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.
Was ‘at work’ ridiculously early this morning, at least by my standards. Francis Plain is the location of St Helena’s secondary school: that this view is taken across the nearby football pitch is not a further manifestation of my, perhaps, over-interest in that sport but just because that’s what the view is. On a generally dull day this was one of the few observed shafts of sunlight. Yes, the litter bin to bottom left does irritate, but otherwise, there are worse views to gee one up at 7.40am.
100 days to go until day 5,000. I guess I can keep it going until May 3rd.
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.
After the interest and congeniality of Padiham the day before, Salford City v Morecambe, my last football match of 2024 was one of the worst of the lot, a truly dire game in a characterless metal box. The general demeanour of this gentleman, captured at half-time, sums it up. Time to move on — though for Morecambe this movement increasingly looks like it will be downward again, and back out of the League at some point in the spring. Perhaps I’m wrong, but you didn’t see them play today.
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.
The gentleman in the hat, pondering the action, is Steve Gritt, coach of Hornchurch FC. Though this story is, I am sure, of only the vaguest interest to most people, the reason I depict him on here today is that back in 1997 Mr. Gritt was appointed manager of Brighton & Hove Albion FC (a.k.a. ‘my lot’), when they were 11 points adrift at the bottom of the entire Football League and facing relegation and oblivion. A few months later, however, he had achieved the seemingly impossible, and Brighton survived with an (in)famous 1-1 draw at Hereford, who went down instead. 27 years later and the Albion are playing their eighth season in the Premier League. Not that Steve Gritt had anything much more to do with that part of the tale (he left the club in 1998) but all Brighton fans certainly owe him our thanks.
And so, realising that he was the coach of the club I had randomly come to see, I waited to shake his hand and give him that thanks as he came off the pitch. And I was pleased I had had the opportunity, and took it. OK, random stalker moment over, moving on…
