England 3-1 Spain, Saturday 21st June 2025

England 3-1 Spain, UEFA Under 21 European Championship, City Arena (Stadion Antona Malatinskeho), att. 8,247

Ever since the disastrous Brexit vote of 2016, my partner has been trying to visit every country in the EU, so here we are in Slovakia. Handily, there’s the Under 21 Euro championship going on so a plan is hatched. The week or so we’re out here it’s the quarter finals and beyond. We fly in Satdy, same day England play Spain in Trnava. Wednesday there’s a semi in Kosice (won’t be England) and next Satdy is the final in Bratislava. Chuck in a couple of days in Zilina and job’s a good un.

We catch a train from Bratislava to Trnava. I’ve been to this ground before and I remember one thing; it was a midweek game and in order to get a train to wherever I was staying (not Trnava) I had to leave at half-time. Not tonite. Tonite we’re staying in possibly Trnava’s only hotel, a building that looks like it’s been converted from a communist block of flats. It’s hard-going getting there too. It’s red hot (30 odd degrees) and it’s a fair walk from the railway station. On the way though we pass the ground. There is absolutely zero sign of a game here tonite, aside from a poster telling people they can’t buy tickets for the game at the ground. It’s the UEFA website or nothing.

After a shower to cool down, we’re off and about. The city centre is small and the ground is adjacent. We park up at a pub in town and enjoy a couple of beers as we’re accosted by a pair of German groundhoppers here for the game. They’re Hansa Rostock fans (renowned for being right wing) and are annoyed when, on discussing the atmosphere at German games, I compliment St. Pauli (renowned left wing). I admit to being a bit of a rascal here, though my opinion stands. But the Germans were good company, before we moved on for food, a typically Slovakian menu (meat, potato pancakes)and more gorgeous (Czech) beer.

It was less than 10 minutes to walk to the ground. Half stadium, half shopping centre, it still looks brand new and spotless. Built in 2015, 3 sides of two tiers are linked together in a horse-shoe. The 4th side is a small single-tier affair, limited in its size by the street behind, though its roof proudly declares ‘CITY ARENA’ in bold lettering. Still, when will Trnava need 18,800 seats? (Ans: when England played here in 2016. But the point is ‘rarely’. Spartak Trnava average around 4,000.)

We enter via turnstiles on the main road having had to walk through the aforementioned shopping centre to get there. Fairly quickly in, and we’re soon in a queue for a drink. The heat is oppressive, not the sort of thing a couple of pasty English types enjoy. In fact, the shade of a concrete concourse offered some relief, before we bought a couple of Radlers (or shandy to you or I). Thirst quenching.

I’d been wondering what sort of attendance it would be all day and as we passed through the vomitory it became apparent certain parts of the ground were closed. Still, it was a healthy 8,000+, with most in the stand we occupied, on the long side opposite the single tier. There was a good mix of fans too, not just England and Spain (though both were few in number), but other participating nations as well. But by far the most number appeared to be locals, out to see the future Harry Kane, or Rodri, perhaps? They were in for a treat.

For those of us whose team’s matches are not interrupted by VAR, we had an early treat; Spain’s 3rd minute opener ruled out after 5 minutes of discussion. And they say VAR is ruining football! (Is it Norway who’ve since got rid of it?) But by the quarter of an hour mark, England were 2 goals up. McAtee’s is Johnny-on-the-spot as a corner isn’t cleared. Then Liverpool’s Quansah intercepts a ball in his own half, drives forward 50 yards. As defenders back off, expecting the pass that never comes, he hits one from outside the box, the keeper spills and Liverpool’s Harvey Elliott is there on the rebound. I’d hoped the Spanish custodian might be called ‘Jesus’ on the offchance I could riff on the old gag ‘Jesus saves...Dalglish scores on the rebound’ graffitied sign outside a Liverpudlian church. Unfortunately, he’s called Alejandro.

Now, I’m not the biggest England fan. Anodyne football, overpaid superstars, etc...but this Young England are a different kettle of fish. Passing and moving at pace, always looking to go FORWARD. What’s all that about? They still look capable of defensive deficiency (fullback Livramento looks weak, and I’m sure he’s one of the ones who’ve got a FULL England cap or 2) but you can’t have everything at Under 21. Hopefully they’ll keep the positive and improve on the negative.

I think it’s McAtee giving the ball away on the edge of his own box, dribbling, and in the panic that follows Quansah chops down a Spaniard as he cuts inside. The stutter does for Beadle in goal and Javi Guerra puts the ball the other way. Half-time isn’t far away and a chance for England to recoup.

At half-time, my partner takes ill. Not quite ill enough to go home (I’ll spare the details) but we go and sit behind the goal as there’s barely anybody there and it offers quick access to the toilet. Spain dominate early, but as the game goes on, I fancy England to hit them on the break. Head Coach Carsley sends on 5 subs in 3 second half bursts and the tide swings England’s way. One of them, Jonathan Rowe (of my partner’s team Norwich, but soon to be Marseilles) bursts forward and nicks it in the corner of the box just before the keeper takes him out. Penalty, and fellow sub Elliott Andersen (Forest) bangs it down the middle. 3-1 and game over.

England:
James Beadle (Brighton & Hove Albion; on loan at Sheffield Wednesday last season)
Jack Hinshelwood (Brighton & Hove Albion)
Quansah (Liverpool)
Charlie Cresswell (Toulouse)
Tino Livramento (Newcastle United)
Tyler Morton (Liverpool)
Alex Scott (Bournemouth)
Omari Hutchinson (Ipswich Town)
McAtee (Manchester City)
Harvey Elliott (Liverpool)
Jay Stansfield (Birmingham City)

The Damage:
€20 ent
€3.70 Radler
€3 deposit on plastic beaker
= €26.70

BFC 2-1 Shrewsbury Town, Monday 10th April 2023

‘You don’t know what you’re doing.’

Wow, that was a strange game. From being two up against a middle of the table middling side, we’re hanging on for dear life, down to 10 men and they’ve pulled one back. How did it come to this? I’d say the key ingredients were a side intent on all kinds of sh*thousery, an incompetent ref, and maybe a sprinkling of naivety from the Super Reds. It certainly wasn’t dull. (If timewasting makes you angry, is it by definition ‘not dull’? I’ll dwell on that.)

Shrewsbury Town. The only team I’ve ever seen timewaste while two goals down. This game broke records for the number of ‘head injuries’ sustained. Every time a Shrew went down, he was clutching his head. Ironic then that it was two of our players (Mads and Kane) who ended up bandaged up. Later, half their team surround Cadden after an innocuous looking tackle leaves their man rolling around. He’s a split second late, FFS, making a genuine attempt at a tackle. Red card it is. A minute later, their manager is mouthing off at the ref again. Seems the man in black can’t please ANYBODY. So he must be doing something right!

In a disjointed opening half, we somehow went in 2 goals to the good. Cadden crosses the ball and the keeper fumbles it into the net. Karma. The PA announcer mistakenly gives it to Cole, but I guess he’s on the wrong side of the pitch to see. Looked Cadden’s all the way to me. Then, 30 seconds after Phillips has found row Z* of the Ponty with a(nother) wayward shot, a centre half shows him how it’s done. Kitching hits it low and hard and Cole snaffles a carbon copy of the tap-in he got in the last home game. He’s a right sniffer! Watters does the best thing he did all game by following up and not stealing it off Devante.

*ok, pedants. Probably row T. You get the idea though.

Done and dusted you’d think. We’ll get into the groove second half and take these to pieces like we did Morecambe. And it shoulda been three as Watters does the impossible…heading it past the keeper on the edge of the box and somehow…somehow…failing to find the net, as a defender gets back while he dawdles. Maybe we had other shots, but by now there’s squabbles going on all over the pitch and the ref is finding his notebook.

There are 15 mins left as Cadden sees red. I still fancy us to go up the other end for a third (a la Cambridge home and away) but not if Mads connects with a stupid challenge as they break. Luckily, he’s so late he misses the Shrew. (They’re tricky little beggars.) On a booking, we’d have been down to 9. Now THAT would have been interesting. They pull one back with a superb dink down the middle for Phillips to head home (proving Cadden’s foul hadn’t broken him). But we aren’t troubled again, until a last second close range stab goes straight to Isted. Good positioning? Lucky? Poor finish? Who cares? The three points are ours, and with Plymouth losing and Ipsh*t drawing, this weekend hasn’t been the disaster it looked. A bit like Jesus, we’ve been crucified Easter Friday and are back from the dead come Monday. It’s what the Reverend Tiverton Preedy woulda wanted.

Onwards and upwards!

*** Goal King Cole. Busy up front, excellent runs, won balls in the air (!)…and held the ball up. Oh, and notched.
** Mads. Reckless challenge aside (see earlier) a tower of dominance.
* Kitching. Reading an article in the Chron, I was unsurprised to find Kitching used to do a bit of boxing. Well I never!

Londontykes’ MOTM: 1. Cole 2. Andersen 3. Kitching

Official MOTM: Cadden. A cheeky choice from the match sponsors.

Despatches:
Watters. Bloody useless. How can a bloke so big fail to be able to win a header? Even Cole won a fair few flick-ons Monday. I also saw him lead with his elbow (again) in one slow-mo challenge. Thankfully, that particular Shrew wasn’t bright enough to stand and wait to be hit and go down like the sack of s*** his teammates kept imitating. In the end, they only managed to get us 2 yellow cards (and the red) while they had….SEVEN yellows, including one getting sent off in injury time. I nearly forgot about that, though I can still see his look of amazement and his arms spread out like Cauley Woodrow in his best Christ the Redeemer phase.

Kane was the subject of debate. Was he particularly poor in his passing, or was he giving the ball away trying to make things happen (as opposed to those tidy ‘safe’ passes wot players do). I was in the former camp. We can all kick a ball 6 yards square to someone unmarked. Phillips….was put out of his misery on 64. It’s always nice to see the manager reading my mind, taking off Watters and Phillips for Norwood and Benson for Beds. (Mind, we turned a 2-0 lead into a 2-1 scrape thereafter. Stats, eh!?) Oh, and while Bobby Thomas had another excellent game, his brother Luke’s main input once coming on was to be hacked down while in full flow in their half. If that challenge was worth the yellow it got, and Cadden’s was a red, there is something wrong with this game. Kane too was taken out by a wild challenge on the far touchline, the ball not even in sight of the proponent. Again, a worse ‘tackle’ than the red, but deemed only a yellow. No wonder it all kicked off at full-time, with manager Duff having to intervene to drag our players away.

Drink du jour: A better pint of pale ale in Spiral City. It might have been Acorn.

Away: 514

Today’s take home: Check your play-off final dates carefully! (They’ve changed.)

The Damage:
c. £40 travel (petrol). Up from London.
= £40

Burton Albion 2-1 BFC, Friday 7th April 2023

‘It is adamantine parallelograms – indeed, hard lines.’

What can I say? The world and his wife knows this game was decided 10 minutes in. Or, to be more precise, COULD have been decided. We’ve broken down the right, the ball’s been cutback, the keeper is nowhere. All Norwood has to do is slot it, but he finds the defender on the line. Or the defender’s ARM. Now, I’ll be honest, I’m at the other end of the ground and the ref is far closer and has a CLEAR view. No pen, no nothing. Everyone watching online is positive it’s handball. But I’m sure the ref’s subconsciousness comes into play. Give the pen, send their man off and the game is potentially over. And if he gets it wrong, he’ll run the gauntlet for ruining the match. Far better to give Burton the benefit of any doubt – after all, promotion chasing Barnsley still have 80 odd minutes to win this game. And win it we didn’t.

(I’ve since seen a replay. Norwood is 6 YARDS OUT, FFS. I can’t see how the ref can definitively spot that’s a handball, it happens so fast. But it does allow me to give credit to Adam Phillips for the throughball to Jordan Williams which tears them apart.) Anyway, cue the vitriol for me for sticking up for the ref. This is not the Premiership, the ref doesn’t have the advantage / fallback of VAR. And besides, I rather like the idea of getting promotion without gaining a single penalty all season. But yes, the shot does hit his arm. If it had been at our end, we might have had a better chance of persuading the ref (think Old Trafford and THAT Gary Neville foul on Andy Liddell).

Then we fell apart. Ball after ball was aimed at the heads of Norwood and Cole (and later, Tedic and Watters) and the Burton centre halves mopped it up. Kane and Connell, so often the lynchpins, couldn’t their feet on the ball and were pulled after an hour, with us one down. Kane fails to stop the cross, Phillips fails to cut it out, and their bloke prods it in. What a terrible, terrible goal to concede. This is food and drink to a defence, this type of ball.

Credit where it’s due for their killer second on 87, as their bod cuts inside from Williams and curls it into the far corner from 20 yards. The game is up, Sarah’s dad needs the toilet and he’ll see us outside. He misses the (our) best 10 mins of the match, as Cadden pulls one back, driving home through a crowd. 7 minutes of injury time offers hope…and Burton are now camped in their half. However, we barely threaten until a last second Tedic header sees the keeper scrambling.

Onwards and upwards!

*** No-one. A poor show all round.
** Tedic. Only threat we had. The turn and snapshot, the header…
* Cadden. Notched.

Londontykes’ MOTM: 1. Tedic 2. Cadden 3. Connell

Despatches:
It’s my old bugbear, timewasting. Their keeper had possession of the ball twice in injury time, holding it 15 and 13 seconds respectively. Last time I looked, the rule was 6 seconds. Of course, he'd already been booked, so the referee couldn't possibly award a free kick, as he'd have to send him off. When will this accursed rule be adhered to!!??

The yoof were in our real ale pub, pre-match, banging signs, standing on a picnic table, making a racket. Lads – fine, but wrong hostelry. (I think they had 3 drinks between them, so who knows what was powering their energy!?)

Excellent pre-match planning from the Londontykes as we agree to meet in a pub that doesn’t open till 4. Thankfully, crisis averted before I reached Burton. Visiting the outlaws in nearby Lichfield, I had Sarah and her dad slumming it from the likes of Norwich City and Aston Vanilla. Neither were impressed, but neither was I. Sarah wasn’t keen on the language (!) and both moaned about not having seats. Well, next season…

Drink du jour: Joules IPA in Coopers Tavern. Love this pub.

Away: 1500? A sellout, anyway.

Today’s take home: If Connell and Kane don’t boss it, what have we got?

The Damage:
£19 ent
£3 programme
= £22