Adamski

Dulwich Hamlet 0-4 Enfield Town in the Isthmian Premier Division. Family holiday in London this week and staying nearby, and I’d fancied a visit to Champion Hill for a while, so off I went with my one-year-old strapped to me. Not the recipe for sampling their famed range of craft beers or getting in the busy parts of the ground where the singing is, but hey ho. Dulwich are a big club at this level: they sell out most weeks and an impressive 3,334 there yesterday. With the beers, food choices, banners, singing, items on sale at the club shop, general club ethos, etc it’s football hipsterdom, but I can get behind that, they do it well, and plenty on show that I’d love to see Queens do. Enfield Town have their own story. Enfield were a force in the English non-league scene in the 1980s, but mismanagement led to the fans starting Town as a new club about 20 years ago. The original Enfield are still kicking around in the league below. As for the game itself, Dulwich were honking: plodding, toothless up front, and scarcely looked like scoring. Enfield Town looked like a team at least a league above and might soon be: they’re in good shape for a playoff for the Conference South, while this result pretty much finishes off Dulwich’s chances of getting there. Man of the match was Enfieid’s Sam Youngs. Not for his goal (which was a cracker - volleyed in the make it 1-0), but for bringing his wife and dog along, who happened to be sitting directly behind us and kept Adamski junior entertained throughout.

Giving this a bump. We’re thinking of a family holiday in Cornwall this summer. Any suggestions of a good place/area to base ourselves? Also any recommendations of good campsites?

I only really have info on the game I went to, but for it we bought the tickets on the Friday eight days before the game. At that point there were maybe 150-200 seats available across the ground - mostly in the uncovered seating, but a smattering here and there around the rest of the ground. We were in a group of three though, and the uncovered area was the only place we could get seats together.

Stockport County 5-0 MK Dons A trip to Edgeley Park while visiting friends who live nearby to see 2nd vs 4th in League Two. I’ve rarely seen a team on the end of a 5-0 defeat have so much of the play. MK had the best of it for the first half hour but then fell apart (some dodgy goalkeeping didn’t help) and found themselves 4-0 down by early in the second half. Paddy Madden, one of those names you see mentioned around the English lower leagues for years, pulling a lot of the strings. Goal #4 from Connor Lemonheigh-Evans was a beauty. The game largely petered out after that. 10,000 fans there - a sell out. Stockport are a likeable club that have vibes of being on the up. They have an old stand (in the pic) that looks pretty similar to the old stand at Palmerston, other than being updated sympathetically rather than left to rot by a crap board. Not quite so much likeability at least from me for MK Dons through the whole Wimbledon saga, but their fans made a lot of noise to be fair. We had seats in an uncovered seating area behind one of the goals. It absolutely pissed it down for large sections of the game: rain, hail, high winds, etc. There was an infamous Queens away game at Meadowbank in the early 90s where the stand was closed for a beer festival, everyone was moved to the open terracing, and the rain was biblical. I was there as a teenager. Yesterday might have been the biggest soaking I’ve taken at a football game since!

I had an encounter with the Queen and Prince Philip when I was about 15. Even as a committed republican it’s not one I’m particularly proud of. They were visiting the town I grew up in, arriving in the back of an open top car. I happened to be at the right place at the right time to be standing at the side of the road as they entered the town, without anyone else standing particularly close. As they passed they stood up and gave me a smile and a wave. I just sort of scowled back and gave them a little nod of my head as if to say ‘what is it?’ All a bit petulant and teenage, but they sat back down looking quite disappointed.

No timer either, and the bar currently somewhere under the space between ‘bar’ and ‘below’. I’m guessing I could be here a while. Only on to try and get tickets for Slovakia v Playoff B as we’re staying not too far away, so no biggie if it doesn’t work out, but would be nice.

Fuckity bye. (Fingers crossed it’s not just a rumour.)

Aston Villa 4-2 Nottingham Forest My football-mad 7 year old wanted tickets to an EPL game for his Christmas. We picked a cracker. Villa coasted to 3-0 up but switched off and were a bit fortunate to still be ahead when by the time they came back to life. A deserved win overall though. Watkins, Bailey, McGinn, Douglas Luiz all impressive. Strange hearing the ‘Super John McGinn’ song in a brummie accent and about how he’s Unai Emery’s man. Got sung frequently and loudly too. Very impressed by Villa Park. A proper football place steeped in history, and well looked after over the years. Would happily go back and my son already asking when we can. Good seats too - decent view of 4 of the goals. Half blinded by the sun though. Time to kill down there and the wee guy asked if we could see some of the other grounds in the area (he’s destined to be posting on this thread if it’s still going a decade or so from now!) So we swung by Wolves, West Brom, Walsall, Stoke, and Port Vale over yesterday and today. And excellent football weekend!

I've been to Swaziland. The place felt a lot more chilled out than the part of South Africa around it. Spent most of my time in Mlilwane Wildlife Sanctuary. Had a nosey around their national football stadium too but can't find any pictures of that.

Must admit I'd kind of forgotten that this thread existed! But time for an update: some impressive places there @DiegoDiego. I saw some pictures of football games along the way on the Random Matches thread as well. What took you there? Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of the Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Dominica, East Timor, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Haiti, Lesotho, Libya, Madagascar, Mali, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Mozambique, Nauru, Niger, Palau, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Samoa, São Tomé and Príncipe, Solomon Islands, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, Togo, Tonga Since the last update I've changed planes in Lubumbashi Airport in DR Congo, but I'd say you have to have left the airport for it to be valid, so DRC can stay on here for now. I think I might be going to Ethiopia in a couple of months though.

Arsenal or Millwall - both in terms of easiness to get to and as a football experience. However, Arsenal tickets won’t come cheap, if you can get them at all. I went to Millwall not long before Covid, and tickets were no problem to buy. The Den is authentic, raw, rough around the edges, and I loved it.

Aye, the more I’ve looked into this, the more it seems pretty unlikely without paying through the nose. Looks like it’s not to be but thanks for the info anyway.

Four of us (two Queens fans, two Clyde fans) staying in Bruhl, which looks to be on the edge of the city, but the transport links look quick and run all night. We booked it (and a place in Berlin) when things were starting to look good for qualification, and plumped for this one after the draw. Hoping to see a bit of the area while we’re there, however there’s a game not too far away every day that we’re there (Slovakia v Playoff B, Italy v Spain, Belgium v Romania) and we’re in the ballot for tickets, so let’s see. I stayed in Cologne for my first Scotland away game: the Christian Dailly ‘cheats fkn cheats’ game in 2003. Something quite fitting about coming back nearly 21 years later to finally see Scotland in the finals of a tournament.

Anyone on here know anything about getting tickets for a Liverpool game? They’ve just drawn Norwich or Bristol Rovers in the fourth round of the FA Cup. My seven year old has been asking to go to a Liverpool game, and I’m guessing demand for this one will be a bit lower than usual. Any tips, suggestions, or actual tickets very much appreciated!

Cook and Brannigan had been team mates at Killie until a few weeks before it happened. Cook ended up with a broken jaw and Brannigan got sacked by Killie for it.

There was a sending off for a headbutt, but Derek Cook was on the receiving end of it. The headbutter in question? Future Queens manager Kenny Brannigan!

Reminds of one I missed from my personal Queens Hall of Shame earlier: Queens 0 Kilmarnock 6 the following week. Five goals for Willie Watters (until fairly recently the only time I’d seen a player do that), and Killie fans on the pitch celebrating thinking they’d stayed up until Clyde popped them with a late goal. That Queens team was terrible: proper darkest Harkness era stuff. And that was before they really chucked it over the past couple of weeks of the season.

Thanks! That was interesting to look at, and to mull over which of the more rare ones I was at. Off the top of my head I’ve seen Queens win 6-0 (Arbroath, Livingston), 6-1 (Arbroath), and 7-1 (Clyde). I also remember some pumpings at the hands of Alloa (0-7 and 1-6) and Stirling (0-7). The 6-5 v Morton is my only unique one though.

This sort of thing totally floats my stats boat. How easy would it be to produce a table for a particular club? I’d be curious to see how it breaks down for Queens.

It's pretty dire. Has there ever been a Queens manager who has presided over a run as bad as this and subsequently managed to turn things around? It's pretty clear how this is going to end up panning out, and cutting losses now means a chance to salvage something from this season. That said, over the past 5-6 seasons there can't be many teams in Scotland who have: Scored fewer points Scored fewer goals Won fewer games Lost more points in the final minutes of games Had a larger percentage decline in attendance Had a greater decline in the state of their ground It's a consistent rot that goes far deeper than whichever of Naysmith, Johnston, Gibson, or Bartley was in the dugout, and it feels like the club is sleepwalking its way back to the Harkness era: as others have mentioned a situation you couldn't imagine fans of several comparable clubs being so sanguine about. The 2012 Rangers vote absolutely changed my relationship with Queens: I've never really had the same passion since and still feel so angry that the board did that. As a result I've been hoping for a change in the board for many years, but not since the early 1990s has it felt so necessary.

Also six defeats in the last seven in all competitions. And five of those defeats were a result of late goals (minutes 88, 84, 78, 90, and 83 today).

Yup - it was working OK last night, but looks like they've blocked it now. I noticed that they did that for their game against Ireland that's coming up in a few days, so to make sure I got a French friend to buy me some. Seventy-effing-nine euros a pop though. I'd banked on paying about half of that tops. I think I'd be set fair for away end tickets as well, but I'm taking my son who isn't in the supporters club. And after telling him we're going, booking trains, etc there was no backing out.

A fairly random piece of memorabilia I spotted in a charity shop a couple of days ago: a drum signed by Motherwell players. (It’s in Kinder Handl in Battlefield, just in case there’s currently an autographed drum shaped hole in your life.)

Week 1: Falkirk Week 2: Forfar

Pollok 3-3 Kirkintilloch Rob Roy By my reckoning this is my 6th 6+ goal game in 9 visits to Newlandsfield. Pollok will be kicking themselves about this one though. 3-1 with 10 minutes to go and cruising, but made a load of subs which I think upset the tempo and the next thing we knew it was 3-3. Even at that Pollok had a chance to make it 4-3 that I’d have fancied myself to score more often than not - rattled the bar with a proper sitter. I mentioned my Finnish connections on this thread recently. We’ve got family from Finland visiting at the moment, and we all went along today. Not often you hear a Finnish song played at a Scottish football ground, so bonus points to Pollok for playing the Finnish Eurovision entry at half time, and picking today to do it. No photos though, unfortunately.