Category Archives: Sport

Dec 13 2016
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Art and architecture, Daily Post, Sport

Ewood Park, night match

Tuesday 13th December 2016, 7.35pm (day 1,937)

Ewood Park, 13/12/16

Whatever happens to football, and/or to my club, I hope I never lose the simple enjoyment of just going to a match, and that moment of excitement as you see the ground ahead; particularly for night matches when the floodlights pour illumination onto the as-yet-unseen pitch. I’ve posted before about how Ewood Park, Blackburn is a good, old-school ground (one of only three used in the first ever football league season in 1888 that is still used today — trivia fans may note that the other two have also appeared on this blog over the last five years); I like the terraced house which gets into this shot on the right.

That’s three seasons in a row that the ground’s appeared on here but if our clubs keep going in the direction they are doing, it won’t be on again for a while. Blackburn Rovers 2, Brighton & Hove Albion 3. We are top of the Championship tonight…. they are at the other end of the table.

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Dec 03 2016
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Daily Post, Sport

Hampden Park, before kick-off

Saturday 3rd December 2016, 2.50pm (day 1,927)

Hampden Park, 3/8/16

After we visited Hampden Park last year I decided that at some point I wanted to see a match there. Football tourism, why not. Something different to do other than hang around at home on a Saturday. It is one of the world’s great football stadia and I’d never before seen a Scottish league game in my 47 years on this planet. Hampden is home to Queen’s Park FC, the oldest club in Scotland (150 years old in 2017), and the last remaining bastion of amateurism in senior British football. The crowd for their game with Brechin City was a few hundred strong, swelled by Joe and myself, and we saw the home team win 2-0 (despite Virgin Trains’ best efforts to screw up our day trip).

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Oct 15 2016
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Daily Post, Portrait, Sport, Stranger

Post-match press conference

Saturday 15th October 2016, 5.10pm (day 1,878)

Rochdale FC’s manager Keith Hill takes questions from representatives of the local media, who, for some unfathomable reason, included me amongst their ranks this afternoon. His team had just beaten Bury FC 2-0, but that didn’t necessarily make him the jolliest of interviewees.

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Oct 01 2016
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Daily Post, Sport

Entry way, Hillsborough

Saturday 1st October 2016, 4.00pm (day 1,864)

Hillsborough, 1/10/16

Hillsborough, home of Sheffield Wednesday FC, is undoubtedly a grand football stadium, but I don’t like it and never will. It’s miles away from the city, primitive in terms of the amenities offered and I’ve had some bad experiences there. This on top of the events of April 1989 when 96 people were killed there due to police incompetence (not to mention the subsequent — but now thankfully ended — 27-year establishment cover-up). But at least we, that is, Brighton & Hove Albion FC, won there today, 2-1. Go Seagulls. I like the symmetry of this shot of the entry gangway to the away end, but yes, it would be better if it wasn’t for that dark intrusion, the top of a seat I think.

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Aug 27 2016
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Art and architecture, Daily Post, Sport

St. James’ Park

Saturday 27th August 2016, 6.05pm (day 1,829)

St James's Park, 27/8/16

St. James’ Park, Newcastle, is the greatest, and certainly the largest, true city-centre football stadium in England. Capacity over 50,000, and all ten minutes’ walk from the train station — well, 10 minutes to the bottom of the main stand anyway. If you are an away fan you then have about another 10 minutes’ climbing of stairs to negotiate: I don’t think I’ve ever been so high up in the air watching a football match before. Good views therefore; better than anything we endured on the pitch today, a poor performance (Newcastle United 2, Brighton and Hove Albion 0).

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Jun 26 2016
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Daily Post, Hebden Bridge, Sport

Climbing tower

Saturday 25th June, 3.45pm (day 1,766)

Climbing tower, 25/6/16

This weekend, Hebden Bridge marks six months since the floods of 26th December. There are various festivals and events taking place over today and tomorrow (Sunday). In Calder Holmes Park today was a ‘Fair for Youth’ which seemed to involve a lot of people sitting on the grass watching a stage on which not much was happening; but this climbing tower seemed popular.

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May 07 2016
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Daily Post, Sport

The £170m match

Saturday 7th May 2016, 12.30pm (day 1,717)

BHA v Middlesbrough, 7/5/16

Hard to know what to say about this one. On the one hand, it was an incredible experience to be present today at Middlesbrough v. Brighton and Hove Albion, touted as one of the richest single games of football ever played, and certainly the richest ever played by my lot — £170m was the quoted purse, the prize for the victor being promotion to the Premier League and next season’s big fat TV money payout. If it finished a draw, Middlesbrough would be the ones going up. The atmosphere today was intense, until the very last seconds there was all to play for, and it was amazing that I and Joe were both there.

On the other hand, we lost. Actually we didn’t lose (the result was 1-1) — but of course, in the way that matters, we did.

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Apr 10 2016
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Daily Post, Portrait, Sport, Stranger

Whitehawk Ultras

Saturday 9th April 2016, 3.15pm (day 1,689)

Whitehawk Ultras, 9/4/16

One reason for going down south was to attend a game at Brighton & Hove’s other football team, Whitehawk FC. Why? Why not? They have an active set of Ultras, anti-racist, anti-sexist, a no bad language policy (exemplified by the chant, “the referee’s a… referee”) and the atmosphere put many much bigger clubs to shame. Right result too — Whitehawk 3, Wealdstone 0. Perhaps I have just found my second team.

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Apr 06 2016
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Daily Post, Sport

St. Andrew’s, Birmingham

Tuesday 5th April 2016, 8.50pm (day 1,685)

Photographers, 5/4/16

The photographers gather just after half time at the end being attacked by Brighton & Hove Albion FC in tonight’s game versus Birmingham City: and they made the right choice, as barely a couple of minutes after I took this picture the Albion scored to go 2-1 up, and that’s how it stayed. St. Andrew’s becomes a new ground for me, pretty decent one too I thought, right result…

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Mar 11 2016
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Daily Post, Sport, Urban scene

Celtic Park

Friday 11th March 2016, 9.15am (day 1,660)

Celtic Park, 11/3/16

Thought I’d better do a photo of Glasgow today even though I saw nothing of it except the hotel, the room where we did the viva examination, and a restaurant for lunch. Still, the view from the second of these, being up on the 11th floor of a building at the University of Strathclyde, was a damn fine one and included this monumental structure (in both senses of the word). Celtic Park (aka Parkhead), home of Celtic FC, one of the best-supported football clubs in the world, towers above its surroundings and seems colossal even from two miles away. The ‘mist’ is, rather, steam from chimneys between it and where I stood.

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