(B36 Torshavn win 3-2 on aggregate)
Haverfordwest County’s progress into the second qualifying round of the European Conference League was a beautiful thing and a tremendous way to witness my long-awaited first ever Haverfordwest County match. It brought its own problems, however. I hadn’t honestly expected that win, as welcome and wonderful as it was, but having started out on the ‘European adventure’ I now had to see the next game and consequently arrange time off work, match tickets and somewhere to stay in Cardiff. Lovely, first world problems, but to a fundamentally lazy person committed only to bobbing through life like a cork on the tide, a challenge that had me feeling unpleasantly like Odysseus or other heroic figure charged with completing onerous tasks.
My wife Paulene arranged everything of course, except the time off, which I managed, and after intermittently aquaplaning and queuing along the M4, waking up to a spectacular view of the Bristol Channel from our ninth-floor hotel room and whiling away the day marvelling at the cuddly dragon and sheep souvenirs available in Cardiff gift shops, we now find ourselves on platform 3 of Cardiff Queen Street station awaiting the 18:31 for Radyr, calling at Cardiff Central (Caerdydd Canelog) and more importantly Ninian Park (Parc Ninian). On platform 2 are two well-built women, one carries a large koala bear on her back, the other an even larger red and white fluffy octopus; they gaze across the tracks then descend the stairs into the subway that connects the platforms and disappear from view forever. When the ‘train’ eventually arrives, seven minutes late, it is sadly no Ivor the Engine, but instead an aged sort of bus on rails, which chugs and grinds and squeals its way past Cardiff’s ripped backside towards once elegant Cardiff Central station where, the guard explains, we are held by a red light. “A riddle for you while we wait” says the guard, “What starts red and ends on green?”. The riddle solved, some passengers alight and others climb aboard before we continue what is probably the shortest and slowest train journey I have ever been on (£2.60 return with Senior railcard). Ninian Park station consists of two windswept open platforms and if the train hadn’t stopped there to disgorge, we might have thought it had been closed since the days of the evil Dr Beeching.
It’s a short and now familiar walk to the Cardiff City stadium, across Sloper Road, past the Jubilee Recreation Ground where a rugby team is about to begin a practice session, and then through the Lidl car park. Entry to the stadium tonight is again through Gate 9. Approaching the nest of steel barriers around the turnstiles, I spot a man wearing a day-glo coat featuring an Ipswich Town club crest. Being an Ipswich Town season ticket holder myself we accost him but don’t learn much. He’s lives in Torquay, would very much like a Haverfordwest shirt, was an Ipswich season ticket holder several years ago and claims Ipswich is a dump nowadays and Colchester is better. I re-educate him as best I can about the relative merits of Ipswich and Colchester and tell him Ipswich still has its beautiful buildings and parks and history and is therefore as good as it ever was, it’s just that the inhabitants buy everything on-line, so the town centre shops have shut and for some of them being miserable and a bit racist is all that keeps them happy, hence we have a Tory MP.
Having previously mastered the concept of my mobile phone having a wallet, entry to the stadium is a breeze tonight and I am soon eagerly presenting my bank card to pay for a replica Haverfordwest County shirt (£45) and a bucket hat (£15) which both commemorate the Pembrokeshire club’s presence in this season’s European Conference League. Excited beyond words and now sporting my commemorative bucket hat, I head with Paulene for our seats. Emerging from beneath the stand back into the evening sunlight we talk to the steward at the top of the stairs who tells us where we will find our seats, but also points out there are free Haverfordwest T-shirts randomly draped over the backs of the seats; they’re in different sizes so it’s a question of looking until we find two our size. The tag inside the neck of the first shirt I pick up reads ‘L’ and on the back of the shirt is the surname of the current French president. That’s me kitted out, but the search for a ‘S’ for Paulene continues. A man with two sons says all the ‘kids’ have been looking for them, then another younger man says “What size do you want?” I tell him I need a small. “Here you are” he says, almost immediately turning up the required shirt on the next seat he comes to. What a kind bloke, I think to myself as I thank him.
We watch the two teams warm up and the seats about us fill up with Welsh bottoms; I return ‘below’ to buy two bottles of water (£2.50 each), but experience no urge to pay £6 for a paper carton of insipid Amstel beer, I did that before the previous match, so do not need to do it again. I reminisce that the only other occasion when I ever drank Amstel was in a bar in Amsterdam before the second leg of the 1981 UEFA Cup Final, I don’t know how many guilders and cents it cost but I expect it was my father’s round anyway. When the game eventually kicks off, B36 Torshavn get first go with the ball and are kicking from left to right towards far off Pontypridd and Aberdare; they wear yellow shirts and socks with navy blue shorts, a bit like Oxford United or the Swedish national team, which is unexpected because the Faroes are Danish. Haverfordwest are in this season’s signature kit of all navy blue with pale blue and white chevrons on the front, and to my knowledge resemble no one else but Haverfordwest. Away from the pitch and back in the stand, people are still emerging at the top of the stairs like bubbles from a crack in the seabed, but they’re much more annoying as they dither on the steps trying to find their seats and blocking my view. I can at least console myself with the thought that they have arrived too late to nab a free T-shirt, that’ll teach them.
“Blooobi-irds, Blooobi-irds!” chant several people like demented evening paper vendors as the excitement of the game having actually started takes hold. “What seat is your number?” says a bloke behind me confusedly to the person next to him and in a not overly Welsh accent. I don’t catch the answer, and I’m not really interested. On the pitch, Torshavn’s number 8 Taufee Skandari hacks down Haverfordwest number 3 Rhys Abbruzzese, and whilst escaping punishment from the referee, other than a free-kick, he will hereafter be roundly booed by the crowd whenever he touches the ball. Barely ten minutes have passed, but it’s always good to identify a pantomime villain early on.
“That’s blown my mind a little bit” says the bloke behind me about something which disappointingly I didn’t catch. The game is close at the moment and cagey, and perhaps therefore a little dull, so I would have liked to have known what blew his mind, even if it did only get blown a little. After ten minutes Haverfordwest get the kudos of winning the game’s first corner. “Blooobi-irds” chant the blokes who like to chant, and when Skandari touches the ball they boo too. “ ‘kin ‘ell man” says the bloke behind me as the ball seems to wilfully run away from a Haverfordwest defender as he shapes to clear it. “Aaah, talk man” continues my neighbour as the ball is booted out for Torshavn’s first corner kick just a goalkeeper Zac Jones arrives hoping to gather it up in his arms. The Faroese number three takes an age to take the corner as if he’s first having to calculate precisely the trajectory of the ball before kicking it. A second corner follows but thankfully to no effect.
It takes a half an hour before Haverfordwest have a shot on goal, although a diving header is required from Torshavn defender moments before to clear the ball for a corner and a few minutes before that Oscar Borg sent Martell Taylor-Crossdale away down the left to optimistic and encouraging cheers, but the Faroese goalkeeper got to the ball first. To even things up, Skandari volleys over the cross bar to inevitable jeers and his team are on the up as they win two more corners and Haverfordwest captain Jazz Richards goes down injured and has to be substituted with ten minutes still to go until half time. It’s not a good time for the home team as a shot now has to be cleared off the goal line after a Torshavn free-kick; I thought it was going to go in. As if by way of desperately trying to restore the balance in favour of Haverfordwest, the boos when Skandari next touches the ball are even louder.
After another Torshavn corner and a shot which narrowly misses the Haverfordwest goal but ‘scores’ in the staircase up into the seats behind the goal, Haverfordwest’s Lee Jenkins misses arguably the best chance for a goal so far as he heads a fine cross back across the goal instead of into it. With half-time two minutes away a mass exodus occurs, which includes the bloke behind me and his friends who it seems are heading for the bar. Above us, a gang of three or four seagulls circle and swoop over the crowd, perhaps on the look out for someone who has already obtained a hot, half-time carton of chips or someone who has discarded a cold one. Paulene is intrigued by the men in suits stood by the players’ tunnel and remarks that at every game there are always men in suits stood by the players’ tunnel. We wonder who they are, and I speculate that they are no one in particular, but that for a fee football clubs will hire anyone a suit and let you stand there, like a sort of adult mascot. Then half-time arrives.
I usually like to take a wander at half-time, but tonight I don’t. I think the sight of that mass exodus a few minutes ago has made me want to stay put; I‘m not one to follow the herd. The match resumes at twelve minutes to nine and Haverfordwest set off as if the first half was just a warm-up and now they’re going to play properly. A corner is soon won and then Ben Fawcett is free in space and time at the edge of the penalty area, but he shoots wide of the Torshavn goal.
As always seems to happen in the second half of games, players start getting shown the referee’s yellow card. Like in life, the more time goes on the less one cares, but perhaps others become more desperate. The names of Lee Jenkins, Ricky Watts and Torshavn’s Isak Jonsson all enter the referee’s notebook in just seven minutes of deviant behaviour. From the crowd a new song is heard to the tune of Jeff Beck’s ‘Hi-Ho Silver Lining’, with the words ‘Silver Lining’ being substituted rather neatly and amusingly with ‘Hav-er-ford-west’. Twenty-minutes of the second half pass and the ball is knocked down in the Torshavn penalty area. Messy moments of uncertainty follow before the ball is slamming into the roof of the goal net; booted there by Ben Fawcett. Haverfordwest have scored, and the tie is level on aggregate; I begin to mentally prepare for penalties and Fawcett slides across the turf towards the adoring, cheering crowd before disappearing under a pile of his excited team-mates.
TV pundits tell us that goals change games, but Torshavn change their team by bringing on a couple of substitutes. It works to an extent as they reverse the traffic towards their goal and win a corner, and their number nine has a shot on goal which draws a few worried gasps from fellow spectators around me, but happily the shot goes wide.
Tonight’s attendance is announced as 2,119, and as often happens at football matches nowadays some people break into a round of applause. I can’t decide if they’re clapping themselves, each other, the announcer or whoever it was who counted everyone. There are seven minutes of normal time remaining and Skandari falls to the ground with an anguished groan; naturally he is booed. When he gets up a bloke behind me somewhere shouts “Miracle!”. The final minutes belong to Torshavn who win a succession of corners as Kai Whitmore joins the gang of Haverfordwest renegades who have been booked and Torshavn substitute Valerijs Sabala shoots over the cross bar. Only two-minutes of added on time are added on, it’s as if the referee thinks it’s pointless adding any more because no one’s going to score so we might as get on with extra-time.
Extra-time begins at twenty-one minutes to ten and I realise there will be no prospect of catching the five to ten train from Ninian Park back to Cardiff Queen Street, or the ten-thirteen. The first half of extra-time sees Haverfordwest’s Oscar Borg stride forward and shoot over the cross bar, but then disaster strikes as a mess in the Haverfordwest goal mouth ends with a shot which is blocked on the goal line by Rhys Abruzzese and the referee awards a penalty for handball. Jann Julian Benjaminsen accepts the referee’s gift to the people of the Faroe Islands and scores high into the net as Zac Jones dives, conveniently for Benjaminsen, in the opposite direction. A minute of added on time is played and the final fifteen minutes of the European tour beckon.
Naturally, Haverfordwest attack. A shot is tipped over the bar for a corner, Martell Taylor-Crossdale is crowded out and falls down in the penalty area; was he shoved? A shout of “The referee’s a wanker” from somewhere behind me suggests someone thinks he was, but it could be cramp. When they get the ball, Torshavn pass it around just to retain possession, which they do quite well. With the game into two minutes of added on time, Zac Jones heads up field to join the throng in the penalty area for a corner but, there’s to be no glorious goal from the goalkeeper tonight, and no glorious penalty saves.
With the final whistle, the applause from the crowd is every bit as loud and appreciative as it might have been had Haverfordwest won, it just lacks the roar and the beaming smiles. Paulene and I stay for a while to pay our respects before heading off into the night for Ninian Park station. It’s 10:30 when we get there; the last train is at five to eleven, but the information screen says it’s not expected until eight minutes past. With over half an hour to wait on a bleak cold platform we decide it will be quicker to walk, and this is how our European Tour ends.
Citroen and I roll into Victory Road at about twenty past two, where it is already so busy we are ushered into overflow car parking. I drive across the grass behind one goal and onto a field behind the pitch. Once out of my car a steward explains that entry today is through a side gate in order to keep pedestrians from slipping over where the cars have churned up the grass; health and safety eh? Entry costs £11, but I keep the gateman happy by tendering the right money. My wife Paulene has refused to join me today because she maintains that £11 is too much to pay to watch ‘local football’, and she makes a fair point, although today’s opponents aren’t exactly local, Rushall being about 285 kilometres away near Walsall in the West Midlands. In France it is possible to watch a fully professional second division match in a modern stadium for not much more than I have paid today, and sometimes for a bit less.
one to one approach. As half time nears I head back round towards the giant bungalow so that I can be handily placed for the tea bar when the whistle blows. As I watch on from behind the Leiston bench their number two Matt Rutterford commits a fairly innocuous foul, sidling up behind a Rushall player. Sadly for Leiston, Mr Hancock doesn’t consider that the foul is that innocuous and proceeds to whip out his yellow card in the direction of the unfortunate full-back, who having already seen the card once earlier in the game gets to see Mr Hancock’s red card also. Much wailing and gnashing of teeth ensues and there is a strong feeling that Leiston cannot now possibly win and Mr Hancock has ruined the game more than a few fouls ever could.
As darkness shrouds the ground it loses its plainness and takes on a new atmosphere. The long shadows have gone to be replaced by the glow of the floodlights. On the pitch Rushall push forward and Leiston defend; their goalkeeper Marcus Garnham makes a couple of smart saves. Leiston try to catch Rushall on the break with quick, astute passes and diagonal punts but it doesn’t feel as though Leiston or their supporters expect to win, and holding on for the goalless draw will be victory enough, of a sort. The story is a simple one; Leiston must keep Rushall at bay. But there have been injuries and delays and time added on at the end seems interminable. It’s the ninety fifth minute and Marcus Garnham makes a spectacular reaction save, followed quickly by another but before we have time to applaud the ball runs to Rushall substitute Keiron Berry stood just three yards from the open goal, a prod is all that’s needed.
pitchside rail says he’s “had it” with the referee and he’s going home, he starts to untie his flag. Another group of young lads head off too. “Fucking Toby’s fault” says a lad with long curly hair like Marc Bolan “it’s the same every time we come here with him”. The despondent occupants of the Screwbolt Fixings stand shuffle off with Mr Hancock’s final whistle whilst jeering at the Rushall goalkeeper Joseph Slinn, “Cheats” they shout, rather un-sportingly. In return the ‘keeper tells them how much he enjoyed their Neil Diamond song, but such is their disappointment they’re not listening and he was only trying to be friendly.
trippingovertheball 