The Road to the Westfalenstadion (Part 1)

The following article appeared in the programme for Racing Club Warwick v Stourbridge on 13th August 2005.

Welcome back to Hampton Road for this, the start of the new season 2005-06. I don’t know about you but, for me, the summer months seem endless and, since I am like a child waiting for Christmas, the weeks until the opening day of the season drag by ever so slowly. To some extent this misery is self-imposed as I steadfastly refuse to attend pre-season friendlies on the basis that they are effectively a training exercise designed to hone the players match sharpness and to try out different formations and tactics. I don’t attend training sessions during the season so why would I want to watch a friendly fixture? For me attending friendlies takes something away from the opening day of the season - it’s a bit like the eating between meals that spoils your appetite! This season is starting earlier than is usual I believe due to the FA’s commitment to give Sven and the boys a few weeks rest before the ultimate tournament begins. Quite why this means that the entire Non-League game needs to follow suit is beyond me as I can’t imagine that Sven is seriously considering including anybody from the Midland Football Alliance in his final selection. Anyway cricket’s loss is our gain and I’m certainly not complaining about the early resumption!

Last season one or two of you suggested that you enjoyed reading my jibberings that appeared in the Racing Club programme under the title “The Ramblings of a Football Obsessive”. So I’m back with more! Sorry! This season’s offerings will appear under the headline “The Road to the Westfalenstadion” on account of this being a World Cup season and me having captured a couple of tickets to the top-most football event in the world. How did I manage that? By applying for tickets via FIFA’s World Cup web site last season. I actually requested tickets to seven matches in seven days along with several million other applicants and, in the ballot I succeeded in being allocated tickets to two games. So which games will I be going to? That’s a good question and, given that I won’t actually know who’ll be playing in the two matches concerned until the draw for the Finals has taken place in December, you can see that my football obsessiveness is as demented as ever! All I can tell you is that on Monday 19^th June 2006 I shall be wending my merry way to the Volksparkstadion, home of Hamburger Sport-Verein (Hamburg SV to you mate) for a Group H tie and that on the following Thursday 22^nd June I shall turn up at the Westfalenstadion, home of BV09 Borussia Dortmund for a match in Group F. Bliss! That is unless I end up with tickets to a match between Serbia and Croatia, Greece and Turkey, USA and Iran or something similar!

Actually I’m having withdrawal symptoms from World Cup competition, not having visited a Finals tie since France in 1998. I’m something of a World Cup junkie having attended Mexico ’86, Italia ’90, USA ’94 and France ’98. From my point of view, the chance to see some of the world’s best footballers at the peak of their careers is an irresistible magnet. World Cup stadiums are invariably brand new or fully refurbished and the host country tends to put on its best bib and tucker.

In the past I’ve also bought match tickets to international tournaments “blind” i.e. without knowing who would be playing in the game concerned. This has given me the opportunity to witness some real top-class ties as well as others that you wouldn’t have contemplated watching in normal circumstances. During Euro96 I sampled the “delights” of Turkey v. Croatia and Bulgaria v. Romania and at Euro2000 I “enjoyed” Spain v. Slovenia. That’s the luck of the draw I suppose but I’ve got my fingers crossed for high profile matches come the summer of 2006!

Since this is time of the year is one when our thoughts turn towards the possibilities that a new season can bring, I’ve taken the liberty of sticking my neck out and predicting the finishing positions in the Harvey Travel Alliance for 2005/06. This, of course, gives you the opportunity to heap scorn and derision on me later in the season when my predictions turn out to be, once again, woefully inaccurate. I suppose that if I were any good at forecasting then I would have won the lottery by now wouldn’t I? Oh and one other thing: don’t tell me that I’ve missed Racing Club out of the table because I have deliberately omitted the boys from the table. This is partly due to last season’s inconsistency which means that we could finish almost anywhere in the table this year and also because I didn’t want to put a curse on the team by predicting them to finish top and didn’t want to be accused of disloyalty if I predicted anything else. I’ll keep my thoughts to myself and hope for the best. We should also bear in mind that non-league table predictions can come rapidly unstuck due to a change of manager or a sudden shortage of funds. Anyway, if you think that my predictions are rubbish (they probably are!) then have a go yourself and we’ll see whose is less inaccurate come May! Anyway here’s my effort:

		Pld	Won	Drawn	Lost	Pts
1	Stratford Town	40	25	6	9	81
2	Oadby Town	40	22	12	6	78
3	Causeway United	40	23	8	9	77
4	Romulus	40	21	12	7	75
5	Coalville Town	40	20	9	11	69
6	Westfields	40	18	14	8	68
7	Leamington	40	18	10	12	64
8	Barwell	40	17	6	17	57
9	Malvern Town	40	16	7	17	55
10	Chasetown	40	16	6	18	54
11	Tipton Town	40	14	12	14	54
12	Quorn	40	15	9	16	54
13	Oldbury United	40	15	8	17	53
14	Studley	40	15	6	19	51
15	Boldmere St. Michael	40	14	8	18	50
16	Alvechurch	40	14	8	18	50
17	Stourbridge	40	11	10	19	43
18	Loughborough Dynamo	40	10	7	23	37
19	Rocester	40	9	10	21	37
20	Biddulph Victoria	40	10	6	24	36
21	Cradley Town	40	8	4	28	28

 Keep the faith!