Spain

La Liga

Sunday 9th February 2020

Kick Off 18.30 Actual 18.32

Real Club Celta Vigo 2 Sevilla F.C. 1, attendance 20,375

23’ 0-1

78’ 1-1

90’+1, 2-1

@ Estadio de Balaidos

Avenida de Balaidos

36210 Vigo

€30 Admission, Print at Home Ticket

No Programme.

Problems obtaining tickets for this match led to us buying the tickets for our other matches at the stadiums on the day. Celta finally put the tickets on sale on the Tuesday before the match, but the website immediately crashed, not helped by the fact they had decided to offer members the chance to buy up to 4 tickets each at just €5 per ticket. By the following day it was back up and running, but not long enough to obtain tickets. As a way of an apology, they said members could now obtain two tickets free of charge. Our chances of getting tickets were now looking slimmer. It was late on Thursday evening before I managed to choose our seats online, but the website went down again before completing the transaction! Finally, two tickets were purchased. Or so I thought. The money was taken, but the e-mail came through saying there was a problem issuing the tickets. Even worse, there was no reference number! The bank was contacted and they confirmed that Celta had taken the €60 (2 tickets) from the account. An hour and a half later, another e-mail appeared, this time containing the tickets to download. Phew!

The Estadio de Balaidos was opened in 1928, undergoing renovation in 2004, then again from 2015-18. Capacity is apparently somewhere between 29,000-31,000, depending where you read, but it is more likely lower than both those figures, especially if you take into account that tonight’s attendance was just over 20,000 and there was no way there were another 9,000 empty seats.

Just like Valladolid last night, this is a stadium that hosted matches during the 1982 World Cup Finals. It hosted three group 1 games, involving Italy versus Poland, Peru and Cameroon respectively. The two side stands look far more modern, with cladding on the outside masking the older structure below. The exterior of the two goal ends is more likely original. The stadium was easily walkable from our hotel, which was a real bonus, as there seemed no obvious parking at, or near the stadium. When entering the ground we had another first, when we had to produce our passports to confirm the number matched that on the ticket.

Celta had started the weekend sitting in 19th place (Out of 20) in the league table, but were actually bottom at the time of kicking off the match, as R.C.D. Espanyol had climbed above them by winning their game earlier in the day. Sevilla were fourth and on the evidence of the first half, they would comfortably maintain their position. A mistake by the full back saw En-Nesyri break through and clip the ball past the on rushing ‘keeper to open the scoring for the visitors. Three more one on one chances were wasted, but it didn’t really matter as Celta never threatened. The second half was a complete turnaround. As bad as Celta were in the first half, Sevilla were equally as poor in the second. The game looked to be drifting to a dull 0-1 result, then out of nothing Celta levelled the scores. The ball was taken around the ‘keeper by Iago Aspas, who forced his shot in at the near post, despite two defenders best efforts to keep it out. It was one way traffic from here. Celta attacked at every opportunity and just as we entered stoppage time, the Sevilla defence were unable to prevent the ball being played across the box and second half substitute Sisto fired in the winning goal that went in off the far post.

It was an unlikely outcome, with Celta trailing as we entered the last quarter of an hour, but the win was enough to lift them out of the relegation zone on 20 points. The bottom three clubs all have 18 points.

Spain

Segunda B Division

Group 1

Sunday 9th February 2020

Kick Off 12.00 Actual 12.01

Real Club Celta Vigo ‘B’ 3 Sociedad Cultural Recreativa Pena Deportiva 1, attendance 475

12’ 1-0

73’ 2-0

81’ 2-1 (pen)

84’ 3-1

@ Campo de Futbol Municipal de Barreiro

Avenida de Ramon Nieto 326

Barreiro

36214 Vigo

€15 Admission

Team Sheet, free.

It was an early start today to do a match in the third level of the national league. The 271 mile journey west to the Galician coast took just shy of 4 hours. If the match at Real Valladolid C.F. hadn’t been moved to Saturday evening, we would have had a much easier 1 hour 25 minute drive from Braga instead, but everything doesn’t always go to plan.

The ground here is owned by Vigo City Council and as well as hosting Celta ‘B’ games it is also home to Gran Pena F.C., who play in the fifth level of Spanish football. Capacity is given as 4,500, which is generous to say the least. Perhaps, like the attendance figures for this match, it is rather inflated. My crowd count of 475 was well short of the 750 and 900 crowds quoted in the newspapers at the hotel!

The result was not expected. Celta came into this match in eighteenth place (third bottom) in the league table, whilst Pena Deportiva, who are from the island of Ibiza, were in fifth place, only being outside the promotion play off places due to having an inferior goal difference. A mazy run, beating three players, ended with a shot into the far corner of the net to open the scoring for Celta after twelve minutes. The second goal didn’t come until the seventy third minute, when a cross from the left was headed in to make it 2-0. Pena Deportiva were back in it when they scored a penalty with just under ten minutes left, but within a few minutes it was 3-1, when a free kick was curled into the box and headed down into the bottom corner of the net.

Spain

La Liga

Saturday 8th February 2020

Kick Off 18.30 Actual 18.31

Real Valladolid C.F. 1 Villarreal C.F. 1, attendance 19,557

15’ 1-0

53’ 1-1

@ Estadio Jose Zorrilla

Avenida del Mundial 82

47014 Valladolid

€40 Admission

No Programme.

The Estadio Jose Zorrilla was opened in 1982 and was used as a venue during the 1982 World Cup Finals, hosting three group matches involving France, Kuwait and Czechoslovakia. The current capacity is 27,846 with plans to increase to 40,000 in the future. From the outside it doesn’t look that big, but when you enter through the turnstiles you realise it is because the first tier of seats are below ground level.

Calling in at the stadium on our way to the afternoon match turned out to be invaluable. We were told that at six o’clock, which would be around the time we would be arriving, the car park queue would be long and slow. Instead, we were advised to use the supermarket car park on the opposite side of the stadium. As it turned out, the SatNav took us in the direction of the main stadium car park. Indeed the queue was bad, but we just followed the lead of the locals and parked on the grass at the side of the road running alongside. It was only a few hundred yards walk to the stadium from here and we headed straight to the ticket office (it was closed when we were here earlier) to find no queue, so tickets were quickly obtained and we were in our seats twenty minutes before kick off. Result!

The match was 14th versus 7th in the league table. Villarreal have been on a reasonable run lately, bar a defeat to second tier club C.D. Mirandes on Wednesday night in the Copa Del Rey, the scheduling of which was the cause of our game tonight being put back a day. Valladolid attacked from the off and it looked like that had taken an early lead, but the goal was chalked off for offside. It only took them fifteen minutes to open the scoring though, when a cross from the right was volleyed in from 15 yards. They missed some good chances, but just couldn’t find the second goal. Villarreal came back into the game during the second half, equalising eight minutes in. Until now we had assumed that the 17 fans in the away section of the stadium was the sum of their support, but it turned out that there were much larger numbers present, judging by the amount of people in our vicinity who celebrated the goal. It took V.A.R. four minutes to finally decide the goal should stand. Does it really need to take that long to check a replay of any incident.

Both teams went for a winning goal, rather than settle for a draw. It was end to end stuff, but littered with yellow cards as the game became stretched. The atmosphere was good and the place must be absolutely rocking when full. The stadium looked very impressive from the inside too, perhaps helped by the seats being in the purple and white club colours, which is a little bit different to the usual red, blue, black etc.

Spain

1st Division Regional

Castillo-León Group B

Saturday 8th February 2020

Kick Off 16.00 Actual 16.01

Betis C.F. Valladolid 0 Club Deportivo Onzonilla 0, attendance 54

@ Nemesio Gomez Ruperez “Peque”

Calle Canterac 73

47012 Valladolid

No Admission or Programme.

Even though we were in Portugal, and I had managed to find us three new ground visits today, which would have culminated at Sporting Clube Braga with a 18.00 kick off, we decided to head back east into Spain. There were two reasons for this. Firstly, this trip was booked with the intention of being a “Spanish weekend”. Secondly, my mate is trying to complete visits to all the La Liga grounds, and there were originally going to be two more off his list done this weekend, so that is what became the priority.

The only problem with this though, would be finding a match that was doable with the 18.30 evening match at Real Valladolid C.F. We came up trumps, when on Thursday, the day the kick off times are released (ridiculously late) there was a 16.00 kick off at Betis C.F. who play in the fifth level of Spanish football. Our drive in the morning was only 262 miles, which took just over three and a half hours. The good thing was, we would enter the city near to the ground of Real Valladolid C.F. so we could call in and get a feel for the area, then do a dummy run of sorts to the ground of Betis C.F. to make sure it was actually viable. It was, taking just twelve minutes to cover the journey to the east of the city, which was a fraction under three miles.

The match was 11th versus 8th in the league table. It became obvious quite early on that we would be lucky to see a goal today, and so it turned out. Betis C.F. did have a goal disallowed, but neither side looked like scoring in truth. They were just too evenly matched.

Portugal

Primeira Liga

Friday 7th February 2020

Kick Off 20.30 Actual 20.31

F.C. Paços de Ferreira 0 Boavista F.C. 1, attendance 3,105

35’ 0-1

@ Estadio da Capital do Movel

Rua do Estadio,

Apartado 26

4594-909 Paços de Ferreira

€15 Admission

Programme free, 16 pages.

A visit here was never in our thoughts until a few days ago. We had been planning a weekend trip to Spain, which despite being ranked as a top league in European terms, is certainly not so when it comes to how poor they are at releasing exact fixture dates and kick off times, usually working on four weeks ahead at best. Having seen the latest batch of dates released, we booked our flights on 13th January, heading for our planned opening fixture of the trip at the 21.00 kick off at Real Valladolid C.F. However, despite tickets being available to buy on the club website in the days running up to us booking our flights, we were astounded to see that at just six days notice. the match was moved to 18.30 on the Saturday night instead! There were still two matches being played in Spain tonight though, but unfortunately they were at Alaves and Almeria. One of us had been to Alaves, whilst the other had been to Almeria, so no use to us.
Portugal was our only hope. There was only one match scheduled in the top two divisions tonight, here at Paços de Ferreira. The good news was that neither of us had visited the ground. The bad news was that we had booked flights into Madrid (Valladolid is only 2 hours drive north of here) so we were faced with a five and a quarter hour drive (369 miles), but as our flight was due to land at 13.35, then we would make it comfortably. We were also helped by Portugal being in the same time zone as here in the U.K. (1 hour behind Spain) so we had an extra hour to play with once we crossed the border. The only problem was, the flight was delayed, leaving one hour thirty seven minutes late, and having landed in Madrid, it then took another 15 minutes for them to get the doors open to get us unloaded! By the time we had collected our hire car, the SatNav was showing we would arrive at the stadium just 43 minutes before kick off. We would still need a fuel/food stop as well, but as there were no other options, we would just give it our best shot.

We arrived in Paços de Ferreira, parking in a side street adjacent to the ground, by 20.05. A five minute walk soon saw as at the ticket office, then it was a case of joining the long queue at the turnstiles, which was slowed considerably by the ‘patting down’ security check, but we had made it. We were seated with six minutes to spare! (7 if you count the minute late it actually started). The stadium has a capacity of 9,146, which is ample for most games in the top level of Portuguese football. The new seated stand behind the goal was the only part of the ground that wasn’t open tonight,

The match was 16th versus 8th in the league table. A lot of games I have seen in Portugal have been dull affairs, but that certainly wasn’t the case here, despite there being only one goal. A right wing cross was headed in powerfully at the far post to win it for the visitors, but Paços should have won this comfortably. They made chance after chance. They totally outplayed Boavista, pinning them inside their own half for long periods, but just couldn’t break them down. Boavista were awarded a penalty in stoppage time, but this was overturned by V.A.R. taking a ridiculous three minutes for them to review the decision. The match kept the interest throughout and was really enjoyable from a neutral point of view. The atmosphere was good too. The 400 or so Boavista fans, in the open end behind the goal, were in full voice and even a couple of rain showers in the dying minutes didn’t quieten them down.

It had been a long day, most of it spent under pressure in one way or another, but it had been worth it. The fact that it was such a good game certainly lifted our spirits. At least tomorrow would see less driving………..

France

Ligue 2

Tuesday 4th February 2020

Kick Off 21.05. On Time !

Paris F.C. 2 Athletic Club Ajaccio 3, attendance 1,875 (official)

7’ 0-1

11’ 1-1 (pen)

24’ 1-2

42’ 2-2

86’ 2-3

@ Stade Sebastien Charlety

99 Boulevard Kellermann

75013 Paris

€15 Admission

Programme free, 8 pages.

The Stade Sébastien Charléty, which is in the south of Paris, was opened in 1939 and is now a modern all seated stadium of 20,000 capacity. It is far too big for Paris F.C. (tonight’s crowd was barely 500, despite what the official attendance figure claims), but along with Red Star ‘93 they are very much the poor relations as far as football goes in the French capital. Paris F.C. were formed in 1969, but just one year later they merged with Stade Saint-Germain, forming Paris Saint-Germain, who are now one of the richest clubs in the world. By 1973 the two clubs had split and they have certainly gone in different directions since. Whilst P.S.G. dominate the game in France, Paris F.C. have struggled to establish themselves and haven’t played in Ligue 1 since 1978/79 season.

Tonight’s match was 19th (second bottom) versus 3rd in the league table. As French matches go, this was actually quite entertaining. It certainly helped that the visitors (from the island of Corsica) took an early lead when a back pass was under hit, leading to the ball being played across the box for an easy tap in. Within four minutes it was level again when Paris scored from a very generously awarded penalty. A cracking left footed volley from 20 yards put the visitors back in front, but Paris made it 2-2 in the dying minutes of the half. The crossbar was hit three times, but it looked like we would see no more goals. However, Paris missed an absolute ‘sitter’ with four minutes to go, blazing high and wide with the goal gaping and Ajaccio then went down the other end and a through ball was slipped past the onrushing ‘keeper by substitute Jallow to take the three points.

Paris is just about as far as you’d want to travel for a day trip, and if you do, you certainly need four people in the car to try and offset the French Toll Road costs. The return journey, 185 miles each way from The Tunnel, was a whopping €42.20 in tolls, and on top of that, there was the car parking charge. €16.60 in the underground car park beneath the stadium. The journey down took considerably longer than the return, not helped by hitting Paris in ‘rush hour’. The 21.05 kick off, along with the near three hour drive, meant we had to book the 03.25 return on Eurotunnel, due to the lack of trains running through the night. At least it left on time, but it lost 10 minutes off the scheduled arrival. Once again the M20 had closures, which seems to be a permanent thing these days! It was closed from Junction 11 to 10, then again from Junction 4 to 2, meaning key in the door at 04.40. One consolation though. The other three passengers would be home an hour later than me!

Essex & Suffolk Border League

Premier Division

Saturday 1st February 2020

Kick Off 14.30 Actual 14.35

Flitch United 2 Great Bentley 3, attendance 25

1’ 1-0

29’ 2-0

59’ 2-1

82’ 2-2

86’ 2-3

@ Alcott Playing Field

Oak Field

Stebbing

CM6 3SY

No Admission or Programme.

Today’s match was 3rd versus 4th in the league table. Flitch United were 7 points behind the leaders Stanway Pegasus, but with two games in hand. Great Bentley were two points further adrift, but have an additional two games in hand, so they were both still very much in with a shout of winning the league.

Flitch United scored after just 30 seconds when a speculative shot found the bottom corner of the net from the edge of the box. It was 2-0 half an hour in, with a volleyed finish from twenty yards. Great Bentley had actually had the better chances, but it took them until just before the hour mark to make a breakthrough, when a cross from the right was chested down and guided into the bottom corner from 6 yards. They really pressed for an equaliser, which they finally got with eight minutes left, heading in from a corner. The inevitable winner followed four minutes later. The ball was hooked back across the six yard box and scrambled in at the far post.

The Netherlands

Friday 31st January 2020

Derde Divisie, Zaterdag

Kick Off 19.30. On Time !

V.V. G.O.E.S. 2 H.S.V. Hoek 0, attendance 1,250

34’ 1-0 (pen)

52’ 2-0

@ Sportpark Het Schenge

Geldeloozepad 5

4463 AJ

Goes

€6 Admission, including Programme, 4 pages.

Free Team Sheet and Season Magazine.

It is quite rare to get a match outside the top two levels of Dutch football being played on a Friday night, so when this ‘Zeeland Derby’ was switched to a Friday evening, it was too good an opportunity to miss. Even better, it was less than two and a half hours drive (via the Terneuzen Tunnel Toll Road, which costs €5 each way)from the Eurotunnel terminal in France.

Hoek is only 22 miles south of Goes,(via the Terneuzen Tunnel) so a big crowd was anticipated. The visitors even laid on extra coaches to transport their fans to the match. Non Members were being charged €20 for the round trip of less than fifty miles. Perhaps a well known ground hop organisation from England were advising them on their pricing! G.O.E.S. were certainly geared up for their biggest crowd of the season, including additional car parking, the arrangements having been posted on their website a few days in advance. Even though we knew about this, we decided to drive as near to the ground as possible and take a chance on finding a parking place. Everything was barriered off, but the car parking steward took pity on us and allowed us to park in the area reserved for sponsors and officials. It saved us a ten minute walk after the game, which was invaluable, as it meant there would be no problem making our booked crossing on the way home.

Even though the club has the same name as the town, it is actually an abbreviation of their full title….Gezamenlijk Opwaarts Eendrachtig Sterk (English translation Together Upward United(ly) Strong). Back in 1911/12 they spent one season in the second level of Dutch football, whilst this season sees their return to the Derde Divisie, ( two divisions of equal standing, split between Saturday and Sunday clubs) which these days is level four of the pyramid, giving them a ‘rivalry’ with Hoek.

G.O.E.S. came into this 13th in the league table, but they have been a on a decent run of late, winning three and drawing one of their last five games. Hoek were in fifth place, but some 16 points adrift of table toppers Sparta Nijkerk. Despite the large crowd, which seemed to be split 60-40 in favour of the visitors, the atmosphere seemed rather subdued, although you wouldn’t have thought that would be the case from the welcome the Hoek fans gave the teams as they entered the pitch. They certainly took no notice of the plea on social media to refrain from using fireworks or flares!

Neither side looked to be getting on top for the first half hour, but the game turned the way of G.O.E.S. a few minutes later, when Hoek had a man red carded for a push inside the box and G.O.E.S. converted from the penalty spot to open the scoring. The all important second goal arrived seven minutes into the second half, with a ball pulled back across the six yard box easily side footed in at the far post. The 10 men never looked like getting back into it and G.O.E.S. easily held on for a comfortable 2-0 win.

It was once again a trouble free journey back to The Tunnel and we easily made it in time for our booked 00.20 return crossing. It was nice to be a part of history of sorts, as this would be the first Eurotunnel train to return to the U.K. following us leaving the European Union! As with our outbound train earlier in the day, it left six minutes late. At least the M20 was only closed from Junction 4 to 2, meaning our drive home took ten minutes longer than it should have.

Essex & Suffolk Border League

Premier Division

Wednesday 29th January 2020

Kick Off 20.00 Actual 20.04

Tiptree Engaine 3 Brantham Athletic Reserves 1, attendance 34

11’ 1-0

23’ 2-0

52’ 3-0

79’ 3-1

@ Thurstable School Sports Centre, 3G Pitch

Maypole Road

Tiptree

CO5 0EW

No Admission or Programme.

Tiptree Engaine play their home matches at two different venues. Back in November I saw them play Alresford Colne Rangers at Burches Meadow, in Colne Engaine, where I witnessed a quite unbelievable match. Tiptree were 5-0 up after nineteen minutes, but conceded a goal four minutes into stoppage time, which resulted in the visitors winning the game 5-6!

Their other home ground is here at Thurstable School, where they normally play on a grass pitch. In an effort to catch up on their fixtures, they played this on the 3G Pitch, which is just a basic cage, having no designated spectator area, although there was no problem with spectators watching at pitch side.

The match was a real relegation battle, as third from bottom in the league table hosted second from bottom. Tiptree Engaine led 2-0 at the break, both goals courtesy of their No.14. It was 3-0 early in the second half, as the hosts began to get well on top. Their No.14 missed two great chances to complete his hat trick, but it wasn’t to be and an own goal saw Brantham pull it back to 3-1 late on.

Wessex League

Premier Division

Tuesday 28th January 2020

Kick Off 19.45. on Time !

A.F.C. Stoneham 0 Horndean 0, attendance 102

@ Stoneham Lane Football Complex, Stadium Pitch

Stoneham Lane

Eastleigh

SO16 2PA

£6 Admission, including Programme (they had run out, but still charged full price)

It is hard to believe that this 3G caged pitch meets the standard to play matches at Step 5. Stoneham moved into the ground a few weeks ago and surprisingly it is the sixth ground I have now visited in Stoneham Lane! There is just one Atcost seated stand and that is it. To use the toilets you would have to go back through the turnstiles, unless you didn’t need to use the facilities until after the players and officials left the pitch at halftime, when they finally opened the gate to the side.

The most ridiculous thing here is that you have to register to access the site in the first place. One rumour going round was that this is a requirement from the Hampshire F.A. (they paid for the development, which also has two other artificial pitches) so that they can monitor the demographic of users and how frequently they visit. Full personal details have to be given online in order to receive your ‘QR’ code, which is scanned just to get you into the reception area. It would be interesting to understand how this scheme complies with GDPR and how the personal data collected is managed. It is a pointless exercise though, as it is just as easy to just scan yourself in using someone else’s code as you can go in and out as many times as you want.

Every so often you visit a ground you wish you hadn’t bothered doing and this is one of them. You know how bland it will be before you go, but would expect far better for this level of football. The pitch even has other markings on it, which really shouldn’t be allowed so high up the pyramid. It makes matters worse when the club is not welcoming in the first place. They advertise admission which includes the programme, but having not produced enough, they still continue to charge full price to those outside the print run numbers. Having paid with a £10 note, I was given 2 x £1 and 2 x 20p coins as my change, which was apparently a genuine mistake by the gateman! It was soon rectified.

Despite this being 2nd versus 3rd in the league table, it was absolutely dreadful. These were two really poor sides and if they are this high up the table, just how bad are the teams below them. At least Horndean had a couple of shots, both early in the game. Stoneham were just awful.