Club Thorne v Field, Wednesday 20th December 2023, 7.45pm

Jen and I had returned from Spain primarily so that I could have a cataracts op. My eyesight had been deteriorating for a while and the day after getting home I had the old cloudy lens whipped out and a new plastic one popped in. It was all very straightforward and within a day or so I’d dispensed with the eye patch and got back to normal.

My version of normal involves going to the match and therefore two days post-op I was driving south to somewhere near Doncaster for a West Riding County FA Challenge Cup game between Field and Club Thorne.

The drive was easy enough and I marvelled at how much better my night vision was. In recent times, car headlights had looked like star bursting fireworks, but with my new bionic eye they looked exactly as I’d recalled them from the olden days.

The journey was enhanced by listening to a podcast with a Weller interview. He’s notoriously wary in those situations, but the bloke he was chatting to got him to open up on all sorts of issues. The time passed quickly.

The game was at the Moorends Welfare Ground, which is where Club Thorne usually play their home fixtures. Either Field also play there, or else the fixture had been reversed for some reason. It was three quid entry and I handed over my change from a fiver for some raffle tickets.

I had time to queue for a coffee and a chip butty before kick-off, changing my order at the last minute after hearing the bloke in front of me complaining that the cheese on his cheesy chips wasn’t sufficiently melted.

There were probably around a hundred or so spectators, spread around a main stand with railway sleeper seating and a couple of raised concreted areas. There were also picnic tables behind one of the goals, although they didn’t get a lot of use. I thought that it wasn’t a bad turnout in the run up to Christmas and for a competition that may not have been a priority for the eleventh-tier teams.

The lino on the side I was stood reminded me of Billy Casper and he got on with the ref about as well as Billy did with Mr. Sugden. No matter which way Casper flagged, the ref would overrule him and give the decision the other way. I’d have gone home if I were him. Or abandoned the flag and swung from the crossbar.

Thorne went ahead early on and soon doubled their lead with a neat, lofted shot over the keeper. It reminded me of the one that Paul scored against me in a Bishopsgarth v Blakeston game when we were fifteen. Except that this one wasn’t going ten feet over the bar until a rogue gust of wind stopped its progress towards row Z and caused the ball to drop just under the bar for a freak goal that no keeper in the world could have anticipated.

Club Thorne sealed the win with a third goal a few minutes from time and I headed back north reflecting on how much easier it is to drive at night when you have a full complement of functional eyes.

Gimnastic v La Nucia, Saturday 16th December 2023, 5.30pm

I’m doubtful as to whether I should count this game or not in my list of grounds that get a tick. On one hand, it was an eleven a side game on a full-size pitch with a proper ref. I can’t remember whether it had linos or not, but it may well have done.

On the downside, I only watched for ten minutes at the most and the players were twelve or thirteen-year-old kids. I’ll have to give it some thought, but I’m leaning towards not counting it. It’s more a gut-feeling than a strict application of my personal groundhopping rules.

It was taking place on the adjacent pitch to the main San Vincente del Raspeig stadium where I’d been watching a tier five fixture. I wandered in at half-time in my game and some kids very helpfully wrote down the team names and told me the age group and which team were which. For what it’s worth Gimnastic were in green with La Nucia in red and black.

I even managed to see a goal before I had to head back to the adult game next door, although I’ve no idea what the score was at the time or at the end. Anyway, even if I don’t tick off the ground, I’ve got a record of having been there. That will save me from racking my brains as to why it looks familiar if I do happen to turn up there again a few years into the future.

FC Jove Espanol v Athletic Club Torellano, Saturday 16th December 2023, 5pm

My second game of the day required me to drive back north beyond Santa Pola to Alicante. Fortunately, the Ciudad Deportiva de San Vincente del Raspeig was on the outskirts of the town and so I didn’t have to endure the slow crawl through Alicante town centre.

I parked up near the ground and after a brief wander around to pick up some drinks and pastries from a supermarket I returned to the car to cover the floor with crumbs whilst listening to the first half of the Boro’s game at Swansea.

This was a fifth-tier game in the Tercera Group Six and unusually there was no admission charge. It soon became apparent though that the reason for this was that they were having a pre-Christmas toy collection instead. As I had no toys with me I just gave them some euros, thinking that older kids would probably prefer cash to buy Diamond White and fags anyway.

The artificial pitch had two rows of concrete seating around it, apart from one side where there was a much bigger stand that was largely uncovered but with a small amount of roofing at one end. On sunny days I suspect that you had to be there pretty early for a seat in that area. As it was teatime in December, I was happy to find a spot out in the open on the opposite side.

Jove were in a red and black kit with Torellano in blue and white. There was a Korean guy playing for the visitors and he put in a lively first half performance. The other noticeable fella in the opening stages was the ref who seemed to enjoy dishing out the cards.

Neither team broke the deadlock before the break and with a lengthy queue at the tea hut I wandered next door where what appeared to be an under-thirteens game was taking place.

I moved to the main stand for the second half just for a change of vantage point. Unfortunately, I’d nipped around the back for a slash when the visitors opened the scoring on the hour. No doubt it will have been, as the kids say, a ‘worldie’.

Jove applied some pressure but the away defence held out until two minutes from time when there was a collision right in the outer corner of the penalty box. The decision could have been given either way but, as so often happens, it went the way of the home side.

The penalty taker took an exceptionally slow walk up and was virtually stationary when he struck the ball. Luckily for him he sent the keeper the wrong way to level the scores and earn Jove a point.

La Union CF v CD Estepona, Saturday 16th December 2023, 11.30am

With the Madrid trip done and our five weeks in Spain drawing to a close I took the opportunity to squeeze in a couple more games on the day before we headed back to the UK for Christmas. The first was a morning fixture about an hour’s drive away to the south for a fourth-tier game at La Union.

I was early enough to have a pre-match wander around but there wasn’t much going on other than locals meeting up for a coffee or a beer and some small town yapping.

The Estadio Municipal de la Union dates back to 1973 and can accommodate 3,000 spectators. With tickets costing fifteen euros a pop, I doubted very much that we’d get anywhere near a capacity crowd, even in a place with little else to do at that time of day.

I was right in my assumption that there wouldn’t be too many people attending. A few young lads lined up against the barrier on the near side, whilst most people wandered across to the four-row concrete terracing on the far side. There was little shade for a mid-day fixture though and it was one of those rare occasions where I thought that wearing a hat might have been the sensible thing to do.

I’d seen the visiting team, Estepona, at the back end of the previous season. At that time, they’d been pushing for a play-off spot. It obviously hadn’t worked out as they’d hoped as here they were, one season on, still playing at the same level. There wasn’t much to note in the first half apart from a few ropey tackles and some over the top appealing that was usually accompanied by gesturing for a card or two to be given.

Estepona took the lead ten minutes into the second half with a shot from the edge of the box that sneaked in at the foot of a post. It might even have come back off the upright and in off the keeper’s bonce. Understandably he was furious about it as, less understandably, were a few of the fellas near me.

La Union finished up with ten men when one of their players picked up a second yellow for showing his frustration at the timewasting. Estepona continued to drag everything out though and successfully ran down the clock to take the points.

Rayo Vallecano v Celta de Vigo, Monday 11th December 2023, 9pm

The trip to Madrid had originally come about because I’d seen that Rayo Vallecano were playing on a Monday night, presumably for television. I found a hotel right on the edge of Retiro Park that was around a forty minute walk from the ground. It was also handy for the Anthropology Museum that has the skeleton of a giant and the head of a pirate, but unfortunately, that’s closed on Mondays.

The park was ok though, we had a wander around to get the steps in as well as stopping for lunch in one of the restaurants there. It was warmer than you might expect Madrid to be in December and so we sat outside. This had the benefit of sparrows that were bold enough to land on the tablecloth, looking for crumbs. It didn’t take long before some of the braver ones were eating bread directly from my hand.

Earlier that morning I’d walked to the Campo de Futbol de Vallecas to buy my ticket. Most of the tickets that I’ve bought on this trip to Spain have been digital, but Rayo are old school and you can only get them at the ground. At 11am I joined a queue of about a dozen people and picked up a ticket for the upper tier Alta Lateral section. It was fifteen euros which I thought pretty cheap for La Liga. I’ve paid more than that for fourth and fifth tier fixtures.

I liked the look of the stadium. For a start, it’s in the city with shops and houses all around. That compares very favourably with, say, my visit the previous day to Atletico’s new out-of-town super stadium. There’s a Metro station right next to the entrance, but as it’s only a forty-minute walk, it was something that I could leave for others.

The fellas in front of me in the ticket queue were from the away side, Celta de Vigo. It’s a decent trip from Galicia, particularly for a 9pm kick-off on a Monday night. They had baggage with them though, so presumably were staying over, perhaps so that they could pop in and see the pirate’s head the next morning.

That evening I retraced my steps to the ground. It was a lot busier, although I suspect that the streets around the ground would be busy most nights. There were plenty of options for eating and drinking including roadside vendors selling cans of beer from cool boxes. I’m not sure you’d get away with that in the UK.

Lots of people were drinking from cans prior to going in as there’s no alcohol served inside the ground in the top divisions of Spanish football. I’m quite comfortable with that as it’s rarely a pleasurable experience chugging back crap beer in a freezing concourse anyway. I’d be even less comfortable if it were allowed in the seating areas. Whilst they could probably handle it in Spain you just know that goals in England would result in pints being hurled up into the air.

It’s not just the drinking that’s more civilised out here, the relationships between the fans are much more grown up. There’s no problem wearing away colours in the home parts of the ground or with away fans milling around outside the stadium pre or post-match. There were plenty of people wearing Celta scarves around me, something that wouldn’t be tolerated by some of the home fans even in the West Stand at the Boro.

The ground holds about fifteen thousand but wasn’t quite full. I could see a few vacant seats around me and also in the edges of the Tribuna opposite. To my right was the home vocal section where the Rayo fans spent the game singing and waving flags. It was probably the best atmosphere of the trip, certainly better than that at Atletico the day before.

Rayo are mid table and looked much changed from the side that I’d seen nick the win at Yeclano a few days earlier. They were wearing their Peru colours which I’d noticed since arriving in Madrid are also the colours adopted by the city taxis. Celta are third from bottom with Rafa in the dugout.  He’s from Madrid and so probably knows the area around the ground well. I’d like to think that he’ll have popped into Retiro park to hand feed the sparrows too.

Rayo looked good, with some swift one touch passing. Early on I’d have been confident of them taking the points, but half time came and went without them making their superiority count. Celta grew more into the game in the second half and whilst Rayo still had more urgency about them, they couldn’t do enough to break the visitors down. It finished goalless and after a fourth forty-minute stroll of the day I was back in the hotel as midnight approached.

Atletico Madrid v UE Almeria, Sunday 10th December 2023, 2pm

There’s a decent train service from Alicante to Madrid that only takes two hours and twenty minutes and so Jen and I decided to head into the capital for a couple of nights. We arrived mid-morning on the Sunday which should have been plenty of time for a 2pm kick-off at Atletico’s Civitas Metropolitan stadium, but I ballsed the metro up when making our way to the hotel and running out of time I had to take a taxi to the ground.

As you might expect it was busy outside of the seventy-thousand-seater stadium. In addition to the usual scarf and seeds stalls there must have been thirty or so proper food concessions around the outer perimeter of the stadium, selling just about any type of meal or drink you might want. They were all busy too with the queues lengthy enough for me to decide not to bother.

The stadium was extremely impressive, although despite its magnificence I suspect that a lot of the home fans would have preferred to still be at their old ground. It struck me as a Highbury v Emirates scenario.

My seat was behind the goal but in the corner. I’d selected one three rows towards the front of the second tier of four, so it was reasonably close to the action. I’d bought the ticket online for sixty euros but as the crowd was only fifty-five thousand strong for the visit of bottom of the table Almeria, I could have got one at the ticket office if I’d preferred.

Once inside, I bought myself a pulled pork bun. If I’d wanted to, I could have had a zero alcohol Tanqueray gin with it. I’m not a big fan of gin. I’ll drink the alcoholic version at a push, as I will with most alcohol bar the surgical stuff. I can’t see the benefit of a zero-alcohol version though in the way that I can with beer, although it’s the same for any ‘spirit’. I suppose at least with gin flavour you’d sip it slowly.

Atletico started well and after having a decent Griezmann finish belatedly chalked off by VAR, they still managed to find themselves two-up by mid-way through the first half. At that point I suspected a rout. Almeria hung in there though and pulled a goal back in the second half. By the end it was Atletico that was running down the clock and their fans were delighted when the full-time whistle was eventually blown.

After the game I decided just to walk back to the hotel. It seemed an easier option than trying to negotiate the Metro along with thousand of other fans and I didn’t want to shell out for another thirty euro taxi fare. It was about five miles back to our hotel on the south side of Retiro park and took me a little under two hours. I made it back just before dark, which was handy as Madrid must be the dog shit capital of the world. Without the benefit of daylight, I’d have trodden in enough to have ended up an inch taller.

Alcoyano v Atletico Madrid B, Saturday 9th December 2023, 4pm

This game was in Alcoi, which is about an hour’s drive from where Jen and I were staying in Santa Pola. I’d had a look at what the town had to offer and apparently it’s famous for a couple of nearby national parks and some bridges. I didn’t have time before the game for any hiking but I did get to drive over a big suspension bridge.

It was ok, I suppose, but I’m from the part of the world that specialises in bridges and I much prefer the complexity of the Transporter and Newport bridges. I’ve also seen the bridges at Victoria Falls and Sydney harbour that were Teesside built, so neat as the Alcoi effort was, it barely registered.

Initially I struggled for somewhere to park, and drove past the Collao stadium a couple of times before eventually ending up, by fluke, no more than thirty yards from the stand behind one of the goals.

I’d bought my ticket in advance online for twenty-five euros on the basis that a ground that only has a capacity of four and a half thousand may very well sell out for a third tier game. It didn’t though and whilst my section of the Lateral Stand was fairly full, there was plenty of space towards the ends and in other parts of the ground.

Alcoyano, in a blue and white kit that included hooped socks, were hosting Atletico Madrid’s B team. Both sides were sitting just above the relegation zone, although with five of the twenty sides in the division going down, you’d have to be in the automatic promotion spots if you wanted to avoid looking over your shoulder at the lower reaches of the table.

Not a great deal happened in the first half and I spent a fair bit of time trying to work out what information the Atletico analyst next to me was entering into his laptop. He had a colleague who was filming the game and I’d have thought that it might have been easier to glean the stats from a recording afterwards, when you can pause the action as necessary.

The action ramped up after the break, with a scuffle resulting in a couple of yellows and a red. The Alcoyano miscreant took his time departing and removed his shirt in a Keegan/Bremner style sulk to add to the drama.

With a man advantage the Madrid kids eventually got the upper hand and rattled in three goals in the final twenty minutes to take the points. I’d hoped that the sat nav might take me over a different, perhaps better, bridge on the way out of town, but it didn’t so there’s nothing more to add.

Albacete Balompie v Villarreal B, Friday 8th December 2023, 6.30pm

If you read reviews of Albacete, it’s not uncommon for people to highlight that it’s a handy place to break your journey if you are heading from, say, Alicante to Madrid. That’s hardly inspiring and, sad to say, seems fairly accurate as the best thing about the place.

Albacete’s other claim to fame is as the knife capital of Spain. That’s probably more impressive, given that Spain is full of knife shops. Spainers love their knives. Albacete even has a knife museum, although as we had turned up on a public holiday, it was shut.

Jen and I were staying slightly out of town as all the hotels in the centre were either full or closed. I suspect the latter. As that meant I had to drive in and park up I got to the Estadio Carlos Belmonte with around an hour to spare. It was already busy with home fans eating and drinking in bars and tents alongside the ground.

I’d bought my ticket in advance online, thirty euros for a second-tier clash with Villarreal’s B team. At sixteen and eighteenth respectively in the table, both sides needed the points if they aspired to mid-table mediocrity.

My seat was pretty decent. Fairly central in the main stand and seven rows from the pitch. The stand opposite had a sort of curvy metallic roof. My initial thought was space-age, although on reflection my idea of space-age is probably rooted in the sixties when space exploration peaked, rather than something futuristic. Whatever. I suppose what I’m trying to say is that it had that old-fashioned space age look that’s now half a century out of date. I liked it though.

Right from the start Villarreal looked as if they would be happy with a point. They went down very easily, and the ref was happy to accommodate their time-wasting by stopping play every time to check on their welfare. I’m fine if it’s a head injury, in which case I’d make them undertake a concussion protocol off the pitch, but otherwise I’d let them writhe around until they got bored with it.

It took an Albacete goal a few minutes into the second half to spark some urgency from Villarreal. Unsurprisingly they no longer seemed to be seriously injured whenever an opposition player came within a yard of them. They started pushing forward and managed to hit the post from a counterattack soon afterwards.

It was the home team’s night though and a break down the left was finished with the ball tucked in low, across the keeper and into the far corner. That second goal was enough to take the points and put a little distance between the teams in the table.

Yeclano Deportivo v Rayo Vallecano, Wednesday 6th December 2023, 12 noon

I’d had my eye on this game for a while, mainly because it was a mid-week noon kick-off. As someone who can do his work whenever he likes, it seemed an ideal time for a game of football. Less ideal was the arse on of buying a ticket. The Kings Cup fixture was in Yecla, which is around an hour and twenty minute drive from Santa Pola. That’s ok when you only have to do the drive once. but the lack of online sales meant that I had to make an earlier trip to buy a thirty euro ticket in a café.

I rocked up early on matchday, which was just as well as there were large queues to get into a game that had already sold out. I suppose the visit of top-tier Rayo Vallecano was quite a big deal for a fourth-tier side. The four-thousand capacity crowd was sufficient to have vendors out selling half and half commemorative scarves.

With forty minutes to go to kick-off the ground was already packed. I trekked around to the far end and found a space next to some teenagers on the back row who were working their way through large bags of sunflower seeds. It seemed like the whole town had turned out for the bank holiday fixture, although I got the impression that a lot of them were visiting the Estadio Municipal La Constitucion for the first time in years.

Yeclano were in red and blue stripes with Rayo in their classic Peru kit. There were around three hundred away fans who had brought fifty or so flags between them. They waved them throughout the game as they out sang the home support.

The pitch looked a bit ropey with more areas of rough than Rayo will have been used to in La Liga, but with the hoardings and the stands close to the touchlines it made for a good atmosphere.

Yeclano’s main tactic was to simply boot the ball up field and hope to pick up some scraps. It rarely worked though and was invariably quickly returned to keep the pressure on their defence. My understanding was that Rayo had made a few changes and they took some time to gel.

Both sides were limited to long shots in the first half, and they came off at the break with the game goalless.

Extra-time was looming when Rayo broke the deadlock with a tap-in from a ball played square across the box. They scored a second in added time that may have squeezed though the net afterwards. None of the Rayo players celebrated and the home keeper attempted to restart with a goal kick. It was only the screaming remonstrations from the away bench that had the ref eventually pointing to the centre spot.

It was a decent effort from the fourth-tier side, but the Rayo were worth their place in the next round.

CF Esperonca d’Andorra v Penya Encanarda d’Andorra, Sunday 3rd December 2023, 4.10pm

After my failed attempt earlier in the day to see a game at the Centre d’Entrenament de la FAF, I briskly returned after the match at the National Stadium had finished. I got lucky with a ten-minute delay to the advertised kick-off time which meant that the whistle blew to get things going just as I was settling into my seat in the four-row covered stand along one side of the pitch.

Ther’s a couple of pitches at the complex and this one has an artificial surface, which is just as well as four games were scheduled to take place on it that day, all in the Andorran Premier League. This fixture was between Esperonca, in blue, and Penya, in green. I’d estimate that there were probably around sixty people watching, many of whom may well have been players or staff from the previous or following games.

Penya took the lead bang on half-time when the final touch in some head tennis was nodded in at the back post. The ref booked at least three of the Esperonca players for protesting and it looked as if he had lost track of which players he had carded. Nevertheless, it made it clear that he was taking no shit from anyone.

I took advantage of the interval to nip across the road to a petrol station for a slash and a coffee.

Penya pushed on after the restart and doubled their lead when the home keeper parried a shot up in the air for a simple tap-in. They added a third late on with the under-pressure keeper flat out from a challenge moments earlier. Nobody argued this time, perhaps because they were all on a yellow.

The win will have helped Penya’s push for European qualification, although if they get there, I doubt that they’ll stick around at that level for very long.