England Ladies 2-0 Spain Ladies (Rat
Verlegh Stadium, Breda, att. 4,879)
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| Welcome to ..... |
At half time I was
thoroughly depressed. My plane had arrived late, the stadium was miles
from anywhere, the ‘every quarter of an hour’ free bus had taken over half an
hour to arrive, I'd missed kick off and it was p***ing it down. England were
winning 1-0 but that was no matter. I'd missed the goal. Of more
importance was my lack of a bed. I'd planned to camp but given the nature of
the torrential I thought better of it.
Thank goodness for the mobile phone and internet access. A few minutes later I had a hostel booked in
Rotterdam (about 20 minutes train ride away).
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| That's not fog, it's RAIN. |
I'd come to the
Women's Euros on a whim. I can't say I'm the biggest fan of female football (especially not after this match)
but it was an opportunity to visit a few new stadia: Breda, Utrecht, Tilburg
and Sparta Rotterdam. Also, with The Netherlands being so small, travel
is easy. Mind, I’d been looking forward
to lazing by a campsite swimming pool for a few days, imagining the weather
would be something approaching summer. This was a misguidance of a
biblical nature.
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| England in the rain wasn't a big draw... |
Handily, England was
my first match up so that should engender some interest. Sadly, due to
the aforementioned wait, I, along with the Keele University women's team,
arrived at the stadium in time to hear the cheer. One nil England. Another loud cheer before we got in was a
second, apparently disallowed for no reason. The Rat Verlegh Stadium epitomised the gloom. From the outside, a depressing block of metal
and concrete which hadn’t aged well since whenever it was built. The
1970s? Good views, but that’s about the
best I can say about it.
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| About as cheerful as it got. |
Once inside, I found
myself below pitch level in some kind of moat. This didn’tt augur well for my
streak later (kidding). I sat at one end
near the corner flag, despite having the pick of the seats. The stand to my left looked vaguely full, mainly
England. There were a few Spanish at the
far end of the same stand, while on the nearside, a couple of middle-aged locals
banged drums. I'm not quite sure why I
thought they were local but the constant dull thud with varying levels of
audience participation became a trawl very quickly.
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| This will get the atmosphere going. |
Maybe it was the match? Or the weather? Or both? More than once came the deluge. I think that
was England's excuse for never being able to control a ball. (I must note here, the first time I'd seen a
womens’ match I was very impressed with their skill, so to see our national
side fumble and miscontrol the ball endlessly put a more positive slant on my
own abilities. Spain dominated possession, nearly 80%, but the same pattern
developed. Spain would go sideways,
sideways, forwards, have a (wo)man on, go backwards again, start again. (BTW, what DO women shout when someone is
about to be marked? ‘Man on’?)
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| At least one side is busy. |
More than once Spain
had numbers out wide, but when they weren't knocking it back and starting again
they were chipping it in for giant England centre halves to head clear. I couldn't understand why they didn't simply
drill some low balls across the box especially given England's penchant for the
slice.
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| Prisoner: Cell Block H. The away end at Breda. |
England's game plan
hinged on the opposite, trying to find a killer pass within 2 or 3 touches,
whereupon the whole charade would repeat itself. God it was boring. Then, LIFE!
Spain whipped a ball in from the left (finally!) and an England player
slipped, slicing the ball smack into her palm.
Hurrah! Penalty! I need to work on my patriotism. But no, the players trot to the halfway line
and the referee starts with a drop ball to the keeper. Actually, I couldn't get my head around that. I think the ref was dropping it for the keeper
to take a free kick. Foul by the rain?
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| Plenty of England flags |
By now I was high up
behind the goal, a downpour driving fans higher up into the seats. It seemed an even mix of locals and English,
with occasional chants of ‘NAC, NAC’ (the local team) breaking out to alleviate
the England chants and those cardboard things what Leicester City fans whack to
make noise.
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| Match action. |
I was still thoroughly bored, but figured I couldn’t leave early as the buses wouldn’t be going back to the station till full-time. I’d not had anything to eat either, as I needed to put money on a card, etc. No thanks. So I was still a right grumpy sour puss when England sealed it, the ball somehow breaking loose on the edge of the box for the centre forward to dink it into the bottom left. A cool finish entirely out of keeping with the rest of England’s game. If this is as good as supporting England’s women gets…
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