The Accrington Pals

It should have been a good five days of football. Accrington Stanley at home to Boreham Wood on Tuesday night in a delayed FA Cup third round tie, Burnley at home to West Brom in the Championship on the Friday night and the real deal on Saturday afternoon with my team Sheffield Wednesday at home to Fleetwood Town in League One. In the event, I had to settle for one out of three as Accrington got postponed due to a frozen pitch and a vehicle fire on the M62 put paid to our journey to Sheffield.

I have previously written why Accrington Stanley should be every football fan's second favourite club. Practising what I preach, I had taken advantage of a very generous (i.e. remarkably cheap) corporate hospitality package for the match against Boreham Wood but the match was postponed and I was unable to attend the rearranged match the following Tuesday.

The League One match between Accrington Stanley and Sheffield Wednesday took place on November 12th and was preceded by the club's annual Remembrance Day tribute where the Royal British Legion and Accrington Pipe Band led out the teams ahead of the laying of wreaths, followed by a minute's silence. In Accrington, as is no doubt the case elsewhere around the country, the bravery and sacrifice of the town's Pals Regiment lends extra poignancy to the occasion. I am embarrassed to admit that prior to attending the match, I knew little to nothing about the Pals and this was something I felt I wanted to learn more about. So I did just that. 

The Accrington Pals Memorial, located in the Sheffield Memorial 
Park, near the Serre Road cemeteries in northern France.

Along with Mrs C and good friends Mick and Andrea, an early start on the Sunday following my aborted trip to Hillsborough saw us cross the channel and into France by early afternoon. Andrea was having trouble with her trousers but as she and Mrs C were sitting in the back and I was driving, I decided against speculation as to why the waistband felt a little more generous than usual. Another hour on the road and we arrived at Cement House Cemetery in Langemark-Poelkapella, Belgium where my Great Uncle Frank is buried. Frank was my Grandad's older brother and thus my Dad's uncle, albeit he died eleven years before my Dad was born. He was killed in action on 4 February 1918 with two other members of his 14th Battalion, Gloucestershire Regiment, alongside whom he now rests. They share the cemetery with over three and a half thousand other Commonwealth servicemen of the First World War, approximately two thirds of whom remain unidentified.

From Cement House Cemetery we drove to the much larger Tyne Cot Cemetery, around six miles away, which is the resting place of nearly twelve thousand servicemen. The Tyne Cot Memorial commemorates another nearly thirty five thousand servicemen whose graves remain unknown. As with the smaller Cement House Cemetery, the grave stones stood to attention in well maintained grounds. The weather was cold and grey and lent due sombreness to the occasion. 

All very sobering. As was the state of Andrea’s trousers with her having been tramping across the wet grass resulting in the lower part of the trouser legs getting rather damper than she might usually expect and grubbier also. We drove a further six miles into the Belgian city of Ypres and checked into our hotel accommodation. By now we had all been up for nearly twelve hours so proper refreshment was the objective and this was successfully obtained at the very nearby (almost next door in fact) bar/restaurant Marktcafé Les Halles. Three beers later and we were ready to explore the place although, by now, Andrea had determined that she must in fact be wearing someone else’s trousers, such was their larger disposition, longer legs and rather less pristine than usual appearance. Oh Andrea. I know that we all got up at four o’clock this morning but……….Michael’s trousers?…………you’re wearing Michael’s trousers? Mick just sat there bemused. With hindsight, I’m now wondering whose trousers he ended up wearing. 

Ypres is an ancient, small city with a beautiful city centre which was carefully reconstructed having been destroyed in the war. Good to report that there are plenty of eating and drinking establishments to choose from, even on a Sunday night, and we do take our let’s-explore-the-city responsibilities seriously. Further refreshment was taken at The Times bar and the rather weirdly named (and unpronounceable also) Øl bar before we departed to witness the nightly Last Post ceremony at the Menin Gate.

Whilst in The Times bar, we got chatting to a few members of the Welsh Coast M.C.C. (motorcycle club) from Swansea, some of whom we had seen earlier checking into the same hotel as us. What a nice bunch of guys and gals. They had all been to an event (biking related) in Germany and were now on their way home, via Ypres on their final night so that they could pay their respects to the war dead.

The Menin Gate Memorial to the Missing is a war memorial which spans one of the main entrances to the city centre (indeed we drove through it earlier in the day). It was built in the 1920’s and was dedicated to the British and Commonwealth soldiers who were killed in battles close to the city. It bears the names of more than fifty four thousand men whose graves are unknown. Every night at 8.00 p.m. the traffic is stopped whilst the buglers of the Last Post Association (LPA) sound the Last Post in the road that passes under the memorial. The LPA is a voluntary organisation of local people from Ypres and it remains the intention of that organisation to continue this tribute in perpetuity. The respect and gratitude of the locals for the sacrifices made by soldiers of Great Britain and the Commonwealth, during two world wars, is genuine and heartfelt. That was one of two main takeaways for me from this four-day excursion.

The ceremony lasted only a few minutes. It was still bitterly cold, we needed warming up and we struck lucky at brasserie In’t Klein Stadhuis which name sounds like they might have had a few northerners in t’ouse before. For the record I’m just an honorary northerner although my three travelling companions are indeed t’real deal.

After a good night’s sleep, we had a leisurely start to the day before setting off to the French city of Lille. Mrs C and I have travelled through France, to and from Spain, on many occasions and our experience of French cities, towns and villages generally is quite favourable in the nice/ attractive/ quaint stakes but Lille failed on all three counts I’m afraid. Our just about adequate hotel won the prize for least-attractive-entrance-to-a-hotel-ever with the neon entrance lights, welcoming you to Passage 57 Boutiques, having all blown and the passageway itself doubling up as a shelter for a couple of homeless sorts. Anyway, once having checked in we bravely set forth to undertake our let’s-explore-the-city responsibilities and did so for a not unimpressive seven hours thus ensuring a second consecutive good night’s sleep.

The next morning we departed Lille, heading fifty miles south to the area of the Somme. The Battle of the Somme took place over a century ago and thus little wonder that most people know little of the events other than The Somme being synonymous with the first world war in general. Briefly the battle took place, on both sides of the Somme River, over four and a half months in 1916 between the armies of the British Empire and French Republic against the German Empire. The area of the Somme formed part of the Western Front, a four hundred mile stretch of land running from the Belgian coast to the Swiss border, effectively marking the battle lines between the two opposing forces. Following a seven day artillery bombardment of German lines, the Somme offensive commenced on 1 July 1916 but met unexpected and fierce resistance.

Our first port of call was the Thiepval Memorial and Anglo-French Cemetery, the largest of the Commonwealth’s memorials which was built on the site of one of the most heavily defended German positions attacked on that first day. It commemorates by name some seventy two thousand men, graves unknown, who fell in the Somme up to March 1918, including those killed and missing amongst the sixty thousand casualties from the first day of the offensive. The cemetery also contains the graves of three hundred Commonwealth and three hundred French soldiers, most of whom are unidentified.

From Thiepval we drove the short distance to see the Lochnagar Mine, a huge crater left by an underground charge laid by the British in a tunnel mined under a German fortification. The charge was sprung just before half past seven in the morning of 1 July to further weaken German defences immediately prior to commencement of the offensive. From the Lochnagar Mine it was just another six miles to the Serre Road Cemeteries, the resting place of the Accrington Pals.

With Britain’s entrance to the war in 1914 came the urgent need to boost military manpower and thus a “new army” of volunteer soldiers in contrast to the more traditional professional soldiers historically relied upon. To encourage volunteers, the Pals battalions would be composed of men enlisted in local recruiting drives with the promise that they would serve alongside their friends and neighbours. In Accrington, the Mayor offered to raise a full battalion and over eleven hundred men had enlisted within ten days of opening recruitment offices in Accrington, Blackburn, Burnley, Chorley, Church, Clayton-le-Moors, Great Harwood, Oswaldtwistle and Rishton. Initially based at home, the Pals left for Caernarvon, North Wales for training in February 1915 before leaving for Egypt ten months later. They arrived in France in March 1916.

The seven day artillery bombardment of German positions in late June 1916 did not obliterate defensive lines and capabilities as had been intended. Instead, seven hundred Accrington Pals, alongside their comrades the Sheffield Pals, advanced into no-man’s land on 1 July towards the village of Serre where they were swept with machine-gun and shell-fire. Of those seven hundred, two hundred and thirty five were killed and three hundred and fifty wounded in the space of twenty minutes.  

We parked up on Rue de Mailly-Mallet, immediately past the Serre Road Cemetery No.1 and walked the near half a mile along the country lane Ch. de Pals Battalions which leads first to Serre Road Cemetery No.2 and then to Railway Hollow Cemetery to the left and Queen’s Cemetery to the right. Luke Copse British Cemetery is a further two hundred yards along the lane. Each cemetery contains a register box, typically built into the walls of the cemetery. Inside is a register listing the known details of those buried or commemorated at the site together with a plan of the burial plots. We left one of the poppy posters, brought home after the Stanley v Wednesday match, inside the register box at Railway Hollow.

These cemeteries were much smaller, rather more intimate than those we had previously visited. Walled and neat, quiet and reflective, dotted around the immediate agricultural landscape, the village of Serre not much more than half a mile away. It was to be another seven months before that village was finally taken and by when the Germans were already retreating in any event.

The Railway Hollow Cemetery was accessed through the Sheffield Memorial Park and it is here also where the Accrington Pals memorial is to be found. As was the case on Sunday, the skies were overcast at the time of our visit and it was bitterly cold although strangely fitting to the circumstances of our visit. It was all very peaceful, the very least these brave men deserved and it hastened our departure also, not wishing to stray from respectful observation into mawkish tourism.

We had opted to spend our third and final night in St Omer, approximately two thirds of the way back to the channel tunnel so that we might have a prompt start in the morning. Coincidentally, the town is twinned with Ypres in Belgium where we had spent our first night and pleasing to report that it shared a charm more akin to Ypres than to Lille. We commenced our let’s-explore responsibilities in the mid-afternoon, and within fifteen minutes or so had happened upon Place du Maréchal Foch around which there was a good sprinkling of bars and restaurants, not that all of them were open on this cold Tuesday afternoon. We settled on La BF brasserie and bar which was nice and warm and supplied a good range of beers, admittedly all fizzy and expensive as had been our experience throughout the last three days. We then moved across the square to a pub which was like a real, proper pub with a real, proper pub name - the Queen Victoria. Now this was warm and cosy, so much so that by the time we left we were in no mood to walk any further than we had to and so we headed just fifty yards up the Place to find food at restaurant Estaminet De Drie Kalders (the three caves). And then back to the Queen Victoria for final refreshment before retiring to our accommodation. We were chuffed to learn that Accrington Stanley had won their rearranged match against Boreham Wood to set up a fourth round tie against Leeds United. 

We set off for the tunnel at half past eight the following morning and were safely back in Burnley around eight hours later. Nowadays, it is as easy as that. We’re bloody lucky aren’t we. All we have to worry about is the cost of petrol, the outrageous cost of beer in Belgium and France and whose trousers Andrea might be wearing.

If my first main takeaway from this short trip was the level of genuine respect and gratitude that our European neighbours have for the sacrifices of our forebears, then my second main takeaway was the sheer waste and extent of loss of life and that it happened at all. I’m not sure that we have a good track record when it comes to learning from history but learn we must; that is why the annual Remembrance Day tributes remain so valid. There are those who claim that the red poppy somehow glorifies war but they miss the point completely. It reminds us of the horrors of war and thus not a mistake to be repeated. 

The Battle of the Somme brought to an end the experiment of Pals battalions. The impact on towns and communities, such as that which befell Accrington, was simply too devastating when a Pals battalion suffered heavy casualties. We will remember them.

Why Accrington Stanley Should be Every Football Fan's Second Favourite Club

By all that is sacred in football, Accrington Stanley Football Club should not exist in the same universe as my team Sheffield Wednesday. But ever since the (self-styled) Club that Wouldn't Die punched its way out of a football coffin in 1968 a la Beatrix Kiddo in Kill Bill: Volume 2, little ol' Accrington have slowly but surely been re-writing the Laws of the Universe and all footie fans should applaud and support them for doing so.

In fact not only have Stanley re-written the Laws of the Universe, they have re-written the laws of the Laws of the Universe. Basically, there are eight universal laws or principles which govern the entire universe, the first four of which are immutable, i.e. eternal, absolute laws that cannot be changed or transcended. Or so we thought. Alongside the Law of Mentalism, Law of Correspondence and the Law of Vibration, the fourth immutable law was the Law of Treating All Football Fans Like Shite. 

The mutable laws however are transitory meaning that they can be changed or transcended in such a way as to create a better reality. The four original mutable laws were the Law of Polarity, Law of Rhythm, Law of Cause and Effect and the Law of Gender. But in a move which might possibly lead us to wonder if Stanley chairman Andy Holt is, in fact, Master of the Universe, what was the fourth immutable law has now been de-immutabled (I have probably made that word up) big time. This might take a lot of footie fans some while to get their heads around but, not to put too fine a point on it, Accrington Stanley treat the fans - all fans that is - like valued customers and friends. There. I've said it. And it feels good. 

Accrington Stanley has always been a small club. Despite the original Accrington FC being a founder member of the Football League in 1888, the town's football club has always been disadvantaged by its geography, located pretty much half way between East Lancashire big boys Burnley and Blackburn Rovers whose proud footballing histories have enticed many an Accrington resident to forego their local club in favour of its more auspicious neighbours. Anyway, Accrington FC folded in 1896 but not before the original Accrington Stanley was established in 1891 and went on to play in the Football League from 1921 up to March 1962 when financial difficulties (not to mention a controversial intervention by the then Burnley chairman Bob Lord) forced the club's resignation from the League leaving the final few fixtures unfulfilled. Four years later, after plying its trade in the Lancashire Combination league, the final nail in the coffin was applied and the club was disbanded. I am telling you all this simply to make the point that ever since 1876 when the original Accrington FC was formed, the town's football club has constantly been fighting the odds with little in the way of support, facilities or even a glorious history to look back on. But despite the lowering of the football coffin into the ground in 1966, the town's footballing heart continued to beat and, just like Beatrix Kiddo (albeit she did it a lot quicker than Stanley), the would-be corpse re-emerged into the light two years later with a vengeance.  

By the time this particular Sheffield Wednesday fan moved to nearby Burnley in the summer of 2000, Stanley had been promoted to the Northern Premier League whereas Wednesday had just been relegated from the FA Premier League. With four tiers separating the two clubs, they were still existing in different universes back then but, last weekend, the two met in a League 1 match - level terms if not a level playing field. Despite Stanley's rise through the leagues in the forty four years since they did their Beatrix Kiddo impression, the club's potential has continued to be blighted by the seemingly immutable issues of small crowds and poor facilities. But, as we have already identified, Stanley chairman Andy Holt is a dab hand at de-immutabling (another made-up word) that which was previously thought to be immutable and, since taking charge of the club in 2015, he has set about looking to grow the club's supporter base by.........................making friends with the away supporters!

Have you ever met a football club chairman? Well, if you go to Stanley then there's a pretty good chance that you'll meet Andy Holt. Along with managing director David Burgess, the two of them spend much of the match day chatting to supporters both home and away. From a distance, with their long coats and flat caps they could be a couple of Peaky Blinders but they turn out to be much friendlier. They set the tone for what you can expect from all the matchday staff. It is unbelieveably welcoming.

Coley's Bar - where home and away fans mix freely

Last Saturday's game saw Stanley's biggest gate of the season with not far shy of five thousand fans in
attendance, over half of whom supporting the away team.The previous two home league matches against Bolton Wanderers and Derby County saw similarly large away followings. However, the home match previous, admittedly a mid-week fixture, against Cheltenham Town was attended by less than two thousand fans in total. Small home crowds continue to blight but poor facilities do not. Earlier this year, the club opened its new hospitality and conference venue where, on match days, home and away fans can mix freely, enjoying Bowland Brewery's Hen Harrier golden ale at £3.50 a pint. With the benefit of prior knowledge about all this I parked up in Coley's (the main bar, named after Stanley's manager John Coleman) at quarter past twelve and settled down to the Hen Harrier and Manchester City versus Brentwood on the big screens. Just as well that the ale was modestly priced as I had met three German guys in a Burnley pub the previous night who were on their annual football weekend trip to England. They had been planning to take in the Preston v Millwall match but I persuaded them to come to Accy instead to see the mighty Wednesday and promised them that I'd buy them all a pint if I saw them in Coley's. Well, a promise is a promise even if made whilst under the influence so I found myself back at the bar for a second time before I was even halfway through my first pint. 

Union Berlin fans Alex, Franz and Frankie 
with their Burnley minder Jack (second left)

Franz, Alex and Frankie are all fans of Union Berlin FC who, until a couple of weeks back, were sitting atop the German Bundesliga. Consecutive heavy away defeats have since dropped them down to fifth place but the club has enjoyed a remarkable rise over the years on relatively meagre resources and the fans play an integral part in the success and identity of the club. The Union Berlin story is for another day perhaps but is nonetheless a model well worth mimicking. I'm not sure that their Stadion An der Alten Försterei ground would have the spare capacity for two and a half thousand Wednesday fans but even if it did, I don't believe that we could be looked after as well as Accrington Stanley looked after us. And this (I believe) is the key for Andy Holt at the moment. Accrington Stanley FC, to survive and prosper, needs to maximise its income streams and if that means looking after the away fans as well as you would look after your own fans, then so be it. As an away fan, not being treated like shite is very, very much appreciated and that is why Accrington Stanley is my second favourite club.

So then, what used to be one of the immutable Laws of the Universe is now, certainly in Accrington, most definitely mutable. But if mutable means that it can be changed or transcended to create a better reality, could it also be changed or transcended back to create a worse one? Personally, I'm sick and tired of governing authorities, football or otherwise, effecting regulations against the majority for the sins of the minority and I don't doubt that there will be those in authority, in and around Accrington, just waiting for an excuse to reintroduce the Law of Treating All Football Fans Like Shite given half a chance so we fans need to do our bit.

Long term, Stanley need to grow their home supporter base. The club works hard in the community and dishes out free replica kits to local school kids in an effort to catch them young. But patience isn't always a virtue in football and realistically the club needs to continue punching above its weight just to maintain League 1 status. To not do so would lead to loss of revenue without the Sheffield Wednesdays and Derby Countys of this world coming to town. Which is why Accrington Stanley should be every football fan's second favourite club.

If you are unfortunate enough to be a supporter of a Premiership or Championship club (I'm only jealous) then the upcoming World F*Cup is about to deprive you of your footie for the next few weeks but League 1 (and below) carries on regardless. In which case, why not go and sample Stanley's facilities, mix with home and away fans and enjoy Hen Harrier at £3.50 a pint. Put simply, see what it's like to go to a football ground other than your home team stadium and not be treated like shite. Because, Master of the Universe or not, Andy Holt needs a few more home fans (honorary or otherwise). Lots of away fans may be good for maximising income streams but is it disadvantaging the home team's prospects? Maybe. Maybe not. But trust me, a visit to Accrington Stanley is well worth it whoever you support.

At the end of the day and particularly with my living so close to the club, I was relieved that Wednesday had emerged as worthy winners albeit by the only goal of the match. I celebrated with three more pints of the Hen Harrier in Coley's whilst enjoying the Oasis tribute singer and watching the Newcastle versus Chelsea late game on the big screens. Wednesday will always be my team but, like every other footie fan, I am allowed to have a second favourite team.  

Accrington Stanley - who are they? They are a great little club. And possibly, just possibly, they might actually be re-writing the rules of the universe for which all footie fans should be grateful. Good luck with that one about gender though Andy.

Lo lo lo lo Vamos Cartagena!

If a week is a long time in Politics (just ask erstwhile PM Liz Truss), then two and a half years is a long time in the life of a blog originally set up to talk all things "real Spain" including real football. Since I first introduced the subject (see Real Football in Spain), the Real Federación Española de Fútbol (RFEF) has streamlined its previously labyrinthine four-tier structure of four hundred and forty football teams by (wait for it) inserting a new third tier and adding another twenty teams into the overall mix. On the bright side, that means another twenty teams added to the original four hundred and thirty nine for potential visits by Mrs C and I.

I say "teams" as opposed to "clubs" because the B teams of many of the larger, well known clubs participate in this structure albeit the B team cannot play in a division any higher than one below that in which the first team plays.

Briefly, the Primera División (La Liga) consists twenty teams, the Segunda División twenty two teams, the (new third tier) Primera Federación two leagues of twenty teams each, the  Segunda Federación five leagues of eighteen teams each and the Tercera Federación eighteen leagues of sixteen teams each. As for promotions and relegations? Trust me, don't even go there beyond the top two divisions.

So if you think that the Spanish football league structure is complex, just wait until you start looking at the histories of its member clubs. Politics, hubris, corruption and bankruptcies make Derby County's recent travails seem positively mundane by comparison. Take a look at Homage to Murcia: A season of Football Anarchy for one such example of a complex football club history.

And so, only a mere two years after our one and only "real football in Spain" experience at the start of the 2019/20 later-to-be-aborted season, we're back! Yes, Mrs C and I have made it not once, not twice but three times to our nearest decent(ish) size football team with at least one more home match to take in before we head back to the UK in early November. And who is the lucky recipient of our current affections? It is the team of (currently doing well in the Segunda División) FC Cartagena, not to be confused with (currently lost somewhere in a sixth tier division) Cartagena FC. And indeed it would be only too easy to get confused as a quick delve into history makes it anything but clear.

Cartagena CF was founded in 1919 but went out of business following the 1951/52 season for making the rookie mistake of not paying its players.

Cartagena FC was founded in 1940, originally as UD Cartagenera until 1961, then as CD Cartagena until 1974 and since as Cartagena FC.

FC Cartagena was founded in 1995, originally as Cartagonova FC, in place of CD Balsicas, then the city's main team who made similar rookie mistakes to those Cartagena CF had made forty three years earlier.

To further confuse matters, Cartagena FC was the official reserve team of FC Cartagena between 2002 and 2009 but they all gave it up as a bad job because everyone had a headache by then. Enough. Back to the football.

Over the course of the last three weeks, we have attended the club's (FC Cartagena that is, not Cartagena FC) Estadio Municipal Cartagonova stadium to watch them play (then) top of the table Deportivo Alavés, (then) bottom of the table CD Leganés and, most recently, seventeenth in the table UD Ibiza, drawing one-one, losing one-two and winning two-nil respectively.

The Municipal Stadium, opened in 1988, is a mini-Camp Nou (home of FC Barcelona) in that it is a bowl of a stadium, largely uncovered, with a lower tier and a steep upper tier affording a great view of the pitch albeit with the downside for potential fatal falls. Unlike Camp Nou, it doesn't accommodate over ninety thousand spectators but with a capacity just in excess of fifteen thousand, it is a decent setting for second tier football and the eight or nine thousand fans who regularly turn up to generate a noisy and fanatical atmosphere. For all three games, we bought tickets (fifteen euros each) behind the goal at the north end of the stadium, close to the small but vociferous band of supporters who maintain a constant singing, chanting and banging of the drum throughout the whole ninety minutes. I don't know if this small band refer to themselves as Ultras but they should do because their support is fantastic. For night matches under the floodlights, the atmosphere is ramped up by the pre-match light show accompanied by the rousing Gary Glitter track Rock and Roll (Part 2). Clearly, nobody got the memo here about Mr Glitter.

The club appears to have a selection of nicknames, mainly arising from their black-and-white striped kit but they are best known as Efesé which chant regularly rises from the crowd. I tried to google the background to Efesé as I couldn't find any such word in my Spanish dictionaries and it came up with a long, convoluted tale of some old drunk from years back who was a supporter of the club which was a bit strange because the club hadn't been formed back then. Anyway, the google translation of this tale didn't make any sense to me so I consoled myself with chanting Efesé (think chanting the initials F S A and you're just about there) along with the rest of the crowd. Sadly, the old drunk story is more interesting than the reality which is that - for reasons best known to the fans - Efesé is how you pronounce the initials F C in Spanish, i.e. Efé for F and sé for C. That's a bit crap really, don't you think? 

To further confuse the issue here (and remember, Spanish football specialises in confusion and complexity), Cartagena FC (not FC Cartagena) have a sign outside their ground which translates to "the authentic Efesé". Whatever it means, both clubs lay claim to it and it does make for a good chant.

In the twenty third minute of all FC Cartagena home matches, the crowd breaks into applause to remember Miki Roqué, a young footballer who made thirty appearances for the club on loan from Liverpool during the 2008/9 season and who sadly died in 2012 from cancer. A reminder that life is precious.

The Spanish love their football and, as far as I can see, there are only two main differences between watching second tier football in Spain as compared to second tier football in the UK aside, that is, from Mr Glitter and the economical pricing and ease of entrance to the match itself. One, very few away fans attend matches and two, the whole affair is like a giant picnic. Giant, silver foil clad bocadillos (basically a sandwich made with a long baguette) are unwrapped and consumed with the greatest of ease, no mean feat considering that two of these big boys lasted Mrs C and I two whole days when we did our Camino earlier in the year. And for those that don't bring a picnic, the rest of them chew their way through bags of pipas (sunflower seeds), the eating of which involves removal and disposal of the outer shell to get to the seed. Some crack the shell between thumb and forefinger but the aficionados pop them into their mouth, crack the shell between their teeth then remove the seed with their tongue whilst spitting out the shell. All very lovely. Throughout the match, there is a discernible mishmash of noise emanating from the cracking, chewing and spitting out of pipas from around the ground.

The main challenge at the end of the match is to safely negotiate one's way to the exits down the steep terracing whilst wading through the piles of pipas shells.

The Deportivo Alavés and UD Ibiza games were both 9.00 p.m. kick-offs (Sunday night and Monday night respectively) whereas the CD Leganés game was a 2.00 p.m. Sunday afternoon kick-off. The cloudy and windy start to the day tricked me into wearing a pair of jeans for the CD Leganés match but of course, this being Spain, the sun eventually emerged and I spent much of the ninety minutes sweating my wotsits off whereas the Spanish were generally togged up in their long trousers and coats seemingly oblivious to the heat and happily tucking into their picnics and pipas. After the electric atmosphere of the previous Deportivo Alavés evening match, the Sunday afternoon suffered by comparison due to  unpleasantly tight, sweaty jeans plus ninety minutes of gamesmanship by CD Leganés that would have put many an English Premiership side to shame. It's always a mystery as to why only the team in the lead, with thirty five minutes to go, seems to be afflicted by collective cramp for the remaining thirty five minutes but I guess it's just one of those things. Anyway, across the three games the overall quality of football was good and whilst it is difficult to compare, I am going to do so anyway and suggest that the Spanish second tier is pretty much on a par, quality-wise, with English tier two and a half. Okay, English tier two and a half doesn't exist but I would define this as lower Championship, higher League One quality.

Unlike the English Championship and League One though which doesn't yet suffer the curse of VAR, I was surprised to discover that Spanish tier two football does make use of football's equivalent to killjoy. Right at the end of the CD Leganés match, FC Cartagena had an injury time equalizer ruled out when the referee was advised to go check the monitor a good five minutes after the ball hit the back of the net. Booooooooooo!

It may have taken us nearly two and a half years to properly get going with this Spanish football lark but we're liking it. Real Spain. Real football. Real beer. What's not to like?

El Camino de Santiago: Beers On The Way

Loved your blog today Dad. Made me laugh and cry. Walking five hundred miles across Spain certainly provided lots to laugh about but Day twenty seven brought a few tears as well.

The only good thing that came out of the first Covid19-related lockdown, as far as Graeme Cook was concerned, was his discovering the existence of El Camino de Santiago, known as The Way, an ancient pilgrimage route from the French Pyrenees to Santiago de Compostela in Galicia in the north west of Spain. Only recently unshackled from the world of working and for reasons he still doesn’t fully understand, he determined that this was a quest he must undertake and in the Spring of 2022 he and Mrs C set forth with rucksacks on their backs to see if they really could walk five hundred miles to the tomb of Saint James. 

Spoiler alert: They made it. And not least because they had their guiding principles to, err, guide them along the way. Beer is good for you being the main one. Graeme wrote a daily blog to keep friends and family up to date with their progress. The blog also began to attract interest from further afield. Encouraged by positive feedback such as that from Susan (USA) below, Graeme decided to try his hand at writing a book about the whole adventure.

Thanks for sharing your journey. I’m now on a quest to convince my husband that we can indeed do this. All your references to beer stops is helping! 

From having a near bust-up with Ernest Hemingway to meeting the invisible man, naked Germans, sophisticated Frenchmen, hunch-backed laboratory assistants, soppy knights, pizza-worshipping monks, the Camino family, the accommodation, the tears on Day twenty seven, the thrill of gazing up at Santiago Cathedral and of course a few beers along the way, it was the experience of a lifetime. 

Whether you have walked The Way yourself, are planning to walk it or simply interested to learn a little more about it, this book will provide an insight like no other. It will make you laugh. It might also make you cry. Amazon link

Day 36 - 28 May - O’Pedrouzo to Santiago de Compostela

As The Proclaimers famously sang:

And I would walk 500 miles                                

But I’m not sure I’d walk 500 more                      

It’s a bloody long way and my boots are knacked 

And the little pinky on my left foot is quite sore

Regular readers of this blog will, by now, be able to anticipate the next sentence. Alarm at six, on the road at half six, stopped for coffee yada yada. Sooooo predictable. Such is life on the road.

From O’Pedrouzo we had an initial four miles of (yada, yada) lovely woodland paths and countryside and a long, long uphill until we reached the perimeter of Santiago airport. Previously the walk past Burgos airport was tediously boring but apart from hearing a couple of planes, we never saw a thing of the airport and skirted around it via, initially, more woodland paths which eventually morphed into leafy villages until we peaked at Monte del Gozo from where we got our first view of the cathedral spires, still three miles away. Even the walk through the city outskirts was pleasant enough as we neared the historic part of the city housing the cathedral. The official Camino route brings you around the side of the cathedral, through an archway where you are bagpiped through and then into the huge square in front of the cathedral main entrance.

We had made it. Half past eleven in the morning. It was already very hot but as easy a twelve miles as we have had over the last five weeks. Our friend Michael from Switzerland was there to meet us and then we bumped into Lars and Inger - the three people with whom we have become closest over the course of our Camino. 

Then it was off to the Pilgrim’s office to collect our Compostelas, something of a two hour fanny about but we spent most of the waiting time sat in the shaded garden. To be honest it was nice to spend time doing nothing in the knowledge that we didn’t have any more miles in front of us, just a modest few hundred yards to our hotel where we have the next two nights booked. And it is lovely.

Next stop Zara. Yes, one of us was in need of some retail therapy. One of us waited in a nearby bar. 

We returned to the hotel via another bar and a tortilla bocadillo and enjoyed a rest before venturing out for the evening. We had an hour to kill before meeting up with Michael and a Michelin starred restaurant so we sat outside a bar close to our hotel where Peggy (USA) joined us for a drink. 

The fayre at our Michelin treat Casa Marcelo was described as “fusion cuisine in a moody setting” which sounds both pretentious and expensive but it proved to be a lovely way to end our Camino. In all likelihood we may never see Michael again but we have enjoyed his friendship immensely.

Tomorrow, we hope to meet up with other Camino friends who should be arriving in Santiago during the day but our Camino is over. We have loved it. Until the next one. Buen Camino!

Day 35 - 27 May - Arzua to O’Pedrouzo

As Andy Williams famously sang:

Almost there, we’re almost there
And soon we'll find
Our paradise, paradise so rare
Have a beer, a Camino beer
And close your eyes, for we're almost there

There was a sense of euphoria in the air today. Santiago tomorrow and a relatively easy walking day ahead of us today. And the sun was promising to be our companion all day long today.

We set off at six thirty five this morning, almost immediately bumping into Lars and Inger (Sweden) with whom we walked, on and off, throughout the morning. We like walking with them and we like walking just the two of us so the on and off worked well for all concerned. 

Our first coffee break at half past seven in the village of Pregontoño, sat in the garden of a bar as the early morning sun made its appearance from over the hill behind us. We walked on in the company of Lorraine (UK) with whom we have been seeing on the road over the last few days. All that chatting made me thirsty so, having linked up with Lars and Inger again, we stopped at a bar between Boavista and Salceda and I treated myself to a little beer. It was nearly ten o’clock after all.

After that it was heads down and beat the heat. The walking conditions underfoot continued to be kind and the anticipated ups and downs were nowhere near as hard as yesterday. And of course the Galician countryside continued to wow as it has done all week. We arrived in O’Pedrouzo at half past twelve and checked in to our very nice room at the weirdly named NOJA Rooms.

We were in no rush. After showering and washing sweaty socks and shirts, it was hunger that encouraged us out of the room. We found a nice looking place with huge gardens and huge tables. I went to the bar. No service at the bar. Garden service only. We sat at the end of an eight person bench where two guys were sat at the other end. Waiter runs over. “No sit there”. Why not? “Only one ticket per table”. Eh? So if one person, on their own, sits on an eight person bench, no one else can sit there. Even if that one person fancies a bit of company. Sounds pretty stupid to me. We moved to an empty eight person bench. We left five minutes later. I want a beer when I want a beer, not when some waiter decides he can be arsed to serve us.

We found a less attractive bar on the Pedrouzo main road. We had two beers in front of us in two minutes and we ordered food with the second round of beers. Delicious. Up yours trendy garden bar.

We then took a stroll and found another main road bar with seats in the shade. All this wanting to sit in the sun and after two minutes it had proven too hot to handle. Lars and Inger joined us. 

At the end of the day, we are of course on a pilgrimage so I especially wanted to see the local church. That’s just the kind of bloke I am. And where you find a church? Correct. You usually find a pub or (in Spain) a bar. And we found a little gem. The albergue Santaia en Casal de Calma had a garden as wonderful as the albergue name suggests. The four of us celebrated with a bottle each of the Estrella Camino de Santiago cerveza. And then we did it again. 

Eventually our Swedish friends decided that they needed to go find some food but we stayed put, preferring to remain on the Camino de Santiago because we’re diligent like that, even if Mrs C did eventually move on to the vino tinto.

And that’s how we spent our last night proper on the Camino. Tomorrow, with temperatures forecast to hit thirty two degrees by mid afternoon in Santiago, we will go with the early morning start again which should see us arrive at the Cathedral at or shortly after noon. For now, it’s bedtime. And we’re nearly there.

Day 34 - 26 May - Os Valos to Arzua

As Blood, Sweat and Tears famously sang:

What goes up must come down
Unless you’re in Galicia it’s the other way around
Your feet are having troubles
It's a cryin' sin
Ride a painted pony                                                     

Let the spinning wheel spin

Our early starts are becoming second nature to us by now. Six o’clock alarm. Up. Wash. Pack. Out. We hit the path at six forty five. It was misty and cold. I wasn’t expecting that. Anyway, by seven thirty we were enjoying a coffee and tostada in the town of Palas de Rei. Through the bar window, we saw Fran (UK) and Rosa (Canada) pass by on their way out of town and we were soon on our way too as we had a total near twenty mile day ahead of us.

As has been the case through Galicia, the pathways and roads made for comfortable walking conditions, aided by an initial freshness in the air once the sun broke through the mist. But, the whole eighteen miles between Palas de Rei and Arzua was all up and down. I think they must have re-written the rules of gravity here to read what comes down must go up again. 

The villages we pass through seem to get more quaint, more beautifully restored with less dereliction the nearer we get to Santiago. This has been quite marked since Sarria and you suspect that this busiest part of the Camino has allowed the local economies to flourish.

We passed through the villages of Carballal, San Xulian and Casanova before stopping at Bar Campanilla for another coffee and some cake, the ambience slightly tainted by the waft of the muck-spreading taking place a quarter of a mile down the road. Then on through Cornixa, Lobreiro and Desicabo before we passed through the town of Melide, By now it was beginning to get hot and the ups and downs were making me thirsty. We decided to stop at the first bar out of Melide which was a good decision in that Taberna de Parabispo was lovely. But it was another two miles of thirstyness. I could barely muster a smile by the time we found Harriet in the same bar.

From there we had another four and a half miles to go. Ninety minutes in theory but what with continued ups (far more ups than downs), water stops, navigation stops and fatigue, it took us nearly sixty minutes longer. La Puerta de Arzua, our accommodation for the night, was indeed a welcome sight.

Accommodation has been somewhat hit and miss over these last four and a bit weeks and we weren’t expecting a great deal from tonight’s choice but, as it transpired, it is all fairly new and our room was comfortable and spotlessly clean. However, with no food offering, we thought we should venture into the town of Arzua and explore. The kindly owner insisted on driving us into town and, as the miles passed, we were wondering how we could (eventually) walk back without picking up any blisters, now that we were sporting flip flops and crocs between us. All we really wanted to do was sit in the sunshine but he took us into a bar, introduced us to the bar staff, then left. All well and good but they had no outside seating. Anyway we consoled ourselves with a bottle each of Estrella’s Camino del Santiago beer which is the tastiest beer we have had these last few weeks. Thereafter we determined that we should undertake a slow bar crawl home - to protect our feet obviously.

Bar no. 1 we saw Fran and Angela and sat with them discussing how tough today’s ups and downs had been. Bar no. 2 - we were back at base! The three mile drive into town hadn’t even been a mile. That’s what four and a bit weeks walking does for you. We were clueless.

Base actually meant the bar next door to our accommodation. We ate, drank beer and wine whilst sat in the sun. Okay, it was pretty much roadside and the nice views were behind us but we sat in the sun. At nine o’clock we called it a night and retired to our nice, comfortable, clean room. 

In my mind, tomorrow is our last proper day walking before Santiago and, having checked the guide, we have another day of ups and downs then more ups. Ahh sod it, let that spinning wheel spin.