Neath 0 The New Saints 1

Neath 0 The New Saints 1 (17th March 2012)

“Nice Legs, Shame About the Face” sang The Monks in 1979, and “Nice Ground, Shame About the Game” rather sums up this trip down to the other end of the M4. Like The Monks’ song, this too was something of a “one hit wonder”, with TNS’ winner being perhaps the only shot on target that wouldn’t require generosity to be described as such. The were even some nice legs too, in stilettos no less, in the shared Neath RFC/FC bar. The girl with the nice legs though (no caveat about her face required) seemed to have the good sense to be in the bar to watch Wales win the Grand Slam, rather than watch Neath FC play TNS at football.

While in national terms this was a table-topping premier league fixture, without being too unkind, The Welsh Premier League probably has more in common with the Rymans and EvoStik versions than the English behemoth. Neath had averaged around 440, the second best in the WPL, but the conflict with the rugby being played at the same time meant this would be Neath’s lowest crowd of the season – just 217. A surprising large number of those had appeared to have travelled down from around Oswestry too.

Clashes with imminent success in Wales’ national sport aside, Neath’s fortunes have prospered since arranging to groundshare with Neath RFC at the delightfully named “The Gnoll”. They had previously played at a modern, but rather characterless sports academy. There was a definite case of serendipity as WPL requirements saw this ground as inadequate, and a groundshare at the 125 year old Gnoll, with its Neath RFC owners was the outcome. It is without doubt one of the best “old skool” grounds in the UK, and it’s a joy to watch from, even without the crowds to come even close to filling it.

In fact for football matches only the main stand is in use. Richly painted in black – both Neath RFC & FC play in all black and have incredibly similar Maltese Cross club badges – it is a throwback to the stands of old. About ten rows of faded red seats, with “Neath” picked out in black, sit below a rusting propped roof and an oversized and overhanging tv gantry.

The stand is split into two by an oddly placed large exit gate about two-thirds along. Above the gate sits a messy and cramped-looking press box, with newer red and blue seats from here towards the corner. The large gap between the front row of the stand and the pitch is marked by an unusual fence, looking like it is made from scaffolding poles, just before the pitch starts.

Around the corner is a terrific home terrace – if you can overlook the small detail that no fans, home or away, can actually use it. With its high black propped roof, echoing the style of most of the main stand, and substantial depth, it’s like walking into football ground nostalgia. In an age when fans are getting used to dull identikit stadiums, and looking at photos of grounds of the 80s and before and wishing they could have been around to go to grounds like that, here’s a ground that is still “like they used to be”.

Allowed onto this terrace to take a few pictures, its impossible not to imagine how good this terrace would be, packed for a big game. A real home end.

Opposite is another terrace. This is uncovered and not quite as big, but still bigger than found at most non-league grounds. A large exit tunnel leaves a tiny corner of terrace almost stranded at the far side. The terrace does not quote go the full width of the pitch as the rugby club bar fills the corner.

Opposite the main stand, blocking the view of the small cricket ground next door, is a new “temporary” stand. Seven rows of green seats under a white roof that would look more at home on a wedding marquee fill this side in a much better way than they really should. Undulating Welsh hillsides dominate the view beyond.

Topping it all off, the real cherry on top, is an old-fashioned set of four corner floodlight pylons. I can almost feel myself growing an anorak and plastic wrapped notebook as I type that, but there is something deeply satisfying about them that just cap off a “proper” looking ground, in a way that other kinds of lights don’t.

So, as I was saying earlier “nice ground…..”

I suppose when crowds are no better than Rymans League levels, it shouldn’t be expected that the football on show should exceed that standard either. Without seeing other Welsh Premier games – and this match wasn’t really the best advert for making you consider doing so – it’s hard to know how typical this game was. It wasn’t actually a boring game. Both sides showed attacking ambition. It’s just that both sides showed an unswerving knack of finding an opposing team’s player with virtually every attempted through ball or cross.

The pitch didn’t help. While very green, the grass just camouflaged a surface lumpier than school dinner mashed potato, and the regular clouds of dirt the puffed up hinted at the impact the dry winter has had. Even so, both teams were hugely wasteful, and even with the almost total lack of pace on display, speed of foot won over speed of thought nearly every time. Lee Trundle, Neath’s big name (and often big-boned) striker showed flashes of being able to drag the game up, but as well as he could retain possession under a flurry of attempted tackles, he often lacked the speed or the passing range to do that much with the ball. That the first half ended goalless wasn’t a huge surprise.

The game potentially opened up slightly, for TNS at least, with a Neath player seeing a second yellow fairly early in the second half. Neath actually played a bit better with ten men rather than eleven, and fashioned a few opportunities, sadly all wasted.

The New Saints weren’t exactly looking like a team hoping to return to the top of the table. A few dangerous balls were put in, but the few shots they were having would have been more appreciated had the Neath RFC goalposts been in place instead.

I’d taken a fair number of “action” (in its loosest sense for much of the game) pictures during the game, which is usually a bad sign as far as quality of the game goes. So when The New Saints mounted a forray around the edge of the box, and the game stubbornly 0-0, I decided my only option if I wanted to see a goal was to temp fate. I turned my camera off.

Sure enough, after an unelegant stumble through the Neath back line, a thumping shot from twelve yards gave the Neath keeper no chance, tucking into the corner of side and back netting before he could even move.

This prompted a spell of real urgency for Neath, but they never really looked like creating a decent chance, let alone scoring. The contrast between the loud cheers from the rugby fans in the clubhouse, and the silence of the home fans drifting away, was pretty marked. One set were hailing the clinching of a championship. The others were witnessing the probable end of a chance of theirs. That “big game” for Neath FC will have to wait.

Click here for full gallery (41 pics) on the UK site.

Rugby 2 St Neots 4

see the UK site for write up and pictures

Kidderminster 0 Fleetwood 2

See www.stadiumsandcitiesuk.wordpress.com for full write-up and pictures – even if the clearest picture is of a cottage pie.

Helsinki JK 2 Inter Turku 1

Helsinki JK 2 Inter Turku 1 (27/07/2003)

FC Jokerit 2 Hämeenlinna 2 (28/07/2003)

Helsinki isn’t really known as a hotbed of football. Most crowds, even in the top division, wouldn’t look out of place in the Blue Square Premier. What would look out of place is the Finnair Stadium, newly (then) constructed next door to the Olympic Stadium.

The Olympic Stadium itself is very much an old style bowl of ground. Completely open at both ends, and much of one side, with black seats giving it a distinctive look. From the top of the 72m high Olympic Tower you get a fine view of this stadium, looking much larger than its 40,000 capacity, as well as the Finnair Stadium behind.

In some football cultures, fans like to arrive early to put on a display before the game. Finland doesn’t seem to be one of those. Arriving just over an hour before kick-off, for a match involving Finland’s most well-known club, I was a mite surprised to see the ground wasn’t even open yet.

It opened at 3 pm for a 4 pm kick-off, and I went into the main stand seeking refreshment on this surprisingly hot Finnish afternoon. A heat-wave had hit the region, and even Lapland was basking in 86 F heat. Most English grounds have beer available these days, but it’s usually served in a concourse that looks like an underground bus station. The Finnair Stadium was somewhat different. Not only did the bar look like somewhere where you might go for an evening out, it actually had a proper restaurant as well. It was a theme restaurant, although quite what the theme was was difficult to discern, with a seemingly random display of object affixed to the walls and ceiling.

Having a restaurant in the stand is all very well and good, but it does present the problem of missing the action while eating your meal. Luckily the Finnair Stadium people had thought of that too, with the back of the main stand’s lower tier being filled with tables as a beer terrace cum dining area. Sitting overlooking the pitch with a beer and full-size pizza is distinctly different to awaiting the teams at the Madejski with a weak coffee and some chips from the van outside. It gave a taste of the high life from the executive boxes, but for only fifteen euros rather than fifteen hundred.

The only negative thing about the fare in the main stand was that it perhaps made it too popular. With HJK’s crowds only around the 3000 mark typically, having half of them in one stand makes the others look a little bare. That’s a shame, because it is quite a nice little ground. Holding 10000, with perhaps half in the double tier main stand, a single tier of chocolate-brown seats eases round the other three sides. These sides were fully covered, but perhaps looking like it’d be a bit draughty if the wind blew. The main stand roof extends like aeroplane wings, way over the edge of either side of the stand, providing cover for those queuing to enter below.  Those who are queuing will observe the notice of forbidden items above them. Knives, guns and baseball bats aren’t really things people should need to be told are banned. Alcohol, be it in cans, bottles, or even by the wine glass, are also prohibited, and make sense. A third picture showed they also sought to ban those spherical black bombs only usually seen in Hanna Barbera cartoons, just in case Dick Dastardly or Wile E Coyote were seeking to sneak in with an evil plan to disrupt the game.

The game itself has slipped from the memory to a large degree. I can remember one goal thanks to capturing it on (rather blurry) film, and I know the HJK fans did their best to get an atmosphere going, but struggled through a lack of numbers. I must have enjoyed it though, as I went back the following evening to watch another match in the same stadium. The tourist information people insisted the second game would be played at the very basic training venue next door, but thankfully they were wrong. With Helsinki upstarts Jokerit only averaging 2000 at their games, the crowd was even thinner. Never mind. I saw four goals. The beer and pizza were again good too.

I journeyed home via Tampere thanks to a ridiculously cheap deal with Ryanair, via “Stockholm”. It was something like £20 including tax to fly from Finland to England, but it did necessitate a night in the not exactly vibrant town of Tampere. Being far enough north to not get properly dark in July was about the highlight of my night there.

It should have been better. I saw that FC Haka, from down the road in Valkeakoski, were due to play at home that night. A half hour or so bus trip from Tampere found me in the middle of the small town of Valkeakoski, and I walked the short distance to the stadium. As a stadium, I quite liked it. It reminded me a bit of Bury’s Gigg Lane, except that it only had three sides, and was smaller. Single tier stands on two sides, and a raised single tier on the other, just gave the place a real homely feel, and I knew it’d be a really fun place with a crowd in.

Sadly I had also long realised, mainly due to being the only person walking towards the ground, that there was no game on this evening. I’ve no idea what happened, but a home game was very definitely scheduled when I started my trip two weeks earlier, but standing there on my own at the flat end, there very definitely wasn’t one scheduled now.

I did have a look round Tampere’s ground, but it was just a dull oval round an athletics track. Extension of the seating round the oval sides has since made it into Finland’s biggest club ground, but you have to wonder how often those extra seats have been used.

Vienna “derby” & Grounds

Austria Vienna 1 Rapid Vienna 1 (07/08/2002)

Vienna probably is a lovely city. Sadly it didn’t really agree with me. For a start, it hammered down with rain, and few cities are best observed from under an umbrella, let alone ducking from doorway to doorway as I had to do. There was a nice cathedral, but my memory of it is somewhat clouded by an unfortunate incident in the foyer (or whatever such a place is called in a cathedral). Waiting for the rain to ease, while stood in the doorway, I misjudged a supposedly silent “escape of gas” from my person, and its echoes in the stone vestibule left me with no option but to venture out into the rain, putting a hand out as if to say I thought it had stopped. They may have not heard me behind, but I couldn’t face turning to check.

I had already also embarrassed myself at my hotel, struggling to open a sliding door that I’d somehow not noticed was already open. Clearly I was at my suave best, although the hotel had earlier embarrassed itself in my eyes, at least, by insisting that my request that they pre-purchase a ticket for the Austria Vienna v Rapid Vienna derby was completely unnecessary. Naturally enough, I arrived at the ground to find no tickets on sale. Luckily, within about a minute of walking round with some obvious cash in my hand, a tap on the shoulder has someone offering me a ticket. It turned out to be a child’s tickets, but luckily nobody was checking.

The ground itself reminded me a bit of Swindon’s County ground, albeit decked out in purple rather than red, and not quite as shabby. The stands themselves are also much nearer in height to each other, but still with one open seated end behind one goal. If it was a modern English ground it would probably be called dull, but somehow it seemed ok. I recall one end was still terracing at the time – this was a long time ago – and my camera back then was so terrible that my photos weren’t so much grainy as shingle-like, so it’s hard to be sure, but I think it was, improving the atmosphere and ambience.

Despite it being less than amazing, I quite liked the venue, and I must have quite enjoyed the game – despite remembering almost nothing about it – as I recall finding a nice pub afterwards and feeling much more positive about Vienna overall. The game was a 1-1 draw, marked with a late-ish equaliser, I think for the home side.

I also had a look at a few other grounds while I was in the city. Wet grey skies ruined a trip out to the Prater Stadium, as it was then called, making it look a very wet and depressing place.

Rapid Vienna’s place, again viewed through a wet gloom, just ached with 1970s dullness. It probably didn’t help that the roof was being replaced, but the beige and blue/grey colour scheme of the seats gave it a rather anaemic look.

Sadder was a visit to the ground of First FC Vienna. The club was at something of a low ebb, in the regional third division, and the ground looked like the club had given up the fight. An outdated but interesting main stand, with vaulted roof sections drooping down like a string of sagging tents, filled one side. The ends, a long way from the pitch, were little more than derelict ex-terracing.

The overpowering part was the other side. This side, once a terrace, was a giant hill. The ground once held 85000, and probably around 60,000 would have watched from this hill. These days it’s a grassy hill again, with just an untidy lower section in the middle given over to the stumpy remains of bench seating. With American Football posts hinting at desperation for income behind both goals, it’s almost impossible to imagine the place hosting anything other than amateur football. suprisingly though, the club has since recovered to take a place in Austria’s second tier. A rise back to their former top division place is possible I suppose, although I won’t hold my breath waiting for another 85000 to fill the place.

Apoligies for the poor – nay appalling – quality of the pictures. My camera was a pigeon-step up from a disposable one.

Hungerford 1 Clevedon 1

Hungerford Town 1 Clevedon Town 1 (25/02/2012)

see www.stadiumsandcitiesuk.worldpress.com for full gallery and report.

Workington 1 Altrincham 2

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)

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 Rov 3

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 Chiangrai 1

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.