Month: December 2013

The Football Neutral: Match Sixteen – Ebbsfleet United vs Sutton United

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2013-12-21 14.32.20

This is now an edited version of the original blog… you can read the full one by downloading my Football Neutral 2013/14 season review on Kindle.  Well over 300 pages of daftness. Less than £2! Thanks!

…Northfleet Station is tiny.  It’s a couple of platforms, backing onto a scrapyard.  The black skies, dull light and driving wind and rain did make the entire place seem impossibly bleak.  It feels like the middle of nowhere.  It is, by near-London rules, the middle of bloody nowhere.  It was at this point that I reached the ground, saw the turnstile, and remembered that I needed a cash machine.

I wandered hopelessly around the stadium for five minutes, and eventually spied a corner shop.  OK, it wasn’t on a corner.  It was a middle unit.  But the phrase stands.  They had a cash machine.  One of those really dodgy ones that don’t even have the link logo on and you swipe your card through rather than inserting it.  I suspect my bank account is currently being used to buy illegal goods somewhere in the USA by a teenage hacker.

It’s a tenner to watch Ebbsfleet, and it seems that they get decent crowds for the level they’re at.  They had a decent stint in the Conference National, and this is their first season back down at South level.  Stonebridge Road holds about 5,000, with covered seats behind one goal and on one side, a massive covered terrace down the other side (where I chose to stand) and an uncovered terrace behind the other goal that can rival the old away end at Barnsley in terms of looking grim, especially in the wind and rain.  Dwarfed by a massive pylon and with industrial equipment dotted across the horizon, it’s the sort of stadium architecture that I genuinely love.  This is a PROPER ground, no doubt about it.

The talk amongst the Ebbsfleet fans was of their recent form.  I’d read on the Internet that they are in the best form out of EVERY team in the top 6 tiers of English football, and their fans were a decent mix.  Whoever handles the club’s official twitter feed told me there were two places I could watch the game from: Behind the goal in the seats if I wanted youthful exuberance, drumming and the like; of standing on the halfway line if I wanted to listen to older fans talking about the game in either serious or comic tones.  I chose the latter….

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The Football Neutral: Match Fifteen – Cheltenham Town vs Hartlepool United

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This is now an edited version of the original blog… you can read the full one by downloading my Football Neutral 2013/14 season review on Kindle.  Well over 300 pages of daftness. Less than £2! Thanks!

…Whaddon Road is in the middle of a housing estate that feels quite un-Cheltenham.  Of course, football grounds are only ever in two places: In the middle of a housing estate or on the outskirts of a town.  The former are always better.  If you’re watching football in Germany or Portugal you can add two other places: in the middle of a forest or on the side of a mountain.

Saturday was also a big racing day at Cheltenham, and the town centre full of Christmas shoppers so traffic around the ground was a little slow.  Did wonder if Town struggle for a decent attendance on days where the racing and the football clash.  I’ve done gigs at the racecourse in the past and even though it’s on the outskirts of town, racing is a seriously big deal in these parts.

I parked up on a side street and headed to the ground with about 20 minutes to spare.  There were signs everywhere saying that parking restrictions are in place during matchdays.  These signs are clearly a massive lie, because you can park where you want quite safely and for free.

The Prestbury Road End was where I was headed, another terrace behind a goal for me to rejoice in.  Luckily it was covered, because even though the sun was out the wind was swirling around enough to make me put up both of my hoods.  I’m a two-hoods kind of guy on a blustery day, that’s for sure.  Didn’t seem to be too many people around, even close to matchday.  Didn’t see a single Hartlepool fan, although I reasoned there would be some, even if I could probably count them on one hand.

The smallest away support that I ever saw before I started my challenge this season was actually at a top flight game.  Must have been around 1994 or 1995, and Sheffield Wednesday were hosting Wimbledon.  I went to the game with my Owls supporting Uncle and my schoolfriend Andrew.  On the journey there, Andrew threw up all over the velour seating in the rear of my Uncle’s Saab 900, then when we got to Sheffield city centre a water main had burst and several streets were flooded.  Eventually in the ground at the Kop End of Hillsborough, I spent a few minutes counting the Wimbledon fans in the Leppings Lane end.  Thirty six in total.  That’s not even a busload…

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The Football Neutral: Match Fourteen – Stevenage vs Stourbridge

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2013-12-07 14.40.08

This is now an edited version of the original blog… you can read the full one by downloading my Football Neutral 2013/14 season review on Kindle.  Well over 300 pages of daftness. Less than £2! Thanks!

…Stourbridge occupied the South Stand directly opposite.  It was reported after the game that they’d taken nearly 900 fans with them to the game, even better when you consider that their average home attendance is less than half that.  They were incredibly loud and, it has to be said, pretty funny throughout the game.

As we kicked off, I could get a look at Stourbridge.  Now I knew that they were the lowest ranked club left in the FA Cup, but seeing them gave you a true impression of this.  Of course, no squad names or numbers.  But then you looked at their club sponsor and realised that they’re actually officially backed by a dental surgery.  One defender didn’t even have a sponsor on his shirt at all.  I’m presuming this is because they ran out of kit and iron-on logos, rather than a Papiss Cisse-like aversion to the ethics of the sponsor in question.

Stourbridge started strongest.  And I mean REALLY strong.  They played without fear and with the rocket up the arse that the FA Cup provides a smaller team.  They worked their socks off, chasing down everything and being first to every loose ball.  Up front Luke Benbow impressed, quick and powerful and with an eye for goal.  Veteran Stevenage keeper Chris Day had to be at his best to keep the non-league side at bay, and the Stourbridge fans grew louder with every chance.

The Stevenage fans were pretty quiet, but I’m not going to criticise here.  I’ve been to watch Leicester play much smaller sides in the cup and it is difficult to generate an atmosphere when winning is expected.  You get the feeling that Broadhall Way could be a much more lively venue if a bigger team was in town and driving the fans on to back their side; As it was, the Stourbridge fans supplied all the atmosphere – although at one point they were singing the Yaya / Kolo Toure song that I saw the Connah’s Quay fans singing a few weeks back.  Look, it’s funny but it’s not THAT funny….

Enjoy this little edited highlight?  Then please download the full match report along with 25 others and tons of other stuff for just £2 as part of my season review ebook on Kindle.  You’d really be helping me continue this project! Ta!

 

The Football Neutral: Match Thirteen – Leyton Orient vs Sheffield United

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2013-11-30 14.28.53

This is now an edited version of the original blog… you can read the full one by downloading my Football Neutral 2013/14 season review on Kindle.  Well over 300 pages of daftness. Less than £2! Thanks!

…Then came time for the football.  Quick tube journey and a bit of a walk and I was bearing down on Brisbane Road with enough time to spare to actually have a wander around the ground.  What was odd was the tube journey in; even for my trip to Dagenham and Redbridge the tube was busy with fans on the way in.  For this match, 40 minutes before kickoff… nobody.  The odd early Christmas shopper, but no fans of either team.  Was most bizarre.

Walking down the main street from the station towards the ground, fans of both sides mingled perfectly, the police keeping a watchful eye but with smiles drawn rather than batons.  It all felt really pleasant, and the pavements were packed with fans hurrying through the chill air to get the stadium and grab a bovril.  This wonderful atmosphere was shattered briefly by cries of “BBC” from a cab carrying five youths from Sheffield.  BBC, in case you were wondering, stands for “Blades Business Crew”, the firm of United hooligans.  Rest assured, your license fee does not fund them and pay for their Stone Island and Aquascutum.

Thing is, I doubt that these chaps had anything to do with said collective.  Why, do you ask?  Let me list my reasons.

(Before I do, may I say that I know a few, shall we say, “naughty” chaps who may have misbehaved at football matches in the past.  I definitely don’t condone what they’ve done, but I know enough about this subject to pass the comment below)

1:  These lads were honestly, 16 or 17.  Whilst they may have said they were in a taxi to the ground to make out they were flash, it’s infinitely more likely that they were in the cab because one of their mums gave them the money so they wouldn’t have to take the dangerous old tube.

2:  If you’re a member of a group of genuine football hooligans, do you think shouting out the name of said group from the window of a taxi that is stuck in traffic, in front of the police, alerting them to your presence, is the brightest thing to do?

3:  When the taxi went past and they shouted out said phrase, two very hard looking thirtysomething lads next to me looked at each other and, in broad Yorkshire accents, said “stupid fooking kids, making us look like twats.”  I suspect these two gentlemen may have been real members of the BBC.  They were not happy at all.

Instead of the fear that I think these kids thought their shouting would instil in the Orient fans, they drew laughter from fans of both sides, and a roll of the eyes from a policeman who radioed for his colleagues further down the road to “have a chat” with these boys, delivered with a tired sigh….

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