Glentoran FC – Drogheda United (19-03-2007)

After having taken pictures of murals around Shankill Road most of the afternoon, with the now familiar mix of rain, snow and sun, I was ready for some football diversion. For some reason, I had misread the time and jumped into a taxi an hour early, arriving to The Oval even before it had opened. Fortunately, the steward recognized me as a groundhopper and allowed me to get in early and take shelter from the wind and rain in the small bar.

After feeding myself with the obligatory hamburger and sausage roll, I headed out to the Main Grandstand – Lower Deck (as it was an all-ticket game, MvW had bought me a ticket of 10 pounds in advance). Tonight’s game was part of the Setanta Sports Cup, a competition between teams from both the Irish Eircom League and the (Northern) Irish Premier League. And this game was indeed a meeting of one team from Ireland (Drogheda United) and one from Northern Ireland (Glentoran FC). This might also explain the rather excessive security presence: I counted at least five (armored) police cars within the ground.

The Oval is one of the historic grounds of Belfast and has been home to Glentoran FC since 1892 (in fact, the club itself is 10 years older!). Although it has at one time hosted 55.000 people, in a European Cup game against Glasgow Rangers, it can now only take 15.000. The ground counts two stands, one quite big one, the Main Grandstand (holding 2,720) and the Railway Stand (holding 2,070), both in feeble state. Yet, although The Oval is old and in a fairly bad state, and squeezed between a motorway and Belfast City Airport, the ground does have a special atmosphere.

On this Monday night an estimated 450 people had made their way to stadium, including some 50 away supporters from Drogheda (approximately ?? km from Belfast). Although it was a boxing day, as St. Patrick’s Day was on a Saturday this year, the freezing wind and stormy rain didn’t make a visit to The Oval the most obvious destination for this evening.

I can be quite short about the game itself: it was poor… very poor! Most of the time neither team seemed in control of the ball, as most passes were without much direction and needed a duel between two sprinting players to find a receiver. My experience wasn’t helped by the people around me, who (in typical British fashion) couldn’t construct a (pseudo-)sentence without using at least once the word ‘fuck’. Still, at least the game didn’t make me regret my rather poor view from the stand.

The first half can be summarized as follows: goals 0; good chances 0; good set plays 0; usage of the f-word 100+. Somehow, half time felt like a relief. I walked around the stadium a bit, to get the blood in my legs flowing again, and found that in between the obese older guys who would swear at every (fucking) instance, there were also some younger fans in the stand.

The second half was not much better, except for the fact that there was one goal scored. Unfortunately for the majority of the people in The Oval, it was the Irish side that scored. Moreover, Glentoran never looked like they were going to score the equalizer. In fact, 0-1 was a deserved final score, in the sense that if anyone deserved to score, it was Drogheda United.

With a couple of minutes still to play, I left The Oval. Too much swearing, bad football, and cold wind for one evening. Although it felt more like a serious football experience than the Crusaders game, I enjoyed the latter more. Still, maybe on another day, on another stand, a Glentoran game will be a pleasant experience. At the very least The Oval is a unique stadium, with great view of the docks and planes flying over it. But don’t expect much from the game itself (at least not until they have changed most players of this team)!

Crusaders FC – Donegal Celtic (17-03-2007)

I had to be in Belfast for work so I decided to stay a couple of days extra to see a couple of games and score a new country point. After having watched the St. Patrick’s Day parade in the center of the city, I met my friend (and fellow PSV-fan) MvW in the lobby of my hotel. M and I know each other from our days in Edinburgh and are both loyal PSV-supporters, despite living far away from the home base. However, M. is a kind of football professor, always discussing positions and formations on the bulletin board, and not too easy to please on the pitch. Hence, while he had moved to Belfast a couple of years earlier, he had never seen a game in the Irish Premier League, Northern Ireland’s highest division. Today would be his chance.

After a short taxi ride we were dropped off in front of the stadium, at a big road in a fairly grim part of North Belfast. Naively, I took a picture of three security officers in front of the away stand, but one of them followed me, asked me very politely to see what picture I had taken, and than equally friendly to delete it. While you can take pictures of security forces, you cannot have their faces on them, as they might be targeted. Although ‘The Troubles’ seem (almost) over, some things haven’t changed yet. Not too disappointed we walked around the stadium, taking in the gloomy surroundings.

After asking, to make sure, we made our way to what is known as the main entrance. You could be fooled easily, as we were. For 7 pounds we were allowed to pass through the turnstiles, but unfortunately we didn’t get a ticket.

After devouring a classic British burger, not giving in to the ‘temptation’ of brown sauce, we walked towards the other side of the stadium to pay another 2 pounds to get access to the only covered seated stand.

Before entering the concrete monster, we took a look at our surroundings… a pitch covered with sand patches (actually, most of the center of the pitch looked like a desert), two uncovered stands with a couple of (frozen) fans from both sides, a good look at the M2 motorway, and an instructive text painted on one of the walls.

At 15.30 the players made their way onto the pitch, politely applauded by the ca. 250 fans in the stadium. While virtually all teams in the Northern Irish League are (from) Protestant (areas), this game was a true interreligious battle between the Protestant Crusaders and the Catholic Donegal Celtic (hence the relatively serious security concerns). The main groups of (young) supporters were close to each other, so that they could spit their simplistic banter more effectively.

The game started dismally: balls flew all over the place and few players seemed to be able to do anything about it. Admittedly, the conditions were not favorable for good football, as wind was gushing over the ground, regularly joined by rain, which made it freezing for players and public, but also made the ball relatively unpredictable. This not withstanding, the game soon started to become better and, despite relatively poor quality of the players, highly entertaining.

With the game flowing from side to side, none of the teams clearly dominated the game. Overall the first fifteen minutes were dominated by fierce duels and nasty elbows flying around. But around the 30^th minute the left-wing midfielder of Crusaders played in a good ball and the main striker headed it in: 1-0. After the goal the game became a bit more open, although the home team started to dominate more. A couple of minutes before half-time this led to a second goal, through the same combination of players: 2-0 would also be the half time score.

The second half started furiously: within minutes Donegal Celtic got a penalty. The ultimate opportunity for the away team to get back into the game. However, although the penalty was not too badly taken, the strong home goalie chose the right corner and stopped the ball (as captured perfectly by your humble servant).

After the missed penalty Donegal Celtic got a couple of other chances, including a header on the post, but it would be Crusaders that scored: 3-0. This led to a series of attacks of Donegal and a dry, but well placed shot for the deserved consolation goal: 3-1. In the dying minutes of the still entertaining game, the home team scored the 4-1.

Partly frozen MvW and I made our way to the bus stop adjacent to the stadium. As the game only hosted 250 people, of whom most either went by bus back to one of the Catholic areas, or lived close by, we easily got on the first bus out and were back at my hotel fifteen minutes later. Even M. had to admit that it was an entertaining game. If one has to describe it in comparative terms: I imagine it would be similar to an English third division game in the 1970s.