Pre-Season Friendly
Thursday 11th July 2019
Kick Off 18.00 Actual 18.16
Accrington Stanley 2 Olympique de Marseille 1, attendance 1,266
28’ 1-0 McConville
37’ 2-0 Zanzala (pen)
77’ 2-1 Thauvin
@ AJ Bell Stadium
1 Stadium Way
Eccles
Manchester
M30 7EY
£10 Admission
£1.50 Programme, 16 pages.
The attraction of this match was that it was being played at the AJ Bell Stadium, home of Salford Red Devils R.L.F.C. (also shared by Sale Sharks R.U.F.C. who moved in after the stadium had been built for Salford). The stadium was opened in 2012, then known as Salford City Stadium and has a capacity of around 12,000, of which 7,500 is seated and each goal end has a standing capacity of 2,500. The record attendance here is 11,247 for Sale Sharks versus Leicester Tigers on 27th December 2014. The record crowd here for Salford is 7,102.
The ground actually hosted football previously, when England women’s team played The Netherlands in a Euro 2013 Qualifying match on 17 June 2012. In 2013/14 season (whilst I was living in Belgium) Manchester United played their under 21 matches here. I certainly wouldn’t have watched the women’s match and could think of far better ways to spend my time than watching any Manchester United team, even if it is at a previously unvisited stadium. In 2014 Manchester Titans American Football team also played here.
This was a very strange fixture, to say the least. Apparently, someone on the staff at Accrington Stanley noticed that Marseille were staying in the Manchester area for a pre-season training base, so made contact with them to see if there was any chance of them playing a match against them during their stay and lo and behold, it worked!
OM, as they are widely known, are arguably the biggest club in France, along with Olympique Lyonnaise and moneybags Paris Saint-Germain, although the latter were only formed in 1970 and did very little before the big money was invested. OM have been French champions 9 times, Coupe de France winners 10 times and Coupe de la Ligue winners 3 times. They also won the 1992/93 U.E.F.A. Champions League (European Cup in those days) beating A.C. Milan 1-0 in the final.
Last season OM finished fifth in Ligue 1, but their squad is certainly not full of any household names, especially outside France. In fact, the only player I had heard of was Dimitri Payet, formerly of West Ham United. At least I had heard of their manager, as Andre Villas-Boas (ex Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur boss) had taken over in late May.
OM looked really good early on, but always seemed to try to play one extra pass, rather than attempting a shot. Stanley scored against the run of play and then went 2-0 up with a penalty. OM changed their entire outfield team for the second half and although they were still nothing special, they did pull a goal back late on.
The journey up to Salford was a shocker, taking 5 hours 15 minutes. It wasn’t helped by the fact that our incompetent police force had closed the M25 between Junction 8 and 10 (it was closed for 13 hours!) due to an accident. Wherever the accident was, it surely didn’t require the closure of two sections of motorway. The accident would have been between J8 and J9 or J9 and J10, so why close Off two junctions? It also meant that I travelled on my own as my planned passenger was stuck on the M25 coming from Kent and didn’t make the meet point in time. At least the M25 was clear, and very quiet, when I joined the motorway at Junction 11, although those other jokers, The Highways Agency, still had the 50 m.p.h. speed limit in place and were even slowing traffic to 40 m.p.h. at one stage due to ‘fog patches’. It was sunny and 25 degrees! You just couldn’t make it up.
The SatNav worked overtime and with arrival time edging further back, I had to bite the bullet and take the M6 Toll Road around Birmingham, which is only the third time I have used it since it opened in 2004. At a rip off £6.40 (it rises to £6.70 from tomorrow) then it may be a while before I use it again. At least the car park at the stadium was free, which I believe is £6 for Salford home games, so it evens things out a bit.
The lateness theme continued when it was announced at 17.50 that the match had been put back fifteen minutes, to 18.15, due to ‘crowd congestion’. Come on, with an attendance of 1,266. Pathetic. And they still managed to kick off a minute late after that!
