Game Day

We’ll Stink All Day

Hull city vs malaga
~ From Boothferry To Germany ~ Leave a comment

We’re late to turn this adventure into a post, but our story of travelling away to watch our beloved Hull City AFC play a pre-season friendly away on the Sunshine Coast was too unorthodox to ignore it. The Brighton and Hove Albion reserves and La Segunda big club Málaga CF were the opponents on the same day in the Marbella Football Center, but last minute plans to travel down from Barcelona without taking time off work made it anything but a conventional away day…..

14:40 – close my laptop with a vague message to my manager about “got somewhere to be” and leave the office quickly.

15:37 – walk through the door of my flat and jump into the shower as quickly as possible knowing I won’t have another chance to do so for 2 full days….

Continue reading →

Guess Who’s Back

Hull city stickers
Aside ~ ~ From Boothferry To Germany ~ Leave a comment

It has been an odd couple years for us all, and we can surely agree that things are not fully back to normal yet even though they are getting there. Your FBTG editorial team is enjoying the degree to which markets and governmental mandates and initiatives are becoming more predictable, and international travel is becoming increasingly easy. And we celebrated this with our first home game in 3 years.

Continue reading →

The Enemy Of My Enemy

Chornomorets Odessa pyro
~ From Boothferry To Germany ~ Leave a comment

The tram jerked round the corner and the colossal Olympic Stadium burst into view – a facility purposefully developed for the 2012 UEFA European Championship that The Economist estimated had cost the Ukrainian taxpayer an astonishing $13 billion. We hopped off the Soviet era tram just as a faint blast tapped our ear drums. Shrugging it off, we walked towards the front gates as another faint explosion rippled the air around us. More unusual was the comprehensive security force flanking the entrances – half the national guard seemed to have descended onto the Ukrainian National Stadium for a routine league Football match on a Sunday evening.

Continue reading →

Basque Football – The Cousins

Osasuna fans
~ From Boothferry To Germany ~ Leave a comment

Satisfied with the few photos I had taken, I awkwardly scrambled back down the muddy ground and continued my walk. More media vehicles had parked up at the front side of El Sadar since I had began my tour of one of Spain’s classic grounds, and the queue of expectant fans outside a closed ticket window had grown. Realising I was short of funds, I turned to go find a cash point and walked into the path of an older gentleman.

“Who we playing today?” Alavés I said. “Oh, should be a good one then”.

Continue reading →

From Boothferry To Euskal Herria

Athletic bilbao ultras
Aside ~ ~ From Boothferry To Germany ~ Leave a comment

The title is a bit of a stretch, but hopefully succinct. The Basque Country is comprised of 4 provinces of northern Spain and 3 of southwestern France, even though the País Vasco is an administrative, semi-autonomous region of Spain. Known is the Basque language as Euskal Herria, the Basque Country can be best conceptualised as the land straddling the border where Basque cultural traditions have survived and are most celebrated to this day. Across the Easter break, we decided it was time to explore their ways and history by checking out some great Football matches in Spain’s most enigmatic region.

Continue reading →

Teruel Exists Pt 2

Teruel levante
~ From Boothferry To Germany ~ Leave a comment

It’s a question I get asked surprisingly often whenever I visit lower-league sides. Nevertheless, this gentleman’s abruptness caught me off-guard. I asked him to repeat himself, and he pressed on with yet more enthusiasm; “are you a Football player?”

The would-be stand-up comic in me has a stock answer reserved for this question; do I look like a professional Footballer with a belly like this? My new friend laughed and doubled down with his own quick-witted retort. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Look at this fat bastard over here” and he patted his pal’s tummy lightly. “that’s a proper beer belly”.

Continue reading →

The Derbi Barceloní

Derbi barceloni
~ From Boothferry To Germany ~ 3 Comments

By no uncertain terms, one giant of European Football has had an exceptionally poor start to the 2021-2022 season. It takes only seconds for the visitor to the Museum of Football known as Camp Nou to appreciate both the legacy as well as the monumental resources of FC Barcelona. So high is the global commercial demand for a slice of what the media brands as the Football club that embodies the Catalan spirit that “La Rambla del Barça”, a 150 walkway of sideshows, facilities and entertainment outside the actual stadium, accommodates bidding customers from the world over on any day of the week, regardless of whether or not there is a match to be played on the day of their visit.

Continue reading →