Me and Sue finally got our chance to see the Olympics up close this weekend in Newcastle. I`d booked the tickets months ago in frustration at being rejected for tickets in every other sport from handball to live pigeon shooting - yes believe it or not this was once included with the winner blasting 21 victims in Paris in 1900! Little did I realise that my buying readily available football tickets would mean that I did not get preferential treatment in the next ballot for losing out! I also didn`t realise I would be combining the weekend with a visit to my poorly mum - still in hospital some 8 weeks or so after a nasty infection took hold of her on what should have been a routine hospital visit.
Of course en route we had to stop for some shots of the Angel - though armed only with my rubbish compact thanks to Olympic entry rules.
Saturday brought the Brazil v Honduras game which for me was quite a bizarre experience. Aspects of it I loved. I loved the fact that, thanks to the Olympics` stringent, grossly unfair rules on sponsorship, that the ground was once more publicly called St James` Park - both on the tickets and by our usual announcer whose dulcet Geordie tones were replaced first off throughout the afternoon by some French guy
So off we went to see Brazil and Honduras. Luckily the tickets had come with a guideline explaining the rules of the game of soccer which evidently has the main aim of scoring more goals than your opponents do - Mackem fans please note for this season and pick up where you have been going wrong!
Really odd going to St James` for a match where I did not care who won or lost - and yes it was St James` Park again! Stringent Olympic sponsorship deals meant that all of the Sports Direct hoardings were covered and not only did the tickets say St James` but even our regular geordie announcer could revert to the time honoured title which most NUFC fans still hold to despite Ashley`s mandates. Great fun! Mind you still confused about this announcement in French that comes before the English one. I know the founder was French but English is global and the Olympics are in GB!
Lots of other odd stuff! 10 times as many stewards and security staff for a match that was some 11,000 fans fewer than a normal home game. People in Olympic`s t-shirts kept asking me if I knew where I was going - for god`s sake I lived just across the road as a kid! One guy stopped me going down a set of steps pointing me towards the other side of a barrier 3 feet away - there was no-one else there man!!!!
Going into the game there were empty seats around, babies sitting and playing in the aisles and people who had obviously never been before asking the lads in front supporting Honduras if they could please sit down when they jumped up celebrating a goal. This can`t be right! No Blaydon Races chorus, piddling little flags of the countries, standing for national anthems, no Toon Army chants and people wearing face paints with Brazil on one cheek and Honduras on the other!!! There`s no room for non-partisan support for teams in my book - waste of time! I decided I had to cheer for one team only and that would be Brazil. At times during the game I felt duty bound to shout for Honduras though, who were cheated on a regular basis by a referee out of his depth. Scandalous early bookings led to one and then later a second sending off that ruined the game. 11v11 Honduras could have done it. Brazil played better at times but lacked a finish whilst Honduras took their chances well.Must have been 10 yellow cards with more than half unmerited.The Brazilians should have been diving against Tom Daley never mind being on a football pitch. Netmar looked like he had been taken out by a sniper bullet more than once with his dramatic falls. Non- football expert Sue spotted that Oscar (Chelsea) was the man making Brazil tick and he did look good at times but overall a disappointment A few shots from the game:
 |
| Hey - they gotta band! |
 |
| Yes he had to give them a penalty too! |
No comments:
Post a Comment