Tag Archives: Spain

From Berinsfield to Barcelona

06 Wednesday Feb 2019

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Sunday 13th January 2019 ko 18.30

La Liga

FC BARCELONA 3 (L Suarez 19 59 Messi 52)

SD EIBAR 0

Att 71,039

Entry €64

Robyn and I alighted the metro at Les Corts, and immediately wondered which way to walk to get to the Nou Camp, unlike say Bayern Munich and Fröttmanning station it isn’t immediately obvious where to go. Online maps and free mobile roaming helped and 10 minutes later we were contemplating something of a dilemma. Continue reading →

Peanuts & Crackerjack

04 Monday Feb 2019

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Sunday 23th January 2019 ko 12.00

Tercera Divisio Grup 5

C.E. L’HOSPITALET 1 (Rodri 24p)

TERRASSA FC 1 (Arranz 61) Yaya sent off 78 (2nd bk) 

Att c400

Entry €10

Teamsheet FREE

Maybe its the groundhopper’s OCD, but there is something rather satisfying about riding the train all the way to end of the line. Here it was Barcelona’s metro, and the red line’s terminus of L’Hospitalet de Llobregat in the south-west of the city. On the face of it it was an odd place to have a terminus, in the middle of a car park, but the hospital is a major one, and the the football ground beyond has it’s own story to tell. Continue reading →

Montjuic

31 Thursday Jan 2019

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Saturday 12th January 2019 ko 20.00

Quarta Catalina Grup 15

CE APA POBLE SEC B 2 (Petrykov 12 Pereira 46)

CE BARCELONA BARCINO 2 (May 41 79)

Att c60 at Camp de Futbol Municipal La Satalia, Barcelona

Free Entry

Barcelona is the capital of Catalonia which is an autonomous region of Spain. That’s a remarkably easy sentence to write but it doesn’t do justice to the position Barcelona finds itself in. The independence movement is still very prominent, and the 10 minute walk from Urquinaona metro station to our hotel near the Gothic Cathedral summed up the position neatly. You pass by the offices of the Spanish Ministry of the Interior with a riot van and two heavily armed policemen outside at all times. The offices are surrounded by stucco apartment blocks and on many of the balconies banners are being flown with the Catalonia flag and pro-independence banners. For some having bi-lingual signs everywhere isn’t enough. It isn’t difficult to draw parallels… Continue reading →

Dos Inglés

26 Saturday Dec 2015

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Sunday 20th December 2015 ko 17.00

Copa Regional de Ceuta- Final

CARMELITAS 1 (Jose 34p) Juande Dios sent off 57 (DOGSO)

RAMON Y CAJAL 4 (Alessandro 24 Cristian 81 Nabil 87 Hamid Oulad 90) Chakin missed penalty 59 Cristian sent off 90 (violent conduct)

Att c300 at Estadio Alfonso Murube, Ceuta

Entry FREE

Programme NO

The difficulty in planning any football in Spain is that the fixtures aren’t fixed until less than a week beforehand. If it’s league fixture, then you can predict with a reasonable degree of certainty that the game will take place on a given weekend, but that could be any time between Friday and Monday, although the part-time Segunda B, and Tercera divisions are far more likely to play on Saturdays and Sundays. All you can do is cover your options and wait. And there were so many good reasons to visit Ceuta too…. Continue reading →

Clockwork Brocoli

24 Thursday Dec 2015

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Saturday 19th December 2015 ko 17.00

Segunda B Grupo 4

ALGECIRAS CF 2 (Javi Medina 6 Javi Chico 90)

LA HOYA LORCA 1 (Roberto 83)

Att c3,500

Entry (Tribuna- main stand) €15 (£11)

No Programme

If ever there was the very epitomy of a port town it’s Algeciras. If you want to know where your Spanish import said goodbye to it’s mother country, chances are that it was the port the other side of the bay from Gibraltar. The town has always been associated with the sea, firstly from smuggling from North Africa, then via more conventional trading routes. In fact the real surprise for me was just how difficult the Estadio Neuvo Mirador was to reach from a base in Gibraltar. Continue reading →

The Rock

22 Tuesday Dec 2015

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Friday 18th December 2015 ko 20.30

Gibraltar League Division One

LIONS GIBRALTAR 2 (Santos 45 Narvaez 53)

ANGELS FC 0 Larouia sent off 87 (foul & abusive language)

Att 65 at Victoria Stadium

Entry FREE

No Programme

I do wonder whether the Gibraltar FA have fixed their kick-off times around flights arriving at the airport more or less adjacent to the ground. My flight from Luton landed at around 7.15pm, and there was plenty of time to clear customs and complete a first, walking back across the runway I’d just landed on, to get to the ground. But then Gibraltar is unusual. Continue reading →

Cojones!!!

25 Wednesday Dec 2013

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Sunday 22nd December 2013 ko 12.00

Liga Adelante (Segunda A)

R.C RECREATIVO HUELVA 2 (Joselu 24) Cifu sent off 13 (denying clear goalscoring opportunity)

U.D. LAS PALMAS 3 (Christantus 22 Valeron 40 Nauzet Aleman 51)

Att 7,368

Entry €35

Programme FREE

Teamsheet FREE

So an early start and check-out for Andy and I from our base in Seville’s Old Town. As we walked over to the bus-stop there were still young people partying from the night before, things start and finish later in Andalucía.

We soon arrived a Santa-Justa station and this time we were charged for our coffee (!) before catching a commuter train due west to the terminus at Huelva. The impression we got of Renfe the train operator, was that although the trains are modern, and the prices cheaper than in the UK, there aren’t that many trains running. Perhaps that was due to the economic downturn in Spain, it was clear time after time that the recession has hit this part of the world more heavily than in the UK. Continue reading →

Life At The Bottom

24 Tuesday Dec 2013

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Saturday 21st December 2013 ko 18.00

Campeonato Nacional de Liga de 1a División

REAL BETIS BALOMPIÉ 0

U.D. ALMERÍA 1 (Azzez 4)

Att 26,550

Entry €60

Programme FREE

Badge €2

Teamsheet FREE

One advantage of our previous game finishing two-and-half hours before this one, was that Andy and I had plenty of time to soak up all that the Estadio Benito Villamarín and its environs had to offer.

The first task was to buy a ticket which proved to be interesting! We were directed to a booth in the bowels of the North Fondo (Stand). There were only 3 hatches open, one for complementaries, but bizarrely two adjacent hatches for home and away fans! We managed to make our choice understood, and bought top priced tickets for the middle tier of the main stand which proved to be an excellent investment. Our €60 were snatched away, the tickets thrust our way and the hatch slammed shut. Did I say something wrong? Continue reading →

Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit

24 Tuesday Dec 2013

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Saturday 21st December 2013 ko 13.30

1a División Andaluza Cadete

REAL BETIS CADETE A 7 (Santos 5 Toni 26 44 69 Ángel 83 Edu 86p José 85p)

SAN ROQUE DE LEPE 0

Att c200

Entry FREE

Teamsheet “FREE”

With a day in Seville and a Sunday spent doing little more than travelling to and from Huelva there was little point retaining the hire car. I returned it to the rental company at Santa-Justa rail station and the young girl who took the keys asked how I’d found the Fiat 500 to drive,

“Absolutely fine,” I replied, “But the steering wheel is on the wrong side!”

She panicked for a moment, glancing over to the car before realising what I meant! We exchanged a joke or two about driving in each other’s countries before Andy and I strolled over to the station to plan the details of our next two days over a coffee that the station café managed to forget to charge us for, then refused point-blank to accept my payment when I tried to be honest! Continue reading →

Spanish Fly

23 Monday Dec 2013

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Friday 20th December 2013 ko 20.30

Segunda B Grupo 4

CÁDIZ CF 3 (Josete 19 Villar 47 Fall 63) Luque sent off 69 (denying clear goalscoring opportunity)

CP CACEREÑO 4 (Valverde 24 Carrizosa 48 Elias 69p Gaspar 80)

Att c2,500

Entry €18 (around £15.10)

Programme FREE

After our successful tour of Budapest a few weeks ago Andy and I decided to repeat the formula, albeit with a different destination! We flew to Seville, and booked into a hotel in the city’s historic Old Town, the idea being to watch Real Betis on the Saturday and Huelva on Sunday.

For the groundhopper a bugbear of football in Spain is that kick-off times are often not fixed until a few days before the game, so you have to be flexible. I discovered on Wednesday that Cádiz were now playing on Friday night and so checked times with Renfe the Spanish train operator. Despite the Estadio Ramón de Carranza having its own station, the last train departed for Seville 15 minutes after kick-off!

We hired a car, and I spent the 10 miles from the airport to the hotel learning how to drive a left-hand car on the right-hand side of the road. That wasn’t difficult in the Old Town with its one-way system, and narrow streets! Continue reading →