Saturdays Are For Lots of Football
I woke up late in the morning feeling a little better, no longer feverish, but with a sore throat still. I got myself breakfast before catching the train north to the midlands where I’d be seeing mid-table EPL Wolverhampton Wanderers take on already-relegated Leicester City FC.
In the train station, I passed many excited Aston Villa fans, coming south from the midlands to see their team take on Crystal Palace in the FA Cup semi-final. If I could have snagged tickets to this match for anything like a reasonable price, I’d have been joining them, but both clubs make a reasonable effort to make sure the tickets only go to true supporters…some of whom resell their tickets for a much higher price.
On the train up, I followed the Luton Town match, which Stoke needed Luton to win. I couldn’t watch it, in fact, I haven’t watched nearly as much football on this trip as I do at home, believe it or not. Only watching one full match a day, in person, is very different from jumping between stadiums on my television at home. Plus, the combination of mediocre train wifi and a VPN that only fools some services has meant I couldn’t stream most matches anyway. In this case, I managed to make the stream connect for a few brief moments before I gave up and returned to occasionally refreshing Fotmob, the football scores app I use.
Hope was thin on the ground when their opponents, Coventry City, got a red card early in the match, but they managed to hold Luton scoreless, and in the second half, Luton got their own red card and I had more hope. Only for Luton to get a last-gasp goal and win their match. Bad news.
The match ended as I walked through Wolverhampton to Molineux Stadium. I just want to take a moment to say, other than half the storefronts being empty, Wolverhampton was a charming city. I was further charmed when I got to my seats and met my neighbor for the match, Mitch. Mitch introduced me to the group around me. Apparently my seat had long been a season-ticket holder’s seat who had passed away at the beginning of the season. Everyone in that little section was friends and they had enjoyed welcoming in the visitors in their late friend’s old seats.
Of all the stadiums I visited, Molineux was the only one that both acknowledged and welcomed the visitors from other countries. At one point, a little graphic displayed all the cities of visitors on the day. It was clearly pulled from billing addresses, based on my little neighborhood showing up on the list (Boston does mailing addresses weird).
The reception to “football tourism” is mixed in England, with some welcoming it, and some feeling it’s negatively affected the experience and the prices. I can’t speak to how it has changed the experience, but the grouch about prices struck me as odd, since the absolute max I paid, for the Manchester United UEL match against Lyon was still $20 less than I paid to see Gotham FC take on Chelsea women’s team in a club friendly match at Red Bull Stadium last year. It’s all relative, I guess.
As far as the match itself, I was expecting a lopsided affair. Wolverhampton Wanderers, called the Wolves, had a really rough start to the season, spending a fair bit of time threatened with relegation, but they replaced their manager in the winter and they’ve been in really strong form since. In fact, they came into the match on a five game winning streak.
Meanwhile, Leicester were already relegated, second from the bottom of the table, and really haven’t looked like a Premier League team this season. In fact, they’ve only managed four wins on the season.
The match was, in reality, painful to watch. Even as a neutral masquerading as a Wolves fan, the Wolves were frustrating, playing like they knew they’d already won the match, even when it had just started. They were, as Mitch put it, faffing about. Trying to be fancy with their touches, but not putting in work. There were multiple times where Wolves could have scored if they had just ran instead of jogging.
At one point, I pulled out my Fotmob to see if they had a match on Wednesday that maybe they were saving their energy for, but no, nothing during the week. They just didn’t really feel like running, I guess. They did manage to score three goals, and conceded none, don’t get me wrong, but it was about as fun as watching golf, and I mean that derogatorily. The highlight of the match was definitely Mitch and his friends. The rest? Not so much.
After the match, I checked Fotmob again, and in addition to Luton’s win, Derby had won too. More bad news for Stoke. I’m not sure exactly what this means Stoke need in the final match of the season, next weekend, what the permutations are, but I know that it means we aren’t totally safe. I’ll have to wait to find out until next week, from the other side of the ocean.
I walked back into the city center, got something to eat, and made my way to the train station to figure out how to get south, along with the straggling Leicester fans. I ended up on a route with a change at Birmingham New Street station, with the first leg being standing room only. I pulled up the Crystal Palace match against Aston Villa on my phone, one of the few things I’ve been able to successfully stream on this trip, and ended up striking up a conversation with a pair of Leicester fans who started watching over my shoulder.
Something that I love about traveling solo is the random conversations I do end up having. It’s rarely anything groundbreaking, but just some nice chat with strangers who I’ll never see again. These young men and I mostly talked about football, and found we shared a strong dislike for Emi Martinez, the Aston Villa and Argentine goalkeeper. We watched as he was scored on, twice, for Crystal Palace to go on and win the semi-final, qualifying for the final, where they’d face either Nottingham Forest or Manchester City, which would be determined the next day.
I said goodbye as we got off in Birmingham, catching different trains from there. Just a quick sidenote, but Birmingham New Street station is the most confusing station I’ve been in on this trip, with terrible signs saying go this way for your platform, but the arrows pointing to walls and barricades. It took me a while to figure out that to get to my next train, I had to leave the station, walk around a few corners, and back in. Totally normal stuff. 10/10 experience.
The second train was much more empty, and I got to sit alone for the rest of the ride. Arriving in London, there was a train loading to take the Aston Villa fans back north. I’ve never seen a train full of more sad faces. I had no feelings on this match, I was happy with either winner, but wow that train was comical to pass by.
I got dinner at a tiny Indian restaurant on a side street–they had to pull the tables in and out for you to sit at–and there was a table of much happier Crystal Palace supporters there as well. Two adults and a teen who shared my name. Theo could not stop smiling, the whole dinner, just grinning at what he’d seen, at the win, at a text from his mother saying she’d pay for his ticket to the final, if the man he was with could find any.
That’s football for you. It will bring you absolute euphoria like Theo was experiencing. Heartbreak like the Villa fans on the train. Frustration like Mitch and the other Wolves fans. Or just a fun afternoon with mates, like my Leicester friends. I think I love it all, but I was envious of Theo the most. We all love those days.