TNS 2-0 Astana, Thursday 24th October 2024

TNS 2-0 Astana, Europa Conference League, The New Meadow, att. 2,022 (c.100 away)

With the Super Reds (Barnsley) playing at Shrewsbury Town on Satdy, there’s the opportunity of some European action, as Welsh (English!) champions TNS are hosting Astana in the Europa Conference League at...Shrewsbury Town. Oswestry’s finest don’t have a stadium fine enough for European action, but Shrewsbury, 15 or so miles away, does. Molly is in, and we make our plans, TNS Thurs, a Welsh game (probably Denbigh) Friday evening, before returning to League 1 action at the New Meadow on Satdy. Sounds like a plan.

I have work to do Thurs afternoon, so make it to Shrewsbury in time for one pre-match beer. My mind is pre-occupied with match tickets. I have bought ours online and cunningly put them in an email folder marked ‘Tickets’. However, for reasons only Microsoft know, my ‘Tickets’ folder isn’t accessible when I open my emails on my phone. I have fired off an email to TNS already, asking for the tickets to be re-send, but I firmly expect my man to be too busy. It is, after all, matchday. So, while I desperately search for Wifi on my laptop at my B&B (so I can access ‘Tickets’) I check my emails on my phone. My man has come good. Well done TNS!

I meet up with Molly at the Lion and Pheasant and we have our one beer. Fine it is too, an IPA of some local kind, though the pub itself is like a quiet All Bar One. I know the ground is a journey, but last time I was here, I got to the ground 15 mins before kick-off and by the time I’d parked up and returned to the ground I’d missed half an hour and the only goal (ours!) That won’t happen again. Moll does the maths and it’s walkable. It was a very nice walk too. Everything about Shrewsbury is nice. For future reference, we also walk past 3 or 4 more pubs on the stretch from the town centre to ground.

Tonite’s opponents are Astana, who may or may not be from Kazakhstan. I think I’ve seen them before, at Spartak Trnava (Slovakia), where I had to leave at half-time in order to get the last train out of Dodge. That’s not happening this evening. Although I wasn’t getting in, as the scanner wouldn’t recognise my ticket till I’d brightened my screen. Grrrrr! I was already slightly narked at agreeing to pay a whopping 500 pence for a programme.

The club shop, AKA a counter laced with TNS products, greets us on our entry. Molly is sorely tempted by a replica shirt. Only £35, a lot cheaper than usual. I loved the snazzy green and white hooped design, but the material felt a little cheap and I didn’t fancy going up in a ball of flame. Moll deferred till half-time and thought better of it. Our stress at making kick-off was unfounded too, as it was an 8pm KO, not 7:45, a fact even the stewards didn’t know. Time for a hotdog to assuage those hunger pangs.

There was only one stand open for home fans. European football is wasted on the good burghers of Shrewsbury. The attendance of 2,022 would be approximately 1/3 of the crowd on Satdy of Shrewsbury Town v Barnsley. Hilariously, our original seats had been moved as TNS hadn’t realised the media expect to be housed too. Oh well. They were still decent seats, fairly high up…but not so high up that we were sat neat The Mouth. The Mouth was a one-man chanting machine who never stopped the entire 86 minutes he was in the ground. Expecting him to be a middle-aged character with SEN, I was surprised to find he was a handsome gentleman of about 30. Whatever, I wish I had his lack of self-awareness. He was eventually joined in by a couple of 11 year olds in a call and response. TEEEE EN ES. TEEEE EN ES. I have this chant now ground into my cerebral vortex.

The match came as a pleasant surprise. Both sides wanted to attack, but some of TNS’s moves were superb. OK, against better opposition, they’d have come undone when losing the ball with too many men committed to attack, but fortune favours the brave and they bagged two excellent second half goals to triumph. How TNS pay for players of this quality, I’ve no idea. Expecting a bunch of plucky non-league equivalents, these players are League 1 at least. Good luck to em, however they’re paid for. How many league titles have they won on the bounce?

As they say, ‘they’ll be dancing in the streets of Total Network Solutions tonight’!

The Damage:
£18 ent
£5 programme
£4.50 hotdog
= £27.50

Motherwell 0-1 Sligo Rovers, Thursday 21st July 2022

Motherwell 0-1 Sligo Rovers, Europa Conference 2nd Round Play-off 1st Leg, Fir Park, att. 7,227

It’s the first day of my holidays and what says holidays more than driving nearly 3 hours to Motherwell to see a football match? After last night’s warmer-upper (Harrogate v Barnsley in a friendly), tonite it’s the real deal, as Sligo Rovers cross the North Sea to do battle in the second season of the Europa Conference League.

Although from the north-east of England, I’ve spent most of my adult life living closer to continental Europe, thus Caledonia is a relatively untapped mine for me. Partick Thistle, Inverness Caledonian Thistle, Ross County…and Berwick Rangers. (Does the latter count? 2 games on a family holiday c.1985. I wrote and asked if they had any home games and received a dot matrix fixture list in reply. My dad just said ‘tell them when you’re coming and they’ll arrange kick-off’. Problies not far wrong.) So when I saw Motherwell (just the right side of Glasgow for it to be drivable) had a game in Europe, I thought, why not?

My knowledge of them was/is negligible. The colours of Bradford City, sponsors Ian Skelly (I’m still talking 1985), famous players…Christ, famous players? Didn’t Davie Cooper play for them? And Jim O’Brien. Barnsley midfielder from about 15 years ago and still eking out an existence for non-league Notts County, last time I looked. Further internet digging brings the nugget that Motherwell have been in the top division since 1986-87. No way! I am seriously impressed with that achievement, less so with my knowledge of the game north of the border.

Having read manager Graham Alexander’s notes, Motherwell have done well to bat above their station last season and the programme column acts as a ready-made excuse for failure to follow. Mind, I think he was referencing the Scottish Premiership rather than to the part timers of Sligo. He may have lost that argument. To put Sligo into perspective, they needed to beat Welsh amateurs Bala on pens in the last round, a side that may or may not be an actual place. (I genuinely have no idea.)

Still, the Oirish travelled in numbers. About 450, but many were around Fir Park pre-match, congregating in the large beer garden outside the 100 Club. Home and away fans mingled and chatted in the warm as I bought my ticket and was asked whether it was for the home or away end. Must be the (English) accent. High up in the stand by the side of the pitch, I said. So obvs she sold me one behind the goal. A home fan asked a Rover what his hopes were for this evening. ‘I’ll settle for a draw.’ Little did he know…

Having bought my ticket, I went for a wander into the town centre. I won’t pass judgement, other than to say it’s very typical of many post-industrial towns in Great Britain. I passed a couple of less-than-friendly looking boozers before coming across the Railway Tavern. Grand, both inside and out, and lots of photos celebrating the industrial heritage of Motherwell, though with a price list to keep out the riff-raff what may have worked there. I enjoyed a £5.30 pint of Neck Oil, which was, at least, a 50p improvement on Harrogate last night. I presume it costs more to transport beer from London to Harrogate than it does Motherwell. In the meantime, I ticked off some Scottish stereotypes; people drinking Irn Bru; whisky chasers; a drunk in the street, arguing with himself. Yep, all there.

I didn’t rush. I had my match ticket, no point in being there early. I got there with 20 minutes to go and it was carnage. Queues for the East Stand went round the ground to the west. Although my ticket was in the Davie Cooper (North) Stand, it wasn’t clear which queue was what. I joined a queue, inched forward to behind the North Stand…my ticket said seat 71….so I joined another queue announcing seats of that number...got to the front…and was told I was in the wrong queue. Go and join that queue over there (the one that was for seat numbers 41-60, or somesuch). Helpful signage at Fir Park. By now, I knew I was missing kick-off. To be fair to the club, I don’t think they expected so many people turning up, over 50% more than their average crowd last season.

Once in and toileted, I went to my seat. Someone else was already sat in it. Fine, he’s with his mates. I climbed the stairs to the back and found an empty place. A couple of minutes later, someone claimed it. I repeated the process. ‘That’s why I always tell people it’s my seat’ said the claimant. Fair enough, I said, but it’s my 1st time and I didn’t want to upset anybody. I found a 3rd seat and lived in hope another latecomer wouldn’t usurp me. The John Hunter (East) Stand was sold out, and this looked like it too. The Main Stand was also packed (the sides having been left empty), leaving a huge double decker opposite me with less than 500 away fans in it. I think it only opens when Celtic or Rangers come to town.

The atmosphere was buzzing. Well fans were obviously excited at their Euro adventure (who wouldn’t be?) but despite the flags and noise of the East Stand ultras, it was their Ugandan centre half Mugabi who stole the show…heading a backpass short for Aidan Keena to run onto and grab the only goal. One competitive game into the new season and my first booing off of the home team, as well as a plastic bottle being hurled at a linesman. Go Motherwell!

The Damage:
£20 ent
£3.50 programme
c£40 petrol
= £63.50

The Tunes:
Psychemagik (Various)
Performance (Spacemen 3)
No. 1 in Heaven (Sparks)