he was buried in the Vagankovskoye cemetery. Coincidentally, I’d had a mooch around in there on my way to a Dinamo game, but hadn’t known about Yashin’s presence.

As the cemetery was about an hour and a half walk away from this week’s game at Luzhniki I decided that I may as well go back there, look for the grave and then walk along the river to the game.

It all seemed easy enough, particularly as I found photos of the grave online so that I knew what to look for. It’s an engraving, possibly life-sized, of a bloke holding a football. How difficult could that be to spot? Well, very difficult is the answer.

Vagankovskoye cemetery has lots of small paths dividing it and between those, some even smaller paths. I tried to be methodical but couldn’t spot the stone anywhere. After an hour I gave up and headed out towards the river.

It’s getting cold in Moscow now and with the temperature around freezing there were flurries of snow as I followed the loop of the river northwards before doubling back on myself in the direction of Luzhniki Park.

I passed the area where Kiyevsky station is located and where I’d briefly stayed in a hotel a year ago. There seemed to be fewer people around but I suppose the weather was more conducive to staying indoors.

The match I was heading for was my third visit of the season to the Luzhniki Sports Camp. Whilst the first two games had featured Chertanovo, this one was a home fixture for their ground-share partners and fellow second-tier team, Torpedo Moscow.

Torpedo must be a lot more prestigious than Chertanovo as my seat in the central area of the main stand had set me back 1,200 rubles, considerably more than the 300 rubles that Chertanovo charge. Even at the higher price I felt fortunate to get the ticket as they were only being sold to those already registered as a Torpedo fan. I’d signed up a couple of months previously but then opted for a game elsewhere. Luckily that past registration was enough to get me in.

On my way around to the main stand I stopped for something to eat. There weren’t a lot of options and I ended up with a hot dog that was garnished with crispy onions and what was probably a whole gerkin cut into half a dozen slices. It wasn’t the best, but hot dogs rarely are and at three quid it was a tenner or so cheaper than last one that I’d had at a Philadelphia Union game last year.

Spartak’s second team had their Boro strips on and if you squinted hard enough the home side could have passed for Darlo. The other sartorial matter of note was that the linos were wearing tights. I should have done the same really as a pair of jeans wasn’t much protection against a temperature that was slipping further below zero.

Torpedo broke the deadlock around half an hour in with a shot from outside the box that just sneaked into the corner of the net.

The second half was notable mainly for my legs starting to freeze. Nobody else seemed to be bothered by the cold, but perhaps they were all wearing tights too.

If people had started to head for the exit I’d definitely have done so too but I didn’t want to admit defeat if nobody else was.

Spartak’s reserves had two good chances in the second half, one where their number 66 went around the keeper but a defender got back to cover and the game ended with just the single goal in it.

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Esh Winning v Bedlington Terriers, Saturday 31st October 2020, 3pm

December 4, 2020

I was temporarily back in the UK for a funeral and after a fortnight’s quarantine I had a little bit of freedom whilst I awaited the results of a covid test that would allow me to return to Russia. As you might expect, I had a look at my football options and the ninth tier game at Esh Winning in the Northern League Division Two seemed my best bet for an afternoon out in the fresh air.

Esh Winning’s West Terrace ground is known for the countryside that surrounds it and I drove up a track as far as I could to the car park and then walked alongside woodland to reach the entrance. I handed over a fiver and left my name and telephone number in case I needed to be traced.

Once inside, I bought a coffee in the clubhouse where the fella behind the counter seemed thrilled to be able to tell me that they had milk before finding a seat high behind one of the goals in a wooden shelter.

The view from the shelter was as picturesque as I’d anticipated and it gave me a decent vantage point of a heavily sloped pitch that cut up quickly. Esh Winning were in a Norwich-style kit with opponents Bedlington Terriers in blue.

On the side of the pitch to my left were what looked like old bus shelters which one of the Bedlington defenders managed to clear twice in the first five minutes when wellying clearances into the car park. Esh Winning took the lead around ten minutes into the game with a cracking shot from twenty-five yards that may well have taken a deflection.

A further ten minutes in and Esh Winning were two up when one of their centre-halves turned in a corner at the back post. On the half hour the hosts made it three with a right-footed shot across the keeper into the far corner.

I worried for Bedlington at this point as all the Esh Winning goals had come whilst playing up the slope and with the advantage of kicking downhill after the break I did wonder if we might be on for double figures.

The second half was better for Bedlington and they won a pen which was a clear error from the ref. The Esh Winning players appealed to the elderly lino for his help but he just kept repeating ‘I didn’t give it’ or when asked to intervene ‘only if he needs me’. The ref, who I suspect would be asked for ID in pubs for at least another twenty years or so, had incorrectly overruled the same lino on a throw in the first half and clearly was in no mood to seek a second opinion, especially a dissenting one.

The home keeper saved the initial spot kick but couldn’t keep out the rebound and Bedlington reduced the deficit to two. With twenty minutes remaining Bedlington gave the ball away out wide and the subsequent cross was easily tucked away to restore Esh Winning’s three goal advantage.

It finished four-one, with the only other incident of note being a Bedlington striker getting his marching orders in the final moments for something that he said to the ref. The miscreant, who should have seen red anyway for his man-bun, looked very much like one of the fellas who works in my local butchers. If he was the same bloke, or as equally handy with a meat cleaver, I think the ref may have made another error in not overlooking the late indiscretion.

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Lokomotiv Moscow v Chertanovo, Sunday 11th October 2020, 2pm

November 29, 2020

As I clock up visits to the various Moscow stadiums, my options for new grounds get fewer each week. In an effort to find a game for this trip I had a look to see what was going on in the Women’s Supreme Division. It must be difficult to try and come up with new titles for leagues and I think that’s the first use of ’Supreme’ that I’ve seen outside of Crufts.

My luck was in and there was a game taking place at the Sapsan Arena which appeared to be right next door to the main Lokomotiv stadium that I’d recently visited.

As I already knew how to get there I thought I’d also pay a repeat visit to the nearby Sokolniki Park before the match. This time I took the paths to the right of the main entrance gate and tried to skirt the edge of the park as much as possible. It wasn’t as busy as the other side which has the funfair, but it was a lot earlier in the day.

One of the reasons for staying to that side of the park was that I was keen to find the Spartak training complex with a future visit in mind. I crossed over a fairly busy road and continued for around twenty minutes, unsure if I was still in the park or not. I found the complex which had at least two pitches with stands and look forward to returning at some point for what will most likely be an under-nineteen game.

After a further wander around the park I took the subway up to the Lokomotiv stop and followed the smattering of fans who were heading past the main stadium, hopefully to the game. I passed a guard and then walked through a park with a couple of other adjacent pitches before arriving at the Sapsan Arena.

It was free to get in and I had the usually temperature and bag check, before being asked whether I was a Lokomotiv or a Chertanovo fan. I told them that I was neither, which temporarily flummoxed them, before being directed to sit in the central section of the only stand open.

Had I told them I was there to support Chertanovo I’d have been directed to the section to my right, with the dozen or so away fans. I’d no way of knowing if they were fans specifically of the Women’s team or whether they just got along to any Chertanovo game that they could but they had a few chants that seemed player specific.

The ten thousand capacity stadium had three stands, being spoilt only by there being nothing more than a five a side court behind the goal to my left. The pitch looked a bit odd. I’m sure that it was artificial but it seemed to be cutting up in areas, perhaps with too much of that black rubber that always ends up in your boots. Lokomotiv were in white with Chertanovo in blue.

Marina Fedorova stood out in central midfield for Lokomotiv. Her touch appeared way ahead of a couple of the Chertanovo defenders who looked as if they were using their wrong foot regardless of which one they used.

Half an hour in there was a pitch invader wearing a home shirt who almost scored. None of the players seemed to notice him and he nearly beat the keeper to a loose ball in the six yard box. After his goalmouth exertions he made his way towards the dugouts and was escorted away by someone who I presume was the stadium manager. They disappeared behind the stand and five minutes later three cops briskly made their way over, batons swinging from their belts.

Lokomotiv took the lead just before half time when Nelli Korovkina turned her marker inside the box and gave the keeper no chance. A second followed soon after when she ran on to a through ball and again placed it beyond the reach of the away keeper.

Five minutes after the break Korovkina got her hat trick with a tap in after a clever pass into the box that split the defence. It had been the best bit of skill of the afternoon and drew smiles and applause from all bar the dozen away fans. As a neutral it just what I hope to see in a game I attend and with another forty minutes for Chertanovo to try and keep the score down, a rout looked on the cards

Maybe Lokomotiv eased off after their third, because we had a spell where Chertanovo held their own and then, despite heading for their tenth defeat in ten games, the visitors pulled one back in the eightieth minute with a drive from the edge of the box.

With five minutes left Korovkina almost got her fourth against her former team but couldn’t quite get on the end of a cross from the right and it was her teammate Kristina Cherkasova who instead finished it to restore the three-goal advantage.

There was still one more to come a couple of minutes later and with Korovkina going nowhere, she was brought down for a pen. Former Betis and Metz midfielder Fedorova capped a commanding performance with a two step pen into the bottom left hand corner for a five-one victory.

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FC Veles v Orenburg, Sunday 4th October 2020, 2pm

November 17, 2020

Veles play in Domodedovo, which is about twenty miles south of Moscow. I could probably have taken a couple of Metro rides and then a surface train but, conscious of Covid risks and if I’m honest the arseaboutery of having to head into the centre only to head back out again, I opted for a taxi.

I was dropped outside of the five thousand capacity Avangard stadium and noticed some football activity on an adjacent pitch. It was some sort of seven a side tournament with two games taking place simultaneously, crossways in each half. The pitch was next to a park area with a playground where groups of blokes stood around swigging vodka, despite it not being much past midday. We’ve all been there.

It was a little early for me to join them so I had a wander up to the stadium and then carried on along some kind of heritage footpath. Every couple of hundred yards there would be a star with a date on it commemorating the wartime history from that year. As I didn’t have too much time to spare it’s as well that the Second World War didn’t extend beyond 1945.

The footpath finished at a church that catered for the children of its parishioners with a playground and a few conker trees. If St. Mary’s in Norton had done that I might have shown more of an interest in religion when occasionally dragged along as a child

With kick off approaching I made my way back to the ground. It was a lot busier than when I’d passed it half an hour or so earlier with people milling around at the entrance and queuing at the ticket office. I was searched as I went in and, as usual, had my temperature taken.

I’d bought my ticket for the outer edges of the main stand for a hundred rubles in advance online. This choice was also made with Covid in mind as the centre sections seemed such good value at two hundred rubles that I anticipated that area being more densely populated.

Once inside I was pleased to see that my plan had paid off and that the outer edges of the stand were near empty. I exercised a little more caution and ignored my seat in section F in favour of one further out in Section G. There were a few people nearby but nobody within ten feet or so of me.

Veles were in light blue with visitors Orenburg in white. From what I could glean about Veles, they had only been in existence for a few years and this was their first ever season in the dizzy heights of the second tier National League.

They started well, going a goal up after three minutes from a corner where one of the Orenburg centre-halves firmly directed a header past his own keeper. I’m convinced that Veles aimed for him at the next few set-pieces that they took.

Orenburg had chances to equalize in the rest of the first half but the home keeper pulled of a couple of decent saves to maintain his side’s lead at half-time.

I spent the interval watching the stewards performing their now familiar ‘whack-a-mole’ strategy of singling out someone in the crowd with his mask in his pocket or under his chin and after making it clear that it needed to be worn correctly would then move on to their next target only for the original fella to quietly return his mask to wherever it had been.

I probably bang on about this every time I write about a game but come on, how difficult is it to sit and watch a game with a mask on? You aren’t eating or exerting yourself. Just comply and do us all a favour.

Mask moving aside, the crowd didn’t get up too much. There were a small number of vocal Veles fans at the opposite end of the stand to me but they seemed to spend more time waving their flags than they did singing. If Orenburg had brought any fans I hadn’t noticed them at this stage.

There was a certain symmetry to the Orenburg equalizer, with it also coming from a header and three minutes into the half. Or would symmetry require it to be three minutes from the end of the half? Probably, but it’s written now. The goal revealed that I’d underestimated the presence of away fans with a few of them to my right in the centre section and more to my left, standing low down towards the front of the stand in what I suppose was probably the area set aside for them.

The highlight of the second half was a ball boy being fired for leaving the taped off protected area to retrieve a ball. Someone important, possible the stadium manager, marched over to give him a bollocking and to demand that he remove his fluorescent vest. The poor lad was then escorted to the tape and spent the remainder of the game watching sulkily from a distance.

And if that was the highlight, you had probably guessed that there were no more goals. Orenburg should have clinched the points, but with an easy goal on the cards a striker in an offside position couldn’t resist getting involved and caused the effort to be ruled out.

One-all was probably about right in the end.

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Olimp Dolgoprudny v Zenit 2, Sunday 27th September 2020, 4pm

October 9, 2020

My search for a game this week threw up the prospect of a third-tier match at Dolgoprudny, which is a town twenty miles north of Moscow. It didn’t look the easiest place to get to with the Metro falling too far short for me to walk the remaining distance and my reluctance to get on an overcrowded bus where few of the passengers wear masks. In the end I took the easy option and went by taxi. The cabs are cheap over here and my hour-long ride set me back a tenner.

I’d no idea if I would ever go back to Dolgoprudny, so I thought I’d better make the most of whatever charms it has. I checked on Trip Advisor and the number one attraction was the Church of St George. That didn’t really fill me with a lot of enthusiasm, but it looked to be an hour’s walk or so from the stadium and so I thought it would make a decent starting point for pre-match stroll.

As the taxi approached Dolgoprudny there was a spectacular looking church to the left of the highway. It had multiple turrets topped with brightly coloured onion bulbs. It left me with high hopes for Dolgoprudny’s number one church. On my arrival at the Church of St George a few minutes later though I was somewhat disappointed. It was definitely a church, but a lot less fancy than the one I’d passed two or three miles back.

Nevertheless I had a look around. It had a decent set of bells outside and a few pictures on what I presume were saints inside. No dragons. Normally I’ll pay a bit of attention to the floor tiles but they looked little better than standard shopping mall marble. If the weather had been poor I might have hung around a bit longer but it was a bright crisp day and so I thought I’d set off for the Salyut Stadium and hope to stumble across something better on the way.

Once outside I checked the map on my phone and discovered that the stadium was less than an hour’s walk away. A lot less. It was actually two hundred and twenty metres away. A tortoise could probably have done it in an hour. It gradually dawned on me that the taxi had brought me to the wrong church, possibly due to St George being a popular saint around these parts. By chance this wrong church was adjacent to the football ground whilst the right church was very probably the fancy one that I’d passed on the road a little earlier. It was difficult to feel pissed off about it as I’ve had far worse mishaps in getting to a ground and I suppose I should be grateful that I hadn’t ended up on the wrong side of Moscow.

With time to kill I had a wander around the neighbourhood, pausing for a while to watch some fellas tarmacing a road. I could look at that sort of thing all day, with the machine being fed lumpy stuff by shovel at the front before excreting a perfectly flat surface out of its back end.

I’m not entirely convinced that the workmen appreciated being photographed by some weirdo and so after a while I left them to it and made my way into the stadium.

I had the usual temperature check and was searched at the turnstile, although not so thoroughly to prevent me taking a couple of cans of coke in with me. Someone handed me a flyer in lieu of a ticket, although with no admission charge it seemed somewhat unnecessary.

The Salyut stadium holds five thousand when full, presumably just in its two stands, each situated along the side touchlines. There wasn’t any provision for spectators behind the goals, but as there was a running track around the artificial pitch that’s probably just as well.

Only one stand was open, the one on the tunnel side and I took a seat towards the centre and in the back row.

My half of the stand filled up significantly and I ended up with a bunch of kids to the front, left and right, some of them squeezed in together tightly enough for them to be sharing two seats between three of them. I thought all of that unnecessarily risky and so moved to the other side of the tunnel where the stand was virtually empty, maybe because it had been designated for the away fans. There were fourteen of them singing fairly constantly in support of Zenit and making a decent racket for the size of their turnout. Plenty of songs seemed to mention Leningrad, so maybe the past name for St Petersburg remains in common use.

There were still people coming into the ground throughout the first half and a lot of them were sensibly making their way through to the away section. It was possible to keep a good distance from everyone else though, even when the bunch of kids that I’d escaped from earlier made a re-appearance.

Olimp were clearly an older bunch of players with Zenit’s second team being a lot younger and probably a development side. Olimp went into the game at the top of the league, in this case Group Two of the Professional Football League, whilst Zenit were about halfway up the table.

The visitors had the best of the chances in the first half but it was Olimp that took the lead with a penalty just after the half-hour and they went in at the break a goal to the good.

Olimp added a second a few minutes after the restart when Zenit failed to take a couple of opportunities to clear. With the home side pressing forward it looked at that stage as if Olimp might put themselves out of reach. However, they got sloppy and gave away a penalty with a foul right on the outward corner of the box on a Zenit player who was going away from goal. It don’t think it was possible for the attacking player to have posed any less of a threat in that position. The Olimp keeper saved the defender’s blushes though by throwing himself to his left and turning the spot kick onto the post.

Zenit seemed re-energised by the penalty and pulled one back soon after before squandering a good chance to equalize a few minutes later in a goalmouth scramble where the ball was prevented from crossing the line by a defender lying flat out and blocking the ball as if saving a try at rugby.

Despite some late Zenit pressure, Olimp held on for the win to maintain their position at the top of the table.

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Lokomotiv Moscow v Tambov, Sunday 20th September 2020, 7pm

October 5, 2020

I’ve made good progress in working my way through the Moscow clubs since I got back to Russia a few weeks ago with Lokomotiv being the last of what I’d consider to be the ‘big four’ that also includes CSKA, Spartak and Dinamo. I would have added Torpedo to that but despite the familiarity to me of their name they currently turn out at Chertanovo’s ground in the second division, so not very ‘big’ at all.

CSKA’s heritage is the military, Spartak was the union team and Dinamo the KGB. Lokomotiv, you may not be surprised to learn, were and are the railway team. It therefore seemed somewhat appropriate that I took the Metro towards the RZD Arena. I had a few hours in hand though and so I got off a couple of stops early to have a wander around Sokolniki Park. It is definitely one of the better parks that I’ve been to in a city where there is a lot of competition.

There’s a section for eating and drinking near to the fountain at the main entrance and various activities spread around the park. You can ride a horse or a roller coaster.

My preference in these parks is just walking on the quieter trails and my route took me past a lake and on to something called a ‘Health Trail’. It was a pathway about three kilometres long with exercise equipment every hundred yards or so. There were also quieter offshoots that made it easy to thin the traffic even further and extend the distance. I’d read in a guidebook that there are wild boars in the adjoining reserve north of the park but if there were any wandering around they kept well away whilst I was there. The best I saw in terms of wildlife was a red squirrel.

As kick-off time drew nearer I got back on the Metro for two stop trip to the Lokomotive Station and then had a five minute walk around the corner to the turnstiles. I’d bought my ticket online in advance paying 1.200 rubles for a seat in the back row of the lower tier in the stand facing the tunnel. I could have sat behind the goal for only 500 rubles and season tickets were an even bigger bargain starting at 5,500 rubles or fifty five quid. At the moment I’m happy to ground hop, but when I’ve exhausted Moscow’s possibilities then a team with a stadium near to a decent park might hold some appeal.

In honour of the railway connection Lokomotiv has a great big train parked up in the area between the turnstiles and the stadium. It was popular with people wanting photos and struck me as a better alternative to scrapping it. I think I’d like to see old trains dumped all over the place.

My seat was very good with no obstruction from the overhang and sufficient space between me and everyone else. On the opposite side of the pitch I noticed that each team had a dugout to accommodate forty-five people. That apparently wasn’t sufficient though and both dugouts also had a few extra chairs tagged on at the end.

The teams came out to the sound of a train whistle, with Tambov in blue and Lokomotiv in green and red, a combination that I never really consider to be proper football colours. I always think of green as non-league, although I’m sure fans of Sporting Lisbon or Celtic might disagree. Green and red, just doesn’t go though.

The Tambov goalie was forty years old and a former Lokomotiv player. Despite all that he got very little reaction from the home crowd. Maybe the indifference was due to them forgetting about him in the thirteen years since he had left, or maybe a lot of them were just not old enough to remember him.

The old bloke conceded early on, although there was little he could have done about it and there was just the one goal in it at half-time. I quite fancied a drink but even with only six and a half thousand people spread around a near thirty thousand capacity ground the queues were both long and tightly packed. I played safe and did without.

The veteran keeper was booked in second half for taking too long over a goal kick despite his team being behind. Maybe they are strict about running on time here. He then pulled off a very good one handed save with twenty minutes to go. There was no urgency from Tambov as the game drew to an end. I’d been expecting to see their goalie in the Lokomotiv box and hoped that he’d make the sort of impact that only a late goal from a player that should be a hundred yards away at the other end of the pitch can have. I was disappointed though as Tambov didn’t even risk throwing any outfield players forward and instead seemed content to settle for the one goal defeat.

The final whistle was greeted by more train whistling and then a firework display. It all seemed a bit over the top really. Perhaps they don’t win very often.

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Dinamo Moscow v Rubin Kazan, Sunday 13th September 2020, 4.30pm

September 28, 2020

For this week’s game I thought I’d pay a visit to Dinamo Moscow, the team formerly owned by the KGB. It’s a little surprising that they have much of a fan base at all really although a season ticket was probably a good career move back in the Soviet era. Maybe the modern day fans were forcibly taken along by their Dad as a kid, just like all of those Man United fans of a certain age who claim to reluctantly follow their team solely as a consequence of being dragged to Old Trafford in that mid-seventies Division Two season.

I could have taken the Metro to within a hundred yards or so of their ground, but whilst autumn is clearly arriving it’s still good weather for a walk. I decided to head for Vystavochnaya station and then walk for a couple of hours from there to the Lev Yashin stadium.

The Metro journey was simple enough, with a three stop ride along line six and then another three stops along line fourteen which is a circular line. As an added bonus I’ve found the Metro to be an excellent way of getting rid of the change that has been accumulating on the table by my front door. There are machines in each station where you can top up your card and so I just grab a pocketful of coins and feed the machine until the people queuing behind me start making audible sighs.

My choice of route was selected as it would give me an easy navigation along the river for half an hour and then after turning through a park I’d be able to wander around a graveyard before the final stretch along streets to the ground. The first section went ok, in as much as I couldn’t really deviate from the river. I walked a bit too far though and missed Krasnaya Presnaya Park which caused me to need to double back on myself to rejoin my route at the Vagankovskoye Cemetery.

The graveyard was, as you might expect, full of graves. Really full. Most of them were in small square family plots surrounded by iron fencing. When one plot finished another set of railings would be pressed up against it. There was usually a narrow access path but for the plots further back it wouldn’t have been an easy process. A lot of the graves had photos of their occupiers, making me wonder whether you go for a recent photo or one of you in your prime? I don’t suppose it matters much to those below ground, it’s more a quandary for those left behind.

Whilst the plots were busy, the cemetery was busier still with families delivering flowers and middle-aged couples browsing the goods in the tombstone shop as if on an afternoon out at a garden centre. There were flower and wreath stalls and a small hut that sold candles and grave tat. I’d hoped when I spotted it that it might have sold drinks but it catered only for the dead.

Not long after I left the cemetery it started to rain and so I gave up on the rest of my walk and travelled the rest of the way to the Lev Yashin Stadium by cab.

The VTB Arena is an incredible venue. The Lev Yashin football ground is only part of the overall arena, with one end of it being used for a hockey stadium. From the outside though you can’t tell that it is accommodating two sports and it just looks like one big stadium. I can’t really do it justice with my photos, so I suggest that you google the plans for it instead. I was given a mask and gloves at the turnstile and then scanned and searched as I entered the ground.

I’d booked my ticket online for 650 rubles and I was in the upper tier on the tunnel side. The stands sloped steeply so even towards the upper part of the stand I didn’t feel as if I was far from the pitch. For the first time that I’d been to a game since the Covid return there was food and drink available in the concourse. Beer was Bud alcohol free which somewhat surprisingly had a few takers. I got myself a hot dog which tasted as if it had been there since before the lockdown. That’s the nature of hot dogs though, I doubt anyone would choose to eat one if there was other food available.

In the lower section behind the goal to my right I noticed a drum kit set up. If that was to be part of the ultra support it’s a serious effort. It wasn’t though, it was part of the pre-match entertainment from a band where the lead singer looked a good thirty years older than the rest of the musicians. I suspect that whoever they were, he may have been the only original member.

Dinamo started well and had a first half goal disallowed for a tight offside that needed VAR confirmation. Half an hour in though it was Rubin Kazan that took the lead from a penalty decision that so incensed one of the Kazan players that he picked up a yellow for berating the ref. I can only presume that he expected the opposing defender responsible to have been carded for his foul.

The opening goal enabled me to spot a dozen or so away fans in the upper tier opposite me. There was a larger group of home fans behind the goal to my left that made plenty of noise, waved their flags, jumped and swayed with their arms around each other and generally scorned the idea that in these days of a deadly virus it might be prudent not to get so close to a bunch of strangers.

At half time I took advantage of the low crowd and nipped down to the concourse for a coffee. Fewer than a fifth of the seats had been sold, with an attendance of 5,723 in the 30,000 capacity ground and so it meant that the queues were short.

In the second half the rain that had curtailed my walk to the match started again but the roof which extended well beyond the stands meant that if a player stuck to the wings he could stay dry. One Dinamo player must have been told to stay central and in frustration delivered an elbow to one of the visitors. If you are going to get sent off you may as well do it when it is pouring down,

Despite being down to ten men Dinamo applied the pressure and should have equalized five minutes from time. The Kazan goalie who I’d seen pull of the Montyesque double save at CSKA three weeks earlier had been dropped to the bench for this game. It seemed a harsh decision to me but his replacement somehow managed to keep a free kick out of the top corner that was every bit as good a stop.

By this time the home fans had decided to remove their shirts and add the risk of pneumonia to Covid. I moved down a level and watched injury time from a railing in the concourse. From my new vantage point I saw the home goalie go up for a couple of corners and two further players, one from each side, get their marching orders for second yellows in separate incidents. No more goals though in another deserved away win for Slutsky and his team.

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