Trail of the Lion King

Anyang Cheetahs were a big deal in the K-League a few years back, they even won it in 2000. It all went wrong though at the end of the 2003 season when their owners, under pressure from the KFA, agreed to relocate from Anyang to Seoul, rename the club FC Seoul and play their home games at the Sangam World Cup Stadium.

That was all well and good for the people of Seoul who took up with the shiny new team, but it left the Anyang fans with an empty stadium and plenty of time to go shopping on a Saturday afternoon.

The advent of the new K-League second division, or K-League Challenge as it is oddly known, provided the opportunity for the city authorities to get a team up and running again and that’s what they did. After nine years of weeds on the terraces, Anyang had its team back.

Anyang Stadium

Anyang’s opening fixture was against Goyang Hi, another team with a back story. Last season they had been turning out as Ansan H, the H being a shortened version of their previous name Ansan Hallelujah. I’d been to see them a couple of times, once at their 35,000 seater stadium, the other time at the much more appropriately sized practice pitch next door.

Ansan had decided that they no longer wished to have a football team and H were forced to move on, pretty much in the same way as when they were booted out of Iksan a few years previously. I can only presume that they must leave the changies in a bit of a state.

Whatever, this was one game that I really fancied and so I caught the bus from Yeonggwang , where Jen and I had stayed after the game the previous day. I couldn’t believe that there were direct buses between the two places, Yeonggwang Bus Station only runs buses to about half a dozen destinations so quite why someone selected Anyang as one of them is beyond me.

I took a taxi from Anyang Bus Station to the ground. The driver had no idea that there was a football stadium in Anyang, but he knew of the ice hockey rink next door so I was able to convince him to take me there instead. After stocking up on beer and buying a ten thousand won ticket, I took up a place behind the goal with the home fans. If there was going to be a place to party then that was it. As kick-off neared it got busier, culminating in a procession of Anyang fans making their way from a makeshift bar that they had set up outside the stadium.

They had waited nine years for this.

There had been rumours that the seventeen thousand capacity stadium would sell out and it may well have done, but apparently the majority of tickets had been bought by sponsors who then must have just thrown them in the bin. The official attendance was three thousand four hundred or so and I’d say that was about right.

For the Anyang fans who had been waiting for this day for nine years though the attendance didn’t matter as they greeted the arrival of the teams with a mass hurling of bog rolls. That’s a football tradition that you don’t see so much these days, but one I’m always happy to participate in, particularly for the opportunity it gives you to bounce an unfurled roll off an unsuspecting head.

The teams take to the field.

I’d arranged to meet up with a few lads I know from the football over here, some were Anyang fans, some were groundhoppers, some were fella’s who just like a bit of a party. Some were all three. The upshot of that was that I didn’t take a lot of notice of the action on the field. It wasn’t really about the game anyway, just about enjoying Anyang getting their club back.

I took the odd photo though.

I was just about sober enough to be able to remember the first goal. It was from Anyang and a couple of minutes into the game. It was greeted with similar celebrations to those we’d just gone through as the teams ran out.

More action from the game.

Goyang managed an equaliser not long before the end. I didn’t realise this however until the next day when I stumbled across the scoreline somewhere. Or if I had known, I’d forgotten it. All in all, it was a very good day.

Yeonggwang is a one-horse town on the south-west coast of Korea, famous in certain circles for being the place to get yellow croaker fish. Normally that wouldn’t be enough to make it worth a visit but when they’ve got a fourth division football team as well then it becomes a much more appealing prospect.

The easiest way to get to Yeonggwang from Seoul is to take a bus from Central City and so that’s exactly what we did. It takes around three hours and forty minutes, with a stop halfway at a service station. The toilets were so busy that I saw an old bloke remove a bag that was covering an out-of–order urinal so that he could slash in it. As his piss flowed on to the floor, a queue formed behind him.

Once at Yeonggwang Jen and I thought we’d have the famed croaker for lunch. They call it Gulbi in Korea and it seemed to be all over town, or at least the dried take-away fish were.  Yet, whilst nobody would have to entertain the notion of going home without the obligatory Gulbi gift box set, there didn’t seem to be many restaurants actually serving it to eat.

Dried Gulbi attracting flies.

After wandering past a market that could easily have been created by the tourist board to show what people looked like a hundred years ago, we eventually found a place that offered Gulbi stew. It was just like seafood stew but with the decent stuff replaced by a couple of croakers, complete with their guts. Marvellous. I removed as much of the innards as my chopstick skills allowed before realising that once gutted there’s not much more left than the sort of skeleton you’d see on an episode of Top Cat.

So, there’s your restaurant review, or at least it would be if I’d told you where we’d eaten. Time for the game. Chunnam Yeonggwang were taking on Cheongju Jikji in what would have been a third tier game last season but due to the new second division of the K-League was now effectively a fourth division tie. We could have walked to the ground, having seen it on the way into town but with it being uphill we took a five-minute cab ride.

The stadium.

There were a few artificial pitches outside of the stadium which looked to be a handy asset for the local community, particularly those who were using them to take their dog for a shite. The main stadium was quite impressive. It had a curvy stand along one side with a grassy embankment along the other three, designed, perhaps, with the dog walkers in mind.

Yeonggwang were in red and yellow stripes with what I think is called a yoke over their shoulders. In blue. If that wasn’t bad enough, their sleeves were solid red and the shirt was complemented with black shorts and white socks. It was as if someone had decided that a colouring competition for five-year olds was the most appropriate way of designing the strip. Cheongju were in a much simpler blue and navy effort. Both sides struggled with the wind but did their best to keep the ball on the ground and build from the back.

The main curvy stand.

Twenty four minutes in the visitors took the lead when the ball was pulled back across the goal to allow Cheongju captain Kim Hyung Somethingorother to sidefoot the ball home from ten yards out. That was it for the first half.

At the break we were entertained with volleyball on the big screen behind the goal. My club Middlesbrough are thinking about installing a big screen at our ground this summer and it’s hard to imagine that after all those years in the Premiership we don’t already have something that fourth division teams in Korea tend to have as a matter of course. I doubt we’ll get half-time televised sport on the screen at the Boro though, it will be all adverts from people wanting to buy your Granny’s gold earrings or offering you a payday loan.

The curvy main stand again.

Cheongju had plenty of opportunities in the second half to increase their lead, the best chance coming with a quarter of an hour remaining. One of their strikers was put clear through after the home defence got confused by someone else moving out from an offside but not active position. The lad with the chance somehow managed to pull his shot wide from five yards out.

Random action photo.

The miss didn’t matter though as a couple of minutes later Cheongju doubled their lead. One of the home centre-halves tried to cut out a ball played into the box but only succeeded in blasting it into his own net from a fair distance out. It would have been a great finish at the other end as I doubt the keeper even saw the ball flash by him.

That was it, two-nil to the visitors. We walked back into town and found a hotel. You’ve got to be somewhere and if it’s just for one night then that place might as well be Yeonggwang.

I’d missed the opening weekend of the domestic season in Korea, a last minute trip to Oman stopping me from taking in a fourth division game in Gyeongju and Jeonbuk’s trip to Daejeon. That’s life I suppose. Fortunately I didn’t need to stay in Muscat for a second weekend and that left me free to get to a couple of Korean FA Cup First Round games.

The format of the competition seems to change every year. This season we have a total of sixty four teams taking part, with the First Round consisting of twelve of the eighteen fourth division sides and twenty of the universities. It seemed a little mean to deny the six crappiest Challengers League teams a crack at the cup, although in reality the university sides tend to be of a higher standard than the fourth tier and it may have been that the Korean FA were anxious to avoid the sort of scorelines that would suggest that the teams had played rugby rather than football.

Jen and I caught the KTX to Dongdaegu and then took the subway to Yeungnam University. It’s the final stop on one of the two Daegu lines, the green one I think, and it takes around half an hour to get there. Conveniently the subway station is called Yeungnam University and there’s a pitch shown on the map inside the station, close to exit four.

Sure enough, the pitch was just where the map suggested. What the map didn’t show was that there was more sand than grass and there were no lines marked. It looked a long time since anyone would have played at that venue, or at least anyone who would worry about having a foot disappear down a pothole.

The old grass pitch.

It was a shame really as the old ground had a certain charm to it. The minimal rows of seating would have been more than enough and the ‘main stand’ reminded me of a cricket pavilion. Jen spoke to a fella who looked like he might know what was going on and he directed us around the corner to the artificial pitch ten minutes walk away.

There weren’t any permanent seats alongside the artificial pitch, just a large pile of folding chairs. That was sufficient though for the thirty or so spectators, most of whom were probably there to watch their offspring play.

Those tents were for the players and officials, rather than spectators.

Yeungnam were dressed up as Brighton, whilst Kwangwoon sported a Burnleyesque claret and blue effort. The conditions weren’t ideal as we started with a strong wind blowing towards the Yeungnam goal. Kwangwoon had the better of the opening exchanges but both teams were keeping the ball on the ground and passing it well.

The visitors had the best chance of the half, hitting the post five minutes before the break.

Yeungnam in blue, Kwangwoon in maroon.

Yeungnam picked up a bit after the interval although perhaps this was due to it being their turn to have the wind behind them. Whenever there was a lull in play I could occupy myself watching the old fellas walking around the track or the young girl being taught by her grandad to ride a bike. We had a bloke on a scooter doing a couple of laps as if he were Barry Sheene and then equally memorably someone galloping a circuit on a horse.

As the clock ticked down to full-time I started to worry a little about running out of beer. I’d paced myself perfectly for ninety minutes but the prospect of extra time and penalties was something that I hadn’t allowed for.

That’s about a quarter of the crowd.

There were less than ten minutes and half a can remaining when Kwangwoon made the breakthrough. Their right back made a perfectly timed overlapping run that took him past the opposing full back and left him clean through on the advancing keeper. He beat the goalie to the ball and clipped it past him to open the scoring.

Yeungnam understandably showed a touch more urgency in the closing minutes but couldn’t take their chances. Kwangwoon made it safe with the last kick of the game, one of their strikers controlling the ball eight yards out and turning well before stroking the ball home.

The next round sees the slightly bigger guns of the third tier National League and the new second tier K-League join the competition. So, I imagine that’ll be more chairs and fewer horses. Probably.

It’s the new season and about bloody time too. Whilst basketball is all well and good, it’s not football. Not even close.

And in case you were wondering why you haven’t heard of Jiangsu Sainty, it’s because they are from China. This was a Champions League fixture as the Korean domestic leagues don’t kick off until the weekend. Still, it’s a football match and so I went along.

I heard the hum of the vuvuzelas as I emerged from the subway station. There’s only really Seoul where that nonsense still goes on these days. In Korea anyway. I imagine the South Africans won’t have consigned theirs to the skip yet. I wondered if the noise was actually a recording as it seemed suspiciously loud for a game with what I suspected was going to be a pretty low attendance.

I bought a twelve thousand won ticket for the East stand. I usually go behind the goal with whatever away fans are visiting, but on this occasion I fancied observing the Chinese supporters from somewhere that gave me a decent look at them.

There were about three hundred of them and initially they made as much noise as the thousand Seoul fans in the opposite end. Both sets of fans waved massive flags but in a nice touch a lot of the Chinese fellas were also waving red flags that looked to be the perfect size to stick in the top of a sandcastle.

“Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer…”

Seoul had all of last season’s foreign players back for another year although I didn’t recognise Escudero at first as he’s spent the winter growing some hair. It wasn’t long before they made an impact and ten minutes in Escudero rolled the ball into the path of Dejan Damjanovic who stroked it home from fifteen yards out.

Sainty had a couple of big defenders who looked as if they had spent their off-season eating pies rather than growing their hair. They were dangerous at set pieces, particularly if they collided with anyone, but not particularly mobile when asked to defend. With half an hour gone a neat passing move from Seoul was too much for the statuesque centre halves and Yun Il Lock finished well to put the hosts two up.

Gratuitous admittedly, but so wrong at football.

At half time I moved to the North West corner, partly because I could but mainly so that I could get an idea of how many people were in the East stand. Not many is the answer. The official attendance was announced as 6,321 and whilst I didn’t actually count the people there, the crowd was small enough for me to be confident in my estimate of there actually being around four thousand fans inside the stadium.

Seoul have taken the decision for this season to close the upper tier in all but the West stand. I’m not sure why they’ve left that one open as there’s usually only around fifty people who choose to sit there. The blocking off of the areas will probably reduce the capacity to around forty thousand I’d imagine and even for the games against Suwon that will be more than enough these days.

The view from the north-west corner.

Ten minutes into the second half Molina flicked the ball on to find Yun Il Lock in space and the kid notched his second of the game. It didn’t take long for Dejan to get his second as well as another smart passing move on the hour ended with him taking the score to four-nil.

Sainty pulled a goal back ten minutes from time when the Seoul defence failed to cut out a ball played across the box. It gave the away fans something to sing about but it didn’t mean much.

This was from the first half.

I nipped away a few minutes from time, not so much to avoid the traffic as there was none, but more because the temperature had dropped quite significantly. As I approached the subway I heard the sound of a fifth goal for Seoul being celebrated. A quick check the next day revealed Molina had tucked it away, a fair reward for his performance I thought.

Five – one was how it finished, the win taking Seoul to the top of their group.