This wasn’t the game that I’d hoped to be at on this date. I’d wanted to be at Wembley to see the Boro in the play-off final. Whilst I didn’t want to tempt fate prior to the play-off semi, I also didn’t want to discover too late that everything was sold out and so I’d booked flights, a hotel and a train ticket for Jen. Sadly, football doesn’t always work out as you want.
Instead, I was back at the Prince Faisal stadium for fourth placed Al-Shabab against fifth placed Al-Taawon. For a change I thought I’d go into the VIP section. At two hundred riyals a ticket it was twenty times more expensive than my usual seat, which is just the other side of a perspex screen. Two hundred riyals is forty-three quid and so it’s not overly expensive by football standards these days. It’s certainly cheaper than the Wembley ticket would have been.
The security guard at the entrance gate seemed a little surprised that I was meant to be there, as did the bloke checking the tickets at the main entrance. Perhaps I just don’t look ‘corporate’. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not.
Once inside I was given a silver wristband and an Arabic coffee. One sip was enough to confirm that there’s a good reason why Starbucks don’t sell that stuff. The fella next to coffee guy was holding a container of hot coals and he wafted the smoke at me. Cheers Matey.
That was it for hospitality add-ons apart from frequent offers of tea and water during the game. I’d half expected a buffet or at least someone with a tray of chocolates, but maybe you needed a gold wristband for that sort of thing. As kick-off was only ten minutes away, I followed someone up some stairs to the main stand.
My designated padded seat was close to the half-way line and behind the dugouts. There were some tv screens showing the match on a ten second delay. That actually worked quite well, giving you the opportunity to check how much contact actually occurred whenever someone went down as if shot.
If I’d been a real VIP then I could have sat on one of the settees at the front. They were occupied by people who everyone seemed to know and whenever someone new turned up we had an elaborate fake kissing routine where the two blokes would touch cheeks three times. That’s face cheeks, in case you were wondering. They would then pause slightly before going back for one more.
Al-Taawon went a goal up about half an hour in and at which point I realized that almost everyone in my section was an away fan. At half-time I wandered inside in the forlorn hope that it might be a bit like the old Ayresome Park Hundred Club and that there would be a table with plates of quartered pork pies. No such luck though.
In the second half Al-Taawon rattled in two more goals for a three-nil win. I don’t think the experience was worth twenty times the usual price, particularly as in my usual section I’d have been able to buy a Kit-kat. It’s always good to try something different though.
Trail of the Lion King 