The Bees #2

Stop number 8 on the tour of London's league football grounds saw Dean and his friend Zac trip out to Brentford in West London. Having earlier this season seen Brentford away to Leyton Orient, Zac proclaimed them his favourite London team.


The visitors were Gillingham. Being based nearby in Kent meant they filled a large part of their stand, and contributed to a pretty exciting atmosphere even though the crowd was only just over 6,000. The crowd was close to the pitch which was great at half time with the crowd chanting "getting sacked in the morning" at the Gillingham manager due to the 3-0 scoreline, and throwing bottles etc! One crazy fan was even waving his shoe at the opposition fans.


Wajciech Szczesny, the Brentford goalkeeper, is currently on loan from Arsenal and was in particularly good form. Given the current poor form of Alminia and Fabianski at Arsenal, he could be featuring there in the next couple of years - he will need to beef up a little bit though - he's as skinny as I was!

Livening up the game, we put some ££s on - including picking some scores, with 3-0 being the last option live at halftime. Not a great way to spend the second half - wishing for no goals. Luckily there was only one chance, and unlcukily it went in off the back of the Gillingham goalies bonce. Arrgh the 13-1 pick of 3-0 down the drain.

Stadium was pretty average - no allocated seats, and pretty tight leg room wise, in fact impossible to sit normally, lucky really it wasn't at fullcapacity, and the stand had a number of poles obsurcing the view. Food seemed to be a standard range, but the ground only had a minimal number of programme sellers. To be fair, Brentford were promoted last season, and have plans for a new stadium so there is some lee-way there.

Not a bad day out, not too cold for the middle of winter.

So that is stop 8 down. The remaining grounds are Tottenham, West Ham, QPR, Watford, Crystal Palace and Dagenham and Redbridge.

Winter in London and Germany, and rugby in Cardiff

It’s been a picture perfect winter in London with lots of snow flurries (until it quickly melts to muddy sludge). We’ve been to a few shows – Oliver, Cirque Du Soleil, Aladdin the pantomime, starring Pamela Anderson as genie; and done some touristy things like ice skating at the Tower of London for Amy Yarrall’s birthday, and a few museum/gallery visits.
Travel-wise, it’s been pretty low key, keeping our powder dry for the big trip to Egypt over Christmas (see separate post).

We went to Birmingham in October to watch the Baggies win 5-0, and to Wales to watch the All Blacks win against Wales in November.

Lou in front of Cardiff Castle


Dean outside the stadium

We also visited the Christmas markets in Dusseldorf and Cologne with Dean's sisters. They were great, we feel we’ve probably ticked “Christmas markets” off the list now, and have a nutcracker and a couple of market mugs to remember that trip by.

Dean's empty plate after a delicious German meal - swine haux - basically a whole roast pig!



Lou with Dean's sisters Amy and Sarah, enjoying eggnog

In January we spent a weekend in Geneva with Lou’s brother and sister-in-law, to stay with Lou’s sister and brother-in-law (yes, confusing big family) at their wonderful new house there. We were there the same weekend that around 100 von Dadelszens got together in New Zealand to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the first von Dadelszens arriving in New Zealand from Liverpool, so we had some family time together.

Lots of our spare time has been spent planning our trip to South Africa in June for the football world cup. We’ll be there for 2 ½ weeks following the All Whites around, so lots of accommodation to arrange, plus a couple of nights in Kruger park trying to spot the big five. And we’re also spending time planning a visit by Lou’s Mum in March/April this year.

Leyton Orient

A new season of English football has begun, and I have been slow on restarting my tour of London football grounds. October rolled around and an opportunity presented itself, and so Zac and I headed to E10, and Leyton Orient. The game was a thrilling London derby between Leyton Orient and Brentford.

Getting to the ground was fairly easy, a short walk from Leyton on the central line. Certainly a change from the bigger grounds, with not really a sense that there was a game on, and you only knew the ground was there once you were right outside. The ground is a fairly small capacity, about 9,000, which made for a cosy feel to the ground. The Brentford fans filled half of the main stands, which provided a good boost to the overall atmosphere. The ground was undergoing a bit of development, but mainly in building apartment blocks around the corners of the ground. One of the key pieces of marketing was advertising the apartments as having a great match day view. This had already been taken up by a few fans, with their view over the pitch looking pretty good. Though the value of the view probably isn’t too high given the low price of a season ticket.

To enliven our match day experience, Zac and I placed a small £10 wager on Leyton to win, adding that touch of interest into the match and really made us care about the result.

Another piece of commercial acumen shown by the team at Leyton Orient was the selling of a unique matchday experience. It appeared as if the match day mascots were two 40 or 50+ guys, who came out running out with the teams and joined in a bit of kickabout. What gave the game away, aside from their touch was their extreme beer bellies. In the photo below they are the two to the immediate right of the referees.

The game itself was a great example of the results based tactics of the Football league. On many an occasion for goal kicks and free kicks, all 20 outfield players were in a 20 m by 20 m square.


While the players were undoubtedly highly skilled, the desire to get results led to the tactic of pumping it forward to the central striker who would then try to play it off to players running off. What was interesting was the two different types of target men used, Brentford had the very tall and strong Carl Cort (former Premier league level), who had a natural advantage in receiving the ball, where Leyton employed a reasonably short player McGleish who had an outstanding leap and would always manage to get a touch on it.

Brentford went 1-0 up after a pretty dominant 15 mins, and it was not looking good for Leyton as after 25 mins they were awarded a penalty that was missed. But a change of tactics, switching the wide midfielders bought them back into it, and they levelled it up before half-time with a great finish from McGleish. The first half was fairly ho-hum in intensity, but after half time it really stepped up, and Leyton were all over Brentford, and took the lead when a cross came over and the Brentford right back put it into the back of his own net. Leyton sat back for the last 20 mins, causing a bit of anxiety, but were safely home. In general I was very impressed by Jimmy Smith a central midfielder for Leyton and the left back Ryan Dickson for Brentford.

Another good game to go to, and the home victory nicely subsidised the day out.

So that leaves the following team to go visit : West Ham, Tottenham, Crystal Palace, Watford, QPR, Brentford and Dagenham and Redbridge.

The Bees - #1

The quest for football around London continued with a trip to Barnet. The current precarious nature of Barnet's league position of 2 places above relegation from the football league meant I should try and get there before the season was out. Had a small connection to them via Sarah, whose flatmate used to be their physiotherapist. Free tickets were offered but Joe Devera (right back) snaked them from us on the day.

The ground is located quite close to the last stop on the Northern Line, so a reasonable trip of about 90 mins from home. Went up there with Josh Wright - his introduction to English league football. Certainly the club was more grassroots (great call by Josh) than others I have experienced, with portacabins housing the ticket office, clup shop etc. Club shop had less extensive offerings, but contained all the essentials, a blessing was the lack of crush of punters looking for memoriabilla.

We ended up standing in the covered terrace for a reasonable sum of £15. Very close to the action, and the home crowd didn't waste the opportunity to undertake friendly banter with the opposition players. The atmosphere in the terrace was some of the best, punctuated with a well drilled drummer setting the beat for the chants. Barnet are known as the Bees, simple chants included drum beat… Beeees, or Oh when the Bees go Stinging in to the tune of Oh when the Saints. Away supporters were not treated to the same home comforts, with a couple of open stands and an uncovered terrace more accurately described as a concrete slope.

To the game, the style of game was more hoof and hope than pass and move, with the midfielders not creating rather looking to pick up the loose scraps. The opposition Dagenham and Redbridge were placed in the promotion place-offs, about 17 places higher than Barnet. Not really a lot to tell the two teams apart, but D and R were probably slightly more organised and better on the break. However, I was convinced that I could play at this level when the Barnet goalkeeper went to challenge from a long punt from the other GK, and fumbled under pressure to give a soft goal. That is something I had done a number of times, so no real difference there. Impressive players for Barnet were Michael Leary and Kenny Gillett.

Food options were not too varied, but just what you needed, burgers and hotdogs, cups of tea and coffee, but no Bovril. With only a small crowd, clearing the ground didn't take any time at all.

That makes the grounds attended: Millwall, Charlton, Fulham, Arsenal, Chelsea and Barnet. Remaining are: Tottenham, West Ham, Crystal Palace, Queens Park Rangers, Watford, Leyton Orient, Brentford, Dagenham & Redbridge.

Chelsea - Close to Home

Chelsea v West Brom, 26 December 2008

This fixture was always on the agenda, as Chelsea is only a few kms from home. Once we decided that we were not going away for Xmas, tickets became a priority. Chelsea only made 1400 tickets available to the travelling fans, but the credit crunch and Boxing Day meant we were able to get tickets, not that cheap at 45 pounds each.

Stamford Bridge is very strangely set out, with a hotel attached to one side, and a fancy restaurant backing on to one end. On match day the club shop had a huge line so we gave that a miss.

Sitting with the WBA fans was, as always an experience. There was plenty of jewellery and tracksuits about.It was a really nice sunny day soDean was able to visibly wear his West Brom top.

Here's Dean the proud supporter:



And Lou trying it out for size, with her "Louise, Number 1 Chick" West Brom badge santa gave her, and our "Loyal Supporters Only" door hanging behind. What die hards we are.

The Artillery

An old mate from VUWAFC, Glenn Phillips offerred me tickets to Arsenal vs Dinamo Kiev in a Champions League Group game. His company is able to get numerous tickets to Arsenal games, so before he took his long trip home I thought I would get in on the gig.

Having previously gone to Highbury in the mid-90's, it was quite a difference going to the new stadium. Highbury felt more impressive with Emirates being more of an open, corporate feel with less of the close packed crowd atmosphere. Being a Champions League match there were no alcoholic beverages on sale, which was puzzling and even more puzzling was the huge queues for food and tea and coffee at half time.

At the game, I was struck by the nature of the crowd. It seemed that there were a lot of people more interested in being there for being there's sake, rather than there for the football. Our seats were right down behind the goal, almost at pitch level and whenever there was a corner, or a deadball situation near the goal, the masses would get out their cellphones/cameras and click away rather than focus on the action. However at least there was a few real fans who would sing along with the chants, probably the most limited so far with only two discernible different ones.

Clearing the stadium was pretty good, and easy to get to the tube then home inside an hour. Pretty good really for being on the other side of London.
That makes the grounds attended: Millwall, Charlton, Fulham and Arsenal. Remaining are: Chelsea, Tottenham, West Ham, Crystal Palace, Watford, Queens Park Rangers, Leyton Orient, Barnet, Brentford, Dagenham & Redbridge.

The side of the Thames

My work manager is a season ticket holder at Fulham, and when he went for a two week holiday back to Australia, he left us his season tickets. A traditional 3pm kickoff with Sunderland the opposition. It was a short bus ride and walk from home which made it easy for Lou and I to get to.

A quick look in the club shop, and we both agreed that there was not enough space to wander around freely, unlike previous clubs, and there was no natural flow through the store. The tickets were located in the Riverside stand, one of the more picturesque locations for a stand. You walk in behind the stand which is right on the bank of the Thames. On a clear autumn day, it was really pretty. Food options were pretty good, and Lou said the bathrooms were classy with lilies displayed, so amenities received a pass mark.

Sitting down, the seats were top notch. Then a most surreal experience, blaring over the sound system was a song about Mohammed Al-Fayed (the club's owner) with some traditional Arabic music and words like "That's his name, Mohammed". Just bizarre.

To the game. Fulham were lucky to escape with a 0-0 draw as Keiron Richardson from Sunderland had a free kick hit both posts, and another free kick that scored but was ruled out for a foul by one of his players interfering with the wall. The Fulham left-back Paul Konchesky was impressive, a good solid performer.

The walk home along the bank of the Thames was a nice end to the day out.

That makes the grounds attended: Millwall, Charlton and Fulham. Remaining are: Arsenal, Chelsea, Tottenham, West Ham, Crystal Palace, Queens Park Rangers, Leyton Orient, Barnet, Brentford, Dagenham & Redbridge.

Trips to Tottenham and Arsenal are potentially in the pipeline, and Sarah may have a route to Chelsea so some of the harder tickets are lining up.

Down in the Valley

Next game on the London football tour was Charlton vs Sheffield Wednesday at the Valley in South East London - a Championship encounter (the old Division 2).

Set off from home with plenty of time in hand, and did I need it! Managed to get what must have been the only train from Waterloo that didn’t stop at my stop and ended up practically in Kent! It was so rural that a fox was trotting along next to the train. Some other footie goers made the same mistake, so we all headed sheepishly back to London for a second shot at it. Got talking to one of them, he was a season ticket holder who lived in the Isle of Wight, so he gets a ½ hour ferry to the mainland, then an hour long train into London. He’s planning to go to a game in London on Tuesday night so he thinks he will get home at 4am! Great dedication.

Off the train and it was a short walk back to the ground. Having recently been in the Premiership, Charlton has a relatively large supporter base. This makes the pre- and post-game atmosphere that much more busy and exciting. With over 20,000 people at the game it had a big game atmosphere. The club shop was well laid out with a wide range of Charlton gear, even a Charlton themed air-freshener. Food options looked pretty good as well, a little sparse in options – I only spotted burgers (vege and chicken options as well) and fries, but the burger I had was pretty nice.

The ground is 75% of the way to being totally encircled, and planning permission already exists for the remaining stand-alone grandstand to be demolished and the rest of the stands to be combined into an all-in-one stadium. An ambitious plan, and one that would require the club to return to the Premiership to pay for it.

Game wise, the players’ skill level was a step-up from the League 1 game I last saw. However, the combinations weren’t as good and there was a fair bit of long ball footy played. Charlton went 1-0 up, and then Sheffield Wednesday scored twice, in their only two chances of the game, in 3 minutes to lead 2-1 at half time. After the break not much action, but Charlton had all the possession without really threatening to score. End of the game saw boos ring out around the ground.

After the game the ground cleared, and I was surprised to see the two sets of fans mixing freely. A reasonable police presence with a fair number of horse mounted officers. Everyone wanted to catch the train back into London, and so 3 or 4 trains went past before I could get on one. At least the queue was a classical orderly English one, and the station was kept safe by restricting access to the platforms. A quick 30 minutes later and I was safely back home.

Unfortunately a lack of planning led to the camera battery failing on start-up – so no photos!

As a side note, since I saw Millwall win, they have won their last 4 games. I hope I won’t give Charlton the same consistency!

Millwall and Charlton down so the list remaining is Arsenal, Chelsea, Fulham, Tottenham, West Ham, Crystal Palace, Queens Park Rangers, Leyton Orient, Barnet, Brentford, Dagenham & Redbridge.

Into the Lions Den

A Saturday afternoon was free after Louise had decided to go wedding dress shopping with Helen. At a bit of a loss with what to do, I decided to try to go see a football match. I focussed on the 'best available' game. So that ruled out the Premier League games at Arsenal and West Ham as they were sold out, all the Championship London teams were playing away. That brought Millwall of League One (the old Division 3) into pole position. Millwall was only about 40 mins train/tube/train from home, which made it reasonably convenient. I managed to convince Zac that it would be a good idea to come along. We met up at Waterloo and off we went into Bermondsey to the 'New Den' to see Millwall versus Huddersfield.

Despite the game being a way off the standards of the Premier League, the crowd attendance was 7,500. The away team brought some fans, maybe 3-500, and they were totally segregated with one stand to themselves, and all in the central area, however they managed to escape out of their central area to antagonise the Millwall supporters in the next door stand later in the game. However no real concerns as the sets of fans were just yelling at each other. The most interesting aspect of the day was the family that sat behind us. The main protagonist was Dad, a very rotund fella, who came out with the memorable call to the referee after a foul was given against Millwall - I hope your wife dies of AIDS, you c*. Of course his sub 10 year old son is getting involved gesturing and copying the words of Dad. As Zac put it, the poor child didn't stand a chance, the day he was born he was stuffed. Of course there were plenty of similar characters, with a good level of commitment to the cause, demonstrated by the Millwall FC club crest tattooed on their bodies.

For the match itself, it was a good game, helped by the hot and sunny weather. My first impression was that I probably could manage a side in the grade, as the predominant tactics seemed to be - lump it forward to the big striker. After the game settled down, the ball was played along the deck and it flowed quite well. Millwall went behind to a wonderful overhead bicycle kick. A great goal, but I didn't support it as much as I would have liked. A quiet comment to Zac - that was a good goal, was all that I could manage. Millwall then equalised just before halftime, scored by a player that we were describing as useless and unmotivated, a sentiment that was shared by the crowd we noticed. Mind you, if you score the you are everyone's best friend, at least for the next 15 minutes, as this fellow discovered later.

Millwall dominated the second half, and scored a go-ahead goal with about 15 to go, a well worked move. By this stage the Millwall fans were well worked up, and were charging through the stand to gesture and chant rude words at the away team supporters. Then controversy, with 5 minutes to go a very dubious penalty was awarded to Huddersfield, I thought the foul was well outside the box. Up steps David Unsworth, former England defender, and the goalkeeper pulls off a great save. Now the crowd goes truly mental. Some great chants - you're s t and it’s a long way home, 1-0 and you f'ed it up. Lots of Millwall etcetc. Pretty entertaining stuff.

Overall the game was pretty good, I was impressed by the central defenders for both sides as they dealt with the frequent attacks of the aerial game very well, and the attacking skills on the quick break were equally impressive.

One goal of mine, when I came over, was to try and get to each of the London clubs that play in the football leagues home games. So one down, 13 to go. The list remaining is Arsenal, Chelsea, Fulham, Tottenham, West Ham, Charlton, Crystal Palace, Queens Park Rangers, Watford, Leyton Orient, Barnet, Brentford, Dagenham & Redbridge. Of course these won't be the only football games I get to!

Wembley

Before we arrived on English shores, my club, West Bromwich Albion had made the FA Cup semi-finals. So this created a bit of excitement in the Yarrall family ranks, as Dad is a long term shareholder in the club, having been convinced to buy into the initial float in the early 90’s whilst on a boat following a long day in the sun after an England-South Africa cricket test.

Given that this was likely to be a once in a lifetime chance to see WBA in a FA Cup semi final at Wembley, a foreign concept to supporters of the likes of Arsenal, Manchester United et al, we thought it would be a worthwhile introduction for Louise into the football experience in the UK.

During many of the first calls home, Dad was always wondering how ticket purchasing was going. Poor was my inevitable response as the only way you could get a ticket was to have proof of having been on the club’s ticket database in the last 10 years. Given the last time we had been to a WBA game was in 1997, before the ticketing database was established meant we failed to reach the minimum requirements for a ‘club’ ticket. With all the other tickets held by corporates and season ticket holders, there were no official tickets available.

This meant we would have to follow the more risky ticket option of turning up to the game and buying off some dodge reseller. As Lou’s brother put it, the good thing about England is that you can turn up to any game and there is bound to be someone trying to make a buck from their ticket. Knowing our chances of getting a ticket were OK, Lou and I set off to Wembley.

The actual ticket purchasing options were fine once we got there, as a company was trying to flog off their tickets as no-one had wanted to go! I managed to pay the reasonable sum of £100 per ticket (face value of £160), not bad, but certainly a shock as we were still converting to NZD ($250 to those who care). Tickets were seated in the club level, and came with a free programme, which was a nice touch. Actually ended up sitting next to the brother in law of the WBA director of football who was a pleasant chap to talk to. We were situated behind the Portsmouth fans, which was a little disappointing, but they provided excellent vocal support for their team.

The pre-game atmosphere dominated anything Kelburn Park could produce, with 80,000 fans milling around, performing various witty chants. There was not a great deal of aggro going on, probably due to the great numbers of fluoro vested police officers.

As far as the game went, WBA dominated the first half, but failed to get close enough to seriously pressure the Portsmouth goal. Having not got the breakthrough I figured that we were going to struggle in the second half and sure enough we conceded soon after half time and spent the rest of the fixture chasing the game. However a number of positives did arise, firstly as Louise so quaintly put it, as least we wont have to pay for a FA Cup Final ticket, and secondly, WBA played well enough to suggest that they will be able to battle respectfully next season in the Premiership and not face the ignominy of another Derby County style season.

All in all, a great introduction into the world of English football for Louise, and hopefully we will be able to get to a few more games when the new season starts.