HONG KONG FOOTIE
(a follow up to my 100% season!)
In the first GLF of this season I wrote about how I had managed to see all Motherwell's competitive games in a season for the first time last season, well I have followed this up with my worst season since 1969/70! As you may have read in the St. Johnstone programme I have spent the best part of six weeks of March/April in Hong Kong due to work commitments, which has seen me miss NINE games this season, six of them at home, never been heard of before.
When I was first told I was being given the opportunity the timing looked good, initially a couple of weeks and then home for two or three. This meant missing potentially only two games at the end of February. But the plan was put back a week or so and I was going for two weeks during a spell when Motherwell had four games at home!!!
Therefore I left the day before the Killie game on 22ndFeb, and my thoughts were that with four reasonable results I would come home to us established in third and in the Quarter Finals of the Cup. With an eight hour time difference a midweek game meant waking early to phone home to find out what the result was. Thankfully due to being jet lagged and waking at four in the morning anyway this wasn't a problem. But what a shock when I was told that it was 4-0 and not to us!! I know that we are helpless any way but 6000 miles away I was in a daze, and nobody to share the pain with.
Although on the Wednesday I was taken to Lunch by a Chinese colleague, who I discovered was a "soccer" fanatic! His hero at one time was John Spencer when he spent a year playing in Hong Kong. He was delighted to hear that I knew of Spenny and couldn't believe it when I told him he played for my local side.
Then on to the Ayr Utd game on the Saturday in the Scottish Cup, I was watching Wimbledon take on Man Utd. on TV in the hotel bar trying to pass my support across the miles. Then at 1am I dashed up to my room to phone for the result, no one at home!! Phoned about half a dozen times, before getting another shock as we had lost 3-4!! The news got worse as we had been winning three times, they had 10 men, outfielder in goals! How was I expected to sleep after news like this.
Thankfully at about this time a semi permanently exiled Well fan got in touch and I had someone to share the pain with. Jim Pirrie is a Well fan who has been based in Hong Kong for six years, and both of us were delighted to have someone to talk about the mighty Well. We arranged to meet the night before the Aberdeen game, but we still had the Hearts game to negotiate before then.
By this time I knew I had to transfer to main land China for a couple of nights ot Panyu where our factory is based. I was lucky enough to stay in the second best hotel in town, which is about as good as the cheapest Blackpool boarding house. Once again it meant an early rise if I wanted to get the result straight after the game, did this no problem, but this being China there was no International lines available from the hotel! Next option check the internet at work, no that wasn't easy either as they were transferring the network from the previous company to our company and the network was down!! Panic this meant a wait until 3pm for the result, and that wouldn't do. Thankfully at 11 am the network was restored, did I say thankfully, as I then discovered that we had lost 0-2 this time and our arch nemesis Jackson had scored.
On the Friday Jim and I did our best to make sure that we put the memory of these three defeats to the back of our minds by getting slowly drunk. This meant I was knackered the following day and struggled to make it to 1pm for the result direct from home for the Aberdeen game. It will also teach me to watch Rugby on TV as I fell asleep and woke too late to phone home. I trudged wearily to my room door to collect the free paper we got (South China Morning Post) to find that w had won 1-0, my fellow guests must have wondered what the almighty roar was from room 1931!
My first dose of torment was finally over, only for me to realise that as we had been knocked out of the cup I would catch only ONE game in the two weeks I was home. Away for two and I miss four games, home for two and I see one, what kind of cruel world do we live in. The game I did catch was the Rangers game at Ibrox, one I would sooner forget. I was possibly the only person who was delighted that the Gothenburg friendly was played as it meant I could get to Fir Park for the only time in eight weeks.
My next decision was whether to hold my next trip off for a few days and go to Tynecastle or follow business needs and leave before this and have a chance to go to the Hong Kong Rugby Sevens. Business needs won and I was forced to go the Sevens on the Sunday after the Hearts game. This time it was Liverpool v. Newcastle that I had watched (with a disappointed boss who is a Geordie), before rushing to phone for the result, which was an acceptable 0-0 draw. At least during this visit we had no midweek game in the first week and all I had to wait for the Saint Johnstone game on the Saturday.
Communication this time was made much easier as I was given a mobile phone to keep in touch with work, especially with the dodgy phone lines in China. Therefore I could phone at half time to find out how things were going this time. What a joy it was to hear the half time announcements coming down the phone line, almost felt I was at least there in spirit this time. At the end the wonders of the mobile phone speeded up the communication of the final result, as my daughter told me it was 2-1 but didn't say who for. After all my other experiences I couldn't take anything for granted, but this time it was good news.
On the Sunday I got my first experience of local football as I was given the chance to see a game and a half in the Hong Kong FA Cup. The first game we arrived just in time for the second half was between Instant Dict and Kitchee, this was a comfortable 3-0 win for the former, who had a fairly impressive Indonesian internationalist playing for them. The second game was between Happy Valley and Rangers, guess who I was supporting!! Another comfortable win this time, 4-1 for Happy Valley, who had a sub who looked very familiar, and I couldn't pin down who it was a t first but knew he had played in Scotland at some time. I discovered the following day that it was ex-Hearts man Ian Baird!
The standard of the football was no better than our junior football and it was obvious to see why Europeans would go out there. The money is reasonable and they don't have to work too hard to look like a good player.
On the Monday Jim Pirrie and I met up again, and I made his night for him by giving him a copy of the Gothenburg programme that had contained his football fads feature. Anyone who cam into the bar was immediately shown his handy work, most of them with bemused looks as they had no idea what he was showing them. How easy it appeared to make on persons happy!!
Next up was the Celtic game at Celtic Park, but this turned out to be too easy, as I got up at a reasonable time and logged into the internet in my room to find out that we had lost 4-0. I was never so glad to be 6000 miles away from some of my Celtic supporting work colleagues!!
The next major problem arose when the PC I borrowed decided to give up the ghost which saw my interent access reduced (only available at work). But as the next game was a Saturday I thought that this would not be a problem and in fact I thought that this time I would try the same routine as the Aberdeen game. Phone home, get no answer, then wait on the paper in the morning. Unfortunately this did not work as the recurring number of four arose again, as it was Dundee's turn to put this past us. Again I was left looking at the paper and being dumbstruck that a team like Dundee could put four past us.
To help ease the pain of this defeat I planned to take in the Hong Kong FA Cup final in the Sunday afternoon. This was to be held in the Hong Kong Stadium with a capacity of 40000, as it turned out there were only 4500 at the game!. The game was between Happy Valley who I had seen the week before and Yee Hope who were surprise Semi Final winners against South China.
When the teams lined up for the start of the game I got a real shock as one of the Yee Hope players looked really familiar. It looked like Dave Bowman from Hearts, Dundee Utd fame, and when we checked the paper it was definitely him! He was playing sweeper behind another four defenders, as his team tried to frustrate the easily superior Happy Valley. But after 30 minutes he was (surprisingly) taken off to allow an additional forward on, I got an even bigger shock when I saw who this was - ANDY RODDIE!!! Not surprisingly he was still crap at this level!
This experience made me feel right out of touch, despite the modern communications of Internet, e-mail, mobile phone keeping you up to date, you get no "feel" for what is actually happening. I feel really sorry for any exiled Well fan as they grasp at any little snippet of information to keep them in touch. Hopefully this will be my one and only experience of this length of time out of touch. Plus it makes all my other wee jobs harder too do, programmes, teletext update, fanzine articles......
Graham Barnstaple
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