Workington 1 Altrincham 2 (14/01/2012)

“It’s grim up north” is the usual stereotypical southern view of anywhere beyond the South Midlands, and it doesn’t got much more northern than the Cumbrian coastal town of Workington. A quick shufty round the town on google streetview gave the impression that there are few towns more grim either. Despite being a very small town, even finding the town centre was difficult. The bleak streets looked like the google car had driven round in 1974, and that the opening of a sex shop and tattoo parlour would be regarded as an example of gentrification. It wasn’t an obvious place to visit for pleasure.

The reality was pleasingly different, however. For a start, to even reach Workington requires around one and half hours of driving through some of the best landscape in Britain, through the rolling hills of the Lake District. The magnificent scenery certainly made at least some of the arduous five and a half our drive up something to savour. Driving through the town also skirted the new pedestrianised – no streetview cars there – shopping precinct, which made the town rather less reminscent of an Alan Bleasdale theme park.

It also offered the committed (in both senses of the word) groundhopper the chance to visit three grounds almost next to each other, even if one hadn’t actually been a ground since 1937. Somewhat disappointingly, Lonsdale Park, the former home of Workington AFC and the town’s speedway team, hadn’t actually been a complete site for the last two years either. A bridge across the River Derwent, directly next to Workington’s  Borough Park, had been washed away in floods in 2009. The route from the replacement bridge was driven rather unceremoniously through Lonsdale Park, destroying any trace of the terrace banking at that end. A tree-lined semi-oval with a hint of banking remains, to give those with vivid imagination a chance to speculate on what the place used to look like.

Workington moved directly next door to Borough Park in 1937, and eight years later the directors decided to form a rugby league club, with both clubs sharing Borough Park. Despite Workingon’s election to the football league in 1951, The rugby club were rather more successful, being national champions the same year, and challenge cup winners the year after. Tension between the two clubs caused Workington Town RLFC to move to Derwent Park, 200 yards to the east. Wikipedia claims this tension was caused by an up-an-coming young manager called Bill Shankly, at Workington for just one season in 1955/56. Wikipedia also claims Borough Park has a capacity of 3 million and that Workington are Barclays Premier League champions 2012/13, so how valid that claim is is up for question.

Walking across a Tesco car park, sitting between the two grounds like a parent separating squabbling siblings, the approach to WTRLFC’s Derwent Park suggests the ground has had better days. Much of the back fencing has been replaced by sheeting from old shipping containers. A gap in the railings seemed to offer the only change of a glimpse inside, but a friendly director of the club was outside, just coming out of the main stand. He was just locking up after doing some preparations for the local derby v Whitehaven the following day, but kindly unlocked a side gate to lets us to take a few photos, and give a bit of info about the club.

Derwent Park, itself, is a fair-sized oval of a ground due to sharing with the town’s speedway team. Crush-barrier strewn terracing curves around one end and down one side, with the side terrace being the one backed up with what looks like container ship leftovers. The other end has a grassy incline which looks no longer to be in use.

An ageing main stand, stoically defiant against attack from the elements, looks much larger than the 1200 seats it apparently holds. At only around 60 yards long at its deepest point, the sides are angled towards the corners to allow them a view of the whole pitch. The end block of seats has 26 seats at the front, yet the angle means this has reduced to just 14 seats seven rows back.

Even though I was only in the ground for about three minutes, it was good to be allowed a proper look. I’m not really a fan of rugby league, but if Co-Operative Championship 1 rugby league comes to my attention again (admittedly, not hugely likely in my neck of the woods), Workington Town will be the team I’ll look out for.

Back across Tesco’s car park, and if the rugby club had seen better days, the football club couldn’t claim any superiority on that front. The ambience wasn’t really helped by part of the main road beside the ground being dug up, seemingly as part of the ongoing works to rebuild the now non-existent bridge 100 yards to the north.

Past the road works and fences was the Workington main stand. Like Derwent Park, this stand also once had angled ends to compensate for not running the whole length of the pitch. Unlike Derwent Park, it wasn’t showing its age quite so well. It was condemned after the Bradford fire in 1985, with the roof was removed completely, and the seats boarded over with red corrugated sheeting. It’s truncated form remains to house the clubs offices and social club bar. This bar offered a welcome respite from the cold and equally welcoming time-warp beer prices. Also in a time warp was the tv, for some reasoning showing a 1950s American film of the type that would feature Jayne Mansfield, young men with Brylcreemed quiffs and that strange 1950s unnatural colour where the whole world exists in pastel shades.

With the main stand seats now gone, half of the flat-roofed covered terrace on the other side was converted to seats instead. It’s not as if they’d miss the terrace space. In terms of area (if not capacity) Borough Park must have about the most terracing in the country. Deep manly steps of terracing enclose three sides of the ground, offering a much better view than you’d normally get at this level. A complete lack of crush barriers clearly keeps the capacity down, unless that wikipedia entry is to be trusted.

The partially seated side, with seats in the rear half only, is covered for about 50 yards. The end nearest the town is deeper still and also partially covered. This cover though starts just inside the penalty box and covers from here, behind the goal, and then round the corner, almost until meeting the main stand. In front of the unusual-looking remain of the stand is a thin terrace paddock, which acts as a walkway to the social club as much as a vantage point. Additional angled supports for the pillars of this roof gives the impression this end doubles as a local gallows. Maybe the punshment for failure is rather severe round these parts.

The opposite end is open, offering a real gritty northern landscape of pylons, wind turbines, a smoke-belching factory, and a mechanical digger. Atop this terrace is a disused portakabin, where either wayward shots of the local youth have presumably decided the windows should have rather more direct fresh air ventilation. Also at this end, five other youths registered their objection to the £12 admission fee by watching from a couple of free vantage points over the fence. Despite the addition of modern pole-mounted lights, the old flood light pylons remain in each corner. These are incongruously short and capped flat at the top, as if a supporter-led pylon fund had run out of money with the work two-thirds completed.

Even for those not watching for free, the game was decent enough to be worth the money. True, the freezing conditions, the hard pitch, and a bobbly surface which could have been used to test car suspension in parts didn’t help, but it was end to end stuff for most of the game.

Workington may have been one of the form teams going into the match, but Altrincham, backed by a respectable contingent of fans who’d made what for even them was a two and half hour trip, made all the early running. Then weree well on top and it was no surprise when they took the lead. A good bit of control on the edge of the box allowed “Alty” to go in from with a low shot into the bottom corner after 25 minutes. With Altrincham dominating, they should have added more before half time, but indecision and a lack of composure limited them to just the one. A clumsy attempted chip, clearing the crossbar by several yards, was perhaps the pick of the wasted opportunities.

After 15 minutes of thawing out at half time, Workington came out with a great deal more determination, having barely troubled the Altrincham keeper in the first half. They still weren’t getting too many shots in, but should have scored 10 minutes into the half. A high ball was turned toward the goal acrobatically, but went almost straight to the hands of a fortunate goalkeeper. With that, and a wasted header put wide a few minutes earlier, it was again in the balance.

With two minutes Workington were punished. A clumsy attempted tackle in the area left a leg out that was begging to be tripped over, and a penalty was duly awarded, and scored.

From there it looked like game over, and the question looked to be how many Altrincham would score. That wasn’t how it worked out though. After a spell of pressure from Altrincham that came to nothing, Workington broke and fired a good low shot into the far corner to pull one back with 20 minutes left.

From there is could have been anybody’s with both sides looking for the next goal, but neither quite looked like getting it. The best chance fell to Workington in injury time. A chipped shot towards the far corner looked to just dropping in, until a fine full stretch save tipped the ball to safely. There was still time for an Altrincham player to slip twice on the icy track behind the goal, but no time for any more goals. Altrincham would be delighted with the win, but with three goals, two and half grounds and a whole lot of attractive scenery, it wasn’t just the away fans who’d enjoyed their trip to this corner of the far north.

Angola 1 Iran 1 (WC ’06, 21/06/2006)

With arguably the least inspiring fixture of the world cup being played in arguably the least inspiring venue – the only one without a host club team to give it a bit of an aura – in the poorest and least accessible of the world cup cities, it’s perhaps not surprising that Angola v Iran was the easiest match to get tickets for. Being the third group game of two teams, one of whom was already out, and the other very likely to be knocked out, demand wasn’t high.

Wanting to see as many games as I could, it was the sixth of the seven games I went for on my world cup trip. My hopes of a low-key game meaning hotel rooms would be cheap and plentiful was rather misguided though, and I ended up staying in a strange eight-bedroom place by a parade of shops off down the end of a tram route. One morning, alone at the breakfast table barring the hotel receptionist across the room, the unease of being stared at while eating was broken by him blurting out “So tell me….is it pronounced Stanley KUB-rick or KOOB-rick?” As opening lines of conversation go, it was certainly different. I can only imagine this being a burning question he’d had for years, so I told him the latter, but found it hard to shake of the imagine of him dressing as a droog in his spare time.

The city of Leipzig was less strange, but the city centre was rather small and it was hard to avoid feeling you’d seen more or less everything after an hour’s wander. Luckily it wasn’t too far away by train from Dresden, which was then (as now) rebuilding at a rapid pace. Once a baroque jewel of a city, it suffered horrendous damage, first from unnecessary widespread allied bombing at the end of WWII, and then from Russian architects recreating the city centre as a hideous boxy communist “modern utopia”. This was all being pulled down, and the old city reconstructed. A symbol of the old city, the Frauenkirche, was rebuilt with black old original bricks contrasting deliberately with the sandy-coloured new.

I also popped over to have a look at Dynamo Dresden’s stadium, with its angular floodlights leaning like giraffes over the shallow uncovered oval bowl that made up the rest of the stadium. Without knowing the fiery reputation of the home fans, it’d be easy to dismiss the stadium as being quite dull. Intense atmosphere of the place of not, it’s since been rebuilt entirely with the kind of less-than-fascinating one-tier-all-round design widely regarded a “boring” in England. At least it has a large terrace at one end though. If only some of our new builds were so lucky.

The stadium in Leipzig had also been rebuilt. Once a vast open bowl holding up to 100,000 people, it was completely unsuitable as a modern venue. A new stadium to hold 45000 (despite no tenant club) was to be built on the site instead. Such was the scale of the new place that the new stadium would have fitted entirely inside the old one. More surprising was that that’s exactly how they decided to build it. The banks of the old terracing all remain, more or less intact beyond some landscaping, and the new stadium is reached via walkways from halfway down the terraces.

Some stadiums can disappoint when you actually see them, but this was the opposite. Maybe the expectations were set low, but it felt a much better stadium than I thought it would. It was a lot taller and bigger overall for a start, like a stadium holding a good 15000 more, but you still felt close to the pitch.

The large lower tier, circling the pitch close to the touchlines, was uncharacteristically steep enough to offer a good view on its own. At either side, an additional steep tier of seats curved down each touchline, higher is the middle, following the contours of the old stadium. High-backed seats, like modern metallic versions of medieval chairs, added to a unique feel. A light roof covered all below, and the original terracing of the old stadium could be seen through the gaps at either end. Quite how much spectators would appreciate these gaps in the winter, a season which isn’t exactly mild in this part of Germany, is less clear, but on bright sunny days like this was, it was a venue to whet the appetite.

Sadly the appetite for the world cup had been dampened by the very likely exits of both teams playing today. Despite a good number around the city and in the ground, the word was that many Iranian fans had decided to go home rather than stick around. There were some gaps, and there did look more empty seats than the 38000 crowd would suggest, but there were still enough people in there wanting to enjoy the game, meaningless or not.

It wasn’t a terrible match by any stretch, but wasn’t one that would live too long in the memory – at least not mine. The game was fairly open, but neither team was really busting a gut to get the win, and it took an hour before the opening goal. Angolan sub Flavio took advantage of some absurdly generous defending, as if marking was an afterthought, to dink a crossed ball back over the keeper into a yawning net.

The Angolan fans were hugely outnumbered, but they were a goal up and wanted everyone to know. It was their first goal of the tournament, and a good win for them coupled with a heavy defeat for Mexico, would see them progress. Angola seemed to have the support of the locals, but with a lack of more goals either here or in the Portugal v Mexico match – Angola needed a further two goals to go through – tension wasn’t high outside the small Angolan corner of the stadium.

It was an Iranian corner – the playing kind – that ended their hopes. A good ball in was met by a routine header 15 yards out from centre-back Bakhtiarizadeh, and with no defender guarding the post, it crept in with 15 minutes left to seal Angola’s fate.

From there both teams seemed to settle for the draw, with honours even and some pride intact, and 38,000 fans could say “I was there”, even if it seems that most of the world didn’t want to be.

St. Neots Town 5 Barton Rovers 3 (02/01/2012)

It’s fair to say that small town of St. Neots in Cambridgeshire is rather different to Bangkok, the venue for my last game. Clearly with a population of just 26000, it’s rather smaller than the 15 million strong Thai metropolis. More pressing though was that while it was 31 C at Thai Port FC, here is was just 6 C, with a wind chill dropping that to an extremity-numbing 1 C during the game.

I chose the venue, and hour and a half drive from the sane warmth of home, because I was going with two seasoned groundhoppers. They’ve been to so many grounds that this was the nearest new venue for them that wouldn’t be of the type where the crowd changes could be announced over the tannoy before the game.

The approach roads to the ground, skirting the town on the south and east, gave the impression that the entire town had been built since Russell Brand & Katy Perry tied the knot, although hopefully on rather better foundations. The ground was similarly new, approached beside a new housing estate, part of which occupies the site of St. Neots’ old stadium. Many new grounds are rather soulless affairs, particularly in non-league, where the spectator accommodation often seems an afterthought once the money-making function rooms have been designed. St. Noets’ place is rather smart though, and hints at the club having ambitions rather higher than their current level of the Central Division of the Southern League. The team they put out hints at that too, with former Aston Villa striker Stefan Moore leading the way with 22 goals in 24 games this season. Last season they won promotion scoring an almost insane 160 goals in just 40 league games – exactly four goals a game for those of you a bit slow with the maths – as the title was won with ease. This season hasn’t been quite as easy, but 4th place, with two games in hand on the leaders, and the highest scorers in the league, sees them well-placed for another promotion push.

The ground itself was tidy. Two fully covered end terraces had a full five (count ‘em!) steps of terrace above pitch level, giving the place a feel of a ground a couple of divisions higher. A small stand, seating 200 or so down one side, was clearly popular with the locals. Padded seats even greeted the directors and officials of both clubs taking part. The slightly clumsy breeze block tunnel walls could have been rather better done, but the overall impression was that it was designed with quality rather than purely cost in mind. Even the far side, just a landscaped banking, was done in a way with looked as tidy as the new homes sprouting like mushrooms in autumn all around

Mind you, they could perhaps spend a little more effort on cleaning the pipes in the club bar. If Greene King IPA is supposed to taste like that then I’m more out of tune with bitter drinkers than I thought. A fair few other pints seemed to be being returned through tasting “a bit odd” so I think it wasn’t just me. On the upside, they did employ a South African barmaid, which offers the joy of hearing her ask cider and soft drink drinkers if they wanted some “arse” in their drinks. I only hope there’s never any crowd trouble there, or she’ll be ringing up the police saying “the away fans are farting in the bar…they’ve knocked out two people already”

Arctic temperatures aside, the game was good enough to warm the heart, with eight goals, most coming in a flurry in the second half. The first half had given little indication of what was to come. An early goal could have set the tone, with a Stefan Moore shot that couldn’t be held trickling over the line before a hopeful Barton Rovers defender hacked it away. No more goals followed though. It all changed early in the second half.

Barton equalised five minutes in, turning just outside the six yard box to steer the ball into the corner. Parity lasted just a couple of minutes, with a well-placed shot going around and beyond the keeper, just inside the post. Five minutes after that it was 3-1, with Moore grabbing his second from a hotly disputed penalty. Unlike the bulk of the hardier St. Neots fans, I was up the far end at the wall offered a wind-break, so I couldn’t say how harsh a decision it was. The Barton Rovers fans were annoyed, but aren’t fans always?

Barton could, and probably should have pulled it back to 3-2 not long later, but a one-on-one was missed. Within a minute or so they’d been made to pay when a cross was headed back across goal by sub Ben Mackey, just inside the post for 4-1. If Barton Rovers had got that “it’s not to be our day” feeling, it was pretty emphatically underlined just a couple of minutes later, when Mackey thumped in a high unstoppable second to make to 5-1.

Fears of a total rout were steadied somewhat when a Barton Rovers shot deflected off the leg of a St. Neots defender, looping perfectly to drop just inside the far post. 5-2, with 18 minutes left, the defensive ships of both teams seemed to steady. After six goals in 22 minutes, things calmed until a minute from time. With a three goal deficit being rather harsh on Barton Rovers, they at least added face-saving consolation for 5-3. Cutting back onto his right from the left corner of the box, the scorer of the first goal of the half, finished the scoring with the last goal of it, showing a cool finish to place it low across the keeper into the far corner.

438 people, a season’s best for both St. Neots and the Southern Central division as a whole, went home knowing they’d seen a pretty decent game. Time now to thaw out. You certainly don’t have to worry about that too often in Thailand.

Thai Port 1 Chiang Rai United 1 (04/12/2011)

My last full day in Thailand, and the last game of my mini-tour. As with Bangkok Glass’ Leo Stadium, I’d saved the best until last, with another “proper” ground with four stands close to the pitch (or three in the Leo Stadium’s case) and no running track.

Thai Port’s PAT (Port Authority of Thailand) Stadium also has the advantage of proximity to the city centre. There is a metro stop within half a mile of PAT Stadium, but fortified with an overpriced but well cooked English Breakfast (I was beginning to think proper sausages didn’t exist in Asia) from a pub near the Asok Skytrain stop, I walked from there.

The first half was a pleasant enough walk, taking in Benjakiti Park, where I saw some kind of foot long reptile scurrying across the lawns. You don’t tend to get too many of those walking through the industrial estate to the Madejski Stadium. The idyll was soured somewhat by the realising that there didn’t appear to be an exit gate at the park’s southern end, but it was a nice day and the unexpected detour back to the entrance could have been worse.

Once past the park, I took a side street that branched off from the main road. This “Soi” had fairy-light decorations hanging from the trees to celebrate the King’s birthday the following day. Less welcome was a small canal running in a concrete trench right in front of all the houses. Each had a barrier free concrete walkway across the canal – a plank in other words – and it’s hard not to wonder how many must have fallen in, particularly after a night on the town. Looking into the murky and almost stagnant depths, you also have to wonder if anyone who fell in would ever be healthy again, or more importantly, why it isn’t completely covered.

That took me to the heart of the Klong Toei district, where a large market separated me from the stadium. Taking Soi 1 as a short-cut through, I found myself in the midst of another “wet market”. Couple the rich fragrance of fish guts and other assorted recently living consumables in 33C heat, with the murky black canal I’d just walked by, and this certainly adds up to one of the more aromatic walks to grounds I’ve taken.

This took me to the back of PAT Stadium’s north stand, where stalls selling merchandise and refreshments were in abundance. A healthy number of fans in Thai Port’s eye-catching orange and blue striped shirts showed that if nothing else, this was going to be one of the more colourful games I’d attended. The “Sponsor Thai” booth was there, as at Leo Stadium, with the “Sponsor Thai…..go together….Sponsor Thai……premier league!!!” real ear-worm of a tune again blaring out at regular intervals.

Another stall was for the club’s sponsors, the car battery firm FB Battery. They had two …err… “interestingly” attired young women making announcements on behalf of the company. Far be it from me to be sexist and suggest these two girls of perhaps 19 years of age might not have actually been leading authorities on the benefits of this particular brand of car battery, but I can’t help having a suspicion they were chosen for their looks.

Also on this side was the ticket booth. No trestle table here, they even had separate windows for each of the fours zones of the ground A to D. No sign saying which zone was which part of the ground though, which was a little confusing, but luckily an English Thai Port fan was in the queue behind to get me buying the right ticket. Maybe it’s the proximity to the centre, or maybe it’s the four stands close to the pitch look of the stadium, not to mention the rarity of a real grass pitch, but this game certainly had a much larger foreign contingent than all the other games I went to combined.

I opted for a main stand seat, thinking the roof would offer some shade on this, another baking hot day in Thailand’s “cool season”. As it turned out, large gaps in the back of the stand meant it offered almost no shade at all. What it did offer though was a great view, not only of the pitch but also of the thrusting skyline beyond the north stand.

At 44 years old, Thai Port are one of the country’s oldest clubs, but the PAT Stadium is another to have developed much more recently. Photos from circa 2008 show a ground completely undeveloped on three sides. The main stand looks to predate that, having a rather 1970s functional look to it. Seven rows of high concrete steps form the seats in this stand, now brightly painted in orange and blue stripes to give a bit of verve to the structure. The upward sloping roof, as mentioned, offers nothing in the way of shade, but would no doubt be welcome during the wet season. The centre of the stand has a VIP section, where wicker armchairs on a raised platform offer a more refined viewpoint. Open gaps at the back of the stand offer the possibility of a through draft in a land where any breeze is welcome, but sadly offer no more rear view than the cars rushing past on the elevated expressway behind.

Even when Thai Port moved (back?) into the ground in 2009, the only other structure was a single tier of bleachers opposite. Since then the ground has grown. A second tier has been added to the stand opposite, and two more stands with metal benches, one twice the size of the other, have been added at either end. VIP section apart, only the smaller of these two ends, and the lower tier down the side have actual individual (if backless) seats added. With three stands rising up and baring their steelwork for all to see, it does give the ground something of a look of a large meccano set, but it does also give the ground a really good sense of intimacy with the fans right up close. There were only 2687 in the ground when I went, but it was easy to see how it could be an intimidating place with a big crowd. A small scoreboard in one corner was rather dwarfed by a giant advertising hoarding showing a coffee advert in the corner opposite. If the club every gets a Russian oligarch owner they could install the world’s largest jumbotron there. Until then the 40ft high virtues of Coffee Plus Original will have to suffice.

Again, pre-match saw the teams coming out to the FIFA anthem, before the national anthem, and another minute’s silence. Thai Port lined up for photos along with the FB Battery girls, and some other girls in blue tops whose significance I failed to grasp, but I don’t think it really mattered. Stranger was the large number of fans still outside as kick-off approached (and indeed passed). And such is the respect for the King, and the anthem, that even the people outside the stadium stopped what they were doing to stand to attention, even if that meant stopping like a statue halfway through an entrance.

With Thai Port’s floodlights reportedly not up to scratch, and live TV coverage of the game, it kicked off at 4pm, still under the heat of the sun. If the heat had any impact on the players, they didn’t show it, with yet another pacey TPL display. It was a good tactical game too, with Thai Port playing more of a high-tempo attacking game in what looked like a 4-5-1, and Chiangrai United looking dangerous on the break.

Of course there’s a big difference between looking dangerous and being dangerous, and Chiangrai were only performing to the former and not the latter. That is until midway through the half when they got a free kick outside the box. They’d had one before, and that had been dragged hopelessly wide. This time it was aimed for the opposite corner. It wasn’t that good a free kick, and would probably have been an easy take for the keeper, but for one mistake. Unfortunately a Thai Port defender in the wall realised he could get a head to the ball as it came over. That he indeed did, but the effect was to steer it into the middle of the goal with the keeper wrong-footed.

1-0 to Chiangrai, and their free-kick taker, Romanian midfielder Chitescu, ran off as if that was exactly what he planned all along, before pointing to the sky in tribute to whoever the minute’s silence and black armbands were for.

Form there the rest of the half followed the same pattern, with Thai Port pressing forward but looking like they needed more attackers on the pitch, and Chiangrai looking potentially dangerous, without ever actually being so.

Thai Port had a series of corners and free kicks that had came to nothing. A chip from outside the box that hit the crossbar, and an inswinging cross that eluded everyone before going wide, but no joy. Part of the problem was some very bad crossing. Most criminal being a move down the right which found a Port player in plenty of room to get a ball across, only for him to fall over as he went to kick it. It was perhaps the law of averages then that said that eventually one would come good, and come good it did. This effort curling in beautifully from outside the box to be headed in powerfully at the back post for 1-1, just going into stoppage time.

The Chiangrai keeper, Alonso, raced after the referee to claim a push that only he appeared to see, and was possibly lucky to stay on the pitch for his protests. He’s already been booked once for time-wasting, from which he promptly time-wasted and complained about the booking, and then got a final warning for time-wasting again shortly after. It was like he was on a mission to be dismissed, such was his constant anger. Mind you, if I’d had the dodgy highlights he had in his hair, I’d be angry too. He was one of several Chiangrai players with a similar follicle affliction, looking like some kind of drunken team bet rather than a fashion statement.

Alonso’s antics certainly got him noticed, and he played up to it when taking his position in goal in the 2nd half, directly in front of Thai Port’s most noisy section of the ground. He revelled in the notoriety, but it clearly looked like he’d be warned to stop mucking about, as he was choirboy-like for the rest of the game.

I’ve no idea if the players, with the pitch now completely in shade, couldn’t cope with the “bitter” 28 C temperatures, but the first 20 minutes or so of the second period were appallingly scrappy. A long range effort from Chiangrai provided the first worthwhile shot. The resulting corner came to nothing as yet another disappointing crossed ball failed to beat the first man, or the first man’s knees for that matter.

A near post header flicked across goal seemed to spur Thai Port back into life, but their reluctance to push players into advanced positions meant any efforts at playing through the Chiangrai defence were doomed to failure, and hopeful long-shots were the order of the day.

As the minutes ticked by you could sense the optimism of the home fans drain away. It had the feeling of one of those days, and perhaps the fear was that all the pressure without reward could be punished. It nearly was in the last five minutes. Some weak defending allowed a free shot from 15 yards, dead centre in front of goal, but a point-saving save off the Port keeper’s boot kept the score at 1-1. Beyond another long range Thai Port effort, that was that, perhaps a fair result.

As the sun set across the ground, and on my mini-tour as a whole, I had to reflect on what I’d seen. I’ve seen the standard described as being around League 2/BSP level, and that’s probably fair. I’d say the games in Thailand are perhaps more enjoyable though, because of the open style, not to mention the warmth. If anyone in Thailand talks about whether teams can cope with away games in the north in November, they’d be describing 23C in Chiangrai rather than 3C in Barnsley. And the warmth also extends to the fans. Thai Port fans may have been involved in a couple of unwelcome incidents in the last year or two, but you don’t seem to get the same antagonism between fans that exists in England. After this disappointing draw the home fans cheered the name Chiangrai. It’s hard to imagine Southend fans doing the same for Port Vale after a similar result.

Rather like a Thai massage, Thai football is a curious mix of bliss and agony. The games seem to be open and played with enthusiasm. The players can show better basic ball control than many players in supposedly superior English leagues, and they certainly play with more freedom and flair too. The downside is a lack of organisation and maybe concentration results in regular poor decisions by players. As admirable as the confidence to try and beat three players is, sometimes the simple pass to the unmarked player really is the better option. If Thai football can add organisation without inhibiting the flair of the players, then it has a promising future. If the league can keep adding fans, it does too.

Bangkok Glass 2 BEC Tero Sasana 0 (03/12/2011)

Although I look forward to visiting all the grounds I go to, very occasionally some grounds are a little special. Bohemians Prague’s “Dimple” was one, having acquired a loosely-termed following for the club, along with a tiny part-ownership beforehand. Bangkok Glass’ Leo Stadium is another in this very short list.

It wasn’t always that way. When I first arranged this trip, way back in September, I chose the Bangkok Glass game over another in the city purely because it looked likely it would be more full than the impressive 25000 seat Thamasat University Stadium nearby would be for a game there.

That all changed when news of the floods hitting Thailand caught my eye. Anyone seeing the blink-and-you’d-miss-it coverage in the UK media would be forgiven for thinking the Thai floods were much like those you might see in the UK, where a town centre would be underwater for two or three days, before the waters recede and people are mopping up and getting back to normal within a week. The truth is very different. A volume of water large enough to fill everything inside the M25 six metres deep, sat over central Thailand, and inched its way slowly towards the sea.

Day by day, mile by mile, flood defences were overwhelmed, and drainage channels were found to be not maintained or illegally blocked by development. Everything in the water’s path got submerged, long term, by waters over a metre deep. That FROC, the Flood Relief Operations Centre, had to move itself because it got flooded, kind of highlights that lack of organisation and coordination that only seemed to make matters worse.

If there was one thing they did agree on though, it was that Central Bangkok had to be spared. For a country that relies a lot on foreign investment and tourism, it was devastating enough to see a succession of major industrial parks flooded to the rooftops, but having the capital underwater for a month just before the peak of the tourist season, as well as seeing the financial centre out of action, would be too much.

The plan, to control water into the city with sluice gates and flood walls worked to a large extent. Some parts of the city, notably including the domestic airport, did flood, but the centre of Bangkok stayed dry. Walking round Central Bangkok, I still saw plenty of hastily built breeze block or sandbag defences outside shops and business, but at least for them the danger had passed.

The downside of protecting one area is that if the water didn’t go into central Bangkok, it had to go elsewhere. And that elsewhere was effectively all the outer districts of Bangkok. They suffered – and in some places are still suffering – flooding two months later.

One of those districts is Pathum Thani, 20 miles north of the centre. A sprawling district, its 800,000 population is largely located near a few main highways, and canals, which became the main route the water would also take southwards. One major canal, Klong Rangsit, running East-West, would suffer serious flooding. It is directly north of Klong Rangsit that you find Leo Stadium, home of Bangkok Glass.

The stadium itself did not flood. Being next door to the Bangkok Glass factory, the whole compound was protected by earthen flood walls and water pumps, but the neighbouring areas were not so lucky. Dreamworld, Thailand’s biggest theme park, almost opposite on the other side of Klong Rangsit, was put out of action for 6 months. The homes of thousands suffered an equal fate. Discussions on a Thai forum with an English Bangkok Glass fan, actually the club mascot, ended abruptly when he announced that he’d lost everything due to the floods submerging his house completely. I was worrying about a football match being postponed. It does put things into perspective rather.

The corporate name of Bangkok Glass may be a an initial turn-off for many fans around the world, but the Thai League does have something of a tradition of corporations running clubs. As recently as four years ago, 12 of the 16 TPL clubs were either affiliated with or had direct control from a company or authority. It’s down to 9 of 18 now, and even many of those under company control have made efforts to move to areas, often in completely different parts of the country, to gain support.

One of those 12 in 2007 was Krung Thai Bank FC. Their decent record in the Thai League up to that point, including back to back titles in 2003 and 2004, is probably indicative of the weakness of the TPL at that point rather than the strength of the club. Playing in the AFC Champions League in 2008, their six group stage matches recorded a remarkable 47 goals. These included 1-9 (home) and 1-8 defeats to Kashima Antlers of Japan, as well as an 8-1 win of their own over Nam Dinh of Vietnam.

For some reason that isn’t entirely clear, the club was unable to take part in the 2009 season, and that’s where Bangkok Glass stepped in. Bangkok Glass had set up a football club three years earlier playing at a small stadium in the 4th tier of Thai football, next to its Pathum Thani factory. The ground had one small stand holding maybe 400 people, but was otherwise more or less undeveloped. It would have looked perfectly at home in the Rymans League, other than the fact that you don’t tend to see palm trees outside the likes of Billericay FC.

Bangkok Glass took over Krung Thai Bank FC, and leapt into Thailand’s top division, and the stadium grew along with the fan base. The 6500 they regularly draw to Leo Stadium make them one of the better supported clubs in the country, albeit considerably behind the booming “four titles in their first four seasons” Muang Thong United, and the recently moved champions-elect Buriram PEA, whose backing has allowed the building of an impressive 25000 seat stadium.

One small element of good fortune was that during the very peak of the flood crisis, the already fragmented TPL season took a three week break for the Southeast Asia games. By the time of Bangkok Glass’s next home game, two weeks before I was due there, the roads to the stadium were still impassable and they had to play at Muang Thong United’s ground, a few miles west. Less than 1500 made the trip, and that possibly made the club determined to play the next game at Leo Stadium if at all possible. With the flood waters starting to recede, maybe it would also be a sign of things starting to return to normal for Pathum Thani as well.

With a week to go before the game, I still did not know where it would be played. The hilariously mangled Thai-English translations from the official club site through Google Translate implied a determination to play at Leo Stadium, but it wasn’t until asking an official at the BEC Tero Sasana (BGFC’s opponents) match on the Wednesday that I had it confirmed that I definitely would be going to Leo Stadium after all. Being played on the last weekend of three and a half weeks of travelling, getting there had almost taken on pilgrimage significance.

Mind you, getting there from Bangkok wasn’t quite as easy as I’d hoped. There probably are buses from Central Bangkok to Pathum Thani, but as any tourist knows, understanding a foreign city’s bus routes and timetables rivals deciphering the Rosetta Stone in complication, particularly when written in an unitelligible script. With no other public transport going near the stadium, this left me with taxis. Not wanting to be quoted tourist rates in the centre, I ventured out to the Skytrain’s northern outpost of Mo Chit. At the height of the floods, the southern extent of the water could be seen from here, but it was dry now. The number of taxi drivers who could speak English had also dried up though, and none of the ones whose English was even “nid noi” (a little) seemed to have heard of Leo Stadium. Luckily they had heard of the Dreamworld theme park opposite, as well as Tesco, whose store next door to the stadium was a continuing part of the supermarket chain’s bid for world domination.

All looked fine until we reached the Klong Rangsit turn-off. Admittedly, the route was by elevated toll-road, and if that was flooded then things would be really serious. The slip road took us past the Future Park shopping mall, and it was there that I got the first taste of how much flooding, even then, remained.

Thailand is 95% Buddhist, and officially the second religion of the country is Islam. Spend any time in Thailand though and you realise the 2nd biggest religion is actually shopping. Despite being a much poorer country than those in the West, the country loves its shopping malls. It’s tempting to say they are like malls over here, but they aren’t. They are much bigger. Future Park is 6 stories high and is three times the size of the supposedly huge Lakeside near Thurrock. There are other malls double the size of Future Park in the centre of the city, and the Lakeside probably doesn’t boast a Maserati showroom either.

Less welcome for shoppers was the fact that Future Park also had several inches of water in the car park. Less welcome for me and my taxi driver was that this water was also present on the slip road we had to drive down. It was deep, but keeping over to one side of the cambered surface at least kept it under their height of the door sills.

If we’d thought going through that was it, we were wrong. Every few hundred metres along the four mile road to the stadium saw a dip in the road with a similar few inches of water to traverse.  Side roads all along showed canals where there once were streets. Dirty brown tide marks a metre high on the buildings showed where the water level was until very recently. You couldn’t help but wonder what the people here felt about their communities being deemed expendable so Bangkok could stay dry.

The four mile trip from the toll road took nearly half an hour, such were the problems with the floods, but eventually, through the forest of advertising hoardings that line the strip of the road by Klong Rangsit, the huge Warren Stand of Leo Stadium came into view. Illogical butterflies of excitement went through me. This was a place I really wanted to be, and that stand would be my home for the best part of the rest of the evening.

When the stadium developed, the first additions were two stands flanking the original main stand, taking the seating capacity to around 2000. While not constrained by a running track, as found at most Thai clubs, BGFC did, and still do, have the problem of not owning the land beyond the far touchline. While not really an issue in the early days in Thailand’s 4th tier, it became more of one once in the TPL. Bangkok Glass’ approach, rather than following the norm of having bleachers at both ends, was instead to build a towering triple deck stand holding 6000 seated at one end. So steep are the upper tiers that terrace style crush barriers had to be installed, which is just as well as everyone who goes there treats it as a terrace anyway.

A smaller single tier away stand at the far end was added in three sections later, adding perhaps another 2500 places. The third section had only just been completely, but the surprisingly disappointing turnout of maybe 200 BEC Tero Sasana fans didn’t come close to filling one section, let alone needing the third. The fourth side remains resolutely undeveloped. A series of tarpaulins hanging from the high fence give the side a sense of enclosure. Hidden is a thin strip of wasteland, with the monolithic Tesco Lotus rising beyond.

With the other stands fairly low-profile, the view from the back of the “Warren” Stand (BGFC are known as the “Glass Rabbits”) feels even higher than it otherwise might. There are higher stands, certainly, but you really are getting into the realms of the world’s major stadiums to find ones that are significantly taller, and certainly not many are steeper. You don’t get many better views for £1.60 (80 Baht). The only slight disappointment is that even up at the giddy heights, there’s not a great deal to see in this part of Pathum Thani. Central Bangkok is just too distant, and the view north is mainly flat. It does offer a decent view of the Rangsit Canal and the flood defences, but so does walking past them.

A tad over-enthused, I decided to buy both a scarf and a fetching Bangkok Glass polo-shirt. The latter was a mistake. It looks fine enough, but a lack of appreciation that a Thai “Medium” shirt doesn’t have quite the same cut as a UK one (despite a chart indicating it’s meant for 38″-40″) meant I’d purchased something a shade too snug for my liking. Regardless, with wrist stamped and refreshments bought, I was ready for the game. I did decide the middle tier would be a shade more sensible than the very top though.

Below me, in the lower tier, were the more noisy contingent of Bangkok Glass’ fans. As at BEC Tero Sasana, these fans were led by guys with megaphones and drummers, but they had the advantage here of greater numbers, and were more impressive. Interestingly the fans’ anthem, sounding a but like a distant cousin of the verses from Yellow Submarine, was sung in English.

With the teams having already been led out to the FIFA Fair Play anthem, and the “Sponsor Thai” booth outside (The TPL’s sponsor is an energy drink called “Sponsor”) having stopped playing their Sponsor Thai song at last, “We come to cheer….BGFC, we come to cheer….Pathum Thani” was the refrain. All cheering again was cut short for the national anthem, and another minute’s silence as the sun set across the stadium.

Maybe it would have been too perfect to expect a classic game as well, as the game started with Bangkok Glass flattering to deceive. They were certainly the better side. Having been pretty unimpressed with BEC Tero Sasana when they’d won in the week, I was brimming with confidence for a home victory. I was just wondering if the Glass Rabbits would shatter my hopes as they made heavy weather of breaking down surprisingly limited opposition.

Chances did come and go. A near post effort was met by a good save. A couple of shots were skied over from decent positions. A deep cross was headed by a player who probably wasn’t the intended target, drifting harmlessly wide. Perhaps the worst miss of all was just before half-time. A cross to just beyond the back post should have been perfect for a blast into the net. Instead the striker seemed to be seeing the headlines before doing the job, and sent the ball high and wide instead. Not that the visitors were doing much either. A poor free kick troubled only the ball-boys, and a shot from an angle should probably have been saved more convincingly than it was. Still 0-0 at the break, and only one team looked likely to break the deadlock.

BEC nearly took the lead completely against the run of play in the second half. A long range shot out of the blue almost caught out the Bangkok Glass keeper, with his save only just clearing the crossbar as it dropped down.

Just as the game was getting into “I wonder if it’ll be one of those games…” territory, Bangkok Glass did make the breakthrough. A little series of one-twos from a free kick on the corner of the box gave the chance of a cross from the byline. Crossing had been something of a weakness in the Thai games I’d seen so far, but this one was perfect. It looped over a stranded keeper and was on a plate for club captain Amnaj Kaewkiew to head in from six yards. 1-0 and the fans around and below me burst into life, singing away and waving flags.

It should have been 2-0 not long later. A header from a set piece was spilled by the keeper, but the on-rushing Kaewkiew, looking for his second, could only somehow hit it straight into the BEC keeper’s midriff, who gratefully clutched onto the ball this second time.

Bangkok Glass weren’t to be denied though. A through ball after a stumble played in Japanese midfielder Hironori Saruta, who’d looked dangerous all night. The BEC No.5 took the unusual step of deciding to pull out of the tackle rather than possibly concede a free kick on the edge of the box. Given that this allowed Saruta a clear run at goal, this perhaps wasn’t this wisest move, and a firm right foot finish into the bottom corner made it a costly mistake. That No.5, BEC’s vice captain Prat Samakrat had opted to have the first part of his name on his shirt seemed suitably apt at that point.

That the goal was a gift didn’t matter. Victory was ours, there was no doubt now, and I savoured the win. The end to a very fine day. There was enough time afterwards for another round or two of the fans’ anthem, with the team lined up in salute, and even victory songs outside on the concourse as fans filed away. Those with transport that is. For those without, and I may have been in a minority of one, it was a case of waiting for a taxi to drive past. It may have taken a while but one eventually did turn up, and he even agreed to turn on the meter. And as any “farang” in Bangkok knows, if that happens it proves it really is your lucky day.

BEC Tero Sasana 2 Sisaket 1 (30/11/2011)

Sometimes you just get lucky, and this game was third time lucky for me. Originally, when I planned my trip, there were no games on this evening. Then, after booking up, Muang Thong United – Robbie Fowler et al – scheduled a home game for this date. A Thai FA Cup win however caused MTU to re-arrange this fixture and play a cup tie in Chonburi, 40 miles down the road, on this date instead.

I had planned to go to that game, but having just travelled up from Pattaya, a further 40 miles further south, I just didn’t feel up to trekking halfway back to where I’d just come from. I’d seen a bonus game in Cambodia, so missing a game this night wouldn’t be such a loss. I instead spent the afternoon having a few beers and the odd game of pool, before strolling through the city centre, to try and get a couple of pics of the old national stadium about a mile away.

Next door to the old National Stadium is the rather more modest Thephassadin Stadium, the current home of Bangkok club BEC Tero Sasana. I wasn’t wildly interested in this stadium, but as I passed I couldn’t help but notice hundreds of people milling about, and it looked like my Chonburi laziness was about to be rewarded.

Sure enough, there was a game on, an FA Cup tie v Sisaket, far enough into Thailand’s east to be nearer the Vietnamese coast than Bangkok. Rather more eye-catchingly there was also a promotion by Airline Air Asia. In a country rather less concerned with political correctness than the west, this promotion featured a group of young women in stewardess uniform styled more in keeping with the bars of the infamous Nana Plaza down the road than actually used by the airline – or if they had changed the uniform only a week after I used the airline, I’d be very disappointed.

Less welcome, to be at least, were one or two groups of guys performing choreographed dancing to music, as if rehearsing moves for a boy band. They were there the following day too, so I can only hope therefore it was some kind of punishment.

The set-up was slightly more professional than in Sriracha. They even had a proper club shop, rather than an outdoor stall selling souvenirs. No ticket office though, so again it was a case of buying a ticket from a couple of women sat at a desk. No problem with that though, especially when the posh seats here are only 100 Baht (£2).

With 45 minutes before the 6 pm kick-off I figured I had time to dash back to my hotel and get the spare camera battery I’d left on charge. After negotiating an extortionate fee from a tuk-tuk driver I embarked on what I thought would be a tight but clearly achievable return trip.

I hadn’t banked on the appalling Bangkok traffic though, and this two mile journey took a whole hour. My hopes of making the return journey directly down the main artery of Sukhamvit in just 15 minutes quickly evaporated like a puddle in the midday sun. My mood didn’t lift when I realised I’d left my recently purchased ticket in my hotel room as well. Still, at 100 Baht it is a mistake that’s not too costly.

After sheepishly buying a second ticket I dashed into the ground. Again, a rubber stamp on the wrist was the order of the day, but I ran in and looked at the scoreboard. Still 0-0. Fantastic. I then looked at the pitch and noticed that rather than midfield action, both teams were still working round cones and doing stretches. It rather explained the number of people still outside the ground when I arrived. This 6pm kick off wasn’t actually going to start until 7.

With my wrist duly stamped, I took a seat down one side of the two-sided ground. With bottles and cans banned from the ground, fans wanting drinks either brought in cups of drink, or went for a bizarre option of having a drink poured into a plastic bag. Strange enough to see normally, it got disturbingly surreal with any beer coloured beverage, looking like a hospital patient with a catheter had discharged himself in more ways than one and was at the game. The less said about the straw, the better.

I’d found myself sat in the “Fire Dragons Zone”, the area for BEC Tero Sasana’s noisiest supporters. As kick off approached, several guys at the front with megaphones and several drummers set the tone for the support. The drummers, after all, unlike their English counterparts, actually knew how to use their instruments. All stopped abruptly once the teams were out for the national anthem. A flurry of noise following that was also cut short as the players lined up around the centre circle. The name Gary Speed was whispered among a few, and such is the popularity of English football in Thailand that a minute’s silence for a player who graced the English game isn’t that surprising. When you consider that a few days later I saw live coverage of Sutton United v Notts County, in Thai, you appreciate just how closely the game is followed.

The silence was observed impeccably, then the megaphones and drums cranked into life. The Air Asia girls, ushered to front row positions next to the chant leaders and drummers, danced, clapped and wiggled their hips perfectly in time to the songs. If only the two teams could have matched the pace and rhythm.

I’ve no idea if Thai teams have the same disdain for cups as many English teams now do, but both teams looked far worse than the relegation-haunted Sriracha team I’d seen a four days earlier. BEC Tero Sasana’s main tactic seemed to be to knock the ball to a pacy right-winger, who played like he’d been chosen for his pace rather than his ability to do anything useful with that round white object in front of him. Overall it was just poor. At least those guys with the megaphones, organising the fans’ songs with their backs to the pitch, weren’t missing much. I began to think that if the game had kicked off at 6 after all, then missing 15-20 minutes would actually have been a blessing.

With the game seemingly heading for a 0-0 half-time scoreline, it looked like divine intervention would be needed to prevent that. Instead, there was an intervention that was simply divine. A speculative shot from outside the box looked no danger at all until a Sisaket defender had other ideas. Neither a block nor an attempted clearance, he decided to flick a toe at the passing ball as if trying to trip it up. This effort, more of a gesture than anything else, had the effect of lifting this torpedoing shot up into the air on a trajectory that was just perfect for lifting it both over the Sisaket keeper, yet allowing it to dip under the crossbar for the opening goal. The striker celebrated like he’d meant that all along, and I just celebrated the match coming to life.

And come to life it did. The second half was much better. Realising I was in completely the wrong section for the first half, I’d moved to the other side to the “expensive” seats. They didn’t offer a better view, unless being able to watching the skytrains pulling into National Stadium Station floats your boat, and the atmosphere was definitely down a couple of notches on this more sedate side, but at least their was slightly more leg room. The Fire Dragon’s side had been designed either for people who have no feet, or are bandy-legged enough to be able to turn their ankles 90 degrees from their body.

Other than that, and a small and currently redundant roof partially covering this stand, both stands were more or less identical. Eight rows or so of red seats lined either side of a running track. Neither end had any spectator accommodation, although a scoreboard at one end, the back of the national stadium behind one side, a sports hall behind the other, and the elevated Skytrain behind the other end did at least provide some visual relief.

The home side were in need of some relief themselves. Despite being a goal up and looking the better team, the second would not come, and Sisaket’s noisy followers, a good 250 or so, were getting louder as they sensed their team might just snatch something.

Perhaps enthusiasm got the better of them. They had too many up for a corner, and one clearance later, one burst upfield, and BEC Tero Sasana had a breakaway. It was two attackers to three defenders, but the defenders all went for the man with the ball. One pass, and the other attacker effectively had a clear run at goal. A left foot blast smashed past the keeper, and the game looked dead with 20 minutes to go.

Sisaket, and their fans, had other ideas though. Rather than getting down, this set-back seemed to make their fans louder. They didn’t sing much, but the roars of encouragement every time a white and orange shirt got forward sounded like it came from four times the number of fans there. Despite my nominal support for the home side, I began to want Sisaket to score.

And score they did. After a few close shots, a BEC Tero Sasana player left and inviting extended leg training in the box, and a wily Sisaket forward accepted the invitation to fall over it. Penalty duly converted, noisy celebrations from the Sisaket fans. Any who’d made the 8 hour bus journey would no doubt celebrate any consolation, but sadly for them consolation was all it’d be. They’d just left it too late. Such tardiness may have been in keeping with a cup round that had taken a staggering three months to complete – and they don’t even have replays – but for those Sisaket fans who been given false hope, that 8 hour trip home must have seemed even longer than usual.

Walking out of the ground, the annoying boy-band hopefuls were still there, doing their stuff, but the Air Asia girls were sadly long gone. With the Skytrain taking me back to Nana Station, checking the possibility of them working nearby did cross my mind. Hmm, perhaps not.

Sriracha 1 Osotspa 1 (26/11/2011)

As a club, Sriracha of Thailand’s Chonburi district don’t have too many obvious things to boast about. Five years young, their only previous season in Thailand’s top division had ended in instant relegation, and things weren’t looking rosy this season either. The club has no honours beyond winning the 2nd tier last season, and this lack of success has meant they haven’t enjoyed the mini-boom which has hit Thai football in the last few years.

They do, however, manage to boast no fewer than four club songs. One is a calypso number. Another, sounding rather similar to the first, is the only song I’ve heard which seems to feature a wobble-board without Rolf Harris doing the vocals. Another featured Barry Manilow style piano playing and singing, with the last sounding like Green Day had been roped in to do a number. If only the Sriracha forwards were as prolific, they’d have been safe weeks ago.

They also, thanks to the unexpected match in Cambodia, were the hosts for my 200th ground. That little stat will have zero significance for anyone at the club, but it makes the club a tiny bit special to me.

Sriracha, actually pronounced Siracha thanks to Thailand’s baffling and endemic habit of including silent letters in the transliterations from its own alphabet, is about 20 miles north of the rather more famous, or perhaps infamous, tourist resort of Pattaya. Pattaya’s certainly an interesting place. It’s big and brash, although it’s hard to imagine just how big or brash until you get there. The bright lights of Walking Street are certainly an area you’ll like or loathe. The live open-air music bar round the corner from my hotel, which had Thai bands playing Black Sabbath’s Paranoid and similar numbers into the small hours didn’t endear me too much, but it was OK. A Russian invasion is also in full swing, with them now outnumbering all other tourists put together. The men all look like ex, or maybe even current Russian mob hit-men, and the typically attractive women by their sides pose for holiday snaps as if they are on fashion shoots. That said, if you can get your head round the crazy excesses, it’s OK as a base for a week or so.

A common day-trip from there is to the Sriracha Tiger Zoo, and this allowed me to have both the day trip and see the football in Sriracha town itself. Such is the drop in optimism with “The Blue Marlins” stuck in the relegation zone all season, that if I’d followed the crowds I’d have ended up at the nearby Robinson’s department store rather than the ground. Luckily the charmingly kitsch and temple-laden Sriracha Pier provided an easy guide to the stadium, with it being 100m from the end of it.

Sriracha’s stadium isn’t the best in the world, but is perfectly adequate for a club of their stature. Satellite photos of the area from Google Maps suggest the area was an undeveloped municipal athletics track until very recently, so praise should go to what’s there, not what’s not. The ground does boast a smart new main stand, with a dozen or so rows of seating – read white concrete steps – with glazed VIP/media boxes at the rear. Such is the palatial luxury of this stand that a massive 150 Baht (£3) is charged for admission. For this premium you are allowed to choose your own reserved seat, albeit from a printed sheet of paper showing what’s left rather than by computer, with the ticket for your chosen seat picked out by hand by the women running the table selling tickets. Small-time, maybe, but I’ve never felt so endeared to a ticketing system since I saw Crewe Alexandra’s old main stand reserving bench places with the use of sticky labels with season ticket holders’ names on them.

Opposite the main stand was a stand holding eight rows of bleacher seating. This housed the vociferous element of Sriracha’s support, who, like all of Thailand’s committed fans, think nothing up jumping up and down for 90 minutes, even when the mercury is pushing the high side of 30 C and the humidity is at levels which rival Turkish baths.

Curving round, but not really filling one end, are several other bleacher stands. Just four rows deep, and offering a rather poor view from behind the curve of the track, these seemed to have been put there to block the otherwise free views from the street rather than any need. The one exception was in one corner, where the away fans of Osotspa were housed. Around 100 yellow and red clad fans had made their way down from the Saraburi district, around 100 miles to the north.

The other end was completely undeveloped, beyond a scoreboard, and relied on several condominiums with unimpeded views to fill the gap. So not perfect, but given that all four sides were like that not so long ago, the club is taking a “from small acorns…” approach. Without a rich backer, it’s all they can do.

As well as a lack of stands in some places, one thing I was also noticing was a lack of fences and turnstiles. It turned out, common to all the Thai games I’d attend, that with no refreshment facilities inside the stadium, ground control worked on the “school disco” system of having a rubber stamp ink a mark on your wrist to show you’d paid to get in. I can’t imagine they’ll be adopting that policy at EURO 2012 next summer, but it worked fine here.

Sriracha’s fans may be small in number, only 850 were at the game on this night – a season low by some margin – but they were big on enthusiasm, singing away and banging drums to try to encourage the team to victory. With the situation at the bottom looking very troubling, just 22 points from 25 games, and three points adrift of safety, a win would have been very welcome.

The team’s performance even matched the fans enthusiasm, with an almost gung-ho willingness to attack being thwarted by a frustrating knack of playing a bad ambitious ball when a simple one could have reaped dividends. There is also, as I would learn, seemingly no equivalent of the phrase “man on” in Thai. Players would dispossess others with ease, only to have the ball pinched back off them just as easily.

I was enjoying the game though. It was open with both teams looking committed, and my team for the day certainly playing the better football. Unfortunately they are the second lowest scorers in the division, and it was showing. As the game wore on, Osotspa got more and more into it, and were looking increasingly likely to nick one on the break.

With just 13 minutes left though, it looked like Sriracha would have that vital win. A break down the left resulted in a shot that the keeper couldn’t hold. Journeyman Brazilian Cristiano Lopes, who up to then had had one of those busy but unproductive games that makes it hard to decide if the player is playing well or badly, reacted first. Before the ball had even bounced down he’d pounced to side-foot into the corner through a crowd of players. 1-0, and maybe this could be the score to lift Sriracha out of the bottom three.

Alas, with just 5 minutes left, criminal defending landed Sriracha right back in gaol. A ball cut back from the byline should have presented no danger with only one Osotspa attacker forward and six Sriracha players around the six yard box. Somehow none of them thought to either block the ball or mark the attacker, and he had the freedom of the six yard box to flick the ball past the understandably annoyed goalkeeper. Two points thrown away, and if there was a Thai translation of “…that’s why you’re going down…” then the Osotspa fans would have been justified in singing it. They wouldn’t have done, of course. A couple of recent unsavoury incidents involving Thai Port fans aside, there doesn’t seem to be any animosity in the crowd between the fans in Thai games. Everyone just seems to be there to enjoy themselves. And despite the disappointment of the draw, I know I did too.

Akira FC 3 Reds 4 (21/11/2011)

Cambodia is a very friendly country. After all, many western guys get all too accustomed in this part of the world to calls of “Hellooo han-som man”, but only in Cambodia did I get it going through airport security, coupled with a wave from a giggling girl working the x-ray machine. The friendliness all feels genuine though, and even the little kids who plead “Meester, meester….give me one doll-ar” do it with a charm that makes it hard to resist.

After decades of strife, tourism is really taking off in the country. The main port of call is Siem Reap in the North, with the massive and stunning temples around Angkor Wat. It’s a very tourist-friendly town, and like Phnom Penh, has an area pretty much dedicated to tourist bars and nightspots. You sit drinking Anchor Draft for $0.50 in colonial buildings, sitting in the kind of wicker furniture you expect to see Emmanuelle lounging in before she has wild but contextually meaningful sex with a man with a moustache.

Phnom Penh, on the other hand, is a city still showing its battle scars. The ride in from the city’s outskirts can leave you feeling the civil war ended 12 months rather than 12 years ago in parts, and after little Siem Reap, the size of the city can come as something of a shock. Make no mistake, the city is certainly on the up. It even has a few skyscrapers now, as the previously shattered economy slowly crawls to where it would have been had the 70s/80s/90s turmoil not taken place.

Saying that, when two of the city’s main draws are a mass grave at Choeung Ek, where the Khmer Rouge executed 17,000 and the interogation prison, Tuol Sleng, where even more were tortured, you certainly feel that past more than in Siem Reap.

It was directly after visiting Tuol Sleng that I made my way to Phnom Penh’s Olympic Stadium. Using a somewhat fragrant canal-cum-open sewer as a guide to the stadium through Phnom Penh’s numbered, but now always signposted streets, I was expecting to spend no more than 5-10 minutes at the stadium. I knew the national league, the C-League, had long since finished, but upon climbing to the upper reaches of the bowl, it was clear the two teams on the pitch below were going through pre-match warm-ups.

I admit, I had sneaked in through a gap in the fence. After displaying my never-ceasing ability to circuit an entire stadium perimeter before finding the entrance, I followed a lad through the gap thinking it unimportant. It was only after seeing the teams that I wondered if I’d sneaked in without paying.

A quick check around the back of the main stand showed no evidence anywhere of the kind of paraphernalia associated with a match, so I made my way, guilt-free, into the main stand. Without being unkind, Phnom Penh’s Olympic Stadium isn’t going to win too many awards for beauty. That’s all the more surprising considering it was designed by the same architect who produced the delicate lotus-flower shaped Independence Monument in the city, which also features on the back of the 100 Riel note (value, about 1.5p). If the government were hoping for a similarly inspired design, the stadium must have been something of a shock. Three sides of bleak open bench seating faced a main stand which was a raised slab of concrete steps, with another flat concrete slab for a roof. A tiny traditionally decorated gable in the centre gives off a hint of humanity, but it’s clearly a place that looks its best when full, and most of the structure is therefore hidden from view.

That wasn’t really an option on this day though. I had no idea who the two teams going through their pre-match drills were, and judging by the lack of interest of the people inside the stadium, neither did they. There were a couple of hundred people perhaps inside the stadium, but with the stadium completely open to the public, most were either jogging round the running track or just idling about for no apparent reason. With no real plans for the rest of the afternoon, I decided to sit down in the shade, to cool down for a bit if nothing else, and watch a bit of the game, whoever it was playing.

There were two teams. One in blue had the name “Akira FC” on the back of their shirts. The other team, who played in red, either had a sponsor “7CT. Sport” there instead, or had a rather name for a club.

It didn’t take long to establish that these were not two high-quality sides playing, yet there was still enough there to show these were not two Cambodian pub-team equivalents either. The standard reminded me of perhaps Hellenic League football. Granted, played at a rather slower pace – you don’t get to many games in Abingdon played in 34 C heat with 75% humidity – but with a better first touch being balanced out by a reluctance to head the ball.

It also didn’t take long to establish that if any team was to score, it would most likely be the mystery red team. Sadly, in the first half at least, they played a succession of final balls and shots so tear-your-hair-out woeful that Brian May would have looked liked Brian Glover had he been a fan.

With the first half ending 0-0 I did ponder not sticking about, but realising I could get onto the running track myself for a much closer view, I decided to stay. I noticed I wasn’t the only one either. The “crowd”, while still numbered in the hundreds, was decidedly bigger than it had been earlier. I couldn’t understand why, unless the succession of bad misses had got to the level where the Guinness Book of Records might be involved. I also couldn’t understand why most were stood right up on the back of the open stands like Zulus coming over the hill, or why so many of them were women.

Within seconds I realised, as the PA system cranked into life and loud western music filled the air. Of the many uses for a municipal stadium, mass aerobics workouts wasn’t one I’d thought of too often. Here though, a few hundred people went for the burn, dancing about to songs and the back of the terraces, following the lead of their dance instructors. That this sight and soundtrack continued for the whole second half made it somewhat surreal.

Almost as surreal was that after a masterclass of scoring ineptitude for the first 45 minutes, the game went goal-crazy for the second. Early in the second half, a fine – yes fine – through ball put a red attacker clear. He raced through one on one, opened up his body and placed a perfect side-foot shot past the keeper. 1-0 to the reds.

Not long later, another break saw the ball played wide into the left side of the box. From a tight angle this was lashed past the keeper who got two hands up but could stop it powering into the net for a 2-0 lead.

Just a couple of minutes later it was 3-0, with a red striker given far too much space in the box, allowing him to steer low into the corner of the net.

Another good chance was missed before it was 4-0 just after the hour. With the Akira defence putting up marginally less resistance than a set of traffic cones, another move down the left allowed to simple pass for a tap-in.

With the clock ticking towards 5.30, and neither side opting for the “with floodlights” option when renting the pitch, it was starting to get distinctly gloomy. For Akira FC, who must have been distinctly gloomy already at 0-4 down, they could have been excused for hoping for darkness to hide their embarrassment. Instead, like a team of badgers in blue polyester, they came alive as darkness started to fall. First they pulled one back with such stealth that I didn’t even realised they’d scored until I saw the teams line up at the centre circle to kick off.

With 10 to go they got and scored a penalty, and 5 minutes a later a ball flashed across the 6 yard box was turned in to set up a tense, not to mention very dark, finish. Even the aerobicisors, silhouetted against what was rapidly becoming a night sky, might have taken note.

Could Akira pull off a remarkable comeback? No. Not unless they scored and it was missed by everyone, which would certainly have been possible in the gloom. Maybe it was just as well. Extra time without lights – now that would have been a real challenge.

I later found out that the Olympic Stadium can be hired by literally anybody, the equivalent of being able to hire Wembley for a kickabout with your mates from work. This game though seemed to have been part of a “Sport For All” tournament, for (presumably) the best strictly amateur teams around the country. Akira FC have been competing for a few years, but I still have no idea who the team in red were.

Basingstoke 2 Staines 1 (29/10/2011)

This wasn’t my first visit to Basingstoke’s Camrose ground. I’d seen Reading play an utterly dire pre-season friendly in the late 90s, and a much more promising resounding reserve victory a few years ago, but this was my first visit for a proper Basingstoke game.

To be honest I only went because a mate was going. While it’s by no means the worst ground I’ve been to – and the bar is certainly one of the best – it’s not the most inspiring of grounds. The main stand is actually pretty good for this level, and no doubt offers an excellent view, but somehow seems perched up high and set back, to the extent that you don’t even notice it unless looking right towards it.

The other sides just have three of four steps of terracing. That makes getting a good view something of a premium at the best of times, but down one side the terracing is so far back that even from the top step, it offers a view from the shallowest of angles. Once a grass bank down to the pitch, with views possible from all down the slope, the new arrangement renders all but the top step useless. At least is has a bit of cover, offering somewhere along with the smaller cover at one end, somewhere to huddle as the nights start to draw in.

Luckily the October weather was still mild enough to give an impression of warmth when the sun shone, although the strong wind gave a distinct autumnal chill.

The wind also had a bearing on the game. Basingstoke kicked with the wind in the first half. With Staines goal kicks barely making the halfway line, it was certainly an advantage. It was one-way traffic and the only real surprise was that Basingstoke weren’t in front.

That all changed in the final minutes of the half. First, a ball into the box was misjudged by the Staines back line, allowing the ball to be knocked in at the far post. A few minutes later it was 2-0, with some more slack defending being punished.

Technically there were just eight minutes between the goals, but there was also a long worrying stoppage directly after the first goal, with a Staines player being stretchered off with a neck injury.

After the turn-around, Staines wasted no time getting back into the game. A nice little move ended with the ball being taken round the keeper to make it 2-1.

With the wind in their favour, and Basingstoke on the back foot, and having outplayed Basingstoke on this ground just four days earlier, an equaliser looked likely. They had the momentum, but like a grammatically incompetent schoolboy, Staines failed to capitalise. Despite a few scares about as frightening as the typical Hallowe’en facemask that’d be seen around over the next couple of days, Basingstoke saw out the remaining 40 minutes with little fanfare.

So, not the greatest game, but I expect the visit to Brentford will be a little more exciting.

Maidenhead United 4 Woking 1 (15/10/2012)

Maidenhead’s York Road is the longest continually used football ground in the world, being Maidenhead’s home since 1871. There are one or two other claims about, but Maidenhead’s is recognised officially by FIFA. Given that the club doesn’t exactly possess Qatar-like riches, FIFA’s decison on this score at least, does look fully above board.

In those early days Maidenhead were one of the country’s top clubs, reaching the FA Cup Quarter-finals three years running in the 1870s. Their ambitions have become rather more modest since then, but today’s game again saw them of the FA Cup trail, looking to beat near neighbours Woking to be one game away from the 1st Round Proper.

The terracing at York Road might not any longer look like it dates back to 1871, but it’s still quite an unusual ground. In the past it used to have a quiant little main stand, but this burned down in the 1970s, and the flat expanse that’s there now doesn’t have the same appeal. To one side of this gap is a baffling structure, looking like somebody was trying to build a new branch of Matalan, but ran out of money with only the roof and supporting beams completed. It’s currently used as a covered car park because it has no other obvious function. On the other side of the gap is what passes for a substantial chunk of terrace at this level, which not only offers a decent view, but usually also the chance to sneek a beer in during the game.

A decent few steps of covered terrace await those squeezing past the tea bar in the corner. This terrace is split by a gap in the middle like Georgia Jagger’s smile, although Georgia doesn’t have the extra benefit of an extra turnstile in hers.

Further round from here is a curious mural painted on a back wall. Old style monochrome football scenes perhaps hark back to some Maidenhead glory days, even if sepia or etchings would seem more appropriate, while the slab next to it unfathomably features Slash from Guns n Roses, an alcoholic swigging from a hip flask, a baby in a pram being pushed by what looks like a transvestite Lawrence Llewelyn-Bowen, two men in turbans, the second of whom has a turban which looks like it is made from a generously proportioned bra, an old man, a dog…..if Banksy had taken drugs as a teenager, he could have painted that wall.

Rather more conventionally, down the other side of the pitch, is a rustic, if at least not rusting, covered stand for maybe 200 seats. This forms the only banking on this side until beyond the boundary fence, where an embankment rears up sharply to reach the Great Western railway InterCity line to London.

The final end is a rather ordinary few steps of terrace with bike-shed style roof, covering the penalty area. It was this end that Maidenhead kicked towards in the first half.

While clear blue October skies might have been doing a good impression of late summer this afternoon, the long shadows even at 3 pm hinted that winter is just round the corner. Woking clearly though the sun would be blindingly low in the second half, and upon winning the toss chose to defend that end first. It was about the only thing they won all afternoon.

Woking may be top of the Blue Square South, facing an erractic Maidenhead who’ve conceded four goals four times already this season, but they just had no answer to the Magpies’ energetic start. Every time Maidenhead got forward they caused confusing in the back line. The only shock was that it took as long as 17 minutes for Maidenhead to score. A shot from the left looked destined for the far corner, but bounced back off the upright. If Woking thought they’d got lucky, they were wrong. Another shot came in through a crowded box. This one was rather less cleanly struck, but nobody complains about that when it sneaks in the bottom corner. 1-0, and a deserved lead.

It didn’t last long though. Woking were pressing, without really looking like achieving, until a shout for a foul resulted in a generous looking penalty. Whacked low and hard into the bottom corner, it was back to 1-1.

Parity only lasted around 5 minutes. Once again Woking were slow to react to a rebound, and the wonderfully named Reece Tison-Lascaris thumped in a low back post effort to put Maidenhead back in front.

And it just got better, with the lead stretching to 3-1 just a few minutes later. Listening to a few Maidenhead fans before the game, they didn’t have a huge amount of faith before the game, but were certainly believing now.

If they had belief at 3-1, by half-time they were practically evangelical. On 44 minutes that man Tison-Lascaris had the Woking keeper looking down the wrong end of a double-barred name, as he was beaten to a loose ball, and Tison-Lascaris delivered a composed finish for a 4-1 lead.

Sometimes teams don’t really want half-time to come, and Maidenhead probably fell into that category. After a half where almost nothing could go wrong, the prospect of a half where it all could, suddenly seemed to play on their minds. The team talk seemed to consist of the desire to not chuck away a 3 goal lead, as Maidenhead would do very little to add to the 4 goal tally in the 2nd half.

Almost the whole half was spent on the back foot, with Woking camped in Maidenhead territory so much that siege engines and the odd battering ram wouldn’t have been out of place. With no vats of molten lead to pour over the Woking attackers, they repelled the yellow hoardes with a combination of good goalkeeping, and the benefit of some terrible finishing. Maybe the Woking players had been watching the rugby earlier on, as they seemed determing to try and win the game with conversions.

You did feel that if Woking pulled one back it would be a different game, but at the same time, it was hard to see where they would get that goal from. Even when they did get a shot on target, Jordan Clement in the Maidenhead goal was equal to everything. He made at least four top-notch saves to make sure the game was safe for Maidenhead, and leaving Woking wondering how they only managed the one goal. When it comes to magpies, one really is for sorrow, especially if you let in four at the other end.