The theme continues into Sunday morning, but this time with more action. Also with less regard for clashes of kit or the integrity of the pitch boundaries. The result was the same though: 1-0, this time to the blacks, if you can tell the difference. But it mattered to them.
A double-bill to fill out the weekend, because I saw a lot of football, and not much else. This one is taken about half an hour before kick-off at the second match of the weekend, at Rhyl FC, where the Wales Under-19 team were playing Portugal in front of quite a big crowd, at least for the size of the ground. (A seagull crashes the shot for the second day in a row.) They were to see defeat, however: Portugal won 1-0.
I don’t know whether St Bernadette’s — the church in the background — was busy on this Sunday morning, possibly it was. Hough End Playing Fields across the road certainly was, although this picture doesn’t capture the fact that at least half-a-dozen sports matches of various kinds were taking place around me at this point. I like the combination of the bright orange shirt and the slight dullness and tattiness of the background.
Heading to Sunday morning football in Bradford was better than hanging around at home doing nothing. With this shot I guess I was just hoping the symmetries came out OK. On reflction I say that the imbalance of the black windows at the top, vis-a-vis the dranpipes below, is not my problem. Anyway, why should I be the one pointing out the imperfections?
Please don’t ask which one of these people is Ally. Although I admit it took me a while to get the point of the identity (Ally = Allerton = Northallerton Town FC). Yes, I am aggrieved by the green bin, but it is what it is.
I went to two football matches today. In the evening, one at the Tottenham Hotspur stadium, a vast construction of steel and glass and with all these escalators that make it look like an airport. In the morning, here — Hackney Marshes, with none of those things. I have to say, I preferred the morning.
This trip started in London on 6th January and ends here too. But it’s time to go home.
I try not to put too many football pictures up here but I do like this one, simply because of her face, and the general contrast with the rest of the scene. And it does epitomise the day, with me not having arrived in the city until noon, local time. Either way, the match (Cape Town City v Orlando Pirates) and the general experience were very fine: a great introduction to the country.
Both the weekend’s photos are from the football; two contrasting experiences. Here, the positive one at Padiham FC, an enjoyable game in a congenial stadium, one with character and distinctiveness. This mural has been painted since we last visited here two years ago, and, I think, its effectiveness can be judged by the fact that you do have to look twice to realise Joe, in his dark coat and grey woolly hat, is not actually part of it.
3pm on a Saturday, and all around the country, a certain proportion of the players and spectators stand for a minute of tribute to someone or other. Here at Brighouse Town (the guys in orange), it was to commemorate a recently deceased former goalkeeper, it seems. Not that anyone had heard of the guy until this moment but all the same, it is good to take a minute now and again to stand and collectively create silence, a commodity that is not always easy to acquire.
This afternoon I saw L S Lowry’s famous painting, Going to the Match, which is currently on display in Bury Art Gallery. Then I went to Bury FC’s ground, Gigg Lane, where 2,790 people decided they wanted to Go to the Match. For a ninth-division game, this is pretty good, and I think Lowry might have approved.
Being 42 