The weekend before last we sent KUMB's Gordon Thrower to Germany in order to cover the Schalke Cup, where West Ham faced the hosts and Malaga FC. Here's the second of two reports filed by our man on the spot...
Sunday 3 August
09:00 hrs
Breakfast. There are some sore heads about. Not mine though. With a while to kill before we head back to Gelsenkirchen I go for a walk across the bridge to fill up the memory card with shots of something other than football.
Legs stretched and lungs filled full of non air-conditioned air bags packed we head off at midday to Gelsenkirchen where, following events elsewhere, we have company for the latter stages of the journey in the form of three vans full of the local Polizei.
13:30 hrs
Arrive at the Veltins and, having sorted out the press pass the previous day I have a chance to relax a bit more. No multiple laps of the stadium for me this time around. There are more Schalke fans about the place today, the day being “Schalke Day” but they are quite happy sharing their clubhouse with us. A minor point but amongst all the hyperbole about the behaviour of supporters abroad it's something worth pointing out.
15:00 hrs
Teamsheets arrive in the press room. As expected we have a new starting XI out there, namely: Adrian, Jenkinson, Cresswell, Reid, Burke, Noble (c), Diame, Whitehead, Jarvis, Vaz Te, Zarate
Let's get this over with then we can go home....
15:30 hrs
Kick-off. Unlike yesterday when the eleven worked hard to close down Schalke, Malaga seem better at moving the ball around. The game is a bit scrappy from our point of view, not helped by our opponents' Liverpoolesque habit of going to ground under the slightest hint of an opponent.
The Spaniards take the lead with about 20 played. Cresswell fails to deal properly with what looks to have been a misplaced pass and the defender slips, allowing Rescaldini in to score. At least I think it was him, the white number on yellow shirt combination isn't the easiest of things to read.
Two minutes later Malaga double their lead. Nobody follows the run of Juanmi who feeds Lui Alberto who has enough time to take a touch before scoring.
The two goals have knocked the stuffing out of us and Reid has to be on his toes to put a block in as Malaga pass their way through us like Eamonn Holmes going through a plate of chips. Notwithstanding the pre-season nature of things this is not a good performance. Zarate is not the sort of player to whom you pump it up in the hope he will hold it up so the use of that ploy as a tactic is a bit dispiriting.
Malaga should make it three. Luis Alberto goes to ground. Reid does his nut at the referee who has decided that Jenkinson is to blame. All to no avail. Luis Alberto takes the spot kick himself but Adrian saves with his legs. This cues mass celebrations of World Cup proportions behind Adrian's goal as congas are formed and beers are launched into orbit. Clearly they all have press passes entitling them to free beer.
Adrian is having a busy afternoon and spills one from distance. He recovers well to block the follow up. A Spaniard goes to ground again. The fact that it seems a hard but fair challenge cuts no ice with the ref who gives Noble a yellow.
Half Time: Malaga 2 West Ham United 0
...all to do in the second half then.
We make a change during the interval as Cullen comes on for Diame. The second half commences much in the same way as the first went. Malaga cut through us again and walk the ball in. Luis Alberto is flagged offside though.
Adrian continues to have a busy afternoon and tips over a shot from distance. This is followed by another tip over from a header from the corner. The next corner sees Reid and an opponent tugging away at eachother. The ref reads whatever passes for a pre-season riot act before awarding us a free kick as Sanchez attempts an early exchange of shirts.
We finally register what will qualify as a chance. Jenkinson's free-kick gets a touch from Reid but the effort is a yard wide. The free-kick is pretty much Jenkinson's last contribution to the proceedings. He stretches and goes down with what look to these uneducated eyes to be a hamstring problem. Another new signing crocked in his first match then.
...another tradition continues...
Amos Nasha comes on to replace Jenkinson. I spend the next ten minutes answering questions abou him, the best of which is “do you know him?” To which I respond “yes, we hang out at the public library playing chess every Thursday”.
Vaz Te stirs the blood briefly as his excellently-timed volley brings a rare save out of the 'keeper. It turns out that the save is unnecessary, the lino deciding that Vaz Te is offside.
Reid gets a rest as Potts replaces. Malaga should really add another as Adrian, not for the first time of the afternoon, mishandles a shot from distance. Rocque Santa Cruz – the old Blackburn striker – makes a right Torres of the rebound.
The match seems to be designed to give Adrian practice at tipping stuff over the bar. From the resulting corner after a few ricochets a clearance finds Jarvis beating a defender on the halfway line – he runs the length of the pitch egged on by the Schalke supporters, who seem to have adopted us in some sort of ironic/sympathetic form of support. However, an awful touch lets the winger down and the 'keeper saves easily.
That's about it really. The game finishes bang on time much to everyone's relief.
The arrangements for post match are a bit fluid. With Malaga having won the cup the sponsors will want them to hang about to the end after the home side have wrapped up proceedings and, after a while, it is confirmed that West Ham won't be hanging around for a press conference.
...where's everyone gone? Has the free beer run out?
I get the fast train back to base and decide that my current frame of mind probably won't stand another night of wandering around Cologne playing some sort of “guess the venue by text description” sort of game. A couple of cold ones with Liverpool Pete followed by a sneaky takeaway pizza and I'm ready for a quiet night in.
The TV does have some English-speaking channels but the closing ceremony of the Commonwealth games seems to be uppermost on two of them. I reflect on the similarities between Kylie Minogue and Kevin Kilbane – both did very well out of their careers despite not exactly being overblessed on the talent front, as Kilbane (a decent bloke by the way) would at least acknowledge. In any case he wouldn't nause up my evening by “singing” at me in the telly in a German hotel room.
My brain is saved by the Inbetweeners marathon on E4. Apparently they have a new film out. You'd think that they might do some promotion for it or something.
Monday 4 August
Breakfast. A lot of sore heads in evidence and tales of people apparently spending £700 on broth (I hope there was a bread roll with it). One of the sore heads happens to throw up on my coach. Oh joy.
We pitch up at the picturesque town of Linz Am Rhein. It's a lovely place though the ambiance is not improved by Spud's loud comment “what's with all this tourist stuff I want a bar”. No soul that one. After a while we return to the jetty where “Beethoven” our cruise boat, arrives. As ever our skipper is suitably attired...
Capt. Birdseye.
It's a quieter affair than the usual Thames trips that some might have been used to. Which is fine by me as a spot of relaxation is more than called for. Not that some would have appreciated it but there is an occasional and not at all intrusive spot of commentary pointing out the odd sight. These include the remnants of the bridge at Remagen, the focal point of a key battle in WWII.
After 90 minutes on the “Beethoven” we turn up at Bonn where we have a few hours to kill. As is traditional, Romford has a phone the capabilities of which well exceed his abilities to use it. A string of unusual words not usually found in those technology review magazines hit the air as someone tries to call the big fellah and he manages to freeze the phone in safe mode.
As the group's telecommunications expert I leave the Bierkarten before I get lumbered with fixing the thing and go for walk around the old town. I stop for a bite to eat at the place where, according to the menu, Beethoven used to dance with Barbe Koch. I must have missed that part of the film but fair play to them or getting a dog that big to do the waltz.
I'm not a nervous flyer – which is just as well as the lyric from IQ's “Awake and Nervous” pipes through my headphones as we sit on the tarmac at Cologne/Bonn airport: “with panache I keep a crashing through the sky.....”. A few tracks later another IQ track comes on. It's called “Crashed and Burned”. Nice one iPod.
In the end the flight home is uneventful. Even getting back into my own country is a breeze as the auto-passport thing works for once and, unbelievably, my bag is already waiting for me at the carousel in the same manner as it was in Germany.
So what did we learn? Well of the new signings Poyet and Kouyate looked tidy. Zarate, from what I saw, will be useful if we play to his strengths, which do not include the ability to hold the ball up as a lone striker. Jenkinson also did ok up to the point the traditional curse of the new boy kicked in.
Other things we learned: never accept directions by text from Romford and never turn on a foreign hotel room's tv if there's the slightest chance of Kylie Minogue appearing to “sing” at you. Or Kevin Kilbane.
A few thank yous to finish up with: Hats off to Stefanie Sydow and all the media centre staff at the Veltins Arena who (once I'd got past their security) treated me like royalty.. Thanks to Charlotte for persuading me to actually go and for getting up at 4am to run me to the airport. Thanks to El for evening text support and ta to UtJ for the technical back-up back at kumb HQ.
Finally thanks to Romford for organising the whole shebang. There was a hell of a lot of hard work that went into the whole weekend and the fact that 180 or so assorted people from five different airports over two continents managed to have a decent weekend without any major hitches says it all really. Cheers mate.
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