Today we attended our second game of the opening weekend of the English Premier League, featuring Chelsea visiting at Stoke City.

Stoke City, or “Stoke-on-Trent” as it is officially called, is about 140 miles north of Reading, where we’re staying, and some 30 miles south of Manchester, so today included a good bit of time on the bus.

We weren’t leaving until 9:30 or so, but I made sure I woke up by 8:00am so I could partake of the highlight of every morning, the traditional English breakfast. So good!

This will get you going in the morning

Following breakfast, we parents gathered at the bus, already loaded up with the boys, to start our trip. It was about a 2 1/2 hour drive, so I brought reading materials and settled in. One thing several of us have noticed about accommodations in England – and this isn’t a complaint, just an observation: the seats seem smaller. There’s not much legroom on the bus and we are finding ourselves having to squeeze our American-sized bums into stadium seating evidently meant for smaller posteriors.

At the midpoint of the drive we stopped at a side-of-the-road mini-mall which featured a Burger King to use the facilities, buy sodas, and what-not. Notice the inclement weather. I was spoiled a bit on my last trip to England; it was about this time of year, but it was sunny and in the 80s every day. It’s been chilly and damp this time around.

Hmmmm . . . Burger King . . .

We made it to Britannia Stadium in Stoke-on-Trent, home of the Mighty Stoke City Potters. We were given a sack lunch – you’re allowed to take food in, which is refreshing, although, oddly, no drinks. I opened my sack lunch and noticed the flavor of the “crisps”, as they call them here.

Hmmmm . . . prawns . . .

I ate the apple instead. On the way we got this picture of the team.

Our fantastic Scottish tour guides then passed out the tickets. Once again, we had great seats: 1st through fifth rows about level with the top of the box on the visitor’s side goal.

Gary and Austin, passing out tickets

Britannia is a nice stadium, more modern than Craven Cottage, We quickly found our seats and noticed that we were surrounded by passionate Stoke fans. I didn’t have a large preference as to who to root for before the game, but I was predicting a Chelsea win. Stoke has only been in the Premier league for a few years and is generally a bottom-half team, whereas Chelsea is more of a powerhouse. But as the game wore on, I found myself rooting for the Potters.

The boys in the stands

One reason that swayed me was the nearby Chelsea fans who were particularly boorish. They were seated behind the goal, to our right. Take note of the heavy security cordon between them and the Stoke fans on their right.

The gentleman on the loudspeaker several times reminded the crowd that they should sit at all times during the game, so as not to inconvenience the other spectators. And while the Stoke fans were loud and passionate, more-so, it seemed, than the Fulham fans the day before, they sat politely almost the whole time. Meanwhile, the Chelsea fans defiantly stood.

It was great being in this section, because English soccer fans sing and chant the entire game, and we had some rousing back and forth between the Chelsea fans and the Stoke fans. A large portion of what was chanted was unintelligible to me; I’m discovering that understanding English is not as easy as I thought it would be, and I’m finding myself having to ask the ladies at shops and waitstaff at the restaurants to repeat themselves. But I did catch some of the words. Some I can’t record here as this is a family blog. On one occasion I’m pretty sure the Chelsea fans were calling the ref a “wanker”. We had a kindhearted Stoke fan nearby who would translate for us periodically.

Incidentally, the Stoke team is called the Potters, and their mascot is, evidently, a Hippo. I know that doesn’t make sense. I suspect a lot of what goes on in American sports doesn’t make sense to the British either. The team has been around since the time of our Civil War, so there’s a long history and no doubt good reasons.

The Stoke Hippo

Some action shots of the game are below. Thankfully, I took some time to understand the settings on my camera and these pictures turned out a lot better than yesterday’s.

Rory Delap, about to throw in. He has a cannon – his throw-ins were practically corner kicks

Soccer is not a contact sport. Ha.

It was an entertaining game. The final score was . . . nil-nil, again. So we have yet to see a goal scored in a Premier game. But the Stoke fans were actually quite happy with the result. They were supposed to get beat, and they seemed satisfied with a draw. The Chelsea fans, not so much. As the Stoke team was walking off the field I saw Chelsea fans shaking their fists at them.

Again, this is incomprehensible to most Americans. It’s pretty hard to picture, say, Philadelphia Eagles fans being happy with a 3-3 tie against the Giants, assuming that ties were even possible in the NFL. But the Stoke fans were riveted to every minute of this game. There were lots of scoring chances on both sides, and the Potters weathered a furious storm of attacks in the second half. So, they get a point in the Premier Leagues standings, which altogether made for a good day for them.

Following the game we were taken to a restaurant that served New York and Italian style food. It was pretty good. I ordered the Cod and Chips, which was, I think, the only traditional English meal on the menu. I’m stuffed.

We got back home around 9:00pm or so. All in all it was a great day

Tomorrow, London.

Today was the start of the English Premier league soccer season. For those of you unfamiliar with international soccer, in England the Premier league is basically as big a deal as the NFL is to America. It’s England’s biggest sport, and the Premier league is considered one of the finest soccer leagues in the world.

Through Austin and Gary, our fabulous Scottish tour guides, the Texan players and parents scored really good seats to a Premier league opener today: Aston Villa at Fulham.

My day began at eight. It was so good getting to sleep last night – I slept like a rock for nine or ten hours. Once I rolled out of bed, I had a delicious traditional English breakfast of fried eggs, English bacon and sausage, baked beans, a slice of tomato (pronounced “toMAHto”), toast and English hot tea. We parents had the morning to ourselves, basically, as the boys trained over at Bradfield, and the down-time was much needed and appreciated. We finally bussed over to Bradfield around eleven, and since there was some time to kill once we got there I took a walk and found this little amphitheater.

Bradfield Amphitheater

Around noon we made our way to the dining hall to eat with the boys. Note the stained glass, right above the drink stand. On a related note, I haven’t seen an ice-cube yet in my entire time in Europe.

Stained glass in the dining hall. Unfortunately, I have no pictures of ice cubes.

Following lunch we trooped onto the bus and were off for London!

Fulham and Aston Villa are both middle-of-the-pack Premier teams, but we were expecting a fun afternoon in any event. The Premier league rules are such that each team has to basically earn the right to stay in the league every year. I may post some more information on that later, but let me just say, Detroit Lions, that you should count your blessings.

I like talking Premier soccer with Gary, partly because he’s very knowledgeable, and partly because it gives me a chance to hear some excellent Scottish. I asked him who was favored and if it would be a good match. He expected it would be, but warned me not to be surprised if they played to a draw.

Below are some pictures I shot on the way into London and on our walk to Fulham’s home stadium, Craven Cottage.

Into London

The team walking to Craven Cottage. Love the game faces

A view of the stadium from our vantage point

The boys, checking their tickets to see how good the seats are
and strategizing about the best way to get into the stadium

We ended up with really good seats, about four rows up behind the visitor’s goal. We were surrounded primarily by Aston fans.

Our view of the field, prior to the game

I tried to take some action shots. I keep forgetting to learn the settings on the camera I brought (it’s Jill’s camera) so though I took a lot of shots during the game, most of them are blurry. I’ll try to get this figured out before tomorrow’s match.

Aston’s keeper, collecting the ball

The game ended up in a nil-nil (or 0-0) tie, which, I realize, seems incomprehensible to Americans. When this happens the teams both get one point for the Premier league standings, versus three points for a win and zero points for a loss. It was not a bad match, and it proved out Gary’s earlier prediction. There were some exciting plays before both goals, but, as he put it, very few positive chances.

Due to the recent troubles in London, there was a larger than normal security presence at the game. We noticed that on any controversial call, all the yellow-jacketed security people would ominously rise and stone-face the crowd, just to keep things from getting too pitchy. At the end of the game, they all stood and ringed the stadium as the players departed.

Not taking any chances at game’s end

After the game we checked out the Fulham team store for souvenirs. While we were doing that, a Rolls Royce pulled up. Its license plate was “AV1”. It turns out this Rolls belongs to Aston Villas chairman.

Blake in front of the Rolls

We walked back to the bus, found our seats and made the one-hour trip back to Bradfield for dinner. Following that, we parents were taken back to the hotel, where I now sit. Sleep, soon . . .

This has been a great trip so far. Tomorrow, Chelsea at Stoke!

The year of Max Q continues! It’s been so good (if you need me to explain what I’m talking about, let me know).

Blake and I left Thursday afternoon for Europe with his soccer club, to experience a long-planned (and thankfully, for the most part long-since paid for) European soccer tour. The first leg of the journey went about as well as a long international flight can. Those in the know tell you to take knock-out aspirin to get some sleep on the plane, which I did. It didn’t exactly get me to sleep as much as it made me just feel funky, so when we landed Friday morning in Paris I was feeling pretty worn out.

Ah, Paris. City of romance. City of refined culture and exquisite cuisine. City of smelly, stuffy, hot and run down Charles de Gaulle airport.

We had a five hour layover there. I’m not complaining, because, for goodness sakes, we get to go to Europe and I’m counting my blessings. But five hours in CDG was five hours too long.

We were in the security line to get to our gate, and had been for some time, surrounded by loudly complaining Americans (not in our group) and, of course, the french, when suddenly all the passport gates closed. We were vigorously waved over to another area and the passport lines were cleared and roped off. We shuffled where we were told – not that I could understand a word – along with a teeming mass of people who, like me, didn’t appear to have taken a shower recently either. The French security guards loudly blew their whistles and shouted at us.

Serrez-vous les gens là stupides!

Le mouvement vite ou je vous sifflerai encore une fois!

Vite! Vite! Dépêchez-vous!

SURTOUT VOUS,

LE GRAND AMERICAIN MUET QUI NE COMPREND PAS DE FRANCAIS!! *

Finally, the crisis, or whatever it was, was over, and they let us back in line, which was now in a coil several miles long. The Americans behind me were complaining about missing a flight and urging me to, I guess, trample the people in front of me, so I ignored them and they skipped under the rope to the loud complaints of an ineffective French security guard.

“Let’s just go outside for awhile,” I suggested to Blake. The cooler air outside felt good, and I snapped a picture.

Blake, not feeling particularly happy with Charles de Gualle thus far.

We finally got back in line, and made it through customs . . . which, it turns out, we didn’t have to go through. Seems I had missed a turn when we disembarked and got us on the wrong side of things. Another family was following me and got mixed up in the mess as well. Those who know me well know that “following Bill” is not a recipe for success, and, Jeff, the dad, has been ribbing me ever since for leading them astray.

In any event, we finally made it through security and to our gate and settled down for a long layover. I was so tired I ended up putting my backpack in my lap and using it for a pillow to snatch a quick doze. Meanwhile the boys entertained themselves.

They don’t look tired

The flight to London was very short and comfortable, and after we disembarked, went through customs (I was an old pro at going through customs by now), and got our luggage, we met up with Austin and Gary, our Scottish soccer guides, and boarded our chartered bus bound for Bradfield College, a co-ed boarding school for ages 13 through 18, nestled in the Berkshire countryside near Reading (which is pronounced “Redding”).

Bradfield College

Bradfield was established in 1850, and it has a lot of charm and is surrounded by a lush, beautiful countryside. I love England.

Our boys were scheduled to play a match against a British team from the Ascot United football club.

The Texans (in red) and Ascot United

As jet-lagged and tired from the long trip as they were, and with this being their first time to go up against European talent, we were not expecting a great showing. Boy, were we wrong. It was a great, fun match to watch, and the Ascot parents were very complimentary of our boys. We controlled possession for most of the game, played a stout defense, and ended up winning 4-2. We had the good fortune of having a guest Scottish goalkeeper from one of the teams coached by our tour guides, and he was fabulous. He’s in green, above.

Both keepers did a great job talking up their teams and directing and encouraging the defense. Ascot’s keeper in particular gave us a dose of some great Britishisms during one memorable exhortation.

Keep up the pressure, boys! Pressure!!

That’s how we win mates, WITH LOVELY PRESHAAAH!!!”

Fantastic!

I need to figure out the sports-setting on my camera, because most of the shots I got during the game were blurry. But here are two.

The back four, holding the line

Blake, waiting for a throw-in

Following the game, we had a meal together and the boys went to their Bradfield dorms while we parents went to our hotel, All in all, it was a very tiring but good travel-day and day 1 of the trip. The boys represented America well.

Tomorrow, Aston Villa at Fulham.

* This isn’t really what they said, as far as I know. I don’t speak French.