The Hampton Roar (Part 3)

The following article appeared in the programme for Racing Club Warwick v  Alvechurch on 4th September 2007.

Welcome to today’s match and the latest instalment of the season’s diary by your favourite Racing Club correspondent.

Friday 1st June – England v Brazil, Friendly International

Three weeks after my trip to the FA Trophy Final and it’s Wembley again, this time for an historic first ever confrontation for the national side against regular foes Brazil. And this time it’s a sell out with the official attendance announced as being 88,745. It occurs to me afterwards that this is one of the largest crowds that I’ve ever been part of and I haven’t witnessed an attendance of this size for over a decade (last time was at the 1994 World Cup Final in Pasadena he adds, just to brag a bit you understand). You have to cast your mind back to 1985 and before to the days when Wembley could accommodate 100,000 to find a stadium that could cope with many more than are here tonight.

“Got any more useless facts about Wembley?” I hear you cry. Well what about these courtesy of the Free Lions magazine distributed free of charge outside every England game by the Football Supporters Federation. If you were wondering how many pints of beer it would take to fill the stadium apparently it would take 7 billion pints – come on you must’ve wondered that. Or what about the fact that there’s a generous 1.92 square metres per supporter even when the stadium’s full? I can’t quite see this one myself as the seats are much closer together than that but then again, who goes to Wembley to get a sense of space? You can come to Hampton Road and get that most weeks can’t you? Finally, did you know that the famous arch weighs in at the equivalent of over 45 million mars bars. Sadly I see no evidence of the 7 billion pints or the 45 million mars bars but at least there’s a match on!

The samba boys are in town. I’ve seen Brazil a few times before and I always think that their supporters must feel obliged to bang out the samba beat on bongos and drums carried especially for the purpose and to wear those skimpy yellow and green bikini tops beloved of cameramen the world over (well when adorning the ladies anyway). England for their part have employed the services of a band of their own in recent years. Personally I find bands very irritating, not far behind those clubs who churn out a theme tune every time the home side scores - I would much prefer spontaneous singing to this kind of choreographed affair – amazingly enough we can work out for ourselves when it’s time to celebrate – usually the ball has just gone into the onion bag funnily enough. You can imagine therefore how pleased I feel when we arrive in our seat to discover that they are blasting away about ten rows further back.

My annoyance at the band is soon forgotten thanks however to the appearance of David Beckham for England. Yes I’m one of those people who actually think that he adds something when he appears with the three lions on his chest. I did agree with Steve McLaren’s decision to drop him following the last World Cup but in view of the fact that he is bang in form again, he deserves his place back on merit. Now how many times could you say that Sven picked in-form players? So I don’t see McLaren’s decision to bring Becks back as a sign of weakness – rather it’s hugely pragmatic and also symbolic that Becks gets to anoint the new stadium with his larger-than-life presence.

England play well throughout the first half and look to be at least as good as Brazil if not possibly a little better. It’s no surprise when a Beckham free kick is headed in at the far post by captain fantastic John Terry midway through the second half. But once England take the lead the pattern of the match is spoiled by numerous substitutes made by both sides. I thought that Sepp Blatter had made new rules about this in International friendlies? World stars Ronaldinho and Kaka both played but neither made much of an impression on me. Deep into injury time and Brazil equalise to spoil an excellent England debut at our new home but, hey, it’s only a friendly and 1-1 against the Brazilians is creditable at any time especially with the more serious business of a Euro qualification match against Estonia the following week.

Saturday 2nd June – Wales v Czech Republic, Euro 2008 Qualifier

At long last it’s my final game of the season. A long road that eventually involved 64 matches attended witnessing 210 goals along the way. That’s 3.28 goals per game stats fans, my best ever goals per game average in thirty seasons of watching the game. Why bother going all the way to Cardiff for this one? Well, in the immortal words of Chris Bonnington when asked why he had bothered to climb Everest: “Because it was there”. The fact of the matter is that I love watching International football. It’s great to see top class players playing for more than just money. I’ve attended 157 Internationals spread across several continents down the years including 116 England games and the thrill never leaves me. Today is a rare opportunity to see a home International not involving England.

It is a beautiful day. The sun is shining and the rest of my family decide that a day out in Cardiff is in order. If you haven’t visited the capital of the principality yet then I thoroughly recommend that you do. The city centre shopping is excellent (so I’m told) and the Milenium Stadium is right in the heart of the city – much better than being sited on some godforsaken industrial estate on the outer suburbs I’d say. There’s pubs and restaurants galore and I meet up with an old Welsh mate of mine at The Goat Major, a Brains pub in the shadow of Cardiff Castle for a cracking pint of their hand-pulled best. Perhaps the worst thing about matches at the Milenium is the parking but today is not expected to be a problem because the Welsh team has not been doing very well of late and are pretty well no-hopers for Euro 2008 already.

In the end, the crowd nudges just over 30,000 with a late flurry of ticket sales following the announcement that this will be the last appearance in a Wales shirt of the legendary Ryan Giggs. Giggs is a hero in these parts – you won’t hear a word said against him, despite having been conspicuously absent from a significant number of friendly games over the years due to “nagging injuries” that always seemed to resolve themselves in time for the next Manchester United fixture. It seems that Giggs has been impressed by the form of United team mate Paul Scholes this season and wishes to prolong his United career that little bit further by not subjecting himself to the rigours of International football. The cynic in me believes that, in the unlikely event that Wales manage to qualify for the 2010 World Cup, if Giggs is still upright and fully functioning, he will be available for one last swan song. And should that come to pass, I hope that Toshack or whoever leaves him to watch it from the comfort of his armchair – Wales aren’t blessed with many top class internationals right now and the departure of Giggs represents a body blow to Welsh International hopes that Toshack is gracious enough to avoid commenting upon.

The Czech Republic are still considered to be one of Europe’s top sides judging by the FIFA rankings albeit that they come to Cardiff having made hard work of the Euro 2008 Qualifying Group to date. They have some household names in their current side (no, not Domestos and Mr Sheen!) including skull-protected Chelsea keeper Petr Cech, Arsenal’s Tomas Rosicky and, most noticeable of all, the Czech Peter Crouch: Jan Koller – similar in height but built a bit more like your average barn door. Today’s game isn’t a classic as the Czechs continue to show their patchy qualifying form in scraping a goalless draw from group minnows Wales who could easily have scored on a couple of occasions. Toshack does the decent thing and brings Giggs off a couple of minutes from the end to receive the private ovation that he no doubt deserves. The end of an era indeed!

Keep the faith!

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