This game was in Alcoi, which is about an hour’s drive from where Jen and I were staying in Santa Pola. I’d had a look at what the town had to offer and apparently it’s famous for a couple of nearby national parks and some bridges. I didn’t have time before the game for any hiking but I did get to drive over a big suspension bridge.
It was ok, I suppose, but I’m from the part of the world that specialises in bridges and I much prefer the complexity of the Transporter and Newport bridges. I’ve also seen the bridges at Victoria Falls and Sydney harbour that were Teesside built, so neat as the Alcoi effort was, it barely registered.
Initially I struggled for somewhere to park, and drove past the Collao stadium a couple of times before eventually ending up, by fluke, no more than thirty yards from the stand behind one of the goals.
I’d bought my ticket in advance online for twenty-five euros on the basis that a ground that only has a capacity of four and a half thousand may very well sell out for a third tier game. It didn’t though and whilst my section of the Lateral Stand was fairly full, there was plenty of space towards the ends and in other parts of the ground.
Alcoyano, in a blue and white kit that included hooped socks, were hosting Atletico Madrid’s B team. Both sides were sitting just above the relegation zone, although with five of the twenty sides in the division going down, you’d have to be in the automatic promotion spots if you wanted to avoid looking over your shoulder at the lower reaches of the table.
Not a great deal happened in the first half and I spent a fair bit of time trying to work out what information the Atletico analyst next to me was entering into his laptop. He had a colleague who was filming the game and I’d have thought that it might have been easier to glean the stats from a recording afterwards, when you can pause the action as necessary.
The action ramped up after the break, with a scuffle resulting in a couple of yellows and a red. The Alcoyano miscreant took his time departing and removed his shirt in a Keegan/Bremner style sulk to add to the drama.
With a man advantage the Madrid kids eventually got the upper hand and rattled in three goals in the final twenty minutes to take the points. I’d hoped that the sat nav might take me over a different, perhaps better, bridge on the way out of town, but it didn’t so there’s nothing more to add.
Trail of the Lion King 